In two recent papers, philosopher of science Jim Griesemer of U.C. Davis discusses how David Wake’s salamander-based research played a key role in the unfolding of evolutionary developmental biology and the advance of evolutionary biology.
Griesemer’s theme is that in contradiction to much of what we are taught about how science is conducted, organism-based research programs are fundamentally important by providing a means of crossing disciplinary boundaries and linking different fields. He illustrates this thesis by discussing Wake’s career-long focus on plethodontid salamanders.
One paper, published last year in Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, is a general treatment of the role of organism-based research programs in evolutionary biology, whereas the other explicitly discusses the role Wake’s program played in the development of evo-devo–this paper just appeared as a chapter in a new book on the famous Dahlem conference on evo-devo in 1981 (both papers may be accessed by visiting Griesemer’s webpage, scrolling down and clicking on the appropriate paper’s link).
I think one point in particular captured the essence of the papers. Quoting Wake from a 1982 paper: “it will be increasingly important for morphologists to work as developmental biologists, biomechanical engineers, mathematical biologists, molecular biologists, and even population and community ecologists. Not for a moment do I advocate departing from morphology to these areas. Rather, I believe that instead of making morphology relevant to these areas, it is morphologists who must take the lead in making neighboring disciplines relevant to morphology.’’
The papers make fascinating reading and I highly recommend checking both out. I’ll paste the abstract and part of the conclusion of the 2013 paper below.
But before doing so, I need to address one point. Some Anole Annals readers may wonder why we are using our precious pages to report on papers by a salamander biologist. There are two answers. The first, of course, is that following the lead of Ernest Williams, many anole biologists take a similar, organism-based approach to studying diverse evolutionary questions. Indeed, Wake’s work has been an inspiration to many of us in the field, from anole evolutionists to anole developmental biologists to anole natural historians.
But if that’s not enough, consider that Wake was co-author on the description of a remarkable new genus of Central American salamander named Nyctanolis and pictured below. The biology of this endangered species (N. pernix, the only species in the genus) is little known and we can only speculate to which ecomorph it belongs. Moreover, the species description was published in the festschrift honoring Ernest Williams. Clearly, David Wake is an honorary anolologist and we suggest that there is nothing left to know about salamanders and thus he should start working on anoles.
Nyctanolis pernix. Photo by Tim Herman
Abstract of Griesemer. 2013. Integration of approaches in David Wake’s model-taxon research platform for evolutionary morphology
What gets integrated in integrative scientific practices has been a topic of much discussion. Traditional views focus on theories and explanations, with ideas of reduction and unification dominating the conversation. More recent ideas focus on disciplines, fields, or specialties; models, mechanisms, or methods; phenomena, problems. How integration works looks different on each of these views since the objects of integration are ontologically and epistemically various: statements, boundary conditions, practices, protocols, methods, variables, parameters, domains, laboratories, and questions all have their own structures, functions and logics. I focus on one particular kind of scientific practice, integration of ‘‘approaches’’ in the context of a research system operating on a special kind of ‘‘platform.’’ Rather than trace a network of interactions among people, practices, and theoretical entities to be integrated, in this essay I focus on the work of a single investigator, David Wake. I describe Wake’s practice of integrative evolutionary biology and how his integration of approaches among biological specialties worked in tandem with his development of the salamanders as a model taxon, which he used as a platform to solve, re-work and update problems that would not have been solved so well by non-integrative approaches. The larger goal of the project to which this paper contributes is a counter-narrative to the story of 20th century life sciences as the rise and march of the model organisms and decline of natural history.
Part of Concluding Section:
