J. B. S. Haldane

J.B.S. Haldane
Haldane in 1914
Born
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane

(1892-11-05)5 November 1892
Oxford, England
Died1 December 1964(1964-12-01) (aged 72)
Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India
Citizenship
  • United Kingdom (until 1961)
  • India (from 1961)
Alma materNew College, Oxford
Known for
Spouses
  • (m. 1926; div. 1945)
  • (m. 1945)
Parent
RelativesNaomi Mitchison (sister)
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
Academic advisorsFrederick Gowland Hopkins
Doctoral students
Military career
Allegiance United Kingdom
Service/branch British Army
Years of service1914–1920
RankCaptain
UnitBlack Watch

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS (/ˈhɔːldn/; 5 November 1892 – 1 December 1964[1][2]), nicknamed "Jack" or "JBS",[3] was a British-Indian scientist who worked in physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics. With innovative use of statistics in biology, he was one of the founders of neo-Darwinism. He served in the Great War, and obtained the rank of captain.[4] Despite his lack of an academic degree in the field,[1] he taught biology at the University of Cambridge, the Royal Institution, and University College London.[5] Renouncing his British citizenship, he became an Indian citizen in 1961 and worked at the Indian Statistical Institute for the rest of his life.

Haldane's article on abiogenesis in 1929 introduced the "primordial soup theory", which became the foundation for the concept of the chemical origin of life. He established human gene maps for haemophilia and colour blindness on the X chromosome, and codified Haldane's rule on sterility in the heterogametic sex of hybrids in species.[6][7] He correctly proposed that sickle-cell disease confers some immunity to malaria. He was the first to suggest the central idea of in vitro fertilisation, as well as concepts such as hydrogen economy, cis and trans-acting regulation, coupling reaction, molecular repulsion, the darwin (as a unit of evolution), and organismal cloning.

In 1957, Haldane articulated Haldane's dilemma, a limit on the speed of beneficial evolution, an idea that is still debated today.[8] He willed his body for medical studies, as he wanted to remain useful even in death. He is also remembered for his work in human biology, having coined "clone", "cloning", and "ectogenesis". With his sister, Naomi Mitchison, Haldane was the first to demonstrate genetic linkage in mammals. Subsequent works established a unification of Mendelian genetics and Darwinian evolution by natural selection whilst laying the groundwork for modern synthesis, and helped to create population genetics.

Haldane was a professed socialist, Marxist, atheist, and secular humanist whose political dissent led him to leave England in 1956 and live in India, becoming a naturalised Indian citizen in 1961. Arthur C. Clarke credited him as "perhaps the most brilliant science populariser of his generation".[9][10] Brazilian-British biologist and Nobel laureate Peter Medawar called Haldane "the cleverest man I ever knew".[11] According to Theodosius Dobzhansky, "Haldane was always recognized as a singular case"; Ernst Mayr described him as a "polymath" (as did others);[12] Michael J. D. White described him as "the most erudite biologist of his generation, and perhaps of the century";[13] James Watson described him as "England's most clever and eccentric biologist",[14] and Sahotra Sarkar described him as "probably the most prescient biologist of this [20th] century".[15] According to a Cambridge student, "he seemed to be the last man who might know all there was to be known".[12]

  1. ^ a b Pirie, N. W. (1966). "John Burdon Sanderson Haldane. 1892–1964". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 12: 218–249. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1966.0010. S2CID 73216473.
  2. ^ Rao, Veena (2015). "J. B. S. Haldane, an Indian scientist of British origin" (PDF). Current Science. 109 (3): 634–638. JSTOR 24906123.
  3. ^ Dronamraju, Krishna R (2012). "Recollections of J.B.S. Haldane, with special reference to Human Genetics in India". Indian Journal of Human Genetics. 18 (1): 3–8. doi:10.4103/0971-6866.96634. PMC 3385175. PMID 22754215.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference LG was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Dronamraju, Krishna R. (1986). "Possible worlds: contributions of J. B. S. Haldane to genetics". Trends in Genetics. 2: 322–324. doi:10.1016/0168-9525(86)90288-X.
  6. ^ Turelli, M; Orr, HA (1995). "The dominance theory of Haldane's rule". Genetics. 140 (1): 389–402. doi:10.1093/genetics/140.1.389. PMC 1206564. PMID 7635302.
  7. ^ Haldane, J. B. S. (1922). "Sex ratio and unisexual sterility in hybrid animals". Journal of Genetics. 12 (2): 101–109. doi:10.1007/BF02983075. S2CID 32459333.
  8. ^ Barton, N.H.; Briggs, D.E.G.; Eisen, J.A.; Goldstein, D.B.; Patel, N.H. (2007). Evolution. Cold Spring Harbor, New York: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
  9. ^ Clarke, Arthur C. (2009). "Foreword". In John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (ed.). What I Require From Life: Writings on Science and Life from J.B.S. Haldane. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. ix. ISBN 978-0-19-923770-8. Archived from the original on 8 March 2017.
  10. ^ Dronamraju, KR (1992). "J.B.S. Haldane (1892–1964): centennial appreciation of a polymath". American Journal of Human Genetics. 51 (4): 885–9. PMC 1682816. PMID 1415229.
  11. ^ Gould, Stephen Jay (2011). The Lying Stones of Marrakech : Penultimate Reflections in Natural History (1st Harvard University Press ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 305. ISBN 978-0-674-06167-5.
  12. ^ a b Adams, Mark B. (2000). "Last judgment: the visionary biology of J.B.S. Haldane". Journal of the History of Biology. 33 (3): 457–491. doi:10.1023/A:1004891323595. JSTOR 4331611. PMID 13678078. S2CID 46244914.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference :3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Watson, James D. (1968). The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA. Atheneum. ISBN 0-689-70602-2. OCLC 6197022.
  15. ^ Sarkar, Sahotra (1992). "A Centenary Reassessment of J. B. S. Haldane, 1892–1964". BioScience. 42 (10): 777–785. doi:10.2307/1311997. JSTOR 1311997.

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