J. B. S. Haldane

    As commonly done, we will omit the spaces between the initials when we refer to J. B. S. Haldane in this article.

Referred to by most as J. B. S. Haldane (or J.B.S. Haldane), the initials stand for John Burdon Sanderson ('Burdon Sanderson' from his maternal line), born in Oxford, England, in 1892, his father an honored (respiratory) physiologist, John Scott Haldane (J. S. Haldane), with whom J.B.S. worked as an assistant during childhood. Educated and teaching at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and the University of London, in 1932 J.B.S. Haldane published The Causes of Evolution, a founding document in the modern evolutionary synthesis of population genetics, reflecting the interest he pursued at university in biology, genetics and applying mathematics to questions in biology and genetics.

This article will give a summary of J.B.S. Haldane's life and thinking, his contributions to science and to the popularization of science, his impact on his times, and his vision of the future. One science historian, Mark B. Adams, sets the task:

J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964) is one of the most fascinating, perplexing and troublesome figures in the history of science. That he was a major biologist of his time goes without saying, but attempts at further scientific classification are futile: there is hardly a field of modern biology in whose history he does not deserve at least some mention. And, beyond biology proper, Haldane had yet other personae that at times seemed no less central to his career. Any attempt to come to terms with his life and work must face the dual challenge of his extraordinary multiformity and his utter singularity.