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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2009
Fly genetics in the 1900s succeeded in deciphering the logic of disc development. Its vaunted offspring – the field of fly genomics – is faster and sexier but no more powerful in its ability to solve the remaining riddles of circuitry and control. Curt Stern warned us about this irony in his essay, “The journey, not the goal”:
One of the fundamental aspects of science is its lack of purpose. … Science, during the last one hundred or more years, has been in the dangerous position of a successful poet who started by composing songs of joy and sorrow to lighten the burden of his own soul only to find that they became best-sellers. … Science has become a profession. … The later comers [have] forgotten the beginnings of the highway. Dreamy followers of crooked paths [were] their predecessors. … We should encourage anew the roaming after knowledge for the sake of the joyful adventure.
Industrialization and commercialization notwithstanding, the Fly World still offers many mysteries for aimless explorers with curiosity alone to fill their sails.
Before launching the field of fly genetics, Thomas Hunt Morgan's passion was embryology. In the preface to his 1934 book, Embryology and Genetics, Tom waxed lyrical about the promise of developmental genetics as a burgeoning hybrid field:
Since 1900, when the discovery of Mendel's work became known, one of the most amazing developments in the whole history of biology has taken place. […]
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