Accidents, History, and Hartline

Hartline was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine in 1967. Much of the details of his life, personal and professional, have been omitted here. I’ve not mentioned his wife or children, his interest in Astronomy, his failed attempt to be a Physicist. Here I’ve highlighted two important discoveries, both explored within the lateral eye of Limulus, both done in conjunction with research conducted at the MBL, and both happy accidents. These stories of Hartline should do more than teach us a little bit about vision: they should teach us a little bit about the process and progress of science. Surely a scientist must be driven, must be educated, must have access to marvelous facilities: but we should never forget the elements of chance and luck which permeate our lives, scientific or otherwise. Hartline’s genius was largely in taking advantage of his luck: his lucky access to experimental animals, his lucky access to a vibrant community of scientists at the MBL, his dumb luck in using adult Limulus to study single nerve action potentials, and the lucky chance that brought a careless co-worker into a dark room to turned on the lights.

Suggested citation
LaTourelle, Jonathan Jacob. 2015. "The Neurobiology of Vision at the MBL". MBL History Project digital exhibit. http://history.archives.mbl.edu/exploring/exhibits/neurobiology-vision-mbl
Bibliography

Note: There is no science without a scientist, and so the author has attempted to maintain the essential truth of that—namely that at each stage of the scientific process there is a person looking at evidence and making judgments. However there is almost no personal biography, and much of the professional biography of each author has been abridged dramatically. In spite of this, the reader should keep in mind that each of these individuals were complicated people who share at least a job description. George Wald once said, “A scientist should be the happiest of men. Not that science isn't serious; but as everyone knows, being serious is one way of being happy, just as being gay is one way of being unhappy”. Each of these individuals had a scientific ethic, as well as a body of scientific work, and where possible, the author of each section has attempted to not forget the romanticism of the spirit of investigation, or the fact that many of these people were excited by a simple truth—after all, they were seeing things no one else had seen before. That majesty can be easy to forget if you are an outsider new to the complexities of visual physiology, but these scientists never forgot it.

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Universalizing Photochemical Theories of Vision: Hecht, Wald, and the Marine Biological Laboratory

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Haldan Keffer Hartline, a Prize, and Two Accidents

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Roger Hanlon, Universal Camouflage, and Studying Vision at the MBL in the 21st Century

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