Category: Uncategorized

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE is a curious story, wherein an old fashioned marine biologist, Donald Williamson, presents rather radical ideas that his peers vilify, hang draw and quarter. Williamson obtained the support of Lynn Margulis for a theory that rather closely resembles her own (endosymbiosis) that was equally vilified before going prime time. This story is less about the veracity of Williamson's theory than about how much scientists hate change. https://lnkd.in/d-vV-rd View in LinkedIn

THE FLAW. "By the late l960's it became apparent to us and others that Carrel's claim to have cultured chick fibroblast cells for 34 years was spurious. It had to be assumed that Carrel's chick cultures consisted of normal cells because no one has ever reported a spontaneously arising transformed chicken cell strain free of oncogenic viruses. Several reports of alleged immortal chick cell lines have appeared, but all have been associated with oncogenic viruses, chemical carcinogens or radiation." http://protein.bio.msu.ru/biokhimiya/contents/v62/full/62111380.html View in LinkedIn

MYTH SUPPORTED. "In the years that followed Carrel's observations, support for the interpretation of his experiments seemed to emerge from several laboratories where it was observed that cell populations from other species, including humans, also seemed to have the striking ability to replicate apparently indefinitely." http://protein.bio.msu.ru/biokhimiya/contents/v62/full/62111380.html View in LinkedIn

SEEDS OF A MYTH. "Early in this century, Alexis Carrel, a noted cell culturist, surgeon and Nobel Laureate, described experiments purporting to show that fibroblasts derived from chick heart tissue could be cultured serially indefinitely. The culture was voluntarily terminated after 34 years. This finding sparked intense interest world-wide not only in the scientific community but in the lay press as well." http://protein.bio.msu.ru/biokhimiya/contents/v62/full/62111380.html View in LinkedIn

PLEA FOR SANITY. "We all believe that scientists with unpopular ideas need not suffer repression. We suspect that many marine zoologists have noted similar phenomena as those unified by Williamson's theory." And it is all amenable to experimental validation." (Foreword). https://books.google.es/books?hl=en&lr=&id=4Bv_CAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=evolution+of+larval+stage&ots=Ajv40BxpV8&sig=UoAuSNQhyUJxvYurqij18mPF3GM View in LinkedIn

BUN FIGHT. "At the conference where Tauber invited Williamson to present, Fred rose up and assessed his audience -- including some apoplectic sea urchinologists: either we were all privy to an historic moment (as the Haeckel phylogeny itself went extinct to be replaced by that drawn by Williamson), or else Williamson would be recorded as an ordinarily competent and diligent zoologist, who lived with animals by the seaside for 30 years, and whose mistake should be forgiven in the light of his standard contributions." https://books.google.es/books?hl=en&lr=&id=4Bv_CAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=evolution+of+larval+stage&ots=Ajv40BxpV8&sig=UoAuSNQhyUJxvYurqij18mPF3GM View in LinkedIn

"THE WILLIAMSON THEORY offered a radical one-step alternative and the initial experimental confirmation of his theory." Foreword. (Lynn Margulis and Alfred I Tauber). Regardless, journal reviewers branded these ideas as rubbish. https://books.google.es/books?hl=en&lr=&id=4Bv_CAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=evolution+of+larval+stage&ots=Ajv40BxpV8&sig=UoAuSNQhyUJxvYurqij18mPF3GM View in LinkedIn

WILLIAMSON HYPOTHESIS. "Already for many cell biologists the theory will not appear so very far-fetched, because the origins of organelles which are cytoplasmically inherited, such as the mitochondria and the chloroplasts, are thought to lie in the fusion of two different taxi to form a single entity. The original association is thought to come about through a symbiotic or parasitic relationship." https://books.google.es/books?hl=en&lr=&id=4Bv_CAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=evolution+of+larval+stage&ots=Ajv40BxpV8&sig=UoAuSNQhyUJxvYurqij18mPF3GM View in LinkedIn

WORDS OF AN EDITOR regarding the Williamson Hypothesis. "With a simple, but to some unacceptable, conceptual leap, he presents an explanation for the evolution of certain of the recent larval forms which seems both rational and feasible." https://lnkd.in/dEvFGNt View in LinkedIn

WILLIAMSON HYPOTHESIS. "Williamson developed a controversial hypothesis proposing the acquisition of larval stages in some marine organisms by hybridisation between two distant animal species (a speciation process referred to as hybridogenesis by Williamson). The fraction of the genome of one of the contributor species would be restricted to lead the developmental program of a newly acquired larva whereas the genome of the other contributor would drive the development of most of the adult anatomical structures." https://lnkd.in/d_TVjhq View in LinkedIn