So we're fusing two crappy mid-90s movies here -- Bio-Dome and Hot Shots! Part Deux -- but bear with me, this has nothing to do with the cinema. Inspired by Chad's attempt to come up with a Mount Rushmore for all of science, I decided to narrow the scope and create a Mount Biodome (limited to the life sciences). My three suggestions for sure locks were Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel and Thomas Hunt Morgan. Darwin and Mendel will make everyone's list, but my nomination of Morgan did not go over so well (as I suspected). Some more nominations can be found below the fold...
If we ignore Morgan, the nominees for the other two spots are (in order of nomination in the comments):
- Aristotle: As Algerine put it, "He's considered the Father of Biology, after all." My problem with Aristotle was that he existed prior to there being a field of biology. His influence on the sciences is immeasurable, but the Greeks also influenced democracy and I don't see any dudes in robes up on Mount Rushmore.
- R.A. Fisher: One of the founding fathers of population genetics, Fisher is also one of the most important figures in statistics. While I think his contributions to evolutionary biology are huge, the scope of his findings is limited to quantitative genetics. He did receive a fair bit of support in the comments, but that could be because my comments section is populated by evolutionary biologists. I, personally, would leave him off Mount Biodome in favor of Morgan. Feel free to berate me for that in the comments.
- Carolus Linnaeus: The father of taxonomy definitely deserves consideration, but does he belong on Mount Biodome? I'll leave it up to you to decide.
- William Harvey: Harvey was the first to describe the circulatory system, wherein the heart pumps blood out to the body and that blood then returns to the heart to be pumped out again. Previously it was thought that there were two types of blood in the body: blood that originated in the heart and blood that originated in the liver. That's a fairly important discovery.
- James Watson, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin: They all co-discovered the structure of DNA (along with Maurice Wilkins). Which one deserves to go up on Mount Biodome?
- Louis Pasteur: Confirming the germ theory of disease is a pretty big discovery. Pasteur gets my vote to go up on Mount Biodome (I'd even throw him up there in place of Morgan).
- Kary Mullis: Dude tripped his balls off and came up with PCR. I listed this as the Biggest Technological Innovation in biology in the 20th century (along with Sanger sequencing). But Mullis was far from a spectacular scientist. Aside from PCR, what else did he do? Oh, he's also an HIV/AIDS skeptic.
- Ignaz Semmelweis: He showed that hand washing can prevent disease transmission. He definitely deserves to go up on the Mount Rushmore for obsessive compulsives, but does he belong on Mount Biodome?
- Sewall Wright, J.B.S. Haldane, and John Maynard Smith: If we were creating a monument to population geneticists, they'd definitely go up there along with R.A. Fisher. I'm not sure they belong on Mount Biodome in place of some of the other important figures.
What do you think? Leave a comment with the two people you think belong up on Mount Biodome with Darwin and Mendel. Feel free to suggest any others that have been omitted from the list. Also, note the amount of people on this list whose research has an evolutionary slant -- nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution, bitches!
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I think Morgan should definitely be on Mt. Biodome as for the rest I think I would go with either Pasteur or Harvey or, someone not mentioned on the list, Margulis...
Well, I did say Harvey should occupy the Roosevelt spot. He would definitely be the Stu Suttcliffe of this group.
I am much more impressed by theoretical discoveries than technological discoveries. Just like the discovery of a new planet should rank below a precise description of orbital motion, I think the discovery of DNA structure should rank far below Linnaeus's taxonomical system, one of the all-time great organising schemes.
Maybe we include a four-faced head, one face for each of the Modern Synthesists?
How about Oswald Avery?
Paul Ehrlich? (not the Stanford Prof, though I'm sure he's great)
I'd definitely put Pasteur (or maybe Koch, or a "morph" of the two, since their competition is what fostered the Golden Age of Microbiology)
You need more than 4 spots...
You need more than 4 spots...
That's what makes it fun.
van leuwenhoek, dammit! Secondarily to Hooke for the compound microscope. On second thought, why not just forgoe the people, and put "the microscope" on mount biodome?
Did I even spell that correctly?
Anyway, where would we be without the idea of the very small? No cells, no germ theory, not much at all.
I say keep Morgan up there (then again, I have a polydactyl cat named Morgan in honor of the geneticist, so perhaps I have issues). And I'd go with Pasteur. He does already have a crypt decorated with mosaics of his most important accomplishments, including a great scene with rabid dogs.
van leuwenhoek, dammit!
Ooh, good one. Before that, I would have said Rosalind Franklin and Linnaeus. Now I'm torn.
I think that Schleiden and Schwann should take a spot. They came up with cell theory after all, and a goodly time after the microscope was in common use, so IMO they are mor eworthy than Leeuwenhoek or even the wonderful Nehemiah Grew, whose histology illustrations of plants are classics. And what about Pierre Belon?
Damned modernists - think that everything happened in the last 100 years...
If the debate is about Watson/Crick/Franklin, it has to be Crick for me. His work following the discovery of DNA structure (the adaptor hypothesis, the genetic code) established 'molecular biology'.
Plus, he's been one of the few people in recent times to actually take on consciousness.