Virtues and vocation: An historical perspective on scientific integrity in the twenty-first century.

According to the Dutch chemist Gerrit Jan Mulder (1802-1880), the principal aim of university education was character building and moral edification. Professional training was of secondary importance. Mulder's ideas about the vocation and moral mission of the university professor can serve as a historical counterpart to later Weberian, Mertonian, and contemporary ideas on the ethos of science. I argue that a revaluation of the moral precepts that Mulder saw as defining the life of an academic is helpful in dealing with the problems of late modern science, such as the replication crisis and research misconduct. Addressing such problems must start in the university classrooms. To empower students to internalize the principles of responsible conduct of research, we need an updated version of Mulder's idea of the university professor as a moral agent.

It's Groundhog Day! What Can the History of Science Say About the Crisis in Alzheimer's Disease Research?

For years now, Alzheimer's disease (AD) research has been stuck in a Groundhog-Day scenario: an endless time loop with no breakthrough in sight. Disagreement about the validity of the field's dominant approach, based on the Amyloid Cascade Hypothesis, has led to a seemingly unresolvable trench war between proponents and critics. Our paper evaluates the recent scientific literature on AD from a historical and philosophical perspective. We show that AD research is a classic example of the boundary work at play in a field in crisis: both parties deploy historical and philosophical references to illustrate what counts as good and bad science, as proper scientific method and appropriate scientific conduct. We also show that boundary work has proved unable to point a way out of the deadlock and argue that the science system's tools for establishing scientific quality, such as peer review and the grant system, are unlikely to resolve the crisis. Rather, they consolidate the dominant model's position even more. In conclusion, we suggest that some kind of reverse boundary-work is needed that reopens the discussion on the nature of AD, an issue that has never been settled scientifically. Drawing on historical and philosophical work, we make clear that the definition of AD as a biomedical disease for which a cure can be found has consequences, not only for funding opportunities, but also for patients and their lives. A reconsideration of the desirability of these consequences may lead to different choices with respect to research priorities and patient care.

Practical animal breeding as the key to an integrated view of genetics, eugenics and evolutionary theory: Arend L. Hagedoorn (1885-1953).

In the history of genetics Arend Hagedoorn (1885-1953) is mainly known for the 'Hagedoorn effect', which states that part of the changes in variability that populations undergo over time are due to chance effects. Leaving this contribution aside, Hagedoorn's work has received scarcely any attention from historians. This is mainly due to the fact that Hagedoorn was an expert in animal breeding, a field that historians have only recently begun to explore. His work provides an example of how a prominent geneticist envisaged animal breeding to be reformed by the new science of heredity. Hagedoorn, a pupil of Hugo de Vries, tried to integrate his insights as a Mendelian geneticist and an animal breeding expert in a unified view of heredity, eugenics and evolution. In this paper I aim to elucidate how these fields were connected in Hagedoorn's work.

Breeding for nobility or for production? Cultures of dairy cattle breeding in the Netherlands, 1945-1995.

In the 1970s and 1980s Dutch farmers replaced their dual-purpose Friesian cows with Holsteins, a highly specialized American dairy breed. The changeover was related to a major turnabout in breeding practices that involved the adoption of quantitative genetics. Dutch commercial breeders had long resisted the quantitative approach to breeding that scientists had been recommending since World War II. After about 1970, however, they gave up their resistance: the art of breeding, it was said, finally became a science. In historical overviews this turnabout is seen as part of what is called the "modernization project" in Dutch agriculture that the government instigated after the war. Economic developments are assumed to have necessitated this project, and specialization of production is seen as a natural consequence. This essay argues that the idea that the art of breeding was turned into a science is to a certain extent misleading. Furthermore, it aims to show that economic pressures and government policies cannot adequately explain the turn toward Holsteins. A better understanding can be obtained by framing the Holsteinization process as the result of a changeover in breeding culture--that is, in the ensemble of shared convictions, beliefs, conventions, methods, practices, and the like that characterized practical cattle breeding and that involved scientific, technical, economic, aesthetic, normative, and commercial considerations.

Darwin and his pigeons. The analogy between artificial and natural selection revisited.

The analogy between artificial selection of domestic varieties and natural selection in nature was a vital element of Darwin's argument in his Origin of Species. Ever since, the image of breeders creating new varieties by artificial selection has served as a convincing illustration of how the theory works. In this paper I argue that we need to reconsider our understanding of Darwin's analogy. Contrary to what is often assumed, nineteenth-century animal breeding practices constituted a highly controversial field that was fraught with difficulties. It was only with considerable effort that Darwin forged his analogy, and he only succeeded by downplaying the importance of two other breeding techniques - crossing of varieties and inbreeding - that many breeders deemed essential to obtain new varieties. Part of the explanation for Darwin's gloss on breeding practices, I shall argue, was that the methods of his main informants, the breeders of fancy pigeons, were not representative of what went on in the breeding world at large. Darwin seems to have been eager to take the pigeon fanciers at their word, however, as it was only their methods that provided him with the perfect analogy with natural selection. Thus while his studies of domestic varieties were important for the development of the concept of natural selection, the reverse was also true: Darwin's comprehension of breeding practices was moulded by his understanding of the working of natural selection in nature. Historical studies of domestic breeding practices in the eighteenth and nineteenth century confirm that, besides selection, the techniques of inbreeding and crossing were much more important than Darwin's interpretation allowed for. And they still are today. This calls for a reconsideration of the pedagogic use of Darwin's analogy too.

[A beautiful cow is a good cow. Dutch scientists and commercial breeders on cattle breeding, 1900-1950]. / Een mooie koe is een goede koe. Wetenschappers en practici over de Nederlandse rundveefokkerij, 1900-1950.

In the agricultural journal De Nieuwe Veldbode of 1941 Dutch scientists, agricultural engineers, commercial cattle breeders and herd-book officials engaged in a prolonged debate about cattle breeding methods. Geneticist Arend Hagedoorn started the debate by accusing commercial breeders of deceiving their buyers. In his view, breeders were merely interested in producing beautiful show bulls that could be sold for high prices, and they ignored the animals' hereditary potential for milk production. Rational breeding, he argued, required progeny testing: only the production of his daughters should decide on a bull's merits. Commercial breeders denied the charge. They did indeed select for conformation, not however for aesthetic reasons, but to safeguard the health and durability of the breed. In their view, selecting for production was not feasible in practice and would, moreover, lead to the degeneration of the breed. In this article I explore the backgrounds of this debate by investigating the different views of scientists and practical breeders on theory and practice of cattle breeding in the first half of the century. I shall show that to understand the different viewpoints, the practical realities of dairy farming under Dutch circumstances, commercial considerations and normative ideas on good farming have to be taken into account.

Breeding without Mendelism: theory and practice of dairy cattle breeding in the Netherlands 1900-1950.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Dutch scientists became increasingly critical of the practices of commercial dairy cattle breeders. Milk yields had hardly increased for decades, and the scientists believed this to be due to the fact that breeders still judged the hereditary potential of their animals on the basis of outward characteristics. An objective verdict on the qualities of breeding stock could only be obtained by progeny testing, the scientists contended: the best animals were those that produced the most productive offspring. Some scientists had been making this claim since the beginning of the twentieth century. Why was it that their advice was apparently not heeded by breeders for so long? And what were the methods and beliefs that guided their practices? In this paper I intend to answer these questions by analysing the practical realities of dairy farming and stock breeding in The Netherlands between 1900 and 1950. Breeders continued to employ traditional breeding methods that had proven their effectiveness since the late eighteenth century. Their methods consisted in inbreeding--breeding in 'bloodlines,' as they called it--and selection on the basis of pedigree, conformation and milk recording data. Their aims were 'purity' and 'uniformity' of type. Progeny testing was not practiced due to practical difficulties. Before World War II, scientists acknowledged that genetic theory was of little practical use to breeders of livestock. Still, hereditary theory was considered to be helpful to assess the value of the breeders' methods. For instance, striving for purity was deemed to be consistent with Mendelian theory. Yet the term purity had different connotations for scientists and practical workers. For the former, it referred to homozygosity; for the latter, it rather buttressed the constancy of a distinct commercial 'brand.' Until the 1940s, practical breeders and most scientists were agreed that selecting animals purely for production was ill-advised. Cows of the extreme dairy type were believed to be prone to bovine tuberculosis. This conviction was at the basis of the development of 'the modern Friesian,' a rather robust type of dairy cow that was also valued for its aesthetically pleasing conformation and that became a commercial success. Contrary to the scientists' claims, it was not only for commercial reasons that breeders were reluctant to give up their modern Friesians after World War II, when the introduction of artificial insemination opened up the possibility of breeding more productive types by means of progeny testing. The political economy of breeding did indeed require breeders to protect their breed as a recognisable brand. Yet the moral economy of breeding must also be taken into account: the modern Friesian was also a product of widely shared normative standards of good and responsible farming.