Targeting the organism: The scientific and cultural context of Pascual Jordan's quantum biology, 1932-1947

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Volumn 87, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 248-273

  Beyler, Richard H ^a  

^a German Historical Institute   (United States)

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EID: 4444277241     PISSN: 00211753     EISSN: 15456994     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/357483     Document Type: Review

References (202)

1. Pascual Jordan, Die Physik des 20. Jahrhunderts: Einführung in den Gedankeninhalt der modernen Physik (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1936), p. vi
2. (here and throughout, translations are mine unless otherwise indicated). An essential starting point for understanding Jordan's interpretations of physics is M. Norton Wise, "Pascual Jordan: Quantum Mechanics, Psychology, National Socialism," in Science, Technology, and National Socialism, ed. Monika Renneberg and Mark Walker (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994), pp. 224-254.
3. Other recent studies include John L. Heilbron, "The Earliest Missionaries of the Copenhagen Spirit," Revue d'Histoire des Sciences, 1985, 38:195-230;
4. Dieter Hoffmann, "Zur Teilnahme deutscher Physiker an den Kopenhagener Physikerkonferenzen nach 1933 sowie am 2. Kongress für Einheit der Wissenschaft, Kopenhagen 1936," NTM, 1988, 25:49-55;
5. Peter Anton Degen, "Interpretations of Quantum Physics, the Mystical, and the Paranormal: Einstein, Schrödinger, Bohr, Pauli, and Jordan" (Ph.D. diss., Drew Univ., 1989), pp. 205-253;
6. Finn Aaserud, Redirecting Science: Niels Bohr, Philanthropy, and the Rise of Nuclear Physics (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990), pp. 82-100;
7. and Richard Henry Beyler, "From Positivism to Organicism: Pascual Jordan's Interpretations of Modern Physics in Cultural Context" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard Univ., 1994).
8. model my discussion here on Hans Sluga, "Metadiscourse: German Philosophy and National Socialism," Social Research, 1989, 56:795-818.
9. On the notion of cultural meaning see Peter Galison, "The Cultural Meaning of Aufbau," in Scientific Philosophy: Origins and Developments, ed. Friedrich Stadler (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1993), pp. 75-93.
10. Pascual Jordan, Anschauliche Quantentheorie: Eine Einführung in die moderne Auffassung der Quantenerscheinungen (Berlin: Springer, 1936), p. viii.
11. Wise, "Pascual Jordan" (cit. n. 1), pp. 227-228;
12. and Paul Forman, "Weimar Culture, Causality, and Quantum Theory, 1918-1927: Adaptation by German Physicists and Mathematicians to a Hostile Intellectual Environment," Historical Studies in the Physical [and Biological] Sciences, 1971, 3:1-115.
13. On the polycracy thesis in relation to Nazi science policy see Kristie Macrakis, Surviving the Swastika: Scientific Research in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993), esp. p. 5;
14. Monika Renneberg and Mark Walker, "Scientists, Engineers, and National Socialism," in Science, Technology, and National Socialism, ed. Renneberg and Walker (cit. n. 1), pp. 1-29, esp. pp. 1-4;
15. and Mitchell G. Ash, "Wissenschaftswandel in Zeiten politischer Umwälzungen: Entwicklungen, Verwicklungen, Abwicklungen," NTM, N.S., 1995, 3:1-21,
16. on pp. 8-9. On the struggle between modern physics and the deutsche Physik movement see, inter alia, Alan D. Beyerchen, Scientists under Hitler: Politics and the Physics Community in the Third Reich (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1977);
17. Mark Walker, "National Socialism and German Physics," Journal of Contemporary History, 1989, 24:63-89;
18. David C. Cassidy, Uncertainty: The Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg (New York: Freeman, 1992);
19. and Mark Walker, Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, and the German Atomic Bomb (New York: Da Capo, 1995).
20. For the disputes in medicine see Robert N. Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1988), pp. 223-250;
21. Paul Weindling, Health, Race, and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism, 1870-1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989), esp. p. 505;
22. and Anne Harrington, Reenchanted Science: Holism and German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, forthcoming), Ch. 6.
23. Detlev J. K. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life, trans. Richard Deveson (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1987), p. 243;
24. and Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1984).
25. Peukert's analysis, like mine here, does not necessarily correlate modernity with a democratic political system and does not necessarily assign modernity a particular moral value. Rather, he sees a "plurality or multivalence of modernity," to borrow a phrase from Mitchell G. Ash, "Wissenschaft, Politik und Modernität in der DDR: Ansätze zu einer Neubetrachtung," lecture at Institut für Theorie und Geschichte der Medizin, University of Münster, 15 March 1995 (I thank Ash for providing me a copy of this paper).
26. Martin Broszat, "Zur Struktur der NS-Massenbewegung," Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 1983, 31:52-76, on p. 66.
27. On the Sonderweg and modernization debates see Ian Kershaw, The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation, 2nd ed. (London: Arnold, 1989), pp. 131-149;
28. Thomas Childers, "The Social Language of Politics in Germany: The Sociology of Political Discourse in the Weimar Republic," American Historical Review, 1990, 95:331-338;
29. and Childers and Jane Caplan, eds., Reevaluating the Third Reich (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1993).
30. Wise cautiously analyzes Jordan in terms of the Sonderweg thesis, but also points out the difficulty in associating Nazism with a rejection of modernity and acknowledges "shifts of interpretation" in the formation of world views: Wise, "Pascual Jordan" (cit. n. 1), pp. 244-245.
31. More ominously, of course, the price of the Nazis' version of modernity was a predatory war and the ever more aggressive, ultimately murderous exclusion of groups defined as socially undesirable. I will return to this point later. See Broszat, "Struktur der NS-Massenbewegung," pp. 74-76.
32. Ralf Dahrendorf, Society and Democracy in Germany (New York: Doubleday, 1967), p. 406;
33. see also Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany (cit. n. 6), pp. 241-248.
34. Two programmatic monographs are Ludwig [von] Bertalanffy, Kritische Theorie der Formbildung (Berlin: Gebrüder Borntraeger, 1928),
35. translated into English as Modern Theories of Development: An Introduction to Theoretical Biology, trans. J. H. Woodger (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1933),
36. and Adolf Meyer[-Abich], Krisenepochen und Wendepunkte des biologischen Denkens (Jena: Fischer, 1935).
37. (The philosopher of biology Adolf Meyer, who began using the last name Meyer-Abich after 1936, is not to be confused with the psychiatrist of the same name.) On the mechanist/vitalist/organicist controversy see, inter alia, Donna Jeanne Haraway, Crystals, Fabrics, and Fields: Metaphors of Organism in Twentieth-Century Developmental Biology (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1975);
38. Garland E. Allen, Life Science in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978), pp. 73-111;
39. John Fuerst, "The Role of Reductionism in the Development of Molecular Biology: Peripheral or Central?" Social Studies of Science, 1982, 12:241-278;
40. Nils Roll-Hansen, "E. S. Russell and J. H. Woodger: The Failure of Two Twentieth-Century Opponents of Mechanistic Biology," Journal of the History of Biology, 1984, 17:399-428;
41. Weindling, Health, Race, and German Politics (cit. n. 5);
42. and Harrington, Reenchanted Science (cit. n. 5).
43. Jonathan Harwood, Styles of Scientific Thought: The German Genetics Community, 1900-1933 (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 42-43, 61-84, 241-243, 315-337.
44. On the Gestalt psychologists see Mitchell G. Ash, "Gestalt Psychology in Weimar Culture," History of the Human Sciences, 1991, 4:395-415;
45. Ash, Gestalt Psychology in German Culture: Holism and the Quest for Objectivity (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995);
46. Anne Harrington, "Interwar 'German' Psychobiology between Nationalism and the Irrational," Science in Context, 1991, 4:429-441;
47. and Harrington, Reenchanted Science.
48. Bertalanffy, Modern Theories of Development, trans. Woodger (cit. n. 10), p. 190.
49. See Fritz K. Ringer, The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Academic Community, 1890-1933 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1969), esp. pp. 384-387;
50. Forman, "Weimar Culture, Causality, and Quantum Theory" (cit. n. 4), esp. pp. 8-63;
51. and Harrington, Reenchanted Science (cit. n. 5), Ch. 1.
52. Overviews of target theory include Douglas E. Lea, Actions of Radiations on Living Cells (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1946);
53. Nikolai W. Timoféeff-Ressovsky and Karl G. Zimmer, Das Trefferprinzip in der Biologie (Leipzig: Hirzel Verlag, 1947);
54. Boris Rajewsky and Michael Schön, eds., Biophysik, 2 vols. (FIAT Review of German Science, 21-22)
55. (Wiesbaden: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1948-1949), esp. Kurt Sommermeyer, "Weitere Entwicklungen der treffertheoretischen Vorstellungen," Vol. 1, pp. 15-24;
56. and Friedrich Dessauer, Quantenbiologie: Einführung in einen neuen Wissenszweig (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1954).
57. (It should be noted that Dessauer's conception of "quantum biology" differed considerably from Jordan's.) On the history of target theory from a later perspective see Zimmer, "The Target Theory," in Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology, ed. John Cairns, Gunther Stent, and James D. Watson (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory of Quantitative Biology, 1966), pp. 33-42;
58. and Elof Axel Carlson, The Gene: A Critical History (1966; Ames: Iowa State Univ. Press, 1989), pp. 158-165.
59. Friedrich Dessauer, "Problemstellung und Theorie," in Zehn Jahre Forschung auf dem physikalisch-medizinischen Grenzgebiet: Bericht des Instituts für physikalische Grundlagen der Medizin an der Universität Frankfurt am Main, ed. Dessauer (Leipzig: Thieme, 1931), pp. 176-201, on p. 179.
60. Arne Hessenbruch, "Processing Bodies: Radiotherapy in the Weimar Republic" (unpublished MS, 1993), reviews objections about the depersonalization of medical practice from Lothar Heidenhain, Richard Koch, and Louis Grote.
61. On Rajewsky's institute see Ute Deichmann, Biologen unter Hitler: Vertreibung, Karrieren, Forschung (Frankfurt: Campus, 1992), pp. 152-153.
62. An English translation. Biologists under Hitler, has just been published by Harvard Univ. Press (1996).
63. On Timoféeff see Diane B. Paul and Costas B. Krimbas, "Nikolai V. Timoféeff-Ressovsky," Scientific American, Feb. 1992, pp. 86-92.
64. (I use the transliteration of Timoféeff's name that he himself used.) On the Muller connection see Elof Axel Carlson, Genes, Radiation, and Society: The Life and Work of H. J. Muller (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1981), pp. 187-192;
65. and Lily Kay, "Conceptual Models and Analytical Tools: The Biology of Physicist Max Delbrück," J. Hist. Biol., 1985, 18:207-246, on pp. 215-218.
66. Information on funding comes from Deichmann, Biologen unter Hitler, p. 81: among zoologists Rajewsky held first place in Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft funding, 1934-1945, with DM 493,391, Timoféeff fourth with DM 84,040, and Zimmer seventh with DM 38,100.
67. Hermann J. Muller, "Physics in the Attack on the Fundamental Problems of Genetics," Scientific Monthly, 1937, 44:210-214 (lecture delivered 1936).
68. Nikolai W. Timoféeff-Ressovsky, Karl G. Zimmer, and Max Delbrück, "Über die Natur der Genmutation und der Genstruktur," Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Mathematisch-Physikalische Klasse, Fachgruppe VI, N.S., 1935, 1:189-245.
69. On Jordan's early work and career see Max Jammer, The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), pp. 207-211, 293-307, 362-365;
70. Joan Bromberg, "The Concept of Particle Creation before and after Quantum Mechanics," Hist. Stud. Phys. Sci., 1976, 7:161-191;
71. John Hendry, The Creation of Quantum Mechanics and the Bohr-Pauli Dialogue (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1984), pp. 69-110;
72. Mara Beller, "Pascual Jordan's Influence on the Discovery of Heisenberg's Indeterminacy Principle," Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 1985, 33:337-349;
73. Olivier Darrigol, "The Origin of Quantized Matter Waves," Hist. Stud. Phys. Biol. Sci., 1986, 16:197-253;
74. Beyler, "From Positivism to Organicism" (cit. n. 1), pp. 27-37;
75. and Silvan S. Schweber, QED and the Men Who Made It: Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1994), pp. 5-11, 33-38.
76. Pascual Jordan, "Philosophical Foundations of Quantum Theory," trans. Robert Oppenheimer, Nature, 1927, 119:566-569, on p. 566
77. (parallelepiped example); and Jordan, "Quantenphysikalische Bemerkungen zur Biologie und Psychologie," Erkenntnis, 1934, 4:215-252, on p. 219 (fundamental indeterminism).
78. This synopsis and the identification of Domeier as Jordan is based on Beyler, "From Positivism to Organicism" (cit. n. 1), pp. 207-224.
79. Pascual Jordan, "Die Wandlung der Universität," Rostocker Universitäts-Zeitung, 9 May 1933, pp. 3-5, on p. 3;
80. and Pascual Jordan, Physikalisches Denken in der neuen Zeit (Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt, 1935), p. 42.
81. The latter is discussed in Wise, "Pascual Jordan" (cit. n. 1), pp. 224-227, 234.
82. On the report on the Unity of Science Conference see Hoffmann, "Teilnahme deutscher Physiker" (cit. n. 1).
83. Aaserud, Redirecting Science (cit. n. 1), pp. 83-90;
84. Niels Bohr, "Light and Life" (1932), rpt. in
85. Bohr, Essays 1932-1957 on Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge (1958; Woodbridge, Conn.: Ox Bow, 1987), pp. 3-12, on p. 9; and
86. Pascual Jordan, "Die Quantenmechanik und die Grundprobleme der Biologie und Psychologie," Naturwissenschaften, 1932, 20:815-821.
87. On Jordan's early biological theories and his relation to Bohr see also Heilbron, "Earliest Missionaries" (cit. n. 1); and Wise, "Pascual Jordan" (cit. n. 1). An analysis from a dialectical materialist perspective is Georg Domin, "Auseinandersetzung mit der weltanschaulichen Position Pascual Jordans unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Auffassungen zu einigen Grundproblemen der Biologie" (Ph.D. diss., Humboldt Univ. Berlin, 1962). On Bohr and biology see also Donald Fleming, "Émigré Physicists and the Biological Revolution," in The Intellectual Migration: Europe and America, 1930-1960, ed. Fleming and Bernard Bailyn (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1969), pp. 152-189,
88. on pp. 165-169; Robert Olby, The Path to the Double Helix (Seattle: Univ. Washington Press, 1974), pp. 225-247;
89. Lily E. Kay, "The Secret of Life: Niels Bohr's Influence on the Biological Program of Max Delbrück," Rivista di Storia della Scienza, 1985, 2:487-510;
90. and Pnina Abir-Am, "Themes, Genres, and Orders of Legitimation in the Consolidation of New Scientific Disciplines: Deconstructing the Historiography of Molecular Biology," History of Science, 1985 25:71-117, on p. 84.
91. Jordan, "Quantenmechanik," p. 819. Here and in several subsequent quotations I have removed the emphases in the German original.
92. Jordan, "Quantenmechanik," Ibid., pp. 819-820.
93. Jordan, "Quantenphysikalische Bemerkungen" (cit. n. 20), p. 238.
94. Jordan, "Quantenphysikalische Bemerkungen" (Ibid., pp. 234-240;
95. Jordan, Physikalisches Denken (cit. n. 22), pp. 28-30;
96. and Jordan, Anschauliche Quantentheorie (cit. n. 3), pp. 291-292, 301-302.
97. For the approval of the organicists see Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Das Gefüge des Lebens (Leipzig: Teubner, 1937), pp. 135-136;
98. Meyer-Abich, Krisenepochen (cit. n. 10), pp. 24-25, 43-44;
99. and Kurt Goldstein, The Organism: A Holistic Approach to Biology (New York: American Book Co., 1939), pp. 416-417
100. (the original German edition appeared in 1934). For the alignment with Bertalanffy and efforts to find him support see Jordan, "Quantenphysikalische Bemerkungen," pp. 215-216;
101. and Pascual Jordan to Max von Laue, 22 Nov. 1934, in Abteilung III, Repertorium 50, no. 972, Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin. On Jung's interest see C. G. Jung, Briefe, ed. Aniela Jarre and Gerhard Adler (Olten: Walter-Verlag, 1972), Vol. 1, pp. 227-231, 405, 449,
102. C. G. Jung, Briefe, Vol. 2, pp. 117-118;
103. Heilbron, "Earliest Missionaries" (cit. n. 1), pp. 227-228;
104. and Degen, "Interpretations of Quantum Physics" (cit. n. 1), pp. 229-246.
105. Here I skip over a fascinating but exceedingly complex episode: the critique against Jordan exercised by various members of the Vienna Circle at the Prague Unity of Science "Pre-Conference" in 1934. Suffice it to say that the logical positivists' response to Jordan must be understood in the context of their position vis-à-vis other philosophical schools, the exceedingly troubled political situation in central Europe generally, and tensions within the Vienna Circle itself on both philosophical and political scores. See Wise, "Pascual Jordan" (cit. n. 1), pp. 245-247;
106. and Beyler, "From Positivism to Organicism" (cit. n. 1), pp. 51-56, 154-162, 299-305.
107. Niels Bohr, "Biology and Atomic Physics" (1937),
108. in Bohr, Essays 1932-1957 (cit. n. 23), pp. 13-22, on p. 21.
109. Delbrück fueled Bohr's concern by reporting in a letter that Jordan "misrepresented" Bohr's ideas in a 1934 lecture in Berlin. See Heilbron, "Earliest Missionaries" (cit. n. 1), p. 217;
110. and Aaserud, Redirecting Science (cit. n. 1), pp. 94-95.
111. Bohr's efforts to dissociate himself from Jordan did not always have the desired effect. Erwin Schrödinger, for example, maintained a long-standing dislike for Bohr's and Jordan's biological speculations. He was especially concerned to refute notions that free will could be scientifically justified by reference to biophysics - but this was more Jordan's project than Bohr's. See Erwin Schrödinger, "Indeterminism and Free Will," Nature, 1936, 138:13-14;
112. and Edward Yoxen, "Where Does Schrödinger's 'What is Life?' Belong in the History of Molecular Biology?" Hist. Sci., 1979, 17:17-52, on p. 32.
113. Erwin Bünning, "Sind Organismen mikrophysikalische Systeme? (Entgegnung an P. Jordan)," Erkenntnis, 1935, 5:337-347, on p. 339.
114. See the following essays in Max Hartmann, Gesammelte Vorträge und Aufsätze (Stuttgart: Fischer Verlag, 1956), Vol. 2:
115. "Die methodologischen Grundlagen der Biologie" (1932), pp. 54-72, on pp. 66-68;
116. "Philosophie der Naturwissenschaften" (1936), pp. 95-129, on p. 119;
117. and "Die Kausalität in Physik und Biologie" (1937), pp. 144-156, on pp. 149-154.
118. Discussed in Erwin Bünning to Max Hartmann, 25 Mar. 1943, Abt. III, Rep. 47, no. 268, Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
119. Wise, "Pascual Jordan" (cit. n. 1), p. 238,
120. citing Jordan to Albert Einstein, 11 Dec. 1928; also discussed in Aaserud, Redirecting Science (cit. n. 1), pp. 82-83.
121. See Pascual Jordan, Physik und das Geheimnis des organischen Lebens, 1st ed. (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1941), pp. 89-91;
122. Jordan, "On the Process of Measurement in Quantum Mechanics," Philosophy of Science, 1949, 16:269-278, on pp. 270-271;
123. Jordan, Verdrängung und Komplementarität: Eine philosophische Untersuchung (Hamburg: Stromverlag, 1947), pp. 38-43;
124. and Wise, "Pascual Jordan," pp. 235-236.
125. Nikolai W. Timoféeff-Ressovsky to Jordan, 21 June 1939, in Nachlass Jordan, 622, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz; Pascual Jordan, Die Physik und das Geheimnis des organischen Lebens, 5th ed. (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1947), pp. 10, 86;
126. Robert Rompe to Richard Beyler, 5 Oct. 1992; and Lutz Rosenkötter, interviewed in Ute Deichmann, "Biologen unter Hitler: Die Vertreibung der jüdischen Biologen und die biologische Forschung in Deutschland, 1933-1945" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. Cologne, 1991), p. 427 (the interviews do not appear in the published version [cit. n. 16]).
127. E.g., Pascual Jordan, "Über die Elementarprozesse der biologischen Strahlenwirkung," Radiologica, 1938, 2:16-35, on pp. 26-28;
128. Jordan, "Biologische Strahlenwirkung und Physik der Gene," Physikalische Zeitschrift, 1938, 39:345-366, on pp. 352-353;
129. and Karl G. Zimmer and Nikolai W. Timoféeff-Ressovsky, "Über einige physikalische Vorgänge bei der Auslösung von Genmutationen durch Strahlung," Zeitschrift für Induktive Abstammungs- und Vererbungslehre, 1942, 80:353-372, on pp. 364-365.
130. Hugo Fricke and Milislav Demerec, "The Influence of Wave-Length on Genetic Effects of X-Rays," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1937, 23:320-327, on pp. 325-326;
131. Jordan, "Elementarprozesse der biologischen Strahlenwirkung," pp. 26-28;
132. Pascual Jordan, "Bemerkungen über Methoden, Aufgaben und Ergebnisse strahlenbiologischer Untersuchungen," Radiologica, 1938, 3:157-172, on p. 161;
133. Jordan, "Die Stellung der Quantenphysik zu den aktuellen Problemen der Biologie," Archiv für die Gesamte Virusforschung, 1939, 1:1-20, on p. 15;
134. Karl G. Zimmer and Nikolai W. Timoféeff-Ressovsky, "Auslösung von Mutationen bei Drosophila melanogaster durch [Alpha]-Teilchen nach Emanationseinatmung," Strahlentherapie, 1936, 55:77-84;
135. and E. Wilhelmy, Timoféeff-Ressovsky, and Zimmer, "Einige strahlengenetische Versuche mit sehr weichen Röntgenstrahlen an Drosophila melanogaster," Strahlentherapie, ibid., 57:521-531.
136. For the neutron experiments see Karl G. Zimmer, "Dosimetrische und strahlenbiologische Versuche mit schnellen Neutronen, I," Strahlentherapie, 1938, 63:517-527;
137. Zimmer and Nikolai W. Timoféeff-Ressovsky, "Dosimetrische und strahlenbiologische Versuche mit schnellen Nuetronen, II," Strahlentherapie, ibid., pp. 528-536;
138. Timoféeff-Ressovsky and Zimmer, "Neutronenbestrahlungsversuche zur Mutationauslösung an Drosophila melanogaster," Naturwissenschaften, 1938, 26:362-365;
139. Jordan, "Biologische Strahlenwirkung" (cit. n. 38), p. 364;
140. and Zimmer and Timoféeff-Ressovsky, "Über einige physikalische Vorgänge" (cit. n. 38), p. 365. Timoféeff discussed the experiments with Jordan soon after they had been carried out: Timoféeff-Ressovsky to Jordan, 2 Feb. 1938, in Nachlass Jordan, 622, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Zimmer's experience with the generator is noted in Timoféeff-Ressovsky to Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, 8 Mar. 1939, 5 Mar. 1940, R73/15215, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; and "Vermerk über die Besprechung zwischen Professor Timoféeff-Ressovsky ... und Dr. Forstmann am 17.11.39," 20 Nov. 1939, Abt. I, Rep. 1A, no. 1583, Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
141. For Jordan's interpretation of the killing of bacteria by radiation see Jordan, "Elementarprozesse der biologischen Strahlenwirkung" (cit. n. 38), pp. 25-26;
142. Jordan, "Biologische Strahlenwirkung," p. 353;
143. and Jordan, "Bemerkungen" (cit. n. 39), p. 161.
144. For the quoted passages see Pascual Jordan, "Über die Rolle atomphysikalischer Einzelprozesse im biologischen Geschehen," Radiologica, 1937, 1:21-25, on p. 24; and
145. Jordan, "Die Verstärkertheorie der Organismen in ihrem gegenwärtigen Stand," Naturwissenschaften, 1938, 26:537-545, on p. 537.
146. On the lack of evidence for the inheritance of acquired characteristics see Jordan, Physik und das Geheimnis (cit. n. 36), pp. 74-76.
147. Pascual Jordan, "Zum Problem der spezifischen Immunität," Fundamenta Radiologica, 1939, 5:43-46, on pp. 43-44;
148. Jordan, "Über die Spezifität von Antikörpern, Fermenten, Viren, Genen," Naturwissenschaften, 1941, 29:89-100, on p. 96;
149. and Emory L. Ellis and Max Delbrück, "The Growth of Bacteriophage," Journal of General Physiology, 1939, 22:365-384.
150. E.g., Ugo Fano, "On the Interpretation of Radiation Experiments in Genetics," Quarterly Review of Biology, 1942, 17:244-252, on pp. 248-250;
151. 16," Nature, 1940, 145:935-936;
152. Timoféeff-Ressovsky and Zimmer, Trefferprinzip in der Biologie (cit. n. 14), pp. 13, 130, 164, 206-209;
153. Richard Prigge to Karl G. Zimmer, 6 May 1942, in Nachlass Prigge, Folder AIII, Senckenbergische Bibliothek, Frankfurt; and Werner Heisenberg, "Die Einheit des naturwissenschaftlichen Weltbildes" (1941), in
154. Wandlungen in den Grundlagen der Naturwissenschaft, 9th ed. (Stuttgart: Hirzel Verlag, 1959), pp. 107-128, on pp. 124-125.
155. Timoféeff-Ressovsky and Zimmer, Trefferprinzip in der Biologie, pp. 251-264, on p. 264,
156. based on Friedrich Möglich, Robert Rompe, and Nikolai W. Timoféeff-Ressovsky, "Über die Indeterminiertheit und die Verstärkererscheinungen in der Biologie," Naturwissenschaften, 1944, 32:316-324;
157. and Ludwig von Bertalanffy, review of Jordan, Physik und das Geheimnis des organischen Lebens,
158. Jordan, Physik und das Geheimnis des organischen Lebens, ibid., 1943, 31:23-24.
159. The attacks are detailed in a report by Karl Kötschau, "Entwicklung des Tatbestandes," sent to Amt Rosenberg (NSDAP ideology office), 29 Jan. 1937, in 62 Di 1, File 483, Bundesarchiv, Abteilungen Potsdam; on the imbroglio see also Harrington, Reenchanted Science (cit. n. 5), Ch. 6.
160. Hans Löhr, "Theologie, Medizin und Naturwissenschaft: Ein 2000jähriger Freiheitskampf," Deutschlands Erneuerung, 1941, 25:516-535.
161. Eduard May to Hugo Dingler, 16 July 1942, in Nachlass Dingler, Hofbibliothek Aschaffenburg (indignation); and memorandum by Wolfgang Erxleben, Science Office, to Amt Rosenberg, 9 July 1942, describing conversation with Dr. Lutz of Propaganda Ministry, in MA-141/7, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich. Under consideration as editors were Jordan, Hugo Dingler, Carl F. von Weizsacker, and Fritz Kubach of the Reich Student Leadership.
162. Jordan, "Stellung der Quantenphysik" (cit. n. 39), p. 4;
163. Jordan, Physik und das Geheimnis, 1st ed. (cit. n. 36), pp. 83, 109-110, 131-134;
164. and Pascual Jordan, "Begriff und Umgrenzung der Quantenbiologie," Physis, 1942, 1:13-26, on pp. 16-17.
165. Jordan, "Quantenmechanik" (cit. n. 23), pp. 820-821;
166. Jordan to Max Delbrück, 13 Nov. 1940, in Delbrück Papers, 12.13, California Institute of Technology Archives, Pasadena; and Jordan, Physik und das Geheimnis, 1st ed., p. 42.
167. Jordan hypothesized a quantum-mechanical resonance attraction between similar large molecules in, e.g., "Zur Frage einer spezifischen Anziehung zwischen Genmolekülen," Phys. Z, 1938, 39:711-714.
168. The refutation came in Linus Pauling and Max Delbrück, "The Nature of the Intermolecular Forces Operative in Biological Processes," Science, 1940, 92:77-79.
169. Jordan seemed to accept the critique in "Über die Spezifitat" (cit. n. 42), on p. 100. However, he renewed the attempt to provide a resonance explanation in "Zum Problem der Eiweiss-Autokatalysen," Naturwissenschaften, 1944, 32:20-26, and several subsequent articles.
170. Pascual Jordan, "Zukunftsaufgaben quantenbiologischer Forschung," Physis, 1942, 1:54-79, on pp. 67-68, 71; and
171. Jordan, "Begriff und Umgrenzung der Quantenbiologie" (cit. n. 48), pp. 13, 17.
172. For details on Jordan's move to Berlin see Beyler, "From Positivism to Organicism" (cit. n. 1), pp. 264-267.
173. Jordan, Physik und das Geheimnis, 1st ed. (cit. n. 36), pp. 107-108.
174. Wise analyzes the Führerprinzip as a theme in many aspects of Jordan's work and cites further examples: Wise, "Pascual Jordan" (cit. n. 1).
175. Jordan, Physik und das Geheimnis, 1st ed., p. 75.
176. am far from suggesting that anti-Lamarekists in general held this view. My point is that the inheritance of acquired characteristics was, prima facie, relatively harder to reconcile with the relentless racial determinism of Nazism. See also Jordan, "Zukunftsaufgaben quantenbiologischer Forschung" (cit. n. 50), p. 77.
177. Pascual Jordan, "Naturwissenschaft im Umbruch," Deutsch. Ern., 1941, 25:452-458, on p. 455.
178. Pascual Jordan, "Deutsch. Ern., Ibid., pp. 453, 456;
179. and Jordan, "Zukunftsaufgaben quantenbiologischer Forschung," p. 66.
180. Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany (cit. n. 6), p. 241.
181. For the Berlin negotiations see files Akademieleitung 42, Akademieleitung 46, P 1/0, P 1/1, and P 3/1, Archiv der Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin. On Rompe see Dieter Hoffmann, "Die Physikalische Gesellschaft (in) der DDR," Physikalische Blätter, 1995, 51:F157-F182.
182. Jordan was supposed to help write the lead article in the 1948 FIAT (Allied Field Intelligence Agency - Technical) report on biophysics but was prevented by unspecified "external circumstances" from doing so; see Rajewsky and Schön, eds., Biophysik (cit. n. 14), Vol. 1, p. 1.
183. For the new evidence on Drosophila mutations see Zimmer, "Target Theory" (cit. n. 14);
184. and Carlson, Gene (cit. n. 14), pp. 158-165.
185. See also Timoféeff-Ressovsky and Zimmer, Trefferprinzip in der Biologie (cit. n. 14), pp. 13, 130, 164, 206-209, 251-269;
186. Sommermeyer, "Weitere Entwicklungen" (cit. n. 14), pp. 17-18;
187. and Dessauer, Quantenbiologie (cit. n. 14), pp. 14-20, 24-27, 61-63.
188. Variations on this thesis are argued in, e.g., Fleming, "Émigré Physicists" (cit. n. 23);
189. Fuerst, "Role of Reductionism" (cit. n. 10);
190. and Evelyn Fox Keller, "Physics and the Emergence of Molecular Biology: A History of Cognitive and Political Synergy," J. Hist. Biol., 1990, 23:389-409.
191. Delbrück to Niels Bohr, 5 Apr. 1935, in Bohr Scientific Correspondence, Archive for History of Quantum Physics, Harvard Univ. (and several other locations); Cairns, Stent, and Watson, eds., Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology (cit. n. 14);
192. Max Delbrück, "A Physicist's Renewed Look at Biology: Twenty Years Later," Science, 1970, 168:1312-1315;
193. Fleming, "Émigré Physicists," pp. 165-171;
194. Olby, Path to the Double Helix (cit. n. 23), pp. 225-247;
195. Fuerst, "Role of Reductionism," pp. 252, 260-262;
196. Kay, "Conceptual Models and Analytical Tools" (cit. n. 16);
197. and Abir-Am, "Themes, Genres, and Orders of Legitimation" (cit. n. 23), pp. 84, 91.
198. Yoxen, "Where Does 'What Is Life' Belong?" (cit. n. 31).
199. On international networks see Pnina Abir-Am, "From Multidisciplinary Collaboration to Transnational Objectivity: International Space as Constitutive of Molecular Biology, 1930-1970," in Denationalizing Science: The Contexts of International Scientific Practice, ed. Elisabeth Crawford, Terry Shinn, and Sverker Sörlin (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1993), pp. 153-186.
200. Evelyn Fox Keller, "Rethinking the Meaning of Genetic Determinism," Tanner Lectures on Human Values, 1994, 15:113-140, on pp. 134-135; a revised version,
201. "Language and Science: Genetics, Embryology, and the Discourse of Gene Action," appears in her Refiguring Life: Metaphors of Twentieth-Century Biology (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1995).
202. Keller also suggests other tropic correlations to the pair nucleus/cytoplasm: genetics/embryology, male/female. See also Harwood. Styles of Scientific Thought (cit. n. 11), esp. pp. 138-180.