Elof Axel Carlson - How to Construct Your Intellectual Pedigree: A History of Mentoring in Science

In this format names are given, and the pedigree is read from the most recent downward to the most distant mentoring relationship. Unless otherwise discussed, it is assumed that each person named held some sort of academic degree. In my pedigree there are 16 generations to Tartaglia, and all had a university affiliation. In the line of descent from Newell Martin to Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin would be the only member who did not have a university setting for his scientific work. Darwin used his own wealth to support himself and worked at home after returning from the Beaglevoyage. I included Morris Cohen in this vertical pedigree although his contribution was in the humanities. I included him in discussing my own intellectual career because writing books and relating science to the liberal arts has been a major part of my career. There are many ways to prepare intellectual pedigrees and a legend is helpful to readers. Some prefer to construct an academic pedigree from the oldest ancestor on top and most recent scientist at the bottom. The analogy is one of a royal family beginning with the oldest member on top. The tree model assumes the oldest are at the root level and the higher branches are the most recent.

When fleshed out, as I have done in this book, the intellectual pedigree provides an opportunity to study the history of a field, the social circumstances in which academic science was performed, and the way scientific fields moved across Europe and into the New World. I hope many of the scientists and scholars reading this book will prepare their own intellectual pedigrees and make these available to appropriate websites. I do not doubt that scholarly intellectual pedigrees in many fields can be constructed in the major Asian civilizations of India, China, and Japan. They can also be constructed in the Islamic countries. In Japan, genetics and modern experimental biology were brought to their universities by Charles Otis Whitman(18421910) who later taught at the University of Chicago and was first Director of the Marine Biology Laboratory at Woods Hole. Many of the lost works of Greek and Latin scholars were retrieved and translated from the establishment of Islamic centers in Spain and through the Mediterranean ports where works from Asia and the Middle East found a ready market of scholars from Italy, Spain, and Portugal throughout most of the Middle Ages. I have provided brief accounts of the lives of predecessor mentors. They can be expanded (as in pages 1023) if you prepare your own intellectual pedigree.

My preference for a vertical (present to past in a downward path) presentation is based on Newtons famed quote of standing on the shoulders of giants. I like that image of what we owe to the past.

Some issues are difficult to assess. A reading of a book (as in many molecular biologists who read Schrdingers What is Life?) may have an indirect influence on shaping a career because its impact is profound. Similarly, not everyone who attends a lecture that shifts a career makes note of that event. Darwins Origin of Speciesplayed a similar role in the careers of many nineteenth century scientists. Some geneticists did their PhDs with uninspiring mentors but later through reading and attending meetings or having colleagues at their university appointment were fortunate to be shifted into becoming outstanding geneticists. Mendel had no direct heirs to his findings in the 1860s and it was the 1900 rediscovery that made him leapfrog to iconic status. In this more complex sense of how science works, these academic pedigrees are guides rather than proven pathways to the mentoring process most geneticists have experienced.

My estimate for your academic pedigree is that you have a 67 percent chance that you will connect to Newton or Galileo or both. This comes from the tabulation in . In this Appendix, 16 go to Newton, 15 of the lineages go to Galileo, and 15 go to neither Galileo nor Newton.

Table 1Frequency of intellectual pedigrees associated with Newton or Galileo