New Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol.7. Tammes - Zygmund

419 Pages·4.725 MB·English

by  Koertg N. (Ed.)

New Dictionary of Scientific Biography
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New Dictionary of Scientific Biography
VOLUME 7
TAMMES–ZYGMUND
Noretta Koertge
EDITOR IN CHIEF
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New Dictionary of Scientific Biography
Noretta Koertge
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New dictionary of scientific biography / Noretta Koertge, editor in chief.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-684-31320-7 (set : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-684-31321-4 (vol. 1 : alk.
paper)—ISBN 978-0-684-31322-1 (vol. 2 : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-684-31323-8 (vol. 3 :
alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-684-31324-5 (vol. 4 : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-684-31325-2 (vol. 5 :
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alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-684-31328-3 (vol. 8 : alk. paper)
1. Scientists—Biography—Dictionaries. I. Koertge, Noretta.
Q141.N45 2008
509.2'2—dc22
[B]
2007031384
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Editorial Board
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Noretta Koertge
Indiana University, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
William Bechtel James Capshew David L. Hull
Jane Maienschein John Norton Eric R. Scerri
Brian Skyrms Michael M. Sokal Spencer Weart
SUBJECT EDITORS
William Bechtel James H. Capshew Matthew Goodrum
University of California, San Diego, Indiana University at Bloomington, Virginia Tech, Department of Science
Department of Philosophy and Department of History and and Technology in Society
Science Studies Program Philosophy of Science
PALEOANTHROPOLOGY
LIFE SCIENCES PSYCHOLOGY
Jeremy Gray
Stephen Bocking
Steven J. Dick The Open University, United
Trent University, Ontario,
Environmental and Resource Studies National Aeronautics and Space Kingdom, Department of Mathematics
Program Administration MATHEMATICS AND LOGIC
ECOLOGY SPACE SCIENCE
Valerie Gray Hardcastle
James Fleming
Theodore Brown University of Cincinnati, McMicken
Colby College, Science, Technology,
University of Illinois at Urbana-
College of Arts and Sciences
and Society Program
Champaign, Department of
Chemistry and Beckman Institute METEOROLOGY, HYDROLOGY, COGNITIVE AND
CHEMISTRY OCEANOGRAPHY NEUROSCIENCE
Lillian Hoddeson
Richard Burkhardt Gregory A. Good
University of Illinois at Urbana- West Virginia University, Department University of Illiniois at Urbana-
Champaign, Department of History of History Champaign, Department of History
ANIMAL BEHAVIOR GEOLOGY AND GEOPHYSICS PHYSICS
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Editorial Board
Ernst Homburg Jane Maienschein Robert Smith
Universiteit Maastricht, The Arizona State University, School of University of Alberta, Department of
Netherlands, Department of History Life Sciences, Center for Biology and
History and Classics
CHEMISTRY Society
ASTRONOMY AND
LIFE SCIENCES
David L. Hull ASTROPHYSICS
Northwestern University, Department Elizabeth Paris
of Philosophy Independent Scholar
Stephen Weininger
LIFE SCIENCES PHYSICS
Worcester Polytechnic Institute,
Helge Kragh Carsten Reinhardt Department of Chemistry and
University of Aarhus, Denmark, Steno University of Bielefeld, Germany, Biochemistry
Department for Studies of Science and Institute for Science and Technology
CHEMISTRY
Science Education Studies
COSMOLOGY CHEMISTRY
Paul Weirich
Michael S. Mahoney John Rigden
University of Missouri-Columbia,
Princeton University, Department of Washington University in St. Louis,
Computer Science Department of Physics Department of Philosophy
COMPUTER SCIENCE PHYSICS DECISION AND GAME THEORY
CONSULTING EDITORS
Garland E. Allen Alexander Jones Lynn Nyhart
Washington University, St. Louis, University of Toronto, Department of University of Wisconsin at Madison,
Department of Biology Classics Department of the History of Science
Domenico Bertoloni Meli William Newman
Juergen Renn
Indiana University, Center for the Indiana University, Department of
Max Planck Institute for the History
History of Medicine History and Philosophy of Science
of Science, Berlin
Craig Fraser Vivian Nutton
University of Toronto, Institute for the University College London, Wellcome Johannes M. M. H. Thijssen
History and Philosophy of Science and Trust Centre for the History of Radboud University Nijmegen,
Technology Medicine Faculty of Philosophy
ASSISTANT TO THE EDITOR IN CHIEF
Anne Mylott
Indiana University, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
VI NEW DICTIONARY OF SCIENTIFIC BIOGRAPHY
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T
TAMMES, JANTINA (b. Groningen, The topathological laboratory in Amsterdam, because, accord-
Netherlands, 23 June 1871; d. Groningen, The Nether- ing to De Vries, “a lady cannot be required to inspect the
lands, 20 September 1947), genetics, botany. fields in all weathers” (Stamhuis, 1995, p. 501).
Tammes demonstrated that the heredity of continu- Because she had not taken an academic degree,
ous characters can be explained within the framework of Tammes could not obtain a doctorate. Moll, however,
Mendelian genetics. Because she interpreted her experi- thought that her publication “Die Periodicität morpholo-
mental data more in probabilistic terms than others who gischer Erscheinungen bei den Pflanzen” (The periodicity
were publishing on this topic around 1910, her work was of morphological phenomena in plants) had the qualities
the most convincing. In 1919 she became the first person of a doctoral dissertation, and he made various efforts—
in The Netherlands to occupy a chair in genetics. In addi- all unsuccessful at the time—to procure for her both an
tion, she was the second female professor in the country.
honorary doctorate and a position. The obstacles were,
officially, her weak constitution (in the case of jobs at the
Early Years. Jantina, or Tine, Tammes was born in 1871 Agricultural Experiment Station in Wageningen and the
into a lower-middle-class family. In 1883 she entered a
Deep-Sea Research Station in Den Helder but also in the
secondary school for girls. She later took private lessons in
case of a prestigious scholarship in the Dutch East Indies),
mathematics, physics, and chemistry, and in 1890 she
and unofficially, her need to care for her aging parents.
enrolled at the University of Groningen, becoming one of
Her innate diffidence and fear of failure may also have
only eleven women students. She was allowed to follow
played a role.
the lectures and practical courses, but her secondary-
school diploma did not allow her to take the academic
Mendel’s Law for Continuous Characters. After 1899 she
examinations. In 1892 she obtained a teacher’s certificate
continued her research at the Botanical Laboratory in
in physics, chemistry, and cosmography and later, in
Groningen in an unpaid position. In 1903 she began
1897, one in botany, zoology, mineralogy, and geology.
After a few years of teaching, she became, in 1897, the research into cultivated flax. Moll managed to arrange that
assistant of the professor of botany Jan Willem Moll and a prize contest, dedicated to the study of flax, was organ-
worked in the Botanical Laboratory in Groningen. ized by the Hollandsche Maatschappij der Wetenschap-
Moll used his friendship with Hugo De Vries to fos- pen (Holland Society of Sciences) at Haarlem, and in May
ter Tammes’s scientific development. De Vries stimulated 1907 Tammes duly won the prize. The jury’s assessment of
her emerging interest in evolution and heredity, and her work was extremely positive. The report was pub-
through Moll’s mediation Tammes worked for a couple of lished in the Society’s proceedings under the title “Der
months in De Vries’s laboratory. However, this visit did Flachsstengel: Eine statistisch-anatomische Monographie”
not result in an appointment as assistant in the phy- (The flax stalk: A statistical-anatomical monograph).
NEW DICTIONARY OF SCIENTIFIC BIOGRAPHY 1
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Tammes Tammes
In the following years Tammes began to hybridize She felt that not enough was known about the genetic
flax varieties. On the basis of this work she proved more constitution of humans to provide a scientific basis for
convincingly than others, including the Swede Herman eugenics. She expected more from improvement of the
Nilsson-Ehle and the American E. M. East, that the social and economic conditions in society. This, however,
heredity of continuous characters could be explained did not prevent her from being a member of the Neder-
within the framework of Mendelian genetics by the landsche Eugenetische Federatie (Dutch Eugenic Federa-
multiple-factor hypothesis. Tammes’s conclusion was tion). Although Tammes cannot be characterized a
more persuasive because she made well-argued claims con- feminist, she stood at the start of Magna Pete, the female
cerning the number of hereditary factors that contributed student organization in Groningen, and was a member of
to the values of the continuous characters involved. She the Dutch branch of the International Federation of Uni-
was able to draw these conclusions because she interpreted versity Women (IFUW). She retired in 1937 at the age of
her experimental data in more probabilistic terms than sixty-six and died in 1947.
others who were publishing on this topic around 1910.
Her work was, however, undervalued by her contempo-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
raries as well as by historians, and her case can therefore be
A bibliography of Tammes’s publications appears in Genetica22
considered an example of the so-called “Matilda effect,”
(1941): 6–8. Seven of Tammes’s articles are reprinted in the
the systematic undervaluation of the scientific achieve-
issue as well.
ments of women.
WORKS BY TAMMES
Professorship. In 1910 Moll recommended Tammes for “Die Periodicität Morphologischer Erscheinungen bei den
an honorary doctorate at the University of Groningen, Pflanzen.” Verhandelingen. Koninklijke Akademie van
Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, 2nd sec., 9, no. 5 (1903):
and she received the honorary degree in 1911. Earlier,
1–148.
Moll had proposed her appointment as an extraordinary
“On the Influence of Nutrition on the Fluctuating Variability of
professor in the theory of heredity and variability. His
Some Plants.” Proceedings of the Section of Science of the
argument in support of a new chair in heredity was based
Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen7 (1904): 398–411.
on the rapid expansion of the field and its potential signif-
Reprinted in Genetica22 (1941): 9–24.
icance for agriculture. He also argued that in the Botani-
“Der Flachsstengel. Eine Statistisch-Anatomische Monographie.”
cal Laboratory there was already available (as he said) “a Natuurkundige Verhandelingen Hollandsche Maatschappij van
person qualified in all respects,” who moreover would Wetenschappen 3, vol. I. 4. Haarlem (1907): 1-285.
probably be willing to accept the “not well-paid job of an “Das Verhalten Fluktuierend Variierender Merkmale bei der
Extraordinary Professor” (Stamhuis, 1995 p. 505). Bastardierung.” Recueil des Travaux Botaniques Néerlandais 8
Although the university accepted Moll’s proposal, the (1911): 201–288. Reprinted in Genetica 22 (1941): 25–88
Minister of Internal Affairs did not approve the appoint- “Some Correlation Phenomena in Hybrids.” Proceedings of the
ment, stating that the establishment of the new professor- Section of Science of the Koninklijke Akademie van
Wetenschappen te Amsterdam15 (1912): 1004–1014.
ship did not seem an urgent matter.
Reprinted in Genetica22 (1941): 91–102.
In April 1912, as Moll’s eyesight was deteriorating,
“Die genotypische Zusammensetzung einiger Varietäten
Tammes began to supervise the practical courses in botany
derselben Art und ihr genetischer Zusammenhang.” Recueil
for students at the University of Groningen. In 1917 Moll’s
des Travaux Botaniques Néerlandais12 (1915): 217–277.
successor started a new campaign to get Tammes appointed Reprinted in Genetica22 (1941): 115–161.
as professor. This campaign resulted in her appointment in De Leer der Erffactoren en hare Toepassing op den Mensch.
1919 as extraordinary professor in variability and heredity. Inaugural address. Groningen: Wolters, 1919.
Tammes became the first person in The Netherlands to
occupy a chair in genetics. She was also the second female OTHER SOURCES
professor in the country and the first at the University of Jaarboek der Rijksuniversiteit te Groningen 1948. Groningen,
Groningen. After her appointment she attended genetics Wolters, 1948. See pp. 62–63.
conferences, visited other genetic institutions, developed Schiemann, Elisabeth. “Tine Tammes zum Gedächtnis.” Die
relationships with other geneticists, and exchanged stu- Züchter.Zeitschrift für theoretische und angewandte Genetik19,
no. 7 (1949): 181–184.
dents, mainly with German institutions. Eight students
Stamhuis, Ida H. “Statistiek en Waarschijnlijkheidsrekening in
gained their doctorate under her guidance. She was editor
het Werk van Tine Tammes (1871–1947).” Gewina 15
of Geneticafrom 1932 to 1943.
(1992): 195–207.
In her inaugural address as professor Tammes
———. “A Female Contribution to Early Genetics … Tine
expressed her skepticism about the growing eugenic Tammes and Mendel’s Laws for Continuous Characters.”
movement and its proposals to improve the human race. Journal of the History of Biology28 (1995): 495–531.
2 NEW DICTIONARY OF SCIENTIFIC BIOGRAPHY
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Tansley Tansley
Westerdijk, Johanna. Mededeelingen van de Nederlandsche year at Trinity, he assisted Oliver in teaching and research
Vereeniging van Vrouwen met Academische Opleiding8 (July at UCL. Despite the challenges of this employment in
1937): 12–13; ibidem14 (March 1948): 2–3.
addition to his Cambridge studies, he obtained a double
Wilde, Inge de. ’Nieuwe Deelgenoten in de Wetenschap’. first in the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1893–1894.
Vrouwelijke Studenten en Docenten aan de Rijksuniversiteit
Tansley continued in the botany department at UCL
Groningen, 1871–1919. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1998.
for the next twelve years working closely with Oliver.
Tansley taught himself German during this period and
Ida H. Stamhuis thus could read the 1896 German translation of Eugenius
Warming’s Plantesamfund and A. F. W. Schimper’s 1898
Pflanzen-Geographie auf Physiologischer Grundlage. Tansley
held that these books were foundational for plant ecology
TANSLEY, SIR ARTHUR GEORGE as they developed concepts of plant communities and
(b. London, England, 15 August 1871; d. Grantchester, detailed relations between plants, soils, and climates. An
England, 25 November 1955), ecology, psychology. admirer of Herbert Spencer’s scientific philosophy, Tans-
A man of twin professional preoccupations, Tansley ley also aided the elderly scholar by overseeing the sections
was the most eminent British ecologist of his generation on plant morphology and physiology in the revised 1899
as well as an important early twentieth-century popular- edition of Spencer’s The Principles of Biology. In
izer of Freudian psychoanalysis. His networking zeal led to 1900–1901 Tansley traveled to Ceylon, the Malaya Penin-
the creation of several key organizations, including the sula, and North Africa in the company of paleobotanist
British Ecological Society (BES), the world’s first national William Henry Lang. Tansley maintained a diary during
society of its kind, and the Nature Conservancy, of which this time, describing human, animal, and plant activity
he was the first chairman. Tansley was an influential edi- with insight and humor. He also corresponded with his
tor and also worked to clarify both psychological and eco- former student, co-author, and future wife, Edith Chick.
logical terminology. In 1935, he introduced a central and Edith was the daughter of a lace merchant, Samuel Chick,
still relevant concept—the “ecosystem.” and her six well-educated sisters included Harriet Chick,
a nutritionist who was later appointed a Dame in the
Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her achievements.
Early Influences. Tansley was the only son and youngest
Tansley married Edith in 1903 and they had three daugh-
child of Amelia Lawrence and George Tansley. George had
ters, Katharine, Margaret, and Helen, who were to
a lucrative business organizing society functions, and,
become a physiologist, an architect, and an economist,
after early retirement, he devoted his full energies to vol-
respectively.
untary teaching at the Working Man’s College, where his
real enthusiasm lay. Arthur became enthralled by field
botany as a young teenager due in part to the example set Plant Geography and the New Ecology. In 1906, Tansley
by the masters at his preparatory school at Worthing who returned to Cambridge on his appointment to a university
were avid field naturalists. His botanical library began to lectureship in botany. His family took up residence at
grow at this time and included Edwin Lee’s Botany of the Grove Cottage in the nearby village of Grantchester. Tans-
Malvern Hills and J. G. Baker’s Elementary Lessons in ley had by this time already demonstrated one of his key
Botanical Geography. From the age of fifteen, Arthur was attributes: his gift for organizing and leading scientific
educated (poorly, he judged) at Highgate School and, enterprises, acting as catalyst in a group of like-minded
seeking better instruction, his father enrolled him in sci- enthusiasts. He was now editor of a botanical journal, The
ence classes at University College, London (UCL) in New Phytologist,begun in 1902 and funded by his private
1889. Here the botanist Francis Wall Oliver aroused Tans- income. Besides providing, as he hoped, a “medium of
ley’s interest in ferns and bryophytes and would later share easy communication” and discussion on all matters of
Tansley’s excitement for the new subject of ecology. In botanical research and teaching, Tansley was able to
1890 Tansley entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where recruit leading authors able to stimulate and direct
he studied botany, physiology, zoology, and geology and, research in the new areas of plant physiology, ecology, and
as he recalled, took part in the “usual interminable discus- genetics (Godwin, 1985, p. 2). Already a fellow of the
sions on the universe—on philosophy, psychology, reli- Linnean Society, Tansley was pivotal in wedding the activ-
gion, politics, art and sex” (Cameron, 1999, p. 6). An ities of naturalist societies to the interests of professional
early extracurricular interest in psychology appears to have botanists in the national survey projects of the British Veg-
manifested in his character study and counsel of his etation Committee, which he co-founded in 1904.
friend, Bertrand Russell, with whom he worked on a stu- As the scope of this necessarily collaborative phyto-
dent journal, The Cambridge Observer. During his final geographical activity was broadened to include botanists
NEW DICTIONARY OF SCIENTIFIC BIOGRAPHY 3
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Tansley Tansley
from outside Britain, Tansley organized the first Interna- American plant ecologists Cowles and Frederic Edward
tional Phytogeographical Excursion (IPE). Tansley indi- Clements were particularly attuned to the dynamicaspects
cated in The New Phytologist that his initiative attempted of vegetation. This was in sharp contrast to static mor-
to redress the confusing situation in which “Workers in phology and “descriptive” botany, with its emphasis on
different countries use different names for the same thing species lists. Clements, another member of the 1911 IPE,
and the same name for different things” (1911, p. 273). argued that the plant formation was a “complex organism”
The main split was between continental plant sociology that developed progressively toward a single end point, the
and Anglo-American plant ecology. The continental “climatic climax.” His method stressed the compatibility
approach emphasized floristic composition with “associa- of physiology and ecology, for he believed the structure
tion” as the central unit. The Americans and the British and functions of the “complex organism” could be exam-
emphasized the dynamic nature of vegetation, the study of ined in the same way that physiology approached the indi-
the process of vegetational change known as “plant succes- vidual organism. Tansley initially supported Clements’s
sion,” and the “formation” as the fundamental unit of successional approach to vegetation as a shared endeavor,
analysis of which the “association” is only a stage in devel- but over the next two decades would increasingly voice
opment. In order to create some consensus concerning the discomfort with Clements’s choice of terminology, the
concepts and language of ecological plant geography, organismic analogy and belief in the monoclimax.
Tansley brought together leading plant geographers and Clementsian ecology emphasized that natural vegeta-
other botanical experts from Europe and North America tion, progressing toward normal climax, existed in isola-
to explore together the vegetation of a particular host tion from humans. Tansley asserted that in a country
country. It was held first in the British Isles and the group where humans have so extensively modified the vegeta-
(eleven distinguished guests from foreign countries and a tion, most of what the ecologist could study was semi-
varying number of regional experts) traveled for four natural. The country Tansley had in mind was his beloved
weeks in the month of August 1911, ending up in England, and he had another name for these touched
Portsmouth for the meeting of the British Association. landscapes: “anthropogenic nature,” which meant nature
The American ecologist Henry Chandler Cowles, produced by man. The term recognized that the distinc-
who would host the second IPE in America in 1913, tive vegetation of the English countryside that he and his
declared the IPE a great success, noting in The Botanical colleagues were working to survey, such as the fens,
Gazette that “The chief result of this excursion has been to moors, heaths, and woodlands, often depended as much
internationalize for all time the subject of plant geogra- on the intervening hand of human beings as so-called
phy, and to divest it of the provincialism which has hith- “nature.” From 1908 on, Tansley had begun to recognize
erto too greatly characterized it” (1912, p. 348). To and inspire the first research on biotic effects, those factors
acquaint the non-British scientists with local vegetation, due to organisms, and when directly or indirectly due to
of which they knew virtually nothing, Tansley edited Types human activity give rise to communities of semi-natural
of British Vegetation (1911) for the IPE. The book was the vegetation. In 1916, after Tansley was wounded in World
first systematic description of British vegetation, and War I, his research student Ernest Pickworth Farrow
immediately found a larger home market besides the returned to Cambridge to complete one of these early
invited foreign botanists who received advance copies. studies, an investigation of biotic successions associated
Contributors included established scholars as well as with rabbit attacks on the vegetation of Breckland.
emerging botanical workers such as Marietta Pallis, who Another student, Alexander Stuart Watt, examined the
had completed new research on the Norfolk Broads vege- effects of grazing on English woodlands. Unlike
tation. The IPE became a thriving twentieth-century Clements, Tansley wanted to speak of many kinds of veg-
institution (the last excursion was held in Poland in etation climaxes, including anthropogenic climaxes
1991), meeting every two to four years in a different caused by fire, grazing, or by mowing. Such an apprecia-
country, with its headquarters at the Geobotanical Insti- tion of polyclimax implied that the semi-natural and dis-
tute of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in turbed or tended vegetation was to be given as much
Zürich. attention and value as the so-called “natural.”
In 1913 the British Vegetation Committee became Eager to promote and properly teach the new ecol-
the British Ecological Society, the world’s first ecological ogy, Tansley used his editorial authority to agitate for
organization. Tansley was its first president and also acted change in university botany courses. The 1917 so-called
as editor of the new society’s Journal of Ecologyfrom 1917 “Manifesto” in The New Phytologist(signed by Tansley and
to 1938. In 1915, he was elected fellow of the Royal Soci- Oliver amongst others) pleaded for a vitalized and practi-
ety; this was an important honor for him, and in later cal curriculum, to be based on plant physiology and ecol-
years he would always add the letters “FRS” to his signa- ogy alongside, rather than subordinate to, the currently
ture. Early proponents of ecology such as Tansley and the dominant morphology. Tansley’s ideas for reform were
4 NEW DICTIONARY OF SCIENTIFIC BIOGRAPHY