Lucien Cuénot

Lucien Cuénot (Paris, 1866 - Nancy, 1951) was a biologist and Généticien French.

The first French geneticist

The name of Lucien Cuénot remains attached to the birth of the Génétique, in a country which did not know to appreciate the width of its early reflections. He was the first large French biologist of first half of the 20th century, one of the last large naturalists of this century and also a theorist of the evolution, only of his category in France with being able to compete with the founders of this new discipline which was worked out in the Anglo-Saxon countries.

Very precociously (1894), Cuénot was the only one in France to affirm the impossibility of the transmission of the acquired features (Neo-Lamarckism) as its full adhesion not only with the theses of Darwin (the living beings derive from/to each other by small continuous fortuitous variations screen of the natural selection) but also with the theory of August Weismann (1834-1914) (1883), which postulated in more the existence of a material support of heredity. The redécouverte of the Lois of Mendel at the plants in 1901 imposed the idea that independent and juxtaposed material particles (called later genes) were transmitted, according to immutable statistical laws, from generation to generation. France was at that time, because of its tradition scientific and social lamarckist, well far from accepting such an idea. In 1902 however, Cuénot found these laws in the animal. Then he discovered, in 1905, the first case of lethal Gène in the animal, the first phenomenon of epistasy (1907) where several genes located at places different from the Chromosome intervene in the same biochemical way, and, in 1908, the first case of Pléiotropie where certain genes can act on several seemingly independent characters. Between 1908 and 1912, it showed the hereditary origin of certain cases of Cancer. It is thanks to him that his/her friend the professor Philibert Guinier (1876-1962) wrote, in 1912, of the premonitory articles foreseeing what the laws of heredity and the selection could bring to management forest settlements. Moreover, as of 1903, Lucien Cuénot proposed a possible interaction between mnémon (gene), diastase (Enzyme) and pigments what, in the French context of the time, was a prowess.

A theorist of the evolution

Impossibility of continuing its research in genetics after war led Cuénot to become a theorist of this new discipline in germ, the evolution. It is true that it had already worked out a theory of the preadaptation conceived between 1901 and 1909, at the time of its observations of cavernicolous fauna in Lorraine. The theory of Cuénot postulates that an empty place is invested by a neighbouring fauna, by chance pre-adapted to the place: all occurs as so certain species had already, in a nearby medium, the genetic potential able to express morphology, physiology and the behavior ad hoc .

Cuénot, as a curious and impassioned man, was also going to challenge its contemporaries by means of biological models which, today still, do not find an explanation within the framework of reductionistic biology such as it developed in the years 1950 to 1970, starting from the discovery of DNA, therefore with died of Cuénot. The Morphogenesis and the evolutionary origin of the coaptations, formidable body-tools such as the press-stud of the carapace of crab, the legs kidnappers clasp knife type of the nèpes, or perforated nozzles on side and injecting a toxic or paralyzing liquid, found as well in the spiders, scorpions, chilopodes, the fourmilion, the dytique one or the sacculine (parasite of crab). Cuénot thought that a form of conscience of the needs, a plan in the matter even, a kind of organizing demon was at the origin of these body-tools which did not owe anything randomly. That was worth a setting with the index to him: shown to be finalist, even Christian finalist, whereas it maintained, quite to the contrary, of the surging relationship with the dominant religion, it knew a long purgatory. The light of current knowledge clarifies from now on the relevance of its reflections. Thus, the evolutionary thought of Cuénot which refused to grant the full powerss to the couple natural chance-selection, is close to that of the large contemporary paleontologist Stephen G. Gould (1941-2002).

List partial of the publications

Genesis of the animal species , Paris, Alcan, 1911 (1921, 1932).
the Adaptation , Paris, Doin, 1925.
the Law in biology , Paris, Alcan, 1934.
the Species , Paris, Doin, 1936.
(With Jean Rostand), Introduction to the genetics , Paris, university Information center, 1936.
Invention and finality in biology , Paris, Flammarion, 1941.
biological Evolution: facts, uncertainties , Paris, Masson, 1951.

Sources

Chomard-Lexa (Annette), Lucien Cuénot, the intuition naturalist , Paris, Harmattan, 2004. Preface of Jean Gayon.
Chomard-Lexa (Annette), " Unjust purgatory of Lucien Cuénot" , Geniuses of Science, review quarterly of For science , n° August 24th, th and th - September: 12-17.

Critical bibliography

Buican (Denis), " Lucien Cuénot and the redécouverte of the génétique" , For science , 45, July 1981: 21-29.
Buican (Denis), " Mendelism in France and the work of Lucien Cuénot" , Scientia , CXVII, 1-4, 1982: 105-117.
Chomard-Lexa (Annette), Lucien Cuénot, the intuition naturalist , Paris, Harmattan, 2004. Preface of Jean Gayon.
Chomard-Lexa (Annette), " Unjust purgatory of Lucien Cuénot" , Geniuses of Science, review quarterly of For science , n° August 24th, th and th - September: 12-17.
Grimoult (Cédric), " Theoretical evolution of an evolutionist: Lucien Cuénot" , Ludus Vitalis. Revista de Filosofia of the ciencias of emptied (Mexico City) , IX, 16,2002: 3-25.

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