Genetics, paleontology, and evolution / edited by Glenn L. Jepsen, Ernst Mayr, George Gaylord Simpson, for the Committee on Common Problems of Genetics, Paleontology, and Systematics, of the National Research Council.

Date:
1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Genetics, paleontology, and evolution / edited by Glenn L. Jepsen, Ernst Mayr, George Gaylord Simpson, for the Committee on Common Problems of Genetics, Paleontology, and Systematics, of the National Research Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/502 (page VI)
    degree of reliability of stratigraphie and paleontologie methods and the validity of generalizations proposed by paleontologists, and that special ists in the several evolutionary disciplines should learn each other's languages. It was further decided that workers in genetics and paleontology should be brought together in a large committee which could be divided into two geographical subcommittees, an eastern group and a western group, to be concerned respectively with zoological and with botanical aspects of the problems. Organization under the National Research Council followed, as reported above. In June of 1943 the western group met for three days in Berkeley at the University of California and the eastern group convened for two days at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. A report of these meetings, including abstracts of the papers and discussions, was distributed to the Committee members and to other specialists. These discussions revealed some of the kinds of information which could be profitably exchanged between geneticists and paleontologists in the synthetic attack upon the common problems, and also showed what aspects of each field are crucial for coordinate research in the other. Soon war conditions made it impossible to hold meetings, but a plan was developed whereby members exchanged questions and answers by letters, and the correspondence thus stimulated was mimeographed and dis tributed, under the editorship of Ernst Mayr, in four bulletins which totaled 115 pages. These communications not only heightened the interest and increased the knowledge of the committee members and others but aided in still further defining the subjects which might most profitably receive co operative attention and be the basis for this final symposial volume. Reading lists in the three fields of the Committee's name were compiled and distributed in furtherance of the design of mutual education. These methods of exchanging information and ideas stimulated new research, and some synthetic studies of previous research resulted in several pub lications in scientific journals and bulletins. In 1945 a committee member was reported missing in action in Germany. The annual report for the year carried the comment, He continues to be listed as a committee member in the hope that he is a prisoner and may soon return. This hope was fulfilled. Later that year, however, the Committee was saddened by the death of Bruce L. Clark, an active and valued member, on September 23. As plans advanced for the final conference and for the publication of the terminal volume the need became more obvious for a permanent organization to continue and expand the work of the Committee and for the establishment of a journal devoted to the field and to allied subjects.