DISCOVERY

TYPES OF DISCOVERY

Serendipity

Many discoveries are due to chance or an unexpected observation.  Such discoveries are more likely to occur if the observer is alert to the environment.  How many people noticed a zone of no bacterial growth adjacent to a mold colony before Sir Alexander Fleming did, but did not pause to consider the cause? Fleming's discovery of penicillin's inhibition of bacteria provided the model for discovery of many additional antibiotics.

Planned

The search for additional antibiotics was a logical expansion of the serendipitous discovery of penicillin.  Targeted research is common in the research and development units of many companies.  Universities used to be primarily focused on basic research that might, or might not, have commercial application.  Now, research faculty have one eye on the potential valuable uses that might sway granting agencies to provide greater monetary support.

Unrecognized

Recognition of value of research can escape others, especially when it is novel and/or goes counter to accepted thinking of leaders in the subject area.  The significance of Mendel's studies of inheritance in peas was not given much recognition until thirty some years later when it complemented the understanding of chromosomes in genetics.

I think it may be thirty years after I die before zoologists and evolutionary biologists will become aware of how (1) extreme age is a characteristic of abyssal organisms, (2) the stable deep-sea environment provided a refuge for survival during celestial bombardment by asteroids etc. during the early history of life on earth, (3) one such surviving group was the Pogonophora which (4) show the embryological and morphological connection of protostome ancestors to deuterostomes such as vertebrates, and (5) illustrate the error of ancestral trees that ignore the effects of generation time in calculating branching patterns.

The five points mentioned have been discussed in earlier posts of this blog and may be enough to help some curious scientist of the future to set the record straight.  Much of the information can be found in a hypothetical discussion of invertebrates in the final chapter of the 1981 3rd edition of Engemann and Hegner's Invertebrate Zoology published by Macmillen Publishing Company.  Points 4 and 5 were arrived at shortly after I realized the theory proposed in the final chapter represented reality.

At eighty-eight I do not expect to be here for nearly as long as the twenty years I have been retired.  And low energy and memory lapses are more frequent.  I think I have included the basics of what is important in my work in this blog.  So now I may go to some unpublished work of mine of less consequence to the accurate understanding of evolution.  In fact, I had started one on eyelines and coevolution when it disappeared with a wrong keystroke.  I have typed this with greater care and have to get my computer's word-processing and photo programs fixed so I can work more efficiently.  If you have read this far, thank you.

Joseph Engemann,  Emeritus Professor of Biology, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo.  January 12, 2017