Introduction to “Working Across Species”

Abstract

Comparison between different animal species is omnipresent in the history of science and medicine but rarely subject to focussed historical analysis. The articles in the “Working Across Species” topical collection address this deficit by looking directly at the practical and epistemic work of cross-species comparison. Drawn from papers presented at a Wellcome-Trust-funded workshop in 2016, these papers investigate various ways that comparison has been made persuasive and successful, in multiple locations, by diverse disciplines, over the course of two centuries. They explore the many different animal features that have been considered to be (or else made) comparable, and the ways that animals have shaped science and medicine through the use of comparison. Authors demonstrate that comparison between species often transcended the range of practices typically employed with experimental animal models, where standardised practises and apparatus were applied to standardised bodies to produce generalizable, objective data; instead, comparison across species has often engaged diverse groups of non-standard species, made use of subjective inferences about phenomena that cannot be directly observed, and inspired analogies that linked physiological and behavioural characteristics with the apparent affective state of non-human animals. Moreover, such comparative practices have also provided unusually fruitful opportunities for collaborative connections between different research traditions and disciplines.

Between mice and sheep: Biotechnology, agricultural science and animal models in late-twentieth century Edinburgh

“…In this article, we have argued that the genesis of that line of research – called the pharming project – and its transition from animal transgenesis to human regenerative medicine can only be fully captured by looking at how the Edinburgh scientists worked across mice and sheep during the last quarter of the twentieth century. More fundamentally, and in line with existing historiography (Kirk & Worboys, 2011; Mason Dentinger & Woods, 2018), this mouse-to-sheep perspective offers new insights on the ways biology and medicine, human and animal health, and reproductive and molecular science interacted during the 1980s and 1990s, a time of financial uncertainty for agricultural research.…”

“…These practices of “working across species” are attracting increasing scholarly interest. They encompass actions beyond a simplistic notion of modelling, among them comparison of results (Mason Dentinger & Woods, 2018), investigation of biological processes underlying different organisms (Ankeny & Leonelli, 2011), and adaptation of medical knowledge – often, but not always, from other animals to humans (Kirk & Worboys, 2011). A common conclusion of this scholarship is that interspecies work is not a simple scalar process, and the translation of results across organisms defies naïve analogies, straightforward planning, or linear progression (Nelson, 2013; Slater, 2005).…”

“…Historians and social scientists have amply investigated the use of mice, but often restricting their analysis to scientific fields in which the rodents modelled human processes. By looking at work across mice and other non-human organisms, we align with appeals to overcome the anthropocentrism of current literature (Kirk & Worboys, 2011; Mason Dentinger & Woods, 2018).…”

Humanising and dehumanising pigs in genomic and transplantation research

“… 18 We may also note a wider iterativity beyond a dyad of two species. As observed by Mason Dentinger & Woods ( 2018 ; see also Hagen 2018 ) in a different context, “comparison was an iterative process: once a basis for comparison between two species was established, it often became a conduit by which increasing numbers of species or increasing numbers of organismic qualities could be justifiably compared.” …”

An Examination of the Effects of Elevated CO2 on Juvenile Salmonids

“…In this study we took the approach of using two species from the same genus and one outgroup from another species but all located within the family Salmonidae. This approach allows for possible patterns to be observed between species but also within a genus (Dentinger and Woods, 2018). This design adds insight into how individuals within the same family may exhibit different sensitivities to elevated CO2.…”