The "Plant Drosophila": E. B. Babcock, the genus Crepis, and the evolution of a genetics research program at Berkeley, 1915-1947

Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences

Volumn 39, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 300-355

  Smocovitis, Vassiliki Betty ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA   (United States)

Author keywords

Berkeley; Biosystematics; Crepis; E. B. Babcock; Evolutionary synthesis; G. L. Stebbins; Model organism; Plant genetics and evolution; Polyploid complex

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; BIOLOGY; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; ETHNOLOGY; EVOLUTION; GENETICS; HISTORY; PERSONNEL; PLANT; POLYPLOIDY; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; UNITED STATES; UNIVERSITY;

BIOLOGY; CALIFORNIA; EVOLUTION; GENETICS; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; PLANTS; POLYPLOIDY; RESEARCH PERSONNEL; UNIVERSITIES;

EID: 77950351483     PISSN: 19391811     EISSN: 1939182X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/hsns.2009.39.3.300     Document Type: Review

References (141)

1. "Division of Genetics: Report to the Director of the Experiment Station, 11 June 1913," EBB, Folder The Division of Genetics of the Department of Agriculture. See also the mission statement of the division in document titled "Department of Genetics," 7 Apr 1956, JAJ, Box 2, Folder History of Department
2. Jens Clausen, "Memorandum re Babcock's Proposed New Program on the Crepidinae," 24 Sep 1934, CP, Folder Correspondence, Dr. E. B. Babcock Through September 11, 1946
3. Hilgard had a second building named after him in 1917 with another special dedication ceremony. Accompanying it were exhibits from California nurseries, growers, and horticulturalists. See "Hundreds of People Visited Genetics Exhibit," 1917, JAJ, Box 1, Folder Roy Elwood Clausen
4. The rationale and mission of the new College of Agriculture is laid out in the University of California, College of Agriculture, Record of the Dedication of the New College of Agriculture and the Installation of Dean Thomas Forsyth Hunt, 1912 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1912)
5. copy located at TBL. Fear of immigrant hordes was explicitly noted in the record. For more on the historical backdrop to the College of Agriculture, and the history of the land-grant university and agriculture in California, see Ann Foley Scheuring, Chester O. McCorkle, and James Lyons, Science and Service: A History of the Land-Grant University and Agriculture in California (Oakland, CA: Agriculture and Natural Resource Publications, University of California, 1995)
6. See also V. A. Stadtman and the Centennial Publications Staff, ed., The Centennial Record of the University of California (Berkeley: University of California, 1968)
7. For the political backdrop to this founding, as well as to the founding of comparable units at Cornell University and at the University of Wisconsin, see Barbara Ann Kimmelman, "A Progressive Era Discipline: Genetics at American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, 1900-1920" (PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1987)
8. By "research program," I mean a clearly defined set of questions, established methods, and designated sources, on a well-defined research subject that is pursued methodically and with rigor over a sustained period of time. The literature on related research schools, "invisible colleges," or other social organizations in the history of science is vast. For the most recent example exploring the notion of research program in the biomedical sciences see Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Toward a History of Epistemic Things (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997)
9. The phrase "plant Drosophila" was used repeatedly by George Ledyard Stebbins as was "plant counterpart" of Drosophila. Interview by author, Jan 1987; and see George Ledyard Stebbins, "Ernest Brown Babcock," Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Supplement II, ed. Frederic L. Holmes (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1990), 42-43
10. For more on Morgan, his research program, and Drosophila, see Garland E. Allen, "The Introduction of Drosophila into the Study of Heredity and Evolution, 1900-1910," Isis 66 (1975): 322-33
11. Garland E. Allen, Thomas Hunt Morgan: The Man and His Science (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978)
12. On the rival maize genetics programs see Nathan Comfort, The Tangled Field (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001)
13. Lee B. Kass, Chris Bonneuil, and Ed Coe, "Cornfests, Cornfabs and Cooperation: The Origins and Beginnings of the Maize Genetics Cooperation News Letter," Genetics 169 (2005): 1787-97
14. Lee B. Kass and Christophe Bonneuil, "Mapping and Seeing: Barbara McClintock and the Linking of Genetics and Cytology in Maize Genetics, 1928-1935," in Classical Genetic Research and Its Legacy: The Mapping Cultures of 20th-Century Genetics, ed. Hans-Jörg Rheinberger and Jean-Paul Gaudilliere (London: Routledge, 2005), 91-118
15. For the origins of population and evolutionary genetics see William B. Provine, Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971)
16. William B. Provine, "Origins of the Genetics of Natural Population Series," in Dobzhansky's Genetics of Natural Populations I-XLIII, ed. R. C. Lewontin, John A. Moore, William B. Provine, and Bruce Wallace (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 1-83
17. William B. Provine, Sewall Wright and Evolutionary Biology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986)
18. For a comparative dimension see Jonathan Harwood, Styles of Scientific Thought: The German Genetics Community 1900-1933 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993)
19. For literature on model organisms see Barbara Kimmelman, "Organisms and Interests: R. A. Emerson's Claims for the Unique Contributions of Agricultural Genetics," in The Right Tools for the Job: At Work in Twentieth-Century Life Sciences, ed. Adele Clarke and Joan Fujimura (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 198-322
20. Robert E. Kohler, Lords of the Fly: Drosophila and the Experimental Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994)
21. Angela N. H. Creager, The Life of a Virus: TMV as an Experimental Model, 1930-1965 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001)
22. Karen A. Rader, Making Mice: Standardizing Animals for American Biomedical Research, 1900-1955 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004)
23. Rachel Allyson Ankeny, "The Conqueror Worm: An Historical and Philosophical Examination of the Use of the Nematode Caenoahrbditis elegans as a Model Organism" (PhD dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1997)
24. For a recent general history of biology from the viewpoint of an experimental or model organism see Jim Endersby, A Guinea Pig's History of Biology (London: William Heinemann, 2007)
25. and see also Angela Creager, Elizabeth Lunbeck, and M. Norton Wise, eds., Science without Laws: Model Systems, Cases, Exemplary Narratives (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007)
26. Ernest Brown Babcock, "How I Became a Geneticist," California Monthly, Jun 1945, 27
27. G. Ledyard Stebbins, "Ernest Brown Babcock, 1877-1954," Madroño 13 (1955): 81-83
28. G. Ledyard Stebbins, "Ernest Brown Babcock," Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Science, vol. 32 (1961), 50-66
29. G. Ledyard Stebbins, Holmes, Dictionary of Scientific Biography (ref. 7), 42-43
30. See also Ernest Brown Babcock, The Genus Crepis, I and II: University of California Publications in Botany, vols. 21 and 22 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1947)
31. For more details on the reception of de Vries's theory, see Garland E. Allen, "Hugo de Vries and the Reception of Mutation Theory," JHB 2 (1969): 55-88
32. For an examination of the reception of Mendel, the new science of genetics, and the wider agricultural context in America, See Diane B. Paul and Barbara A. Kimmelman, "Mendel in America: Theory and Practice, 1900-1919," in The American Development of Biology, ed. Ronald Rainger, Keith R. Benson, and Jane Maienschein (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 281-310
33. Babcock's religious background and its influence on his science is discussed in G. Ledyard Stebbins, "Babcock, 1877-1954" (ref. 8)
34. See also Williston Wirt, "Ernest Brown Babcock: An Appreciation," undated, CAS, Folder E. B. Babcock. Wirt was the minister of North Congregational Church, Berkeley, CA; Babcock was his parishioner
35. Babcock's formal training stopped there. He did, however, continue his studies into heredity in walnuts and submitted a paper for his MA thesis which was accepted in spring of 1912. He extended this research to include questions into the nature and cause of mutations in varieties of walnuts and obtained his PhD at UC in 1916. There is some indication that Babcock felt impeded by the absence of formal training at an earlier time. See for example a letter quietly reminding Dean Hunt of his credentials and indirectly requesting promotional considerations. E. B. Babcock to Thomas F. Hunt, 2 Dec 1912, EBB, Folder Letters Written by Babcock, 1909-1949. For more on Babcock's early struggles with the UC administration see Kimmelman, "Progressive Era" (ref. 5)
36. University of California, College of Agriculture, Record of the Dedication (ref. 4), 37
37. Ernest Brown Babcock and Roy E. Clausen, Genetics in Relation to Agriculture (New York: McGraw Hill, 1918)
38. Ernest Brown Babcock, "Crepis-A Promising Genus for Genetic Investigations," American Naturalist 54 (1920): 270-76, on 270
39. Babcock, "Crepis" (ref. 18), 271
40. The italics were added by Babcock. The quoted entry also had a transcription error leaving out the phrase "on the cytological possibilities involved, and on the suggestive results that cytologists have already obtained along these lines." See Thomas Hunt Morgan, The Physical Basis of Heredity (Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott and Co., 1919), 147
41. E. B. Babcock to George H. Shull, 23 Sep 1915, UCGD, Folder University of California Division of Genetics Papers, Babcock to George H. Shull 1911-1942
42. George H. Shull to E. B. Babcock, 30 Sep 1915, UCGD, Folder University of California Division of Genetics Papers, G. H. Shull to Babcock 1914-1918
43. Ernest Brown Babcock, "Species Hybrids in Crepis and Their Bearing on Evolution," American Naturalist 58 (1924): 296-310
44. Harvey Monroe Hall and Frederic E. Clements, The Phylogenetic Method in Taxonomy (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, publ. no. 326, 1923)
45. Joel B. Hagen, "Experimentalists and Naturalists in Twentieth-Century Botany, 1920-1950," JHB 17 (1984): 249-70
46. Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, "Botany and the Evolutionary Synthesis: The Life and Work of G. Ledyard Stebbins Jr." (PhD dissertation, Cornell University, 1988)
47. Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, "Disciplining Botany: A Taxonomic Problem," Taxon 41 (1992): 459-70
48. Ernest Brown Babcock and Harvey Monroe Hall, "Hemizonia congesta: A Genetic, Ecologic and Taxonomic Study of the Hayfield Tarweeds," University California Publications in Botany 13 (1924): 15-100
49. For the connection to Hall and the rationale for the taxonomic treatment of the genus see Babcock, Genus Crepis (ref. 8), 13
50. Julian Huxley, The New Systematics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940)
51. For more background on the origin of this term and its relation to classical herbarium taxonomy see Smocovitis, "Botany and the Evolutionary Synthesis" (ref. 29)
52. Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, "G. Ledyard Stebbins and the Evolutionary Synthesis (1924-1950)," American Journal of Botany 84 (1997): 1625-37
53. Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, "Keeping Up with Dobzhansky: G. L. Stebbins, Plant Evolution and the Evolutionary Synthesis," History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 28 (2006): 11-50
54. For more on the synthesis, see Ernst Mayr and William B. Provine, eds., The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980)
55. Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, Unifying Biology: The Evolutionary Synthesis and Evolutionary Biology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996)
56. As Babcock described it in a letter, "I am wondering whether anything can be done in the way of interpreting the paleontological processes in terms of modern genetical concepts. What I am thinking of is a symposium which might be entitled 'Evolutionary Processes,' with perhaps three topics somewhat as follows: (1) evolutionary processes in plants; (2) evolutionary processes in animals; (3) interpretation of the paleontological record in the light of cyto-genetical concepts." E. B. Babcock to A. Franklin Shull, 6 Feb 1934, UCGD, Folder Babcock to A. Franklin Shull, 1934. For more on the precursor societies leading to the Society for the Study of Evolution see Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, "Organizing Evolution: Founding the Society for the Study of Evolution," JHB 27 (1994): 241-309. There is some indirect evidence pointing to Babcock's attempt to bring systematics, genetics, and paleontology together as early as 1932
57. Ernest Brown Babcock, "Investigations in the Genus Crepis," in Carnegie Institution Yearbook, 25, 1925-1926 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1926), 316
58. The realization that interspecific hybridization might be facilitated by spontaneous chromosome doubling led investigators to the promise of creating new species. In 1927, the Russian G. D. Karpechenko designated the hybrid he artificially generated between a radish and a cabbage as Raphanobrassica a "species nova" or new species. See G. D. Karpechenko, "Polyploid Hybrids of Raphanus sativus L. x Brassica oleracea L.," Bulletin of Applied Botanical Genetics and Plant Breeding 17 (1927): 305-410
59. Ernest Brown Babcock, "Investigations in the Genus Crepis" (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, publ. no. 29, 1928), 352
60. The best source describing the goals and objectives of experimental taxonomy and evolution is a report written by Jens Clausen sometime in the early 1930s. On pages 1-2, he wrote: "The objectives of this program in experimental taxonomy are to further the understanding of the evolution, the differentiation, and the interrelationships of plant life. We emphasize that it is all the various relationships of kinships of plant life we wish to study; the morphologic, cytologic, genetic, distributional, ecologic, and eventually anatomic and physiologic relationships, as well as the responses of plant life to its environment. Wherever possible, our approaches to these problems are by experimental methods, or we try to be on the alert for those experiments which nature has performed in the field. Because of the emphasis on experiment and relationship, the name Experimental Taxonomy is used for this line of research." Jens Clausen, "Experimental Taxonony: Objectives, Facilities, and Methods," CP, Folder Methods in Experimental Taxonomy I
61. See also Hagen, "Experimentalists" (ref. 29)
62. See Margaret Rossiter, Women Scientists in America: Struggles and Strategies to 1940 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982)
63. See also Margaret Rossiter, "Sex Segregation in the Sciences: Some Data and a Model," Signs 4 (1978): 146-51
64. Margaret M. Rossiter, "Which Science? Which Women?" Osiris 12 (1997): 169-86
65. For a more recent treatment directly bearing on the history of genetics see Michael R. Dietrich and Brandi H. Tambasco, "Beyond the Boss and the Boys: Women and the Division of Labor in Drosophila Genetics in the United States, 1934-1970," JHB 40 (2007): 509-28. Babcock's group showed a comparable division of labor
66. In this sense, it closely resembled its contemporary genetics cooperatives in Morgan's Drosophila and Emerson's maize research programs. See Kohler, Lords of the Fly (ref. 7)
67. Lee B. Kass et al., "Cornfests, Cornfabs and Cooperation" (ref. 7). The nature of the collaborations and the group dynamic was recognized by Babcock and his group. See, for example, the list of persons included and the new proposal to build physiological genetics on the UC campus. "List of Faculty," 13 Aug 1945; also "Memo: To Members of the Faculty of the University of California Who Are Actively Interested in the Fundamental Problems of Physiological Genetics," 13 Aug 1945, both in JAJ, Folder E. B. Babcock
68. Stebbins, "Babcock, 1877-1954" (ref. 8)
69. Stebbins, "Babcock," Biographical Memoirs (ref. 8)
70. Ernest Brown Babcock and Michael S. Navashin, "The Genus Crepis," Bibliographia Genetica 6 (1930): 1-90
71. Ernest Brown Babcock and Michael S. Navashin, "Bibliographia Genetica Ibid., 76
72. See Provine, Origins (ref. 7)
73. and Provine, Sewall Wright (ref. 7) for their individual views of evolution in Mendelian populations
74. Ernest Brown Babcock, "Genetic Evolutionary Processes," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 20 (1934): 510-15, on 514
75. For the rationale see Jens Clausen, "Memorandum re Babcock's Proposed New Program on the Crepidinae," 24 Sep 1934; Jens Clausen to E. B. Babcock, 24 Sep 1934; E. B. Babcock to Jens Clausen, 2 Oct 1934; E. B. Babcock to H. A. Spoehr, 8 Jul 1935, all in CP (ref. 2)
76. Herman A. Spoehr to E. B. Babcock, 15 May 1931, RG, Box 12, Folder 175 University of California-Plant Genetics, 1931-1935
77. "Proposal," 15 Mar 1935, RG, ibid
78. Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, "I[sadore] Michael Lerner," in New Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Noretta Koertge, vol. 4 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2007), 274-78
79. Smocovitis, "G. Ledyard Stebbins" (ref. 33)
80. Smocovitis, "Dobzhansky" (ref. 33)
81. Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species (New York: Columbia University Press, 1937)
82. Ernest Brown Babcock and Richard Goldschmidt, "A Mechanized Exhibit of Human Heredity," Journal of Heredity 30 (1939): 235-36
83. and see also Smocovitis, "Discipling Botany" (ref. 29)
84. Patricia Craig, Centennial History of the Carnegie Institution of Washington: Volume IV: The Department of Plant Biology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)
85. Jens Clausen to E. B. Babcock, 23 Sep 1935; E. B. Babcock to Jens Clausen, 24 Sep 1935; Jens Clausen to E. B. Babcock 25 Sep 1935, all in CP, Folder Babcock (ref. 49). It appears that the name Linnaeus Club was used initially. See Jens Clausen to G. Ledyard Stebbins, 9 Jan 1938, CP, Folder G. Ledyard Stebbins Jr. The history of the Biosystematists is recounted in Lincoln Constance, transcription of interview by Ann Lage, "Versatile Berkeley Botanist: Plant Taxonomy and University Governance," 1986, on 95-97, TBL
86. I discuss the Biosystematists at greater length and include the membership list and a 1944 group photograph in Smocovitis, "G. Ledyard Stebbins and the Evolutionary Synthesis" (ref. 33)
87. For a history of the Biosystematists see W. Z. Lidicker Jr., "An Essay on the History of the Biosystematists of the San Francisco Bay Area," in Cultures and Institutions of Natural History and Philosophy of Science: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science, ed. M. T. Ghiselin and A. E. Leviton (San Francisco, CA: California Academy of Sciences (2000): 315-27
88. Jens Clausen to Stuart Daggett, 30 May 1949, CP, Folder E. B. Babcock
89. For a discussion of Darwin's botany in On the Origin of Species see Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, "Darwin's Botany in On the Origin of Species," in The Cambridge Companion to The "Origin of Species," ed. Michael Ruse and Robert J. Richards (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 216-36
90. David Kohn, Nature's Garden; An Evolutionary Adventure (Bronx: New York Botanical Garden Press, 2008)
91. Peter Ayres, The Aliveness of Plants: The Darwins at the Dawn of Plant Science (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2008)
92. G. Ledyard Stebbins, Jr., "Cytology of Antennaria II. Parthenogenetic Species," Botanical Gazette 94 (1931): 322-45
93. G. Ledyard Stebbins, Jr., "Notes on the Systematic Relationships of the Old World Species of Some Horticultural Forms of Paeonia," University of California Publications in Botany 19 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1939)
94. Stebbins, "Notes" (ref. 75)
95. Edgar Anderson, "The Species Problem in Iris," Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 23 (1936): 457-509
96. Ernest Brown Babcock and G. Ledyard Stebbins Jr., The American Species of Crepis: Their Interrelationships and Distribution as Affected by Polyploidy and Apomixis (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, publ. no. 504, 1938)
97. Bernhard Rensch, Das Prinzip geographischer Rassenkreise und das Problem der Artbildung (Berlin: Gebr. Borntraeger, 1929)
98. Babcock and Stebbins, American Species (ref. 79), 45
99. C. Leonard Huskins, "The Origin of Spartina Townsendii," Genetica 12 (1931): 531-38
100. Jens Clausen had introduced Babcock and Stebbins to Turesson's work and made the suggestion that they employ the designation of "formae apomicticae." See Jens Clausen to G. Ledyard Stebbins Jr., 6 Sep 1936, CP (ref. 72). Clausen had also urged them to be cautious with the term "heteroploid" and pointed them to the 1916 work by H. Winkler on the chromosomes. H. Winkler, "Uber die experimentelle Erzeugeung von Pflanzen mit abweichenden Chromosomenzahlen," Zeitschrift Botanische 8 (1916): 417-531; Jens Clausen to G. Ledyard Stebbins, Jr., 30 Nov 1937, CP (ref. 72)
101. Huxley, New Systematics (ref. 32)
102. See Lewontin et al., Dobzhansky's Genetics (ref. 7)
103. Julian Huxley, Evolution: The Modern Synthesis (London: Allen and Unwin, 1943)
104. Others who included extensive reference to Babcock's Crepis in their books were Richard Goldschmidt, who gave three pages to it in The Material Basis for Evolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1940)
105. and Lester W. Sharp, who devoted four paragraphs to Babcock's work and reproduced two of his diagrams in his brief textbook Fundamentals of Cytology (New York: McGraw-Hill Co., 1943)
106. Äke Gustafsson, Apomixis in Higher Plants (Lund, Sweden: C. W. K. Geerup: Ernest Brown, 1946-1947), 6
107. Jens Clausen to E. B. Babcock, 30 Jul 1938, CP (ref. 2)
108. "Progress of the Plans for Completion of an Evolutionary Study of the Cichorieae, 24 May 1938," RG, ibid
109. Frank Blair Hanson to E. B. Babcock, 23 May 1938, RG, RG, ibid
110. For more on Rockefeller Foundation funding see Robert E. Kohler, Partners in Science: Foundations and Natural Scientists, 1900-1945 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991)
111. Robert E. Kohler, "The Management of Science: The Experience of Warren Weaver and the Rockefeller Foundation Programme in M olecular Biology," Minerva 14 (1976): 279-306
112. Pnina Abir-Am, "The Discourse on Physical Power and Biological Knowledge in the 1930s: A Reappraisal of the Rockefeller Foundation's 'Policy' in Molecular Biology," Social Studies of Science 12 (1982): 341-82
113. Lily E. Kay, The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Rise of the New Biology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). Learning that Weaver would be visiting the campus, Babcock made an attempt to arrange an appointment. Weaver's secretary wrote back with an officious note stating that "He [Weaver] expects to spend most of Tuesday morning with Professor [Ernest O.] Lawrence. Since he hopes to see several persons while he is at the University it is hard for him to arrange appointments in advance, and he will therefore expect to get in touch with you from Professor Lawrence's office some time Tuesday morning." Secretary to Mr. Weaver to E. B. Babcock, 9 Jan 1939, RG (ref. 103)
114. Ernest Brown Babcock and G. Ledyard Stebbins Jr., The Genus Youngia (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, publ. no. 484, 1937)
115. E. B. Babcock to V. Bush, 27 Dec 1940, CP (ref. 2)
116. Ernest Brown Babcock, "Systematics, Cytogenetics, and Evolution in Crepis," Botanical Review 8 (1942): 139-90, on 185
117. Ernest Brown Babcock, "New Light on Evolution from Research on the Genus Crepis," American Naturalist 73 (1944): 385-409
118. Babcock, "New Light" (ref. 112), 389
119. H. Gerassimova, "Chromosome Alterations as a Fact of Divergence of Forms, I. New Experimentally Produced Strains of C. tectorum which Are Physiologically Isolated from the Original Forms Owing to Reciprocal Translocations," Comptes Rendues de l'Académie des Sciences de l' U.R.S.S. 25 (1939): 148-54. Babcock readily accepted the new classification of the new species she proposed
120. H. A. Tobgy, "A Cytological Study of Crepis fuliginosa, C. neglecta, and Their F1 Hybrid, and Its Bearing on the Mechanism of Phylogenetic Reduction in Chromosome Number," Journal of Genetics 45 (1943): 67-111
121. For more on Matthew's Principle see Ernest Brown Babcock, "Supplementary Notes on Crepis II. Phylogeny, Distribution and Matthew's Principle," Evolution 4 (1949): 374-76
122. See Smocovitis, "Keeping Up with Dobzhansky" (ref. 33) for more on the controversial reception of the Dobzhansky and Epling collaboration on D. pseudoobscura, and especially the response to Epling's portion
123. and see Theodosius Dobzhansky and Carl Epling, "Contributions to the Genetics, Taxonomy, and Ecology of Drosophila pseudoobscura and Its Relatives" (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, publ. no. 554, 1944)
124. Theodosius Dobzhansky and Carl Epling, "Contributions to the Genetics, Taxonomy, and Ecology of Drosophila pseudoobscura and Its Relatives" Ibid., 405
125. H. Spoehr to E. B. Babcock, 11 Sep 1947; CP; E. B. Babcock to Stuart Daggett 30 May 1949, both in CP (ref. 2). See also "Remarks by Roy E. Clausen at the Babcock Memorial Service," 19 Dec 1954, JAJ (ref. 3)
126. Jens Clausen to E. B. Babcock, 13 May 1946, CP (ref. 2)
127. Jens Clausen to Mogens Westergaard, 2 Sep 1945, CP, Folder Westergaard, Dr. Mogens
128. G. Ledyard Stebbins Jr., Variation and Evolution in Plants (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950)
129. These historical terms were introduced by Ernst Mayr. See Mayr and Provine, Evolutionary Synthesis (ref. 34). There is no indication that Babcock resented his protégé's success, and in keeping with his commitment to mentoring, Babcock continued to support Stebbins until the time of his death in 1954. Stebbins, in turn, considered Babcock one of the great influences of his career
130. See Angela Craeger's treatment of the postwar shift in life sciences at Berkeley, its new commitment to biochemistry, and Sproul's correspondence with Warren Weaver. Angela N. H. Creager, "Wendell Stanley's Dream of a Free-Standing Biochemistry Department at the University of California, Berkeley," JHB 29 (1996): 331-60
131. Creager, Life of a Virus (ref. 7)
132. See Creager, "Wendell Stanley's Dream" (ref. 137)
133. "Proof from Forthcoming UC Centennial Record," UCGD, Folder Univ. of Cal. Genetics Dept [Galley Proof ], Xerox J "Genetics." For one description of the growth of the Davis campus at this time see James A. Jenkins to Mel Green, 17 Oct 1956, JAJ, Box 1, Folder Mel Green. See also Stadtman, Centennial Record (ref. 4)
134. Wirt, "Babcock: An Appreciation" (ref. 10), 2
135. For more on Dobzhansky's metaphysics see Costas Krimbas, "The Evolutionary Worldview of Theodosius Dozbhansky," in The Evolution of Theodosius Dobzhansky, ed. Mark Adams (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 179-93
136. Richard G. Delisle, "Expanding the Framework of the Holism/Reductionism Debate in Neo-Darwinism: The Case of Theodosius Dobzhansky and Bernhard Rensch," History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 30 (2008): 225-46
137. Theodosius Dobzhansky, The Biology of Ultimate Concern (New York: New American Librar y, 1967)
138. G. Ledyard Stebbins, Jr., Variation and Evolution (ref. 133)
139. I am referring here to the description of experimental system as articulated in Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Toward a History (ref. 6)
140. By "biomedical" I also include histories of molecular biology, biochemistry, and some histories of genetics. See, for example, Robert Kohler, Lords of the Fly (ref. 7)
141. For more discussion on the historiography of biology, see Smocovitis, Unifying Biology (ref. 34)