GENETIC ANALYSIS
Raphael Falk
1 INTRODUCTION
Genetic analysis is the art of analyzing the phenomena of heredity by hybridization.
It has been introduced in 1865 by Gregor Mendel.
Plant and animal hybridization has been a common domestication practice since
pre-historic times. In the late eighteenth century, following Linnaeus, hybridization
became a major tool in scientific studies of taxonomy and the modifiability of
species. Br ̈unn (now Brno, in the Czech Republic) of the nineteenth century, a
center of ambitious economic breeding that aspired to establish hybridization on
sound scientific principles, exposed the young Mendel to both of its aspects [Orel,
1984; 1996]. Deeply involved in his ecclesiastical philosophy, as well in his scientific
training and practical experience [Falk, 2001a], Mendel introduced in his talk to
the monthly meeting of the Natural Science Section of the Agricultural Society
of Brno [Mendel, 1866/1966] two new ingredients to hybridization work, which
turned it into a powerful analytic research methodology:
- Itemization of characters, viewing characteristics asphenomenaper se, dis-
regarding their particularities. - Analyzing the hybridization results as scientific data that should be described
bymeasurementsexpressed in numerical terms.
These were the two elements that had been the core of the physical sciences
for the last three centuries: Galileo observed the falling stone not as a stone
but as a fallingbody, a phenomenon that could be generalized, and expressed his
observations of this phenomenon innumericalrelationships.
Although the discussions on the extent to which the science of heredity, es-
tablished in 1900, was founded on Mendel’s notion of a theory of heredity still
rages [Falk, 1995b; Falk and Sarkar, 1991; Kottler, 1979; Meijer, 1985; Monaghan
and Corcos, 1990; Olby, 1979; Stamhuis, 1995; Stamhuiset al. 1999; Theunis-
sen, 1994], there can be little doubt that themethodology of genetic analysiswas
that introduced by Mendel in his paper of 1865. Genetic analysis has been deal-
ing with the phenomenon of heredity by parsing it into unit-entities (traits or
unit-characters — including DNA nucleotides — beingmarkersof these entities),
the inheritance of which could be followed by measurable numerical relationships
General editors: Dov M. Gabbay,
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Handbook of the Philosophy of Science. Philosophy of Biology
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