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FRAGMENT FROM NATURE features for this and next weekend an excellent article titled “Enzymatic Adaptation and the Entrance of Molecular Biology into Embryology” by Scott F. Gilbert. It describes the acute rivalries between embryologists and geneticists as the two disciplines came to overlap, and is a testament to the resistance of science to new ideas based on turf and the ideology of reductionism versus holism. https://lnkd.in/dQuxg6Y View in LinkedIn

THE GRADUAL INVASION. “Embryology was redefined as the study of changes in gene expression over time, and evolution was redefined as changes in gene frequency over time. Thus, evolution and embryology, which had traditionally been sciences of the phenotype, were given new, genotypic, definitions. These new definitions went against the prevailing paradigms of these fields.” https://lnkd.in/dQuxg6Y View in LinkedIn

THE FEAR. “One of the reasons that molecular biology has taken so long to enter embryology is the longstanding fear among embryologists that genetics—whether it be classical genetics or molecular biology—is trying to take over their discipline and bring with it all its reductionism and lack of appreciation for the complexity and species differences.” https://lnkd.in/dQuxg6Y View in LinkedIn

NATURALISM. “The traditional asthetic of embryology has been naturalism. Every species develops in a different manner, and generalizations from one species to another are very risky. So aesthetically, embryology is to molecular biology as a Michaelangelo statue is to a Brancussi.” https://lnkd.in/dQuxg6Y View in LinkedIn

THE SECOND LAW. “It states that the entropy of an isolated physical system can never decrease; at best, entropy remains constant, and usually it increases. This law is central to physical chemistry and engineering; it is arguably the physical law with the greatest impact outside physics.” https://lnkd.in/draqjTW View in LinkedIn

INVARIANT LAW. “The second law of thermodynamics summarizes the familiar observation that most processes in nature are irreversible: a teacup falls from the table and shatters, but no one has ever seen shards jump up of their own accord and assemble into a teacup. The second law of thermodynamics forbids such inverse processes.” https://lnkd.in/draqjTW View in LinkedIn

BIG PROBLEM. “In this way, the laws of conservation of energy and angular momentum are upheld by black holes. Another fundamental law, the second law of thermodynamics, appears to be violated.” https://lnkd.in/draqjTW View in LinkedIn

FEW MEASURABLES. “If the matter is captured while circling the hole, its associated angular momentum is added to the black hole's angular momentum. Both the mass and angular momentum of a black hole are measurable from their effects on spacetime around the hole.” https://lnkd.in/draqjTW View in LinkedIn

Clockmaker’s shop in La Bisbal D’Emporda: dear clockmaker, do you know that time does not exist and that spacetime expands and contracts or even ceases to be altgether? View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this first of two weekends on the merger of embryology and genetics. It is simplistic of me to suggest here that this is a case study of where science resists new ideas. Rather, the entire philosophy of the two disciplines was genuinely different, namely wholistic embryologists and reductionist geneticists, and this was at least a major part of the friction as the disciplines came closer together. View in LinkedIn