Sacred bovines : the ironies of misplaced assumptions in biology

265 Pages·2017·11.03 MB·English

by  Allchin

Sacred Bovines

Sacred Bovines
THE IRONIES OF MISPLACED ASSUMPTIONS
IN BIOLOGY
Douglas Allchin
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Allchin, Douglas, 1956– author.
Title: Sacred bovines : the ironies of misplaced assumptions in biology /
Douglas Allchin.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016050784 | ISBN 9780190490362 (Hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Biology—Research—Methodology. | Biology—Study and
teaching. | Fallacies (Logic) | Errors, Scientific.
Classification: LCC QH324.A45 2017 | DDC 570.72—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016050784
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
CONTENTS
List of Figures  vii
Prologue: The Ironies of Misplaced Assumptions  1
PART I The Way of Science
1 Monsters and Marvels  7
2 Ahead of the Curve  14
3 Marxism and Cell Biology  19
4 The Messy Story behind the Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology  26
5 The Dogma of “the” Scientific Method  31
PART II Darwin, Evolution, and Society
6 Was Darwin a Social Darwinist?  37
7 Social Un- Darwinism  43
8 A More Fitting Analogy  50
9 The Domesticated Gene  57
PART III Making Mistakes
10 A Comedy of Scientific Errors  67
11 Nobel Ideals and Noble Errors  72
12 Celebrating Darwin’s Errors  79
PART IV What Counts as Science
13 Science beyond Scientists  89
14 Skepticism and the Architecture of Trust  95
15 Science Con Artists  104
vi Contents
PART V Naturalizing Cultural Values
16 Male, Female, and/ or — ?  117
17 Monsters and the Tyranny of Normality  125
18 To Be Human  132
19 Genes R Us  141
20 The Peppered Moths, A Study in Black and White  146
PART VI Myth- Conceptions
21 Alexander Fleming’s “Eureka” Moment  155
22 Round versus Wrinkled: Gregor Mendel as Icon  163
23 William Harvey and Capillaries  169
24 The Tragic Hero of Childbed Fever  175
PART VII Values and Biology Education
25 Respect for Life  183
26 Hands- Off Dissection?  186
27 Organisms, Modified, Genetically  192
28 Close to Nature  198
Epilogue: Challenging Sacred Bovines, Fostering Creativity  203
Afterword for Educators: Sacred Bovines in the Classroom  209
Acknowledgments  215
Notes  217
References  229
Image Credits  245
Index  247
LIST OF FIGURES
1.1 Petrus Gonsalus 6
1.2 Hairy Arrigo, Fool Pietro and Dwarf Amon 9
1.3 Ulisse Aldrovandi’s bogus dragon 12
2.1 The Keeling Curve 14
2.2 A young David Keeling 15
3.1 Alex Novikoff 20
3.2 Illustration from Climbing Our Family Tree 24
4.1 Matt Meselson and Frank Stahl 28
6.1 Charles Darwin with his son William 38
7.1 Herbert Spencer 47
8.1 The peacock’s tail 53
8.2 Pollination mutualism 55
9.1 Vampire bats 60
9.2 The domesticated gene 64
10.1 Joseph Priestley 68
10.2 Priestley’s error on the restoration of air by plants 70
11.1 Ten Nobel laureates who erred 73
12.1 The parallel roads of Glen Roy 82
12.2 A native of Tierra del Fuego 83
13.1 Science in the news 90
14.1 Trust 96
15.1 A science con artist 105
15.2 Some cases of manufactured doubt in science 111
16.1 Sex- changing clownfish 119
16.2 Hermaphroditic snails 119
16.3 Heterostyly 122
17.1 Conjoined twins Ritta and Christina 128
17.2 Joseph Merrick, known as the “Elephant Man” 129
18.1 Four tool- using animals 133
18.2 Chimpanzee teaching tool use 135
18.3 Cleaner wrasse 136
19.1 Identical twins as clones 142
20.1 The peppered moth, Biston betularia 146
20.2 Unfamiliar gray forms of the peppered moth 147
21.1 Alexander Fleming 156
21.2 Alternative histories of penicillin 158
21.3 Penicillin work group at Oxford University 160
viii List of Figures
22.1 Starch grains of wrinkled versus smooth pea seeds 164
23.1 William Harvey 170
23.2 Harvey’s demonstration of blood flow in the veins 171
24.1 Ignaz Semmelweis 175
25.1 Household pesticides 184
26.1 16th- century anatomical drawing and 20th-c entury reinterpretation 188
27.1 Domesticated dogs 194
27.2 Varieties hybridized in the domestication of modern wheat 195
28.1 Lichen 200
Prologue: The Ironies of
Misplaced Assumptions
What seems more obvious than male and female as natural categories? Or that
because genes govern our heritable traits, all the way down to cellular processes,
they thus define our identity? Or that Darwin’s principle of “survival of the fittest”
aptly describes our fundamental selfishness in a competitive society? Or that biol-
ogy typically advances by leaps of creative genius, epitomized by the rare achieve-
ments of our scientific heroes?
These notions are deeply rooted in our cultural psyche. Sometimes, they achieve
an almost reverential status. We might call them “sacred cows.” But because they
concern biology and the nature of science, one might also entertain slightly more
scientific terminology. I have playfully dubbed them sacred bovines. In the essays
that follow, I extend that lighthearted spirit and invite you to reconsider these and
other apparent truisms in biology. I hope you find the excursion enriching, as well
as entertaining.
Our misplaced assumptions about biology are many. We may benefit by expos-
ing them and learning how they shape our thinking and occasionally lead us astray.
In addition, on a deeper level, we can examine all the errors as an ensemble. How
did we come to misdirect our trust? How do our lapses reflect how we think, both
individually and collectively? Musing on our errors offers the prospect of develop-
ing ways to think more effectively.
One great irony of evolution is how our brains, so well adapted in many respects,
can indeed make mistakes. What we know—o r what we think we know— is not
always reliable. Our minds can err. It is a very human quality, expressed in the
familiar saying “To err is human.”
We are particularly prone to jump to conclusions. We tend to grab the first idea
we encounter and run with it. So we fail to consider other, possibly better alterna-
tives. We rarely wonder whether the pattern we perceive is incomplete or might
reflect an unrepresentative sample. We rely just on the information that is readily at
hand. Psychologists call it availability bias.1 With more information, we frequently
find that we were wrong.
Worse, from some perspectives, we also tend to insulate ourselves from recogniz-
ing, and thus fixing, these very mistakes. We use early impressions to filter later per-
ceptions. We generate search images and models. Things that fit the pre-e stablished
templates are more readily noticed. We embrace evidence that confirms an original