Before August Weismann, the explanation of how a human body developed and then later aggregated sexual material for reproduction was dominated by Charles Darwin’s theory of of Pangenesis. The theory basically stated that every cell in the body emitted hundreds of tiny germ like materials, called “gemmules”. These gemmules then aggregated in the reproductive organs, ready for reproduction.
In the early 1880s the imminent German biologist August Weismann took it upon himself to re-evaluate the problem of heredity and found that the recent research of the era came to serious odds with Darwin’s suppositions. The main change that Weismann proposed was that the body(or soma) is not responsible for governing the material of heredity(the germ line), but rather, that the germ line governed the soma, and then like any good aristocrat, isolated itself from the trials of the plebs as much as possible.
The net result of such a thought leads one to conclude that while the soma is vulnerable to damage over time, the germ line somehow remains untainted as it is passed down from generation to generation.
Another interesting result of Weismann’s finding is how often great thinkers have to come along and pull together current research to create a paradigm shift in the central dogma of the time…and perhaps more to the point, how important it is to have a central dogma to be overthrown.
Could Weismann have really reached his conclusions about the germ line had it not been for Darwin’s earlier (flawed) work? We can understand the appeal of Darwin’s somatic-driven logic: sexual reproduction is not reached until later in life, the somatic cells seem to come first, where else could germ line material come from? Thanks to the scientific method, observational data eventually proved Darwin’s logic wrong…however, it was perhaps Darwin’s incorrect theory which most prompted the search for observational data in the first place.
We see a similar situation in the history of cell theory where Theodore Schwann adamantly advocated that cells originated from a kind of Spontaneous generation of sugars in the body. Again, the theory has appeal, spontaneous generation is still our current explanation for the origin of life on earth. However, as microscopes improved and the process of cell division that we now call mitosis became elucidated Schwann’s work got set aside as an artifact of thought, and a new central dogma took its place.
This leaves us with two appealing questions:
- What current theories do we have today that will eventually succumb to observational evidence?
- What theories can we propose to challenge scientists to find observational evidence disproving our thoughts?
The theory I would like to suggest is that the stem cells of our body have the ability to fully regenerate every organ and system within the body. As the MIT tech review reported today such work at Fate Therapeutics is already underway. I can’t wait to see what they come up with.
