Robert E. Kohler, Lords of the Fly: Drosophila Genetics and the Experimental Life

Lords of the Fly is a stunning example of what a good social history can be; that is, social constructivism put to work by a skilled historian. In his first chapter Kohler cites radical actor-network theorists Latour and Woolgar as well as more moderate Edinburgh types like Shapin. He explicitly rejects Latour’s approach, which both demands more treatment of non-human actors and precludes serious treatment of intellectual processes – ‘Bruno Latour has been urging scholars for years to regard creatures (and inanimate things) as the equals of human actors, but he does not actually deal with the biology of viruses in his study of Pasteur.’ (This is not an accidental omission on Latour’s part, as Kohler suggests, rather it reflects his skepticism regarding scientists’ “rhetoric”.)

Lords of the Fly is a much richer book for Kohler’s choice to take seriously the constructive aspect of Latour’s theory while maintaining a commitment to intellectual history. That is, he treats Drosophila melanogaster as an evolving species in the same way that biologists would but extends his examination by considering the laboratory as yet another environment to which it may be better or worse adapted:

Drosophila first occupied the domestic microenvironment for which its natural qualities made it best adapted…
They had distinctive modes of dispersal, not by wind and banana boat but in cozy, protected mailing tubes.

But Lords of the Fly is more than a novelty approach, it is an outstanding intellectual history. Kohler also discusses the science of Drosophila genetics in great detail, describing how study of this insect allowed biologists to exponentially increase their understanding of genetics, evolution, developmental and molecular biology in a matter of decades.

Having largely rejected the actor-network approach, Kohler argues that his real aim is for the sort of balance between history, sociology and science that is sought by Strong Programme metascientists – ‘This study of Drosophila and the drosophilists should be read as an experiment in the kind of history for which Miller calls: a material, cultural, and social history of scientists at work.’ He succeeds and it is this approach that is the greatest virtue of the book.

The most interesting aspect of Lords of the Fly is the delightfully subtle way that Kohler treats the scientists in the same manner as Drosophila – ‘For drosophilists, too, the exchange system was a vehicle of dispersal and colonization and transformed them from a local species of experimental biologists to a cosmopolitan one’! This is not just a literary quirk but a product of Kohler’s Edinburgh leanings for, if the sociologist is just another scientist, this is clearly the most appropriate language even when the subjects are Homo sapiens.

Despite this distance from his subject when describing the field, Kohler’s detailed accounts of the interactions between individual drosophilists are vivid enough to make the reader feel he knows the characters.