Free Radicals - Michael Brooks [134]
p. 182 Andreas Schimper made an interesting observation: Margulis tells the story of endosymbiotic theory in L. Margulis and D. Sagan, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species (Basic Books, 2002). A more thorough scientific account is in L. Margulis, Origin of Eukaryotic Cells: Evidence and Research Implications for a Theory (Yale University Press, 1970).
p. 183 biological complexity might have arisen from such arrangements being made permanent: One of Margulis’s early attempts to interest biologists in this history (while she was still married to Carl Sagan) can be found in L. Sagan, ‘On the Origin of Mitosing Cells’, Journal of Theoretical Biology, vol. 14, p. 225 (1967).
p. 184 ‘It may have started when one sort of squirming bacterium invaded another …’: L. Margulis, ‘Gaia is a Tough Bitch’.
p. 185 ‘I was told by an NSF grants officer …’: L. Margulis, ‘Peer Review Attacked’ (letter), The Sciences, vol. 17, p. 31 (1977). It is cited in the eye-opening B. Martin, ‘Bias in Awarding Research Grants’, British Medical Journal, vol. 293, p. 550 (1986), available at http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/86bmj.html
p. 186 Margulis quotes the biologist Carl Clarence Lindegren: The quote comes from C. Lindegren, Cold War in Biology (Planarian Press, 1966), p. 10.
p. 186 the fossil record gives us millions of years of data: L. Margulis, ‘Gaia is a Tough Bitch’.
p. 187 she pulled the prestigious US National Academy of Sciences through the dirt: See, for example, B. Borrell, ‘National Academy as National Enquirer? PNAS Publishes Theory That Caterpillars Originated from Interspecies Sex’, Scientific American Online, 24 August 2009, available at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=national-academy-as-national-enquirer. See also: Z. Corbyn, ‘Probe Leaves Butterfly Paper’s Fate Up in the Air’, Times Higher Education, 1 October 2009, available at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=408496&c=2; S. Kean, ‘Controversy “Proceeding” at National Academy’s Journal’, Science Insider, 1 October 2009, available at http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/10/controversy-pro.html
p. 187 Donald Williamson is an Eeyore amongst scientists: Margulis describes Williamson’s ideas in L. Margulis and D. Sagan, Acquiring Genomes: A Theory of the Origins of Species (Basic Books, 2002), p. 165. She describes her initial contact with him in the BBC radio documentary ‘A Life with … Microbes’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b001k12y. Film-maker Robert Sternberg’s fascinating PhD thesis includes transcripts of parts of this programme, including Williamson’s more pessimistic pronouncements: R.J. Sternberg, ‘Discovery as Invention: a Constructivist Alternative to the Classic Science Documentary’, available at westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/8884/1/Robert_STERNBERG.pdf
p. 188 That’s how Williamson managed to publish: D. Williamson, ‘Caterpillars Evolved from Onychophorans by Hybridogenesis’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 106, p. 19901 (2009).
p. 190 ‘After the very first talk I ever gave at an international symposium …’: J. Rohn, ‘Peer Review Is No Picnic’, Guardian, 6 Sept 2010, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/sep/06/peer-review
p. 191 ‘One likes to think of science as divorced from personalities …’: The quote comes from C. Lindegren, Cold War in Biology (Planarian Press, 1966).
CHAPTER 7
p. 193 In Chandra’s case, the establishment figure was the astronomer Arthur Eddington: Sources on Chandra and Eddington: A. Miller, Empire of the Stars (Little Brown, 2005); ‘Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar’, a compendium of articles on Chandra compiled by Andrew Mylwaganam, available at http://www.tamil.net/people/andrew/subra.htm; E.N. Parker, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910–1995):