Ted Steele drinks a toast to scientific survivors at the launch of Lamarck's Signature
How biologists raised the evolutionary dead
Ted Steele drinks a toast to scientific survivors at the launch of Lamarck's
Signature
If Charles Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest is applied to the
scientific establishment, then Ted Steele has had to be extremely fit.
It was a dispute over Darwin’s ideas that first tested the survival skills of Associate Professor Steele, of the Department of Biological Sciences.
He brought the combined wrath of British science upon his head in the late 70s when he questioned an evolutionary sacred cow, attempting to take a fresh look at some of the ideas of French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck.
Lamarck and Darwin disagreed on a key point: Lamarck argued physical characteristics acquired during the life of a parent, could be passed onto offspring.
Darwin’s theory of natural selection ‘proved’ Lamarck wrong, even though Darwin himself remained open to debate.
Put simply, Lamarck argued giraffes gained long necks by stretching for out-of-reach food and could pass ‘improvements’ on in one generation.
However, the theory of natural selection said shorter-necked giraffes were simply not effective in the survival stakes and died out.
The theory of natural selection, espoused more rigidly and championed more ruthlessly by neo-Darwinists than by Darwin himself, coupled with the work of German scientist August Weismann, were the two heavy doors Ted Steele has found himself battering against for the past 20 years.
Weismann argued that there was no way changes in body cells could be transferred to sperm or ova, and therefore no way changes could be passed on to offspring.
Weismann’s Barrier, as his concept was tagged, locked Lamarck out in the scientific cold for more than a century.
Professor Steele has crashed through the barrier.
He explains how in a book launched at the University of Wollongong on 14 September with co-authors Dr Robyn Lindley from the School of Information Technology and Computer Science and ANU collaborator Professor Bob Blanden.
Professor Blanden heads the Division of Immunology and Cell Biology at the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra.
Their book Lamarck’s Signature (Allen & Unwin) maps Steele’s controversial career and the science underpinning his tilt at Weismann’s Barrier.
Professor Steele and collaborators have shown it is possible for a characteristic acquired in one generation - an immune response for instance - to be passed onto to offspring.
Rather than overturning Darwin, a space has been created for Lamarckian inheritance within the broader scheme of the theory of evolution.
Dr Keith Tognetti and Associate Professor John Schuster launched the book before a large crowd in the UniCentre Bookshop.
Professor Steele’s ideas have attracted the attention of the national media and an ABC Television Lateline crew filmed the launch.
Professor Schuster argued that Professor Steele’s challenge to ‘survival of the fittest’ will resonate outside science, just as Darwin’s theories were interpreted socially and politically.
A full text versionof Professor Schuster’s speech can be found in Extra Bytes.
Dr Geoff Brooks, a materials engineer at the University of Wollongong, is the first person outside North America to win the prestigious Iron and Steel Society award.
Engineering academics around the world compete for the Ferrous Metallurgy Grant each year, using the funds for an educational project.
It is keenly contested and past winners include the Colorado School of Mines, Carnegie Mellon University, Ohio State University and Michigan Technological University.
Dr Brooks will use the award to fund undergraduate scholarships and overseas travel grants for students. Wollongong students will be able to study for up to a year in leading US or Canadian universities.
The award recognises the University of Wollongong’s international reputation in the steel industry. The application had support from the Department of Materials Engineering, the Institute for Steel Processing and Products and BHP Integrated Steel will provide vacation jobs for scholarship winners.
Department of Materials Engineering Head Professor Druce Dunne said the award was “emphatic proof of the international stature of the University of Wollongong in the materials field”.
Dr Brooks came to the University of Wollongong in 1993, working with internationally recognised steelmaking experts Professor Howard Worner and Professor Nick Standish, and credits both men with laying the groundwork for his success.
Dr Brooks lectures in the fundamentals of steelmaking and extractive metallurgy at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His colleagues say his enthusiasm and drive have led to a resurgence in student interest in these fields.