Paul Kammerer and epigenetics – a reappraisal of his experiments

During recent years, the scientific interest in the work of Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer (1880‒1926) has risen again. This development can largely be attributed to advances in the fields of epigenetics and epigenetic inheritance, and it resulted in provocative discussions. This article contributes to enhancing the knowledge about Kammerer’s publications in two respects. First, I provide a brief overview and contextualization of Kammerer’s main works on phenotypic plasticity and its inheritance, some of which seem little known at present. Thereafter, to ensure an accurate transmission of the historical record, I comment on recently published suggestive information about what Kammerer did and wrote, chiefly referring to Kammerer’s original writings on fire salamanders (Salamandra salamandra) and cave salamanders (Proteus anguinus). Although the exact contents of Kammerer’s writings remain controversial and must be regarded with caution, his writings need to be treated objectively and accurately to avoid historical record distortion and to render the performance of adequate replications of his experiments possible.

Two Viennese Families

In the book’s first chapter major events in Berg’s early life (1885–1911) in Vienna are traced: his family, his artistic impulses and influences, his self-instruction in music and art, his schooling, and his early professional aspirations. Berg’s lifelong struggle with poor health is assessed. The Nahowski family, Berg’s future in-laws, is studied, including Anna Nahowski’s affair with Emperor Franz Joseph and the possibility that Helene Berg was the Emperor’s natural daughter. The love triangle of Berg, Helene, and Paul Kammerer (a brilliant Viennese scientist and musician) is explored, and the chapter ends with Berg’s marriage to Helene in 1911.

Paul Kammerer and the inheritance of acquired characteristics

The Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer (1880-1926) would by now be long forgotten if Arthur Koestler had not published ‘The case of the Midwife toad’, in which he depicted Kammerer as a victim of the paradigm battle between neo-Darwinists and Lamarckists. Kammerer is still on the scientific agenda, with at least 10 publications since 2005. The question is still out if Kammerer fabricated his scientific results or not. In this paper we provide the evidence that Kammerer consistently faked experimental results. We show (1) that the design of his experiments could never have produced the results that he claimed, (2) that the assumptions he made about the developmental biology of the species he studied are falsified by recent research, and (3) that the specimens he showed as proof for the success of his experiments came from nature.