Lords of the Fly: Drosophila Genetics and the Experimental Life / Edition 1

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More About This Textbook

Overview

The common fruit fly, Drosophila, has long been one of the most productive of all laboratory animals. From 1910 to 1940, the center of Drosophila culture in America was the school of Thomas Hunt Morgan and his students Alfred Sturtevant and Calvin Bridges. They first created "standard" flies through inbreeding and by organizing a network for exchanging stocks of flies that spread their practices around the world.

In Lords of the Fly, Robert E. Kohler argues that fly laboratories are a special kind of ecological niche in which the wild fruit fly is transformed into an artificial animal with a distinctive natural history. He shows that the fly was essentially a laboratory tool whose startling productivity opened many new lines of genetic research. Kohler also explores the moral economy of the "Drosophilists": the rules for regulating access to research tools, allocating credit for achievements, and transferring authority from one generation of scientists to the next.

By closely examining the Drosophilists' culture and customs, Kohler reveals essential features of how experimental scientists do their work.

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Editorial Reviews

Journal of Modern History
Kohler's study is a pioneering and provocative one, as he reveals just how important experimental skills and practices have been to the development of twentieth-century genetics. His contribution is a welcome alternative to static accounts of theory overpowering all aspects of experimental life. . . . Kohler's text will surely find its place among the most important books in the history of biology."Myles W. Jackson,
Journal of Modern History

— Myles W. Jackson

Journal of Modern History - Myles W. Jackson
"Kohler's study is a pioneering and provocative one, as he reveals just how important experimental skills and practices have been to the development of twentieth-century genetics. His contribution is a welcome alternative to static accounts of theory overpowering all aspects of experimental life. . . . Kohler's text will surely find its place among the most important books in the history of biology."Myles W. Jackson, Journal of Modern History
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780226450636
  • Publisher: University of Chicago Press
  • Publication date: 1/28/1994
  • Series: Theoretical Astrophysics Ser.
  • Edition description: 1
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 321
  • Sales rank: 1,385,590
  • Product dimensions: 6.00 (w) x 9.00 (h) x 0.80 (d)

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
1 The Nature of Experimental Life 1
2 Crossing the Threshold 19
3 Constructing Drosophila 53
4 The Fly People 91
5 The Drosophila Exchange Network 133
6 Improvisations 173
7 Reconstructing Drosophila: Developmental Genetics 208
8 From Laboratory to Field: Evolutionary Genetics 250
Appendix 295
Abbreviations 301
Bibliography 303
Index 315
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