France in the era of Mendelism (1900-1930)

This paper describes and explains the reception of Mendelism among French biologists at the beginning of the 20th Century. Three dimensions of description must be taken into account: scholarly diffusion; transmission of the new science through teaching and textbooks; and effective research. These three axes of description do not provide the same picture: Mendelian research was widely reported among specialists; no significant teaching of Mendelism took place in the years 1900-1930; by 1930 only one biologist, Lucien Cuénot, had carried out significant genetic research, but he abandoned his Mendelian research in 1914. The resistance to Mendelism can be attributed to four categories of factors, none of which is sufficient. The first category includes a series of intellectual factors: a massively positivist conception of science, an approach to heredity that privileged a 'physiological' theory, and a poor development of cytology. The second set of factors stems from the failure of French academic biologists to establish a strong interaction with plant and animal breeding. The third factor is the relatively weak influence of the eugenic ideology in France. Finally, the particular organization of French universities, together with the deaths of numerous young scientists during World War I, amplified the effects of the previous factors.