76
Subtle Agroecologies
BARBARA MCCLINTOCK’S UNDERSTANDING OF ORGANISMS
Barbara McClintock’s work on maize in the 1940s–1950s, as presented in Evelyn Fox Keller’s 1983
biography A Feeling for the Organism, shares many features of a Goethean approach. Both the way
she went about her work and her concept of the task of science could be described as Goethean.
The key similarity, which she so clearly exemplifed, was her aim and her ability to ‘get to know’
the organism with which she worked. It is this aspect of her approach that I will primarily focus on.
Barbara McClintock’s career spans many changes in the feld of genetics. When she began her
life in science, the maize plant was the preferred plant for looking into the action of genes. The
colours of the kernels on a cob of maize display genetic traits very clearly. Thus, a yearly crop of
this higher plant was seen as the obvious choice for study in an older style of biological research
that still focused on the whole organism. Although the study of genetics then moved on to the
examination of simpler organisms, with more rigid theoretical models about the behaviour of genes,
McClintock continued to study maize. Her determination to stick to a complex organism and older
styles of research (1983: 101) was fnally vindicated when her work became widely acknowledged
as a 20-year precursor of where genetics had reached by the late 1970s. In 1983, she was awarded
the Nobel Prize for her work on gene transposition.
As an examination of the pressures at play in the world of science, McClintock’s story is an interesting one. However, here her story is used as an example of someone working with a plant for decades and
coming to know it. Fox Keller asks the question ‘What enabled McClintock to see further and deeper
into the mysteries of genetics than her colleagues?’ She answers that question with the following:
Her answer is simple. Over and over again, she tells us one must have the time to look, the patience to
“hear what the material has to say to you”, the openness to “let it come to you”. Above all one must have
“a feeling for the organism”.
Fox Keller (1983: 198)
McClintock’s work involved the microscopic examination of chromosomes, but her trips to the feld
to gather the cobs to be tested allowed her the opportunity to ‘guess’ what their later examination
would show. She became adept at ‘seeing’ in the plant what a microscopic examination would later
reveal. The kind of seeing she recounts was not fully conscious:
It is done with complete confdence, complete understanding. I understood every plant. Without being
able to know what it was I was integrating, I understood the phenotype.
Fox Keller (1983: 103)
It could be suggested that she was, through her engagement with the plant, ‘developing new organs
of perception’. McClintock’s experiences with maize demonstrate the ideal of really engaging with
the phenomenon: engaging not just with the end product on the bench, but with the living organism
in its context through its whole cycle, many, many times.
Her ability with this one plant could also be seen as a training of her observation powers in
general. Once she knew she could trust the intuitive fashes of insight, she could apply her abilities
to a new problem. In 1944, she helped a colleague by working for a time on a mould (Neurospora)
with chromosomes so small that they had not been individually identifable. Once in her stride with
this new organism, McClintock was able to work with it, and her account, reported by Fox Keller is
revealing in terms of living into the organism. She said:
I found the more I worked with them the bigger and bigger [they] got, and when I was really working with
them I wasn’t outside I was down there. I was part of the system. I was right down there with them, and
everything got big. I even was able to see the internal parts of the chromosomes—actually everything
was there. It surprised me because I actually felt as if I were right down there and these were my friends.
Fox Keller (1983: 117)
Subtle Agroecologies
BARBARA MCCLINTOCK’S UNDERSTANDING OF ORGANISMS
Barbara McClintock’s work on maize in the 1940s–1950s, as presented in Evelyn Fox Keller’s 1983
biography A Feeling for the Organism, shares many features of a Goethean approach. Both the way
she went about her work and her concept of the task of science could be described as Goethean.
The key similarity, which she so clearly exemplifed, was her aim and her ability to ‘get to know’
the organism with which she worked. It is this aspect of her approach that I will primarily focus on.
Barbara McClintock’s career spans many changes in the feld of genetics. When she began her
life in science, the maize plant was the preferred plant for looking into the action of genes. The
colours of the kernels on a cob of maize display genetic traits very clearly. Thus, a yearly crop of
this higher plant was seen as the obvious choice for study in an older style of biological research
that still focused on the whole organism. Although the study of genetics then moved on to the
examination of simpler organisms, with more rigid theoretical models about the behaviour of genes,
McClintock continued to study maize. Her determination to stick to a complex organism and older
styles of research (1983: 101) was fnally vindicated when her work became widely acknowledged
as a 20-year precursor of where genetics had reached by the late 1970s. In 1983, she was awarded
the Nobel Prize for her work on gene transposition.
As an examination of the pressures at play in the world of science, McClintock’s story is an interesting one. However, here her story is used as an example of someone working with a plant for decades and
coming to know it. Fox Keller asks the question ‘What enabled McClintock to see further and deeper
into the mysteries of genetics than her colleagues?’ She answers that question with the following:
Her answer is simple. Over and over again, she tells us one must have the time to look, the patience to
“hear what the material has to say to you”, the openness to “let it come to you”. Above all one must have
“a feeling for the organism”.
Fox Keller (1983: 198)
McClintock’s work involved the microscopic examination of chromosomes, but her trips to the feld
to gather the cobs to be tested allowed her the opportunity to ‘guess’ what their later examination
would show. She became adept at ‘seeing’ in the plant what a microscopic examination would later
reveal. The kind of seeing she recounts was not fully conscious:
It is done with complete confdence, complete understanding. I understood every plant. Without being
able to know what it was I was integrating, I understood the phenotype.
Fox Keller (1983: 103)
It could be suggested that she was, through her engagement with the plant, ‘developing new organs
of perception’. McClintock’s experiences with maize demonstrate the ideal of really engaging with
the phenomenon: engaging not just with the end product on the bench, but with the living organism
in its context through its whole cycle, many, many times.
Her ability with this one plant could also be seen as a training of her observation powers in
general. Once she knew she could trust the intuitive fashes of insight, she could apply her abilities
to a new problem. In 1944, she helped a colleague by working for a time on a mould (Neurospora)
with chromosomes so small that they had not been individually identifable. Once in her stride with
this new organism, McClintock was able to work with it, and her account, reported by Fox Keller is
revealing in terms of living into the organism. She said:
I found the more I worked with them the bigger and bigger [they] got, and when I was really working with
them I wasn’t outside I was down there. I was part of the system. I was right down there with them, and
everything got big. I even was able to see the internal parts of the chromosomes—actually everything
was there. It surprised me because I actually felt as if I were right down there and these were my friends.
Fox Keller (1983: 117)