Dr. Purves”Groodies
格鲁迪的故事……
Groodies were introduced at Harvey Mudd by Bill Purves, the founding father of the HMC Bio Department. The 生物学 52 首页work Book from 1980 is subtitled “Tales of Groodies, 愤怒的大象, 和高贵的黄瓜”, 第一句话是, “Welcome to the wonderful world of Groodies”.
The first Groody homework problem in Bio 52 began:
While traveling with HMC’s Bates Time-Warp Program, you find yourself stranded in a far-off galaxy, 很久以前. To pass the time you pop open a can of Schlitz — and are dismayed when two (2) tiny creatures leap into the beer. Faster than you can imagine, 32 similar creatures climb out of the beer and shake themselves dry. Over the next several weeks you learn many things about these Groodies. (You suspect that they are called Groodies because each one wears a T-shirt with “Groody” written on it in microscopic letters.) Groodies are the dominant local life form; their principal activities are the manufacture of T-shirts and of beer. The beer is essential for their reproduction — a couple of Groodies (one of each sex) dive in together and produce 32 progeny . . . .
But the evolutionary origin of Bio 52 Groodies predates even the original Bio 52 首页work Book by about a decade. 当教授. Purves在前言中解释道，
A heart-felt acknowledgment: I confess that I did not invent the name “Groody,” 哪一个 by the way is pronounced “grew-dee”, 不是“grow-dee”. Groodies first appeared in a fine but commercially unappreciated book by Burton Guttman (Biological Principles, W.A. 本杰明公司.(1971年，纽约). 在那本书的第136页, Guttman had a bunch of drawings of strange little critters (see figure below), 标题所述, “The little creatures shown here are groodies; they are useful (but unfortunately fictional) little organisms that are pure genetic tools. We will use them in parallel with phage to illustrate the basic concepts . . . .” When I read the preface of Guttman’s book (just as you are for some unknown reason reading this preface), I learned the ultimate source of the name: “My daughter Erica is responsible for the name groodies. . . .”
Anyhow, I think my Groodies are handsomer. I thank Dave Gonda, HMC ’79, for the original, definitive drawings of Groodies. . . .
The first Bio 52 Groodies only appeared in Mendelian genetics problems, but today we have problems on the molecular biology, 生物化学, and evolution of Groodies as well as classical Groody genetics. Who knows where they’ll show up next!
