Mutant Utopias

Evening Primroses and Imagined Futures in Early Twentieth-Century America

Bibliographic Data

ID3301019
AuthorsJim Endersby (0000-0001-8219-4088, University of Sussex, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume104
Issue3
Pages471-503
Publication date2013-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIsis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/673270
PMID24341261
OpenAlexW1602809694
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited33

Hugo de Vries's mutation theory is now little more than a footnote to the history of biology, a failed theory that briefly led a few biologists astray. However, for the first quarter of the twentieth century it attracted considerable attention from both professional biologists and laypeople. De Vries's theory--together with the plant, Oenothera lamarckiana, that had supplied most of his evidence--became the focus of a surprising variety of imaginative hopes. Scientists and their various publics were fascinated by the utopian possibilities that the primrose seemed to offer, and their discussions shaped a public culture around biology that would help define the twentieth century as the "century of the gene." From a conventional history of science perspective (which, in the case of twentieth-century biology, often remains focused on the content of scientific theories and the professional communities that shaped them), the mutation theory seems unimportant. However, while De Vries's new theory of evolution ultimately failed to persuade the scientific community, it was much more important than is now realized, particularly because it helped make biology part of a wide variety of public debates. Understanding the mutation theory's story more fully suggests that we may need to rethink much of the rest of the century of the gene's history, to think less in terms of what happened in the lab and more about how biology came to function as public culture

Biology · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Function (biology · History of science · Variety (cybernetics · Genetics · History · History of Science and Natural History · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Polar Research and Ecology

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