See also: Kammerer

Paul Kammerer (August 17th 1880 - September 23rd 1926), was an Austrian biologist, born with Vienna, where he studied and made career in the capacity as zoologist at the Institute of experimental biology. Socialist, pacifist, philanthropist and music lover, it employed some time as assistant the widow of the type-setter Gustav Mahler, Alma Mahler, of which it was enthusiast.

Partisan of the Lamarckisme, it thought of having shown that the acquired features could be hereditary at the clamping plate obstetrician. He observed that, in these animals, the bridal bearings appeared on the legs with the first generation, at the time of a modification of the environment, had been transmitted then to the second, then with the third generation. At the time of a conference given to Cambridge in 1923, it succeeds in convincing the scientific community of the validity of its results by producing a specimen of clamping plate resulting from its experiments.

But G. Kingsley Noble (1894 - 1940), of the American Museum off Natural History of New York examined the material of the experiments of Kammerer and showed that the alleged bridal bearings had been simulated by injections of Indian ink. A few weeks later, Kammerer committed suicide. This history is reported by Arthur Koestler in its test, the Pressure of the clamping plate ( The puts the midwife toad off), where it takes the defense of Kammerer. It is still not known currently if Kammerer were the author of a deliberated scientific Fraude or if it were victim of an act of ill will of the one of his colleagues.

Kammerer was one of the first scientists to be been interested systematically in the coincidences , which it noted in a notebook. It is at the origin of the concept of seriality or law of the series , concept taken again and developed thereafter by the psychoanalyst C.G. Jung, in its theory of the Synchronicité.

Biography

Its beginnings

It was one of four wire of the industrialist Viennese Carl Kammerer and his Sofie wife. Very quickly it showed an extraordinary interest for the animals, transforming into Terrarium the housing of the parents. Left the college in 1899, it led simultaneously studies of Zoologie to the University of Vienna and, as from 1900, of musicology to the academy of the company of the music lovers near Robert Fuchs a professor of music considered, itself raises Gustav Mahler and of Alexandre Zemlinsky.

In 1902 Kammerer became the assistant of Hans Leo Przibram at the Institute of experimental biology (old “Vivarium”) of the Prater Viennese where one entrusted the Terrarium to him and the Aquarium and where he was the author of 130 articles, contributions and research reports. In these installations, most modern of the time, he studied the repoduction of the Amphibien S and pointed out himself soon by his skill in Zootechnie, so much so that he was the only one has to make a success of certain experiments undertaken on Grenouille S and to obtain several generations of these batrachians. This enabled him to carry out its first personal experiences on the heredity of the acquired features, the Lamarckisme.

In 1904 it supported its thesis (" promovierte") with doctorate at the University of Vienna and in 1906 Maria with the baroness Were pleased Maria Theodora de Wiedersperg who in 1907 gave to birth a girl who was baptized name of Lacerta ( Latin lizard in ).

It made then various voyages intended to enrich its photographic documentation and its collections. He was professor of biology to the Cottage-Lyzeum of Vienna of 1906 with 1912 and passed finally his doctorate of State (" habilitierte") in 1910 at the University in Vienna.

Its social life

Kammerer attended the high society Viennese. Freemason, it was related to many artists and had a cosmopolitan network of relations and eclectic where one found the leader Bruno Walter, the sociologist Rudolf Goldscheid, the type-setters Alban Berg and Franz Schreker, the philosopher Ludwig Erik Tesar like Albert Einstein. It had famous connections with the dancer Grete Wiesenthal, the woman-painter Anna Walt (who made his portrait in 1924) and Alma Mahler.

The following description of Kammerer is given to us by the biologist Richard Goldschmidt: “It had a manner of speaking brilliant although a little theatrical. Moreover, he was beautiful man and got dressed with elegance, this is why he impressed much with his dark mane of artist and the smoothness of his features. ”

He played of the Piano to perfection, wrote criticisms musical and composed itself of the Lied er which were published by Simrock, a famous editor musical. He was an enthusiastic admiror of the musician Gustav Mahler whose death in 1911 upset it at a point such, that he wrote on October 31st with his widow, Alma Mahler: “It is incomprehensible that one can like at this point somebody without the sex taking share there, without family ties and, to tell the truth, same of the concretized friendly relations as I could like Mahler. Because it was not only about veneration, of enthusiasm for art and for the person, it was love! ”.

Its connection with Alma Mahler

Alma, to which it dedicated thereafter a little book entitled Of acquisition and heredity of the musical talent , formed part according to him “rare type of the brilliant Viennese”. It pushed its adulation towards her until excess and threatened more once to commit suicide on the tomb of Gustav Mahler, if she were not to answer her love. He wrote about it: “When I am with it, it is assembled potential energy which is released then like kinetic energy. There are people with whom I am each day and of which the effect is very contrary: it is the potential energy which is degraded, and thereafter, if I need some, there is not enough kinetic energy. ” Alma describes thus the adulation of Paul Kammerer: “ If I rose of an armchair, it knelt then felt and cherished the place of the armchair on which I had sat down. Little mattered to him that foreigners were present or not. Nothing was able to retain it such extravagances, who abounded at his place. ”

In November 1911, it proposed in Alma Mahler to become its assistant, and during a certain time she worked for him with the realization of animal experiments to the Prater Viennese. She will remember it later in these terms:

“… it made me work on a test of mnemotechny with religious mantes. He wanted to check if these animals lose to them memory after their moults or if the latter relates to only surface fabrics. To this end, my task consisted in inculcating a practice to them, a company which failed because it proved to be impossible to learn anything with these small beasts: I was to make them eat in the dark part of their cage which is in bottom, whereas normally they always eat in the upper part and in full light. But they did not want to give up their good practice for the beautiful eyes of Kammerer. ” Alma was to nourish the mantes with worms of flour “ and I was disgusted enough in front of this large case grouillante of worms. He realized there, took of it a handle and ate it with full mouth by making great noises ”.

Alma Mahler recalled later that it could occur of the irregularities in the experiments of Kammerer at the laboratory of Prater: “ It so ardently wished to lead to results which it could unconsciously deviate from the truth. ”

Its last years

In 1923 Kammerer undertook voyages in the whole world to make known its work. The latter got a notoriety to him such as one could regard it a time as the most famous biologist of the world. Its lecture tours through the the United States were transformed into triumphal walks and the NewYork Times presented it like “new Darwin”.

To supplement its public appearances and publicity that they had made him, Kammerer wrote its principal work, which appeared initially in 1924 English (The Inheritance off Acquired Characteristics, Liveright Publishers, New York), the German original Neuvererbung oder Vererbung erworbener Eigenschaften. Erbliche Belastung oder erbliche Entlastung (Stuttgart-Heilbronn) followed in 1925.

In 1926 it was named with the communist Academy of sciences of Moscow where it was to build an institute of experimental biology. Its discovery had returned it celebrates, but the doubt had settled at the same time in the specialists. The debate was revived between the theories of Lamarck and Charles Darwin. Finally, one of its English adversaries, the American zoologist Gladwyn Kingsley Noble, in charge of the section of the reptiles to the American Museum off Natural History , made the voyage from Vienna, accompanied by Hans Leo Przibram, to examine the last preparation which existed still clamping plate obstetrician, that of which Kammerer had been useful like proof and who had crossed the war without damage.

August 7th, 1926 an overpowering article was published in the English specialized magazine Nature . Noble denounced there callosities of rut of the toad obstetrician like simple counterfeits. The points of callosities had proven to be black ink injected under the skin, which could be only the work of Kammerer or the one of his/her collaborators. In the scientific world this news made the effect of a bomb and meant for Kammerer the end of its career. However, the counterfeit proved so coarse and obvious that one wondered very quickly how it had been able to escape the meticulous examination initially from dozen from scientists during years. Until now one could not answer this question: Was Kammerer really a falsifier or was he victim of a plot due to the jealousy of his/her colleagues?

The Kammerer September 22nd, 1926 wrote with the Academy of Moscow a letter in which he resigned of his station and ensured at the same time to have nothing to do with the counterfeits, neither with the clamping plate obstetrician which remained nor with the salamander on which one had also found traces of ink. The letter finished as follows:

Je see me out of state to support this bankruptcy of the work of my life and, I hope for it, I will have courage and the force to put tomorrow a term at my life gâchée.

After which Kammerer went to Puchberg amndt Schneeberg, a tourist area close to Vienna and spent the night to the hotel Zur Rose. The next morning, it took the way of Himberg and, arrived at Theresienfelsen, it took the weapon which it had brought pressed it on its left temple and committed suicide out of a shot.

Work of Paul Kammerer

Its work on the heredity of the acquired features

Become a famous biologist Kammerer undertook a series of experiments using “the reproduction planned” and based on artificial modifications of the environment of the Amphibians.

A great number of experiments related to two species of salamanders, the black salamander ( Salamandra will atra ), and the mottled salamander ( Salamandra maculosa according to the old denomination). In a first series of experiments, while making incubate the egg S of the one of the species in the environment of the other, he managed to reveal in a species certain characteristics of development of the other. Thereafter, it made reproduce salamanders mottled of black and yellow alternatively on a yellow ground and a black ground: each time the coloring of its spots increased or decreased in accordance with the fill color, and this coloring was transmitted to the descendants.

Other observations were made on the Protée anguillard blind man ( Proteus anguinus ), a cavernicolous animal usually living in the darkness which has rudimentary and nonfunctional eyes hidden under the Peau. Kammerer noted that at the protée high one in the light of the day, of the pigmented spots appeared on the zone located on the surface of the outlines of visual bodies but did not allow a visual function. Under the red light on the other hand the eyes developed to become functional. There still these new characteristics were transmitted to the following generations.

But its most famous experiments are those which related to the clamping plates obstetricians. Exposed to heat, these animals which couple themselves normally on the dry land, prefer outward journey to copulate in fresh water. Not to skid in water on the female become slipping, the males must develop callosities of rut or agrippement still called bridal bearings. In the succession of the experiments which Kammerer made, these bearings were transmitted hereditarily to their descendants. Thus it succeeds in obtaining six generations of toads obstetricians in whom callosities of rut had been transmitted before the line did not disappear. Filled with enthusiasm by this discovery, Kammerer went until embracing a clamping plate, which was worth the nickname of “Krötenküsser to him”, the embrassor of clamping plates.

Extremely of these results, Kammerer thought of having shown that certain living organisms having acquired during their existence of the new properties adapted better to their living conditions, were able to transmit them to their descendants. The theory of Darwin founded on the principle of the natural selection by the Hasard in the evolution thus did not represent any more one absolute truth: it was necessary to also admit a share of truth on the assumption of its predecessor Lamarck, according to whom the species develop while following the principle of a systematic and logical transformation.

Ideological implications

The ideological importance of such a conclusion applied to the mankind was considerable. It indeed gave a scientific base to the political aspiration to see happier generations in the future. The racist ideologists affirmed that the origin (genetic) determines all, with what Paul Kammerer answered: “We are not the slaves of the past, but the prime-contractors of the future. ” He declared in a conference: “When children correctly are raised, one offers to them more than the profit well court of their own life; part of our effort goes where the man is really immortal - in this marvellous substance of which in an uninterrupted continuation will be born the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren. ”

Interpretation darwinienne

In its test " Temptation lamarckienne" included in the collection " The inch of the panda" , Stephen Jay Gould does not doubt the success of the experiment of the toad obstetrician but the interpreter within the framework of the theory darwinienne. It points the spontaneous appearance of rudimentary bridal bearings at certain abnormal individuals as a proof that the ancestors of the toad obstetrician coupled themselves in water and had such bearings. When the clamping plates current obstetricians, being usually coupled on the dry land, were obliged by Kammerer to be coupled in water, there were few descendants and the selective pressure was strong in favor of genes of adaptation to the aquatic life. Those, normally dispersed in the terrestrial population, gathered during the generations subjected to the experiment, until causing the appearance of the bearings.

Its work on the law of the series

In 1919 Kammerer published Das Gesetz der Serie. Eine Lehre von den Wiederholungen im Lebens- und Weltgeschehen (the law of the series. What the repetitions in the events of the life and the world teach us) whose title was since adoptee by the current language. It developed to with it the principle of the seriality , independent of the Causalité and founded on the observation of unexplainable coincidences which have occurred during several years. These observations came from its personal experience (a great number were supported by figures), of what had arrived at friends or of what it had read in the newspapers. The series is there defined as follows: “The regular recurrence of facts or identical or similar events, recurrence or assembly in time or space such as the individual members of the sequence - as far as the serious analysis makes it possible to judge some - are not connected consequently causes active. ” Arthur Koestler, biographer of Kammerer, will speak later about “meaning chances”. Kammerer wanted to establish by there that a universal law of nature appears in the EC what we call “chances”, and which it acts independently of the principles of Causalité physical that we know.

In support of its demonstrations, Kammerer produced a collection of coincidences of which here some examples:

- “On September 18th, 1916, my wife, awaiting her turn in the waiting room of Doctor J.V.H. traverses the review Die Kunst : it is impressed by the reproductions of the tables of a painter named Schwalbach, and thinks that it must remember this name because it would like to see the originals. At this time the door opens, and the receptionist calls: " One requests Mrs. Schwalbach from the téléphone." ”

“- On July 23rd, 1915, I have experience of the following progressive series:
a) my wife reads the adventures of " Mrs. de Rohan" , character of a novel of Hermann Bang, entitled Michael ; in the tram she sees a man who resembles his friend, prince Joseph Rohan; the evening prince Rohan comes to see us with the improviste.
b) In the tram she intends somebody to ask pseudo-Rohan if he knows the village of Weissenbach-On-Attersee, and if it would be a pleasant place for the holidays. While getting out of the tram it enters a pork-butchery of Naschmarkt, where the salesman asks to him whether by chance it knows Weissenbach-On-Attersee: it must dispatch a parcel there and address is not sure”

- “On May 17th, 1917, we were invited at Schreker. On our way I buy with my wife in a confectionery in front of the station of Hütteldorf-Hacking of chocolates. - Schreker plays us his new opera Die Gezeichneten whose principal feminine role bears the name of CARLOTTA. Returned at the house, we empty the small bag containing candies; one of them carried inscription CARLOTTA.”

These numbers, these names and these situations which returned independently and corresponded between them, it qualified them cyclic processes of an order and of a power different and it outlined a clean terminology for the classification of the series. It called series of the second order a series in which the same type of coincidences is produt twice successively as in the following example: “on November 4th, 1910, his/her brother-in-law went to the concert where it had the armchair n°9 and the cloakroom ticket n°9; the following day with another concert the same brother-in-law had the armchair n°21 and the ticket n°21. ”

In conclusion of its book, Kammerer wrote: We established that the sum of the facts excludes all “chance” or makes chance so well a rule which this concept even seems to disappear. In that we arrive in the middle of our thought: at the same time as causality, a principle acausal acts in the universe. This principle influences selectively the form and the function to join in space and time the related configurations; and that depends on the relationship and the resemblance.

The theory of the seriality is fundamental in the history of the Parapsychologie since it precedes the idea of Synchronicité at C.G. Jung and Wolfgang Pauli. This idea had been put forward besides first once by Camille Flammarion. In its book Synchronizität, Akausalität und Okkultismus (Synchronicité, Acausalité and Occcultisme), Jung refers abundantly to the work of Kammerer. Einstein him also decides positively: “Original and by no means absurdity” and Sigmund Freud in its book Das Unheimliche say this to us on Kammerer: “a naturalist (Paul Kammerer) recently undertook to subordinate the facts to certain laws in manner such as the impression of strangeness should disappear. I do not dare to decide if it succeeded there or not. ”