Chapter 7 Discussion: Please make it into 3 paragraph:
Thomas Hunt Morgan is a very prominent figure in genetics especially with his work on linkage using fruit flies. It is worth taking a few moments to appreciate his unique education and position to add so much insight into genetics.
Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hunt_Morgan and read up on Dr. Morgan’s life. You are more than welcome to look at other websites or other sources of information instead.
Create a post in the discussion addressing the following questions:
What factors in Dr. Morgan’s background do you think contributed to his success (Think about his family background, education, the time he lived in, etc.)?
How did Dr. Morgan’s work influence his ideas on Darwinian evolution?
What other contributions to genetics did Dr. Morgan have?
Initial Post
Respond to the questions above in a new thread in the discussion forum.
Respond to 2 other posts
Respond to two other student posts reflecting on their responses. Did you agree or disagree? Why? Was it something you had considered? Is there maybe something they should consider?
Post 1:I think there are several factors that Dr. Morgan’s background has contributed to his success. One factor is that he grew up with his family and his dad worked on a plantation which is in the science field. He saw his dad working in the science field which could be a reason he wanted to do something in the science field. Another factor is that he started college at a young age, he studied science in natural history. He studied to get his bachelor’s and then his master’s.
I think Dr. Morgan’s work influenced his ideas on Darwinian evolution in some ways. Dr. Morgan didn’t agree with Darwin at first. All of the scientists thought that natural selection was very interesting which is why they want to research it. Darwinian evolution couldn’t have been found with the genetics part which is what Dr. Morgan found. One contribution to genetics that Dr. Morgan had was that he left a legacy in genetics about genes and the location on chromosomes which allowed biology to become the way it is today.
Post 2:Dr. Morgan’s family history includes plantation slave owners and Confederate soldiers, and he lived in Kentucky in the late 1860s. According to Wikipedia, his family suffered hard difficulties following the civil war and the fall of the Confederacy before he went to college and studied natural history. These qualities, I believe, led to his ability to separate himself from his family’s history and achieve something unrelated to his confederate and slave-owning ancestors. As part of his professional program and undergraduate studies, Dr. Morgan conducted substantial research and obtained numerous offers, grants, professorships, and money to attend different colleges. Morgan rejected Darwin’s theories of evolution and adaptation because his work demonstrated that long-term natural variation among species (Darwin’s specific idea of natural selection leading to evolution) had its limits, instead of attempting to prove Hugo De Vries’ theory of mutations through his work on heredity and linking it to evolution. Dr. Morgan also struggled to accept Darwin’s thesis since it appeared that he had any mechanism to back up his statements and that they were simply put into his research through more observational investigations. Morgan’s work demonstrated that animals share traits through generations, but he did not link it to Darwin’s study. Dr. Morgan was a pioneer in the chromosome theory of inheritance, which demonstrated that genes are linked on a series of chromosomes, and he also conducted a substantial study on embryology and fertilization.