New Ideas

NEW. IDEAS* JACK SCHULTZ^ It occurred to me that, while I myself had nothing new to say, it might be interesting to examine the birth and the care and feeding of new ideas in our science to their maturity as useful concepts and possibly their old age as platitudes. We are all agreed, I suppose, that the outstanding new idea in genetics was Mendel's: the idea that the hereditary characters could be treated as biological atoms, that the recombination of hereditary elements during the formation of the gametes affords a method of resolving the totality of inheritance into its atomistic fundamentals. This new idea, almost 100 years old, is still fresh and vigorous in the latest hot news from the hot spots of molecular genetics. Yet I recall very well feeling a surprise when, as a beginning graduate student, I was expected to show enthusiasm for the excitement of the Mendelian rediscovery: what was really exciting was the latest thing in genie balance, or four-strand crossing over, or the existence of position effects . It took me some time, but I did grow up to appreciate Mendel. What happened to me was a gradual revelation, like that in the ancient myth of the goddess Ishtar which the composer D'Indy used in the variations bearing her name. Disguised in her swath of veils, appearing in the music as the most complex of the variations, finally unveiled, the essential goddess is revealed in the basic theme. And so it is with the atomistic concept we owe to Mendel: beneath the glitter of the latest speculations and the tedium of misunderstand- * This address was delivered at the Third Annual Graduate Students' Genetics Colloquium , University of California, Berkeley, May 6, 1961, when Jack Schultz was a visiting professor in the Department of Genetics. It is herewith published with only very minor changes, except for the deletion of two introductory paragraphs. Jack Schultz died on April 29, 1971. The publication in Perspectives has been approved by Mrs. Jack Schultz (Helen Redfield). t Reprints are available at the Jack Schultz Memorial Library, The Institute for Cancer Research, 7701 Burholme Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19111. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Spring 1972 | 435 ings and controversies, within the superstructure, the recombination of biological atoms stands. But when it was happening, it was scarcely news. A monk was raising some plants in a garden; at best something to do with plant breeding. A solo voice, quiet; no fanfare of the brasses. The fanfare came later. Yet the original perception is here; as Sir Herbert Read says of a key painting by Picasso, referring to its influence on modern art, the consequences of a single act of perception are incalculable. But the consequences only occur when the perception is communicated. And here perhaps we have a point of interest. The language of discovery is common to all types of exploration, from the voyages of the Phoenicians to the astronauts of outer space. A new idea establishes itself in science very much as a new colony is established in an alien land. If there are inhabitants, and they are hostile, the infant colony dies, as the early colonies in Virginia did, or it comes to a field well populated with stolid concepts, and like the early adventurers to the Far East, makes no lasting impact—too much to change. Perhaps both these factors worked in slowing the rise of genetics. When finally the century turned, and the value of the Mendelian approach was realized, conditions were ripe for colonization. Like the Pilgrim fathers making use of the stores of food hidden by their plaguedecimated Indian predecessors, planting in land already cleared for cultivation, Correns and deVries and von Tschermak had the store of biological information about cells and nuclei to nourish their thinking; much of it had already been done by Weismann. It is touching to read in Correns's paper that "Mendel could not have spoken of nuclei." Thus, over half a century and a good deal of independent travel over the same terrain was needed to establish the essentials of the genetic point of view. The transport lanes to the new colony had been established: the biology...