Deception at "Profiles In Science"
http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/BB/
False Claims and Misrepresentations about Bacterial Genetics

The NLM website for Joshua Lederberg has made various false claims and misrepresentations. This website, associated with the Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg archive at Stanford University, has diligently researched and found many of dishonest or exaggerated claims at Joshua Lederberg's NLM website.

The page shown full size, below, was found at the NLM website on March 27, 2007. For a look at how that page looked on April 8, 2011, click here.

The following sections of this website expose factual errors, omissions, or outright deceptions related to The Development of Bacterial Genetics:

For further commentary on this page of Joshua Lederberg's website, click here.
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Commentary on "The Development of Bacterial Genetics"

It is claimed that "Between 1946 and 1952, Joshua Lederberg almost single-handedly reshaped the field of bacterial genetics." An immediate consequence is that this introduces major distortions into the historical record. Consider the following:

  1. Limiting the time period for the "reshaping" to 1946 through 1952 is rather artificial. Why should it be limited to any time period? What's wrong with 1945? 1953?

  2. Limiting the research to bacterial genetics is very misleading. Why exclude other areas of genetics and bacteriophages (a part of bacterial genetics)?

  3. The NLM website for Joshua Lederberg stands in explicit opposition to the view stated by Joshua Lederberg at the October 31, 1958 press conference where he discussed the significance of his being co-awarded the Nobel prize:

    In the development of my own work, I feel very abashed to have this attention without mentioning the numerous associates and students and fellows that I've had in my own lab, and the people on whom I've relied and whose ideas and work have been extremely important. [...]

    The NLM website also stands in opposition to the views expressed in Joshua Lederberg's Nobel Lecture, May 29, 1959, "A VIEW OF GENETICS", Les Prix Nobel En 1958, Stockholm, Imprimerie Royale P. A. Norstedt & Söner, 1959, p. 170, to wit: "The dispersion of a Nobel award in the field of genetics symbolizes the convergent efforts of a world-wide community of investigators." Indeed, a more modest claim than that made on the later NLM site could not be avoided and still be capable of belief, yet this absurd claim continues to be asserted.

    To see 400 papers that were cited by J. Lederberg in papers he authored during the years 1946-1952 (an artificial criterion used in the NLM website), click here .

  4. The research by Hayes is totally confused. Some facts never hurt.

    1. The research by W. Hayes conflates sexual conjugation with fertility Factor F: these are not the same.

    2. Esther M. Lederberg discovered and named Fertility Factor F, not W. Hayes.

    3. The research with Fertility Factor F specialized transduction is conflated with sexual conjugation. The research in Fertility Factor F specialized transduction was done independently and simultaneously by Esther M. Lederberg and Elie Wollman (Institut Pasteur). It was not done by W. Hayes.

This page of the NLM website for Joshua Lederberg later conflates bacterial genetics with both "molecular genetics" and "genetic engineering". Joshua Lederberg's laboratory did work in microbial genetics, but not molecular genetics. Genetic engineering started with the research dealing with cloning by S. N. Cohen, and separately, the research by Arthur Kornberg. Joshua Lederberg's laboratory did work in microbial genetics, not genetic engineering.

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