Making Evolution Visible, Controllable, and Useful: A History of Early Experimental Evolution

Abstract

How to control evolution? This question has animated biologists for nearly 150 years and for breeders, some time longer. Charles Darwin’s theorization of evolution by natural selection was in part an analysis of extant breeding practices, what he called an “experiment on a gigantic scale.” Therefore, from its very beginning, the science of evolution was a study of how to control it, mediated by experimentation. This dissertation argues for the centrality of experimentation in the development of evolutionary biology. What is called experimental evolution today, a growing field of study popularized by Richard Lenski’s Long-Term Evolution Experiment, is an elaboration upon a rich bedrock laid by long-neglected biologists and breeders. For this dissertation, I consider experimental evolution to be controlled studies of natural evolutionary processes, such as selection, mutation, and inbreeding, usually over multiple generations. Throughout the dissertation I examine the motivations of scientists, their epistemological arguments in favor of experimentation, the efforts they exerted to make it possible (such as building research institutions), their contributions to the science of evolution, as well as the influence of capitalism and how practice and theory interacted. Through their various methods, theories, and motivations, what emerged was the scientific desire to make evolution visible, controllable, and useful.