The Mystery of the Vanished Citations
James McConnell’s Forgotten 1960s Quest for Planarian Learning,
a Biochemical Engram, & Celebrity
by Mark Rilling
The Missing 1960s Decade
Memory transfer: McConnell’s Blind Alley
McConnell’s Struggle With Critics Over Invertebrate Learning
Controlling for Experimenter Bias
Controlling for Pseudoconditioning & Sensitization
McConnell’s Origin Myth for Planarian Learning
Escaping peer review as a celebrity-scientist
The Worm Runner’s Digest: Peer Review Versus the 1960s Counterculture
Attracting the Unabomber. While overselling behavior modification
The Assassination Attempt
Overpopularizing Behavior Modification
Conclusion: Some Historical Lessons for Today from the 1960s
References
The Missing 1960s Decade
During the 1960s, James McConnell was one of psychology’s most visible and colorful public personalities, a celebrity-scientist who made entertaining appearances on television. As the head of the Planarian Research Group at the University of Michigan, McConnell’s research program was a precursor of the kind of interdisciplinary approach to brain and behavior that is now called neuroscience. He wrote,
This prospect of working with a covey of bright scientists in disciplines other than Psychology pleases us immensely
His approach encompassed measurement at multiple levels of investigation. As he put it:
If learning is (at one level of discourse) a matter of some kind of structural or functional change at the synapse, shouldn’t we also wonder what chemical change takes place at the synapse when learning occurs? … antireductionism is misplaced. Each scientific discipline surely has something unique and important to contribute to the solution ofthe problem ofmemory formation; … all the disciplines are equally important.
Usually a field honors its pioneers. Yet McConnell and many of the other scientists who pioneered the biochemistry of learning and memory during its modern, formative period in the 1960s have become nonpersons — eclipsed, put down, or written out of the contemporary story ofthe search for the engram. Alport (1986), a science writer, called this omission citation amnesia. Although McConnell wrote an annual review of invertebrate learning in 1966, the most recent annual review of invertebrate learning by Krasne and Glanzman (1995), which included references to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, contained no primary citations of McConnell and the work from the 1960s on planarian learning. McConnell’s (1966) article contained 109 references, none of which survived for citation by Krasne and Glanz. Why has this work virtually disappeared from contemporary citation?
Memory Transfer: McConnell’s Blind Alley
One reason for the missing citations to McConnell is that his memory transfer paradigm was a failure. In these cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food.
studies, which McConnell (1962) saw as a technique for transferring a memory molecule of RNA from trained to untrained organisms, a naive planarian showed savings in the acquisition of a conditioned response (CR) when fed the body parts of a planarian that had learned a classical conditioning task. McConnell’s research program with planaria collapsed when other scientists failed to replicate the phenomenon of memory transfer. The failure of memory transfer has probably overshadowed McConnell’s success with invertebrate learning. Because others (Collins
Harry Collins, FBA FLSW, is a British sociologist of science at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales.
& Pinch,
Trevor J. Pinch was a British sociologist, part-time musician and chair of the science and technology studies department at Cornell University.
1993; Donegan & Thompson, 1991; Rose, 1992; Travis, 1980, 1981) have told the colorful story of the failure ofthe memory transfer research, this article concentrates on McConnell’s successful struggle to establish the study of invertebrate learning as a respectable endeavor.
WORM RUNNER’S DIGEST
TABLE OF CONTENT
Volume 21 Issue 2
Published Dec 1, 1979
- James V. McConnell. Worms & Things.
- James V. McConnell. On the Tyranny of Exact Measurements & Inexact Definitions.
- Robert Thompson, Marsha A. Howze, & Ted L. Petit. An Occipitoreticular Pathway Necessary for Visual Pattern Discrimination Performance in the Rat.
- John H. Richardson & ZJerry B. Grindstaff. A Behavioral Chamber for Monitoring the Movements of Small Mammals.
- Gary F. Meunier & Michael Hankins. The Fixed-Ratio Schedule of Reinforcement an a Preparation for Psychophysical Scaling.
- Leigh van Valen. A New Monograph Series.
- Henry B. Hovey. Letter to the Editor.
- Robert Boice & Monica Moore. Instinct Studied in Causative Perspective: The Modifiability of Sand Digging.
- William Nick Sikes. Systems Change Strategies in Educational Settings, Richard I. Arends & Jame H. Arends.
- H.-G. Tittmar. Phisiologische Psychologie, Niels Birbaumer.
- Bruce W. Mossman. Elementary School Science & How to Teach it, Glenn O. Blough & Julius Schwartz.
- Donald G. Deeds. Handbook on Physiology. The Nervous System: Volume 1. Cellular Biology of the Neurons, John M. Brookhart, Vernon B. Mountcastle, Eric R. Kandel, & Stephen R. Geiger.
- Gary V. Sluyter. The Profoundly Mentally Retarded, Charles C. Cleland.
- Judson S. Custer. Directory of Unpublished Experimental Mental Measures, Volume II. Bert Arthur Goldman & John Christian Busch.
- Charles C. Cleland. The Wild Boy of Burundi, Harlan Lane & Richard Pillard.
- JoAnn T. Bradshaw. Therapeutic Hypnosis, Michael Miller.
- M. Asis. Eye Movements & Psychological Processes, Richard A. Monty & John W. Senders.
- James L. Colwell. On Human Nature, Edward O. Wilson.
- Paris Permenter. The Alcogolic Employee: A Handbook of Helpful Guidelines, Ashton Brisolara.
- Leslie Davis. Biological Psychology, Philip Groves & Kurt Schlesinger.
- William J. Ferguson. Psychology as Biological Science, Daniel P. Kimble.
- Jeff Houston. The Nature of Schizophrenia: New Approaches to Research & Treatment, Lyman C. Wynne, Rue L. Cromwell & Steven Matthisse.
- Jesse E. Purdy. The Dolphin: A Failure to Communicate; The Lure of the Dolphin, R. Brown; Lilly on Dolphins: Human of the Sea, L. C. Lilly; Communication between Man & Dolphin: The Possibilities of Talking with Other Species, L. C. Lilly.
- Jon D. Swartz. From the Womb to the Tomb (The Current Approach in Developmental Psychology); Developmental Psychology, Robert M. Liebert, Rita Wicks Poulos, & Gloria Strauss Marmor; Development Trough Life: A Psychological Approach, Barbara M. Newman & Philip R. Newman; Human Development: A Psychological, Biological, & Sociological Approach to the Life Span, James O. Lugo & Gerald L. Hershey; Humans Developing: A Lifespan Perspective, Robert Kastenbaum; Human Development: The Span of Life, George Kaluger & Meriem Fair Kaluger; Lifespan Human Development, Sueann Robinson Ambron & David M. Brodzinsky; Re Reviewers & Reviewed.
- Ray Peat. Re Reviews.
- Edwina Kay Bray. Forthcoming Review; Books Available for Review; Journals Available for Review.
- John McClellan. Special Cover for This Final Issue.
So if you’re looking to shake up a conversation or make someone explode with laughter—just like your DIY volcano experiment—then check out these 50 science jokes! You can use them as witty Instagram captions or simply text a few of your favorites to your fellow nerds.
