The Case of the Midwife Toad: Fraud or Epigenetics?

摘要

Paul Kammerer has been called the perpetrator of one of the most celebrated scientific frauds of the early 20th century. He has also been defended as the victim of forgery by a lab assistant; some even say he was framed by political or scientific opponents. Now, a new analysis published this week suggests that his infamous experiments may have been the first demonstrations of a recently recognized phenomenon: epigenetics.rnThe story starts in the early 1900s. Kammerer, an Austrian biologist, argued strongly in favor of the Lamarckian view that traits acquired during an organism's lifetime could be passed on to future generations. He claimed to have observed Lamarckian inheritance in various organisms, including salamanders and tunicates, but his most publicized evidence came from the midwife toad, Alytes obstetricans.