Table Of Contentdreamers,
visionaries,
and
revolutionaries
in the
life sciences
Dreamers,
Visionaries,
and edited by oren harman
and michael r. dietrich
Revolutionaries
in the The UniversiTy of ChiCago Press
Chicago and London
Life Sciences
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2018 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical
articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E.
60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
Published 2018
Printed in the United States of America
27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5
isBn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 56987- 1 (cloth)
isBn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 56990- 1 (paper)
isBn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 57007- 5 (e- book)
Doi: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226570075.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data
Names: Harman, Oren Solomon, editor. | Dietrich, Michael R., editor.
Title: Dreamers, visionaries, and revolutionaries in the life sciences / edited by Oren
Harman and Michael R. Dietrich.
Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCn 2017057789 | isBn 9780226569871 (cloth : alk. paper) | isBn 9780226569901
(pbk. : alk. paper) | isBn 9780226570075 (e- book)
Subjects: LCsh: Biologists—Biography. | Scientists—Biography. | Biology—Biography. |
Science—Biography.
Classification: LCC Qh26.D74 2018 | DDC 570.92—dc23
LC record available at https:// lccn.loc .gov/ 2017057789
♾ This paper meets the requirements of
ansi/niso Z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper).
To Sam Silverstein, a dreamer and a friend
— O. H.
To Dick Lewontin, a revolutionary in the best way
— M. R. D.
contents
Introduction:
Perchance to Dream— Fostering Novelty in the Life Sciences 1
Oren Harman and Michael R. Dietrich
part i: the evolutionists
1 Jean- Baptiste Lamarck: Biological Visionary 21
Richard W. Burkhardt Jr.
2 Ernst Haeckel: A Dream Transformed 35
Robert J. Richards
3 Peter Kropotkin: Anarchist, Revolutionary, Dreamer 51
Oren Harman
part ii: the medicalists
4 Mary Lasker: Citizen Lobbyist for Medical Research 71
Kirsten E. Gardner
5 Jonas Salk: American Hero, Scientific Outcast 83
Charlotte DeCroes Jacobs
6 The Origins of “Dynamic Reciprocity”:
Mina Bissell’s Expansive Picture of Cancer Causation 96
Anya Plutynski
part iii: the molecularists
7 W. Ford Doolittle: Evolutionary Provocations
and a Pluralistic Vision 113
Maureen A. O’Malley
8 Collecting Dreams in the Molecular Sciences:
Margaret Dayhoff and The Atlas of Protein Sequence
and Structure 128
Bruno J. Strasser
9 Neanderthals in Space:
George Church’s Modest Steps toward Possible Futures 143
Luis Campos
part iv: the ecologists
10 From New Alchemy to Living Machines:
John Todd’s Dreams of Ecological Engineering 163
Michael R. Dietrich and Laura L. Lovett
11 Stephen Hubbell and the Paramount Power of Randomness 176
Philippe Huneman
12 Rachel Carson: Prophet for the Environment 196
Janet Browne
part v: the ethologists
13 Jane Goodall: She Dreamed of Tarzan 211
Dale Peterson
14 Francis Crick and the Problem of Consciousness 227
Rick Grush
15 David Sloan Wilson: Visionary, Idealist, Ideologue 238
Mark E. Borrello
part vi: the systematizers
16 D’Arcy Thompson: Archetypical Visionary 257
Tim Horder
17 James Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis: “A New Look at Life on
Earth” . . . for the Life and the Earth Sciences 272
Sébastien Dutreuil
18 Big Dreams for Small Creatures:
Ilana and Eugene Rosenberg’s Path to the Hologenome Theory 288
Ehud Lamm
Epilogue: The Scientist Dreamer 305
Joan Roughgarden
List of Contributors 309
Index 311
oren harman & michael r. dietrich
introduction perchance to dream
Fostering Novelty in the Life Sciences
introduction
Biology isn’t always kind to its dreamers. The status of “vi-
sionary” is often granted in retrospect and usually when that vision has al-
ready enjoyed some modicum of success. Even then, the moniker is often
loaded. Lynn Margulis’s obituaries, to take one example, heralded her as a
visionary, and rightly so. Her advocacy of endosymbiosis as a form of evolu-
tionary innovation altered foundational principles of evolutionary change,
and her pursuit of “unconventional” ideas is legendary.1 Yet even in death,
the paleontologist and geologist Andrew Knoll remembered her as “a foun-
tain of ideas— fertile, original, inspiring, contentious, and unedited.” As a
person, “Lynn could infuriate her colleagues, but at least one of her proposals
changed the way we think about life.”2 Infuriating but original, inspiring but
contentious: Is the price of scientific novelty always so steep, the acknowledg-
ment of innovation always so hard fought?
Dreamers, Visionaries, and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences explores biolo-
gists who had grand ideas that went beyond the “run of the mill” science of
their peers. They each espoused theories, practices, or applications of science
that were visionary, sometimes fantastical or even quixotic, but always chal-
lenging, and even threatening and destabilizing. Our goal is to understand
the conditions that fostered such scientists as they advanced genuine novelty,
the challenges and imaginations that, from the nineteenth century and for-
ward, helped to shape modern biology.
Dreamers, Visionaries, and Revolutionaries in the Life Sciences completes our
trilogy that began with Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics in Biology (Yale, 2008)
and continued with Outsider Scientists: Routes to Innovation in Biology (Chi-
cago, 2013). Some of the scientists we feature here might be considered “reb-
els,” since they went against widely accepted tenets in their field, and some
were undoubtedly “outsiders,” in that they weren’t trained as biologists. But
“dreamers” deserve a category of their own. Uniquely, the last part of our tril-
ogy concerns the conditions that fostered innovations in biological theories,
methods, and practices. This is admittedly a more difficult category to define
precisely compared to rebels, who attacked certain well-a rticulated icons,
and outsiders, who came into biology from other fields and made a differ-
1
