CCB Seminar: Scott F. Gilbert, Ph.D.
Speaker: Scott F. Gilbert, Ph.D., Swarthmore College
Title: SPERM TALES: HOW A FALSE REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY IS MISREPRESENTED AS SCIENCE
The public is being told several mutually supporting myths about human reproduction and development that pretend to be science. These myths play important roles in how the public envisions when a new life begins and when abortion should be legal. The irst myth is that fertilization is solely a story of sperm performance. Indeed, the popular view of fertilization is patterned by the classical “myth of the hero.” The scientific story of fertilization is one of remarkable interactions between the gametes and between the gametes and the female reproductive system. The second myth is that DNA is our “soul,” our essence, and that our physical and behavioral phenotypes are derived almost exclusively from our genome. This has become a very popular view, although the science behind it is very weak, and there are numerous counterexamples. The third myth is that the uterus is merely a vessel for the fetus and that birth is merely delivery from that vessel. I will attempt to show that birth is more like metamorphosis than migration. These three myths inform and give support for each other’s misinformation. The developmental biology concerning fertilization, phenotype production, and birth should be publicized more frequently to prevent the misuse of science for ideological and political concerns.
Scott F. Gilbert is the Howard A. Schneiderman Professor of Biology (emeritus) at Swarthmore College, where he has taught embryology and the history and critiques of biology. He is also a Finland Distinguished Professor (emeritus) at the University of Helsinki. Scott’s biological research concerns how changes in embryonic development can generate evolutionary novelties, focusing how changes in gene expression create the shell of the turtle and how microbes generate the rumen of cattle. Scott is the author or co-author of the textbooks Developmental Biology (presently in its 13th edition), Ecological Developmental Biology (now in its second edition and being revised with David Pfennig), Evolution Evolving, as well as Fear, Wonder, and Science in the Age of Reproductive Biotechnology, a trade-book concerning both the scientific and emotional aspects of reproductive biotechnology. Scott has also participated in numerous meetings concerning science and religion. Most notably, he spoke at the International Conference on Ontogeny and the Origin of Life at the Pontifical Athenaeum ‘Regina Apostolorum’, in Rome; and he gave a lecture on developmental biology to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama at the Drepung Monastery, Mundgod, India.