Franz Moewus

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Franz Moewus (born December 7, 1908 in Berlin- Spandau, † May 30, 1959 in Miami ) was a German biologist. He was considered one of the pioneers of modern genetics on microorganisms, but at the same time one of the most famous forgers in biology.

Life

He conducted research in Berlin (doctorate in 1933, studies on the sexuality and development of chlorophyceae ), Dresden, Erlangen and from 1937 to 1951 at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg. In 1951 he went to Australia and the USA, as he could not find a permanent university job in Heidelberg (beyond a teaching position). In 1954, his career ended after allegations of counterfeiting, which, however, emerged and were also published in the 1930s.

Moewus researched the sexuality of green algae ( Chlamydomonas and Polytoma ), starting in Berlin under Hans Kniep and Max Hartmann . In doing so, he confirmed Mendel's laws for microorganisms, confirmed some of Hartmann's controversial theses about sexuality (e.g. different degrees of gender valence) and his (false) discovery that carotenoids play a role in the reproduction of green algae led to collaboration with Richard Kuhn ( Nobel laureate and leading expert on carotenoids) at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Heidelberg. As a result, Moewus developed the one gene – one enzyme hypothesis, for the experimental proof of which George Beadle and Edward Tatum received the Nobel Prize in 1958. However, his genetic analysis of green algae was also based on forgeries (as found by James D. Watson , among others ).

Doubts about his methods had arisen early on - once his results bothered statisticians ( JBS Haldane ) because they were “too good”, and colleagues also questioned the high speed of his laboratory analyzes that he claimed to be working at. The doubts meant that his habilitation in Heidelberg did not come about (prevented by the botanist August Seybold and the zoologist Wilhelm Ludwig ). He temporarily left Heidelberg University and completed his habilitation in Erlangen, before becoming a lecturer with a teaching position in Heidelberg in 1942. A professorship was prevented by colleagues. After the war he went to Sydney and then to the USA. There he was asked to reproduce his results at Columbia University and when he failed, the laboratory director Francis J. Ryan published it in Science in 1955. He was also convicted of falsification during a demonstration of the effects of carotenoids in the Woods Hole laboratory in 1954.

A Chlamydomonas species is named after him ( Chlamydomonas moewusii ).

Fonts

  • On the sexuality of lower organisms, Results of Biology, 1941, pp. 287–356

literature

  • Babette Babich: Towards a Critical Philosophy of Science: Continental Beginnings and Bugbears, Whigs and Waterbears , International Journal of the Philosophy of Science , Volume 24, No. 4, December 2010, pp. 343-391, especially pp. 364f
  • Jan Sapp: Where the Truth Lies: Franz Moewus and the Origins of Molecular Biology , Cambridge University Press, 1990
  • Jan Sapp: What counts as evidence or who was Franz Moewus and why is everybody saying such terrible things about him? , Hist. Phil. Life Science, Volume 9, 1987, pp. 277-308
  • Eberhard Schnepf: Forgeries - not only in our time , Biology in our time , Volume 32, 2002, No. 3, p. 163f

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ James D. Watson was an eyewitness and reports about it in his book Genes, Girls and Gamow , Random House
personal data
SURNAME Moewus, Franz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German biologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 7, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 1959
Place of death Miami