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I am interested in gaining insight into the role of microscopic artifacts
in the history of biology. May I impose on list members to contribute
particularly glaring examples of misinterpreation of biological facts due
to improper microscopic technique? I apologize if this is off-topic or a
waste of bandwidth.
Let me provide the first example of a misinterpretation and request your
assistance in learning whether this was due to improper use of the
microscope, or perhaps even malfeasance: Sidney Hickson's early work on
Millepora spp. (Cnidaria:Hydrozoa) fire corals. It seems an incredible
lapse, a wholly fabricated natural history account, one that persisted for
a considerable period in the fabric of the mythology of biological
knowledge. I am interested because reproduction of Millepora platyphylla
is the subject of incompleted thesis research of mine.
Hickson published a report on reproduction of "Millepora" around the end
of the 19th Century. (Anong his other errors he synonomyized all species
of Millepora as ecomorphs of one, M. alcicornis.) In this report, which
I do not have available at this time, he included several plates of
drawings depicting a putative sequence of reproductive events in this
organism. We now understand that his depiction is not even close to the
way that Millepora spp. (which were later redesignated as proper
individual species through painstaking work by Boschma---notwithstanding
the issues recently raised by molecular work) reproduce. The depiction
involved dozens of drawings, and a sequence of events based on a
misinterpretation of what are apparently artifacts.
Hickson (of Cambridge University) worked extensively in the field,
including Indonesia and the Philippines. Was his microscopic work done
in the field? Are members of this list enlightened as to Hickson's
methods?
Hickson's erroneous drawings of the medusae of Millepora lived on for over
3/4 of a century in virtually every Invertebrate Zoology textbook
published until the late 1980s or 1990s. His erroneous description of the
medusa of Millepora as lacking a velum led to the designation of a
separate branch of hydromedusae by Mayer, as the only hydrozoan medusa
without a velum. My unpublished observations in the 1980s as well as
published observations by John Lewis of McGill University showed that the
medusae of Millepora spp. clearly possess a velum.
I apologize for monopolizing the bandwidth. I hope this is as fascinating
a topic for others as for myself, and not considered off-topic.
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1 comment:
It seems particularly late to comment on my own post. Reviewing some of Hickson's work, even though he made serious errors, one becomes more sympathetic.
For one thing, the illustration of the medusa of Millepora deserves to be researched more thoroughly, as he may not have been the original author of the erroneous drawing.
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