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Science and Everyday Life
284 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1942
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About the author
J.B.S. Haldane
80 books75 followersJohn Burdon Sanderson Haldane was a British geneticist, biometrician, physiologist, and popularizer of science who opened new paths of research in population genetics and evolution.
Son of the noted physiologist John Scott Haldane, he began studying science as assistant to his father at the age of eight and later received formal education in the classics at Eton College and at New College, Oxford (M.A., 1914). After World War I he served as a fellow of New College and then taught at the University of Cambridge (1922–32), the University of California, Berkeley (1932), and the University of London (1933–57).
In the 1930s Haldane became a Marxist. He joined the British Communist Party and assumed editorship of the party’s London paper, the Daily Worker. Later, he became disillusioned with the official party line and with the rise of the controversial Soviet biologist Trofim D. Lysenko. In 1957 Haldane moved to India, where he took citizenship and headed the government Genetics and Biometry Laboratory in Orissa.
Haldane, R.A. Fisher, and Sewall Wright, in separate mathematical arguments based on analyses of mutation rates, population size, patterns of reproduction, and other factors, related Darwinian evolutionary theory and Gregor Mendel’s concepts of heredity. Haldane also contributed to the theory of enzyme action and to studies in human physiology. He possessed a combination of analytic powers, literary abilities, a wide range of knowledge, and a force of personality that produced numerous discoveries in several scientific fields and proved stimulating to an entire generation of research workers.
Son of the noted physiologist John Scott Haldane, he began studying science as assistant to his father at the age of eight and later received formal education in the classics at Eton College and at New College, Oxford (M.A., 1914). After World War I he served as a fellow of New College and then taught at the University of Cambridge (1922–32), the University of California, Berkeley (1932), and the University of London (1933–57).
In the 1930s Haldane became a Marxist. He joined the British Communist Party and assumed editorship of the party’s London paper, the Daily Worker. Later, he became disillusioned with the official party line and with the rise of the controversial Soviet biologist Trofim D. Lysenko. In 1957 Haldane moved to India, where he took citizenship and headed the government Genetics and Biometry Laboratory in Orissa.
Haldane, R.A. Fisher, and Sewall Wright, in separate mathematical arguments based on analyses of mutation rates, population size, patterns of reproduction, and other factors, related Darwinian evolutionary theory and Gregor Mendel’s concepts of heredity. Haldane also contributed to the theory of enzyme action and to studies in human physiology. He possessed a combination of analytic powers, literary abilities, a wide range of knowledge, and a force of personality that produced numerous discoveries in several scientific fields and proved stimulating to an entire generation of research workers.
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February 12, 2020
“So I drank as much hydrochloric acid as I could. But I couldn’t drink enough without burning my stomach. So I drank a solution of ammonium chloride...”
Seventy essays reprinted from the Daily Worker after its suppression. I actually learned quite a lot from it. That I can do so from a book eighty years old says something rather worrying about the state of my knowledge of science. It also shows good science writing. It reminded me a couple of times of the approach taken by Isaac Asimov in his essays. I don’t know if there’s a direct line of influence. I do know Arthur C Clarke quotes Haldane somewhere or other (which is why I read this book). Certainly he is endlessly quotable. I’ve restricted myself to one, but I could go on for pages and pages. Really the only fault with the essays is that they’re too short. I’d liked to know more about his auto-experiments (he takes heroin as well), but really the above quotation is all the detail we get.
The book is interesting also as a snapshot of politics, society and science on the eve of the 2nd World War. The essays are written from a Marxist perspective and he quite often refers to the work of Soviet scientists who were involved in something other that rocketry. Quite a shocker. And because of this perspective he often applies the science to the lives of ordinary people, giving you a little glimpse into a world only the very oldest now living remember. That said, some things never change. He discusses the impending doom of the Gros Michel banana and here we are, eighty years later, discussing the doom of the Cavendish.
Seventy essays reprinted from the Daily Worker after its suppression. I actually learned quite a lot from it. That I can do so from a book eighty years old says something rather worrying about the state of my knowledge of science. It also shows good science writing. It reminded me a couple of times of the approach taken by Isaac Asimov in his essays. I don’t know if there’s a direct line of influence. I do know Arthur C Clarke quotes Haldane somewhere or other (which is why I read this book). Certainly he is endlessly quotable. I’ve restricted myself to one, but I could go on for pages and pages. Really the only fault with the essays is that they’re too short. I’d liked to know more about his auto-experiments (he takes heroin as well), but really the above quotation is all the detail we get.
The book is interesting also as a snapshot of politics, society and science on the eve of the 2nd World War. The essays are written from a Marxist perspective and he quite often refers to the work of Soviet scientists who were involved in something other that rocketry. Quite a shocker. And because of this perspective he often applies the science to the lives of ordinary people, giving you a little glimpse into a world only the very oldest now living remember. That said, some things never change. He discusses the impending doom of the Gros Michel banana and here we are, eighty years later, discussing the doom of the Cavendish.
Displaying 1 of 1 review