Most often, people are stirred emotionally, psychologically, or otherwise, by music, movies, and books. However, I rarely hear of anyone making the claim that a peer-reviewed scientific paper inspired them in this sort of way. I have compiled, below, a list of papers that have influenced me in an intellectual or philosophical manner. Most of these papers represent major paradigm shifts in scientific thought, and should be mandatory reading for any serious biologist. Of course, Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species tops my list, as well as the Darwin-Wallace paper published in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society, Zoology 3:45-62, on August 20, 1858.

Bridges, C. B. 1916. Non-disjunction as proof of the chromosome theory of heredity (part 2). Genetics 1:107-163.

Broom, R. 1936. A new fossil anthropoid skull from South Africa. Nature 138:486-488.

Broom, R. 1938. The pleistocene anthropoid apes of South Africa. Nature 142:377-379.

Case, T. J. and M. R. Gilpin. 1974. Interference competition and niche theory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 71:3073-3077.

Comfort, N. C. 1995. Two genes, no enzyme: a second look at Barbara McClintock and the 1951 Cold Spring Harbor Symposium. Genetics 140:1161-1166.

Creighton, H. B. and B. McClintock. 1931. A correlation of cytological and genetical crossing-over in Zea mays. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 17:492-497.

Crooks, K. R. and M. E. Soulé. 1999. Mesopredator release and avifaunal extinctions in a fragmented system. Nature 400:563-566.

Dart, R. A. 1925. Australopithecus africanus: the man-ape of South Africa. Nature 115:195-199.

Dobzhansky, T. 1973. Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution. The American Biology Teacher 35:125-129.

Einstein, A. 1905. On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in Liquids at Rest Required by the Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat. Annalen der Physik 17:549-560.

Einstein, A. 1906. A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions. Annalen der Physik 19:289-306. Corrections, ibid. 34:591-592 (1911).

Eldrige, N. and S. J. Gould. 1972. "Punctuated Equilibria: An Alternative to Phyletic Gradualism," in T. J. M. Schopf, (ed.), Models in Paleobiology, pp.82-115, San Francisco: Freeman, Cooper and Co.

Hardin, G. 1968. The Tragedy of the Commons. Science 162:1243-1248.

Hardy, G. H. 1908. Mendelian proportions in a mixed population. Science 28:49-50.

Kay, C. E. 1998. Are Ecosystems Structured from the Top-Down or Bottom-Up? a New Look at an Old Debate. Wildlife Society Bulletin 26:484-498.

Mendel, G. 1866. Versuche über Pflanzen-Hybriden. Verhandlungen des naturforschenden Vereines in Brünn [Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brünn]. Read at the meetings of February 8th, and March 8th, 1865.

Miller, S. 1953. A production of amino acids under possible primitive earth conditions. Science 117:528-529.

Miller, S. and H. Urey. 1959. Organic compound synthesis on the primitive earth. Science 130:245-251.

Odum, H. T. 1957. Trophic Structure and Productivity of Silver Springs, Florida. Ecological Monographs 27: 55-112.

Watson, J. D. and F. H. C. Crick. 1953. A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid. Nature 171:737.

Watson, J. D. and F. H. C. Crick. 1953. Genetic implications of deoxyribosenucleic acid. Nature 171:964-967.

Woese C. R. and G. E. Fox. 1977. Phylogenetic structure of the prokaryotic domain: the primary kingdoms. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 74:5088-5090.

The HIV papers:

Gallo, R. C., S. Z. Salahuddin, M. Popovic, et al. 1984. Frequent detection and isolation of cytopathic retroviruses (HTLV-III) from patients with AIDS and at risk for AIDS. Science 224:500-502.

Popovic, M., M. G. Sarngadharan, E. Read, and R. C. Gallo. 1984. Detection, isolation and continuous production of cytopathic retroviruses (HTLV-III) from patients with AIDS and Pre-AIDS. Science 224:497-500.

Sarngadharan, M. G., M. Popovic, L. Bruch, J. Schüpbach, and R. C. Gallo. 1984. Antibodies reactive with T-lymphotropic retroviruses (HTLV-III) in the serum of patients with AIDS. Science 224:506-508.

Schüpbach, J., M. Popovic, R. V. Gilden, M. A. Gonda, M. G. Sarngadharan, and R. C. Gallo. Serological analysis of a subgroup of human T-lymphotropic retrovirus (HTLV-III). Science 224:503-505.

The "Intelligent Design" papers:

Meyer, S. C. 2004. The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 117:213-239.

Wells, J. 2005. Do centrioles generate a polar ejection force? Biology Forum 98:71-96.

What amazes me about these ID papers, is not that they are significantly influential, but that they were actually published.