Forging heredity: From metaphor to cause, a reification story

Conserving Functions across Generations: Heredity in Light of Biological Organization

“…Established as a genuine biological concept by the middle of the nineteenth century, heredity 'implies a particular kind of independent causation (mechanism, force)' (López-Beltrán, [1994], p. 214). At the dawn of the twentieth century, classical genetics explained heredity in terms of the presence of the same 'genetic' causal factors in ancestors and offspring (Johannsen [1911]).…”

“…Anything appearing to be a transmitted 'resource' would hence count as being hereditary, and 'heredity' would merge into the broader concept of 'cross-generation stability'. The convergence between heredity and stability would call into question a traditional assumption made by the scientific study of heredity which, since the mid-nineteenth century (López-Beltrán [1994]), has viewed it as a specific explanatory concept. Traditionally, heredity has designated a certain kind of biological stability, associated with a certain kind of causality: it refers to the specific role played by specific stable objects (hereditary factors) in the recurrence of traits.…”

In the Cradle of Heredity; French Physicians and L'Hérédité Naturelle in the Early 19th Century

“…6 The metaphorical, adjectival use in several European languages derive from morbis haereditarii, and was well in place amongst physicians by the 16th century; we thus have "maladies héréditaires," "Erbkrankheit," "hereditary disease" and several variants scattered in medical treatises, with an increasing rate during the 18th century. See Appendix 1 in López-Beltrán, 1992. 7 See Fodéré, 1813, Vol. V, p. 365.…”

“…In contrast, the moral peculiarities of human beings were alternatively linked to, or separated from, the physical (constitution, temperament) in accordance to theological and metaphysical positions. 14 In the late 18th century, when the trend favored materialistic approaches, medics adopted the medical concepts of tempera-10 López- Beltrán, 1992;Olby, 1992;Gayon, 1999;Waller, 2001a. 11 Aliéniste was the name given in France to the early psychiatrists.…”

“…The latter's piece makes an anachronistic complaint against Lucas for not having foreseen that the positive science of genetics was just round the corner. 67 For the situation of hereditarian ideas in Britain in mid 19th century see Waller, 2000a;Hilts, 1967;López-Beltrán, 1992. 68 Biographical data on Lucas can be found in Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIXe siècle, X, 1er partie, p. 760. 69 Buzareingues, 1828, p. 67, quoted by Lucas, 1847 characters he accommodates along two axes: the hierarchical axis of taxonomical and genealogical groupings, and the dualist axis that divides the physical from the mental.…”