John Burdon Sanderson Haldane

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane , 1892-1964, British geneticist, biologist, and popularizer of science; son of John Scott Haldane . As one of the most influential scientists of the 20th cent, he studied relationships among different disciplines and problems, including the consequence of Mendelian genetics on evolutionary theory, the relationship between enzymology and genetics, and the application of mathematics and statistics to the study of biology. His works which are numerous, include (with John S. Huxley) Animal Biology (1927), The Causes of Evolution (1937), New Paths in Genetics (1941), and Biochemistry of Genetics (1954). Haldane also wrote fiction and verse as well as political works in support of his Marxist position, notably The Marxist Philosophy and the Sciences (1938). Disillusioned with Marxism in the 1940s and 50s, he eventually moved to India to conduct scientific research.

Bibliography: See biography by R. W. Clark (1984); study ed. by K. R. Dronamraju (1968).

Haldane, John Burdon Sanderson (1892–1964) A Scottish physiologist and genetist, who graduated from Oxford University in classics and philosophy, but who taught physiology and became interested in genetics. He investigated respiration and the effect of carbon dioxide in the blood, using himself as an experimental subject. Later he calculated the rate of enzyme reactions, proving these obey the laws of thermodynamics. Finally, he turned to the mathematics of natural selection. Haldane was born in Oxford, the son of John Scott Haldane, an eminent physiologist. In 1933 he was appointed professor of genetics at University College, London, where he later became professor of biometry. A committed atheist and Communist, he left the Communist Party because of the influence wielded by T. D. Lysenko. He migrated to India in 1957 in protest at the British and French invasion of Suez and died at Bhubaneshwar.