Mendel in Darwin's Shadow

Abbreviations, notes, and works cited

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Notes, works cited, and an abbreviation key for the article Mendel in Darwin's Shadow by David Allen appear on this page.

1. 'Dr. Confuser' is actually Charles H. Porter.

2. All subsequent references to the article 'Gregor Mendel: An Opponent of Descent with Modification' by L. A. Callender (1988) are referred to as LAC in the text.

3. See Robert Olby, 'Mendel No Mendelian?'. In: History of Science (1979), 17, pp. 55-72.

4. In Science vs. Religion, Fuller actually cites Olby as the source for his description of Mendelian inheritance as a 'mathematically rigorous version of special creationism'—Fuller 2007 p. 135.

5. Fuller has said that he is not personally an 'ID-er', but feels that the movement should have a 'fair run for its money'. See: 'Steve Fuller : Designer trouble', by Zoë Corbyn. In: The Guardian, 31 January, 2006 (last accessed 16 August, 2009). Yet he has published numerous books and articles advocating ID, so his claims for 'fellow traveller' status seems dubious.

6. Translated by the author. Unless otherwise specified, all translations are my own.

7. The exact date Mendel began his Pisum experiments is not known. He told Nägeli that they began in 1856 (OG p. 60); but it is likely that, prior to this, he tested the constancy of traits in his plant specimens over several generations.

8. All subsequent references to the book Origin of Genetics (1966), edited by Stern & Sherwood, are marked OG in the text.

9. In the 2nd German edition of The Origin of Species, published 1863 (the edition which Mendel read), Entwicklung was used to translate the word 'development'. In the context in which it appeared, it clearly implied development (e. g. embryo development) rather than 'evolution'. However, despite its associations with embryology and development, Haeckel used the term as early as 1863 to mean Darwinian evolution—for example, in his paper, 'Über die Entwicklungstheorie Darwins'.

Darwin introduced the word 'evolution' into the sixth edition of Origin (1872). Just to complicate matters, the German version of that edition (1876) translated the word sometimes as Entwicklung, and sometimes as Evolution.

10. Predictably, Haeckel suggested that Descendenztheorie 'shows us that ontogeny is nothing more than a short recapitulation of phylogeny'—1866, p. 7.

11. All subsequent references to the book Versuche und Beobachtungen über die Bastarderzeugung im Pflanzenreich by Gärtner (1849) are marked VB in the text.

12. Müller-Wille & Orel argue that 'Mendel’s open disregard for the species-variety distinction is rather troublesome for interpretations that see him as part of the hybridist tradition. According to these interpretations, Mendel was interested in the question whether hybridization could give rise to new species. Yet, if it was that question which interested Mendel, then the taxonomic status of his experimental plants should have mattered to him.' (2007, p. 173.) But it is clear that, like Darwin and Nägeli, Mendel believed that species and varieties were shifting entities. As I argue later in the article, he was interested in the creation of new stable forms through hybridisation; and these 'attain the status of new species' (OG p. 41).

Müller-Wille & Orel also make much of the fact that Mendel referred, in the main body of the Pisum paper, to the different pea plants he used as species rather than varieties. They infer from this that he was, in fact, applying the 'strictest definition' of species, based on constant characteristics. However, this ignores the fact that, while most of the plants Mendel was using were varieties of one species (Pisum sativum), he was also using plants from other 'species' (as they were defined at the time)—viz. P. quadratum, P. saccharatum, and P. umbellate. Thus, both species and varieties were mixed up in his experiments. It may have been simpler for him, then, to use just one word (Arten), as a general term for the different types of plants he was using, rather than continually trying to distinguish between species and varieties (especially as he said that the distinction was not important to him).

Müller-Wille & Orel object that English versions of the Pisum paper have generally (mis)translated Arten as 'varieties' rather than as 'species'. They have a point. However, as we now classify all the plants that Mendel was using as varieties rather than species, it could be argued that it would confuse modern readers if translations used the term 'species. '.

13. All subsequent references to the book Botanische Mittheilungen by Carl Nägeli (1866) are marked BM in the text.

14. Lönnig is a geneticist at the Max-Planck-Institut für Züchtungsforschung in Cologne. A scandal broke in 2003, when scientists (led by Ulrich Kutschera) protested that Lönnig was using the Institute's web server to post anti-evolutionary material. Lönnig responded that he was the victim of an inquisition by adherents of the 'totalitarian-materialistic theory of evolution'. See 'Die Affäre Max Planck. Über die fragwürdigen Diskursmethoden eines Evolutiongegners' by M. Neukamm and A. Beyer, in Kutschera (ed.) (2007), pp. 232-276.

15. It might be argued that Kölreuter and Gärtner were driven, in their work, by an opposition to Linnaeus. It is notable, however, that in his book, Versuche und Beobachtungen… (1849), Gärtner barely mentions Linnaeus; and makes no reference at all to the Linnaean theory of descent through hybridisation. In reviewing the history of debates about plant hybridisation, he actually cites Camerer as the first important theorist on the subject (p. 4). He records the work of early hybridists such as Morland, Blair, Fairchild and Kölreuter; but not Linnaeaus. The debate had moved on, it seems; other people, even for Gärtner, were now the main reference points, and the main opponents.

16. Some of Nägeli's ideas were, in fact, taken up by ant-Darwinists; nevertheless, the notion that he himself was, broadly, a supporter of Darwinism still stands. See Junker 2002.

17. Mendel's marking of this passage is noted by Richter (1943), p. 203.

18. Similarly, in a letter to Nägeli, Mendel noted that the Hieracium experiments had led him to conclude that, in this genus at least, 'fertilization with foreign pollen can occur only if self-fertilization fails'—OG p. 101.

19. See Peter's detailed descriptions of various hybrids: 1884 pp. 450-496; & 1885 pp. 111-134.

20. There are three Hieracium subgenera, and they differ in their mode of reproduction. It is believed that all Chionoracium species are sexual diploids; subg. Hieracium species are either polyploid obligate apomicts (of the diplosporous type), or diploid sexuals; and Pilosella 'is characterized by a mixture of sexual and facultatively apomictic taxa of the aposporous type'—Fehrer et al, 2005 p. 176.

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