Lev Semenovich Berg
Encyclopedia
Lev Semyonovich Berg ' onMouseout='HidePop("95862")' href="/topics/Bender,_Moldova">Bender
- December 24, 1950, Leningrad
) was a leading Soviet geographer
and ichthyologist who served as President of the Soviet Geographical Society between 1940 and 1950. He also developed his own evolutionary theory as opposed to the theories of Darwin and Lamarck.
in Russia
, he enrolled at a Moscow
University early in his life where he studied hydrobiology
and geography. He later studied icthyology and in 1928 was awarded he was also a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
.
Lev Berg graduated from the Moscow University in 1898. Between 1903 and 1914, he worked in the Museum of Zoology in Saint Petersburg
. He was one of the founders of the Geographical Institute, now a Faculty of Geography of the Saint Petersburg University.
Berg studied and determined the depth of the lakes of Central Asia
, including Balkhash
and Issyk Kul
. He developed Dokuchaev's doctrine of natural zones, which became one of the foundations of the Soviet biology. Among his pioneering monographs on climatology
were "Climate and Life" (1922) and "Foundations of Climatology" (1927).
During his lifetime, Berg was a towering presence in the science of ichthyology
. In 1916, he published four volumes of the study of Fishes of Russia. The fourth edition was issued in 1949 as Freshwater Fishes of the Soviet Union and Adjacent Countries and won him the Stalin Prize. He was said to have discovered the symbiotic relationship between lamprey
s and salmon
. Berg's name is featured in the Latin appellations of more than 60 species of plants and animals.
In 2001, the Central Bank of Transnistria
minted a silver coin honoring this native of today's Transnistria
, as part of a series of commemorative coins called The Outstanding People of Pridnestrovie
.
Berg was honored for a lifetime of scientific achievement by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and presented with the P.P. Semenov-Tian-Shansky Gold Medal.
. Berg's ideas were collected in his book Nomogenesis; or, Evolution Determined by Law and was first published in 1922 in Russia; it was later translated into English in two editions the first appearing in 1926 and the later edition appearing in 1969. In the book Berg collected a large amount of empirical data which offered a strong criticism of Darwin's theory of evolution.
Berg's theory of nomogenesis combined arguments from paleontology
, zoology
and botany
to claim that evolution
is not a random process. The theory of Nomogenesis emphasized the limitations of natural selection
which determine the directionality of evolution.
Berg claimed that the variation
of characters in species
is confined within certain limits due to both internal and external factors. The limitation of the variability, Berg argued, left hardly any space for natural selection; he claimed this was supported by the paleontological record because all the phylogenetic branches look more or less like straight lines. Berg distanced himself from both Darwinism
and Lamarckism
. Instead he proposed the concept of directed mass mutation
s as the main mechanism for directing evolution.
Influenced by the paleontologist Wilhelm Waagen
, he labeled the directed mutations Waagen-Mutations:
"New species arise by means of mass transformation of a great number of individuals, which happens due to Waagen mutations... This mass transformation is a phenomenon of geological magnitude. It is connected with the alteration of the fauna of a certain horizon and comes about in certain periods only to be absent for a long time"
Thus Berg claimed evolution was caused by mass mutations, which are directed by internal and external factors, so that new species occur with a high probability of being almost perfectly adapted. According to Berg, newly evolved species beget the subordinate taxonomic categories, and appear to be perfectly adapted to their environments. Although Berg's theory was anti-Darwinian, and anti-Lamarckian, it still advocated adaptive evolution.
J B S Haldane called Nomogenesis "by far the best anti-Darwinian book of this century".
Bender, Moldova
Bender or Bendery, also known as Tighina is a city within the internationally recognized borders of Moldova under de facto control of the unrecognized Transnistria Republic since 1992...
- December 24, 1950, Leningrad
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
) was a leading Soviet geographer
Geographer
A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...
and ichthyologist who served as President of the Soviet Geographical Society between 1940 and 1950. He also developed his own evolutionary theory as opposed to the theories of Darwin and Lamarck.
Bio
Berg was born in MoldovaMoldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, he enrolled at a Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
University early in his life where he studied hydrobiology
Hydrobiology
Hydrobiology is the science of life and life processes in water. Much of modern hydrobiology can be viewed as a sub-discipline of ecology but the sphere of hydrobiology includes taxonomy, economic biology, industrial biology, morphology, physiology etc. The one distinguishing aspect is that all...
and geography. He later studied icthyology and in 1928 was awarded he was also a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
.
Lev Berg graduated from the Moscow University in 1898. Between 1903 and 1914, he worked in the Museum of Zoology in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. He was one of the founders of the Geographical Institute, now a Faculty of Geography of the Saint Petersburg University.
Berg studied and determined the depth of the lakes of Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
, including Balkhash
Balkhash
Balkhash may refer to * Balkhash , a city at Lake Balkhash, Kazakhstan* Balkhash Lake, a lake in Kazakhstan* Balkhash perch, a species of perch found in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and China...
and Issyk Kul
Issyk Kul
Issyk Kul is an endorheic lake in the northern Tian Shan mountains in eastern Kyrgyzstan. It is the tenth largest lake in the world by volume and the second largest saline lake after the Caspian Sea. Although it is surrounded by snow-capped peaks, it never freezes; hence its name, which means "hot...
. He developed Dokuchaev's doctrine of natural zones, which became one of the foundations of the Soviet biology. Among his pioneering monographs on climatology
Climatology
Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences...
were "Climate and Life" (1922) and "Foundations of Climatology" (1927).
During his lifetime, Berg was a towering presence in the science of ichthyology
Ichthyology
Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish. This includes skeletal fish , cartilaginous fish , and jawless fish...
. In 1916, he published four volumes of the study of Fishes of Russia. The fourth edition was issued in 1949 as Freshwater Fishes of the Soviet Union and Adjacent Countries and won him the Stalin Prize. He was said to have discovered the symbiotic relationship between lamprey
Lamprey
Lampreys are a family of jawless fish, whose adults are characterized by a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth. Translated from an admixture of Latin and Greek, lamprey means stone lickers...
s and salmon
Salmon
Salmon is the common name for several species of fish in the family Salmonidae. Several other fish in the same family are called trout; the difference is often said to be that salmon migrate and trout are resident, but this distinction does not strictly hold true...
. Berg's name is featured in the Latin appellations of more than 60 species of plants and animals.
In 2001, the Central Bank of Transnistria
Transnistrian Republican Bank
The Transnistrian Republican Bank is the central bank of Transnistria. It issues its own currency, the Transnistrian ruble and also a series of memorable gold- and silver coins, among them The Outstanding People of Pridnestrovie....
minted a silver coin honoring this native of today's Transnistria
Transnistria
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...
, as part of a series of commemorative coins called The Outstanding People of Pridnestrovie
The Outstanding People of Pridnestrovie
The Outstanding People of Pridnestrovie is the name of a series of commemorative coins issued between 2001 and 2004 by the Transnistrian Republican Bank It consists of silver coins featuring the following notable natives of Transnistria:...
.
Berg was honored for a lifetime of scientific achievement by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and presented with the P.P. Semenov-Tian-Shansky Gold Medal.
Nomogenesis
Berg is most well known for his evolutionary theory called nomogenesis, which was a type of orthogenesisOrthogenesis
Orthogenesis, orthogenetic evolution, progressive evolution or autogenesis, is the hypothesis that life has an innate tendency to evolve in a unilinear fashion due to some internal or external "driving force". The hypothesis is based on essentialism and cosmic teleology and proposes an intrinsic...
. Berg's ideas were collected in his book Nomogenesis; or, Evolution Determined by Law and was first published in 1922 in Russia; it was later translated into English in two editions the first appearing in 1926 and the later edition appearing in 1969. In the book Berg collected a large amount of empirical data which offered a strong criticism of Darwin's theory of evolution.
Berg's theory of nomogenesis combined arguments from paleontology
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
, zoology
Zoology
Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...
and botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
to claim that evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
is not a random process. The theory of Nomogenesis emphasized the limitations of natural selection
Natural selection
Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
which determine the directionality of evolution.
Berg claimed that the variation
Variation
- Physics :* Magnetic variation, difference between magnetic north and true north, measured as an angle* Variation , any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite, particularly of the moon- Mathematics :* Bounded variation...
of characters in species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
is confined within certain limits due to both internal and external factors. The limitation of the variability, Berg argued, left hardly any space for natural selection; he claimed this was supported by the paleontological record because all the phylogenetic branches look more or less like straight lines. Berg distanced himself from both Darwinism
Darwinism
Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....
and Lamarckism
Lamarckism
Lamarckism is the idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring . It is named after the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , who incorporated the action of soft inheritance into his evolutionary theories...
. Instead he proposed the concept of directed mass mutation
Mutation
In molecular biology and genetics, mutations are changes in a genomic sequence: the DNA sequence of a cell's genome or the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. They can be defined as sudden and spontaneous changes in the cell. Mutations are caused by radiation, viruses, transposons and mutagenic...
s as the main mechanism for directing evolution.
Influenced by the paleontologist Wilhelm Waagen
Wilhelm Heinrich Waagen
Wilhelm Heinrich Waagen was a geologist and paleontologist. He was born June 23, 1841 in Munich and died March 24, 1900 in Vienna.-Overview:He received a Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of Munich, where he published an elaborate work on geology that was crowned by the university...
, he labeled the directed mutations Waagen-Mutations:
"New species arise by means of mass transformation of a great number of individuals, which happens due to Waagen mutations... This mass transformation is a phenomenon of geological magnitude. It is connected with the alteration of the fauna of a certain horizon and comes about in certain periods only to be absent for a long time"
Thus Berg claimed evolution was caused by mass mutations, which are directed by internal and external factors, so that new species occur with a high probability of being almost perfectly adapted. According to Berg, newly evolved species beget the subordinate taxonomic categories, and appear to be perfectly adapted to their environments. Although Berg's theory was anti-Darwinian, and anti-Lamarckian, it still advocated adaptive evolution.
J B S Haldane called Nomogenesis "by far the best anti-Darwinian book of this century".
Works
- Nomogenesis; or, Evolution Determined by Law (1922)
- "Fresh-water fishFishFish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
es of Russia" (1923) - Discovery of Kamchatka and Bering's Kamchatka Voyages (1924)
- Russian discoveries in the Pacific (1926)
- "Principles of climatologyClimatologyClimatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time, and is a branch of the atmospheric sciences...
" (1927) (reprinted 1938) - Geographical zones of the U.S.S.R. (1937)
- "Freshwater fishes of the U.S.S.R. and adjacent countries. Volume 1-3. Israel Program for Scientific Translations Ltd, Jerusalem. 1962-65 (Russian version published 1948-49)."
- "Natural regions of the U.S.S.R." (1950)
- "Classification of fishes, both recent and fossilFossilFossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
" (1940) - Loess as a product of weathering and soil formation
External links
- Article in the Encyclopedia Britannica
- http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:WI0wrhFs04QJ:www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2984689/pdf/eugenrev00318-0035.pdf+leo+berg+evolution&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShnMQNXRnaJXvy0NsDvs2q8di-LF-u2p0548a52euFO1dI4nqot89RJmXDOooVNAPC2IYeh6w3pPWFMIn9ikSoo4FUNAouRLGCwNkI1XufaitaQhB6IhwrIEFwagpBlvoaAZAZX&sig=AHIEtbSNAL5kA7oLV2oq5PI2EuF2BuAVyQBerg's "Nomogenesis" Review by Professor E.W. Macbride, F.R.S]