Richard Goldschmidt

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Richard Goldschmidt
University of Heidelberg
Scientific career
Fieldsgenetics
Doctoral advisorOtto Bütschli

Richard Benedict Goldschmidt (April 12, 1878 – April 24, 1958) was a German

reaction norms, genetic assimilation, dynamical genetics, sex determination, and heterochrony.[2] Controversially, Goldschmidt advanced a model of macroevolution through macromutations popularly known as the "Hopeful Monster" hypothesis.[3]

Goldschmidt also described the nervous system of the nematode, a piece of work that influenced Sydney Brenner to study the "wiring diagram" of Caenorhabditis elegans,[4] winning Brenner and his colleagues the Nobel Prize in 2002.

Childhood and education

Goldschmidt was born in

trematode Polystomum.[2]

Career

In 1903 Goldschmidt began working as an assistant to

Amphioxus. He founded the histology journal Archiv für Zellforschung while working in Hertwig's laboratory. Under Hertwig's influence, he also began to take an interest in chromosome behavior and the new field of genetics.[2]

How the term intersex was coined.

In 1909 Goldschmidt became professor at the

Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in Berlin.[7]

During a field trip to Japan in 1914, he was unable to return to Germany due to the outbreak of the

internment camp in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia for "dangerous Germans".[8] After his release in 1918, he returned to Germany in 1919 and resumed his work at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Sensing that it was unsafe for him to remain in Germany, he emigrated in 1936 to the United States, where he became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. During World War II, the Nazi party published a propaganda poster entitled "Jewish World Domination" displaying the Goldschmidt family tree.[9]

Evolution

Goldschmidt was the first scientist to use the term "

saltational evolution, and attracted widespread ridicule.[10]

According to Goldschmidt, "biologists seem inclined to think that because they have not themselves seen a 'large' mutation, such a thing cannot be possible. But such a mutation need only be an event of the most extraordinary rarity to provide the world with the important material for evolution".[11] Goldschmidt believed that the neo-Darwinian view of gradual accumulation of small mutations was important but could account for variation only within species (microevolution) and was not a powerful enough source of evolutionary novelty to explain new species. Instead he believed that large genetic differences between species required profound "macro-mutations", a source for large genetic changes (macroevolution) which once in a while could occur as a "hopeful monster".[12][13]

Goldschmidt is usually referred to as a "non-Darwinian"; however, he did not object to the general microevolutionary principles of the Darwinians. He veered from the

discontinuous variation, or macromutation. Goldschmidt presented his hypothesis when neo-Darwinism was becoming dominant in the 1940s and 1950s, and strongly protested against the strict gradualism of neo-Darwinian theorists. His ideas were accordingly seen as highly unorthodox by most scientists and were subjected to ridicule and scorn.[14] However, there has been a recent interest in the ideas of Goldschmidt in the field of evolutionary developmental biology, as some scientists, such as Günter Theißen and Scott F. Gilbert, are convinced he was not entirely wrong.[15][16] Goldschmidt presented two mechanisms by which hopeful monsters might work. One mechanism, involving "systemic mutations", rejected the classical gene concept and is no longer considered by modern science; however, his second mechanism involved "developmental macromutations" in "rate genes" or "controlling genes" that change early development and thus cause large effects in the adult phenotype. These kinds of mutations are similar to those considered in contemporary evolutionary developmental biology.[17]

Selected bibliography

References

  1. doi:10.1668/0003-1569(2001)041[1049:C]2.0.CO;2
  2. ^ a b c d Dietrich, Michael R. (2003). Richard Goldschmidt: hopeful monsters and other 'heresies.' Nature Reviews Genetics 4 (Jan.): 68-74.
  3. ^ Gould, S. J. (1977). "The Return of Hopeful Monsters." Natural History 86 (June/July): 24, 30.
  4. ^ Rodney Cotterill Enchanted Looms: Conscious Networks in Brains and Computers 2000, p. 185
  5. ISBN 978-1-85109-628-2
    .
  6. ^ Goldschmidt, Richard (1915). Vorläufige Mitteilung über weitere Versuche zur Vererbung und Bestimmung des Geschlechts. In: Biologisches Centralblatt, Band 35. Leipzig: Verlag Georg Thieme. pp. 565–570.
  7. S2CID 19446244
    .
  8. LCCN 60005653
    .
  9. ^ "Imperial War Museums".
  10. ^ Verne Grant The origin of adaptations 1963
  11. ^ Prog Nucleic Acid Res&Molecular Bio by J N Davidson, Waldo E. Cohn, Serge N Timasheff, C H Hirs 1968, p. 67
  12. ^ Nick Lane Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the meaning of life 2005, p. 30
  13. ^ Eva Jablonka, Marion J. Lamb Epigenetic Inheritance and Evolution: The Lamarckian Dimension 1995 p. 222
  14. ^ Donald R. Prothero Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters 2007, p. 99
  15. S2CID 693358
    .
  16. ^ Scott F. Gilbert Developmental Biology Sinauer Associates; 6th edition, 2000
  17. ^ Theissen, G (2010). "Homeosis of the angiosperm flower: Studies on three candidate cases of saltational evolution" (PDF). Palaeodiversity. 3 (Suppl): 131–139.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Goldschmidt&oldid=1228441721"