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万物简史英文版_比尔·布莱森-第102章

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ay a believer in the idea that evolutionary changes happen notgradually but suddenly。 saltationists (the word es from the latin for 鈥渓eap鈥潱ouldn鈥檛accept that plicated organs could ever emerge in slow stages。 what good; after all; is one…tenth of a wing or half an eye? such organs; they thought; only made sense if they appeared ina finished state。

the belief was surprising in as radical a spirit as huxley because it closely recalled a veryconservative religious notion first put forward by the english theologian william paley in1802 and known as argument from design。 paley contended that if you found a pocket watchon the ground; even if you had never seen such a thing before; you would instantly perceivethat it had been made by an intelligent entity。 so it was; he believed; with nature: itsplexity was proof of its design。 the notion was a powerful one in the nineteenth century;and it gave darwin trouble too。 鈥渢he eye to this day gives me a cold shudder;鈥潯eacknowledged in a letter to a friend。 in the origin he conceded that it 鈥渟eems; i freely confess;absurd in the highest possible degree鈥潯hat natural selection could produce such an instrumentin gradual steps。

even so; and to the unending exasperation of his supporters; darwin not only insisted thatall change was gradual; but in nearly every edition of origin he stepped up the amount of timehe supposed necessary to allow evolution to progress; which pushed his ideas increasingly outof favor。 鈥渆ventually;鈥潯ccording to the scientist and historian jeffrey schwartz; 鈥渄arwin lostvirtually all the support that still remained among the ranks of fellow natural historians andgeologists。鈥

ironically; considering that darwin called his book on the origin of species; the one thinghe couldn鈥檛 explain was how species originated。 darwin鈥檚 theory suggested a mechanism forhow a species might bee stronger or better or faster鈥攊n a word; fitter鈥攂ut gave noindication of how it might throw up a new species。 a scottish engineer; fleeming jenkin;considered the problem and noted an important flaw in darwin鈥檚 argument。 darwin believedthat any beneficial trait that arose in one generation would be passed on to subsequentgenerations; thus strengthening the species。

jenkin pointed out that a favorable trait in one parent wouldn鈥檛 bee dominant insucceeding generations; but in fact would be diluted through blending。 if you pour whiskeyinto a tumbler of water; you don鈥檛 make the whiskey stronger; you make it weaker。 and if youpour that dilute solution into another glass of water; it bees weaker still。 in the same way;any favorable trait introduced by one parent would be successively watered down by subsequent matings until it ceased to be apparent at all。 thus darwin鈥檚 theory was not a recipefor change; but for constancy。 lucky flukes might arise from time to time; but they wouldsoon vanish under the general impulse to bring everything back to a stable mediocrity。 ifnatural selection were to work; some alternative; unconsidered mechanism was required。

unknown to darwin and everyone else; eight hundred miles away in a tranquil corner ofmiddle europe a retiring monk named gregor mendel was ing up with the solution。

mendel was born in 1822 to a humble farming family in a backwater of the austrianempire in what is now the czech republic。 schoolbooks once portrayed him as a simple butobservant provincial monk whose discoveries were largely serendipitous鈥攖he result ofnoticing some interesting traits of inheritance while pottering about with pea plants in themonastery鈥檚 kitchen garden。 in fact; mendel was a trained scientist鈥攈e had studied physicsand mathematics at the olm眉tz philosophical institute and the university of vienna鈥攁nd hebrought scientific discipline to all he did。 moreover; the monastery at brno where he livedfrom 1843 was known as a learned institution。 it had a library of twenty thousand books and atradition of careful scientific investigation。

before embarking on his experiments; mendel spent two years preparing his controlspecimens; seven varieties of pea; to make sure they bred true。 then; helped by two full…timeassistants; he repeatedly bred and crossbred hybrids from thirty thousand pea plants。 it wasdelicate work; requiring them to take the most exacting pains to avoid accidental cross…fertilization and to note every slight variation in the growth and appearance of seeds; pods;leaves; stems; and flowers。 mendel knew what he was doing。

he never used the word gene 鈥攊t wasn鈥檛 coined until 1913; in an english medicaldictionary鈥攖hough he did invent the terms dominant and recessive。 what he established wasthat every seed contained two 鈥渇actors鈥潯r 鈥渆lemente;鈥潯s he called them鈥攁 dominant oneand a recessive one鈥攁nd these factors; when bined; produced predictable patterns ofinheritance。

the results he converted into precise mathematical formulae。 altogether mendel spenteight years on the experiments; then confirmed his results with similar experiments onflowers; corn; and other plants。 if anything; mendel was too scientific in his approach; forwhen he presented his findings at the february and march meetings of the natural historysociety of brno in 1865; the audience of about forty listened politely but was conspicuouslyunmoved; even though the breeding of plants was a matter of great practical interest to manyof the members。

when mendel鈥檚 report was published; he eagerly sent a copy to the great swiss botanistkarl…wilhelm von n?geli; whose support was more or less vital for the theory鈥檚 prospects。

unfortunately; n?geli failed to perceive the importance of what mendel had found。 hesuggested that mendel try breeding hawkweed。 mendel obediently did as n?geli suggested;but quickly realized that hawkweed had none of the requisite features for studying heritability。

it was evident to him that n?geli had not read the paper closely; or possibly at all。 frustrated;mendel retired from investigating heritability and spent the rest of his life growingoutstanding vegetables and studying bees; mice; and sunspots; among much else。 eventuallyhe was made abbot。

mendel鈥檚 findings weren鈥檛 quite as widely ignored as is sometimes suggested。 his studyreceived a glowing entry in the encyclopaedia britannica 鈥攖hen a more leading record of scientific thought than now鈥攁nd was cited repeatedly in an important paper by the germanwilhelm olbers focke。 indeed; it was because mendel鈥檚 ideas never entirely sank below thewaterline of scientific thought that they were so easily recovered when the world was readyfor them。

together; without realizing it; darwin and mendel laid the groundwork for all of lifesciences in the twentieth century。 darwin saw that all living things are connected; thatultimately they 鈥渢race their ancestry to a single; mon source;鈥潯hile mendel鈥檚 workprovided the mechanism to explain how that could happen。 the two men could easily havehelped each other。 mendel owned a german edition of the origin of species; which he isknown to have read; so he must have realized the applicability of his work to darwin鈥檚; yet heappears to have made no effort to get in touch。 and darwin for his part is known to havestudied focke鈥檚 influential paper with its repeated references to mendel鈥檚 work; but didn鈥檛connect them to his own studies。

the one thing everyone thinks featured in darwin鈥檚 argument; that humans are descendedfrom apes; didn鈥檛 feature at all except as one passing allusion。 even so; it took no great leap ofimagination to see the implications for human development in darwin鈥檚 theories; and itbecame an immediate talking point。

the showdown came on saturday; june 30; 1860; at a meeting of the british associationfor the advancement of science in oxford。 huxley had been urged to attend by robertchambers; author of vestiges of the natural history of creation; though he was still unawareof chambers鈥檚 connection to that contentious tome。 darwin; as ever; was absent。 the meetingwas held at the oxford zoological museum。 more than a thousand people crowded into thechamber; hundreds more were turned away。 people knew that something big was going tohappen; though they had first to wait while
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