To the members of ISHPSSB:
As a member of the editorial board of BioScience, a journal of the
American Institute for Biological Sciences, I would like to call
attention to the members of ISHPSSB that this journal is looking for
articles of general interest to biologists, including articles dealing
with educational, historical, conceptual, and social issues impinging on
(or affected by) work in biology. In addition, the journal has sent out
a challenge to all interested parties to nominate experiments to be
described in the BioScience Beautiful Experiment Contest. There are good opportunities
here for members of ISHPSSB to publish their work in a way that will
reach a wide and interested audience of biologists. I encourage each of
you to consider submitting appropriate work to this journal. Interested
parties should check the two most relevant pages on the journal's web
site, http://www.aibs.org/bioscience/ and
http://www.aibs.org/bioscience/current_issue.html
Richard Burian
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Biology's Most Beautiful
Submit nominations to bioscience@aibs.org by the end of 2003.
BioScience presents readers with an unusual (and, we hope, stimulating)
challenge: to nominate candidates for a short list of the most beautiful
biology experiments. Essays on those that we judge most plausible will
be published in future issues of BioScience.
The notion of selecting experiments by such a subjective criterion as
beauty may seem surprising, but it is not original. John Cairns, a
former director of the Cold Spring Harbor laboratory, told Horace
Freeland Judson that the Meselson-Stahl experiment, which established
the semiconservative nature of DNA replication, was "the most beautiful
experiment in biology." Judson's account of Cairns's assessment in The
Eighth Day of Creation, published in 1979, stimulated the late science
historian Frederic Lawrence Holmes to borrow the characterization for
the subtitle of his 2001 book, Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of
DNA: A History of "The Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology." And a year
ago, Robert P. Crease (2002) asked readers of Physics World for
nominations for the most beautiful experiment in physics.
BioScience does not presume to second-guess Cairns's assessment of the
Meselson-Stahl experiment as "most beautiful," a judgment that Holmes
attributed to the experiment's essential simplicity. But we believe
readers will have their own opinions about other candidates for the
distinction. We trust this criterion will allow latitude for some
less-well-known experiments to be honored and described, as well as for
some famous ones to be considered anew. We plan to solicit and publish
essays of appreciation from qualified experts on those nominated
experiments that seem to be deserving candidates. We will not announce
vote counts or rank the nominated experiments in any way; there will be
no "winner." We encourage readers to suggest beauteous experiments from
all fields of biology, as we intend to cast a wide net. Experiments from
any period in history may be nominated. The Meselson-Stahl experiment,
because it has already been authoritatively honored and described, is
the only biology experiment that will not be considered in the
BioScience lineup.
We will be guided in our consideration of which nominees are worthy
contenders by four distinguished experts: Richard M. Burian, Professor
of Philosophy and Science and Technology Studies at Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University (and a member of the BioScience editorial
board); Jane Maienschein, Regents' Professor of Biology and Society at
Arizona State University; Scott F. Gilbert, Professor of Biology at
Swarthmore College; and John Beatty, Professor of Philosophy at the
University of British Columbia.
Readers should submit their nominations to bioscience@aibs.org by the
end of 2003. Nominations must include proper citations to the experiment
and a brief account (up to 500 words) of why it should be considered one
of the most beautiful experiments in biology.
References cited.
Crease RP. 2002. The most beautiful experiment... Physics World (May).
(15 April 2003; http://physicsweb.org/article/world/15/5/2)
Holmes FL. 2001. Meselson, Stahl, and the Replication of DNA: A History
of "The Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology." Plainview (NY): CSHL
Press.
Judson HF. 1979. The Eighth Day of Creation: The Makers of the
Revolution in Biology. New York: Simon and Schuster.
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Richard M. Burian
Professor of Philosophy and Science Studies
Department of Philosophy - 0126
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, VA 24061
phone: (540) 231-6760 fax: (540) 231-6367
email: rmburian@vt.edu
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