PMID- 16712833
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20060919
LR  - 20181201
IS  - 0012-1606 (Print)
IS  - 0012-1606 (Linking)
VI  - 296
IP  - 1
DP  - 2006 Aug 1
TI  - Ernest Everett Just (1883-1941)--an early ecological developmental biologist.
PG  - 1-11
AB  - Ecological developmental biology (Eco-Devo) involves the study of development in 
      its natural environmental context as opposed to the laboratory setting. Ernest E. 
      Just was an early 20th century African-American embryologist who devoted his 
      career to studying the early development of marine invertebrates in the United 
      States and abroad. Through detailed study of the fertilization process, he came 
      to see the cell cortex as playing a central role in development, inheritance, and 
      evolution. This paper, after presenting some of Just's scientific and 
      philosophical contributions, argues that Just was an Eco-Devo biologist. Three 
      lines of evidence are given. First, Just believed that intimate knowledge of the 
      natural history of the marine animal under study--hence, the natural setting in 
      which fertilization occurs--was essential. Second, he stressed the importance of 
      the egg's "normality"--how well its condition in the laboratory corresponds to 
      the natural, fertilizable state. Finally, Just was an organicist, believing that 
      organisms are holistic systems with emergent properties that arise from their 
      organization and complexity. Although other scientists may stand out more clearly 
      as founding architects of Eco-Devo, E. E. Just, with his unwavering insistence on 
      the normality and holistic integrity of the egg cell, was one of its purest 
      adherents.
FAU - Byrnes, W Malcolm
AU  - Byrnes WM
AD  - Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Medicine, Howard 
      University, 520 W. Street NW, Washington, DC 20059, USA. wbyrnes@howard.edu
FAU - Eckberg, William R
AU  - Eckberg WR
LA  - eng
PT  - Biography
PT  - Historical Article
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Portrait
PT  - Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
DEP - 20060422
PL  - United States
TA  - Dev Biol
JT  - Developmental biology
JID - 0372762
SB  - IM
MH  - Animals
MH  - Developmental Biology/*history
MH  - Ecology/*history
MH  - Embryology/*history
MH  - History, 19th Century
MH  - History, 20th Century
MH  - United States
PS  - Just EE
FPS - Just, Ernest Everett
EDAT- 2006/05/23 09:00
MHDA- 2006/09/20 09:00
CRDT- 2006/05/23 09:00
PHST- 2005/08/26 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2006/03/01 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2006/04/09 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2006/05/23 09:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2006/09/20 09:00 [medline]
PHST- 2006/05/23 09:00 [entrez]
AID - S0012-1606(06)00725-1 [pii]
AID - 10.1016/j.ydbio.2006.04.445 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Dev Biol. 2006 Aug 1;296(1):1-11. doi: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2006.04.445. Epub 2006 Apr 
      22.