Biological Fact and Theory

Abstract

IN NATURE of Feb. 26, Prof. Johnstone asks the question, “Is breeding cats, and cocks and hens, and flies, and so on, such fundamental research?” He might equally well ask, “Is reading galvanometers, or making organic compounds, or cutting sections, or stimulating nerves, such fundamental research?” The answer is quite clear. These operations, like breeding animals, are part of the technique of research, which may or may not be fundamental in any given case. For example, cat-breeding was part of a fundamental research when it showed that the spermatozoon determined the sex of the young, and that some of the differences between the wild species (or subspecies) of cat were inherited in a Mendelian manner.