Charles Birch

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Louis Charles Birch (born February 8, 1918 in Melbourne , † December 19, 2009 ) was an Australian agricultural scientist , zoologist and biologist .

Life

The son of a bank manager from New Zealand and a mother from Ireland studied agricultural sciences at the University of Melbourne after attending Scotch College in Melbourne , which he graduated from in 1939 . He then worked in the team of the zoologist Dr. Herbert (HG) Andrewartha at the Waite Agricultural Research Institute at the University of Adelaide . Dr. Andrewartha had a great influence on the young employee and taught him to “think” and discover the “social responsibility of a scientist”.

In 1941 he completed postgraduate studies at the University of Adelaide with a Master of Science (M.Sc.) and worked on projects of national importance such as the stockpiling of wheat , which was not exportable due to World War II and therefore threatened to rot. Unlike his brother Hugh Birch, a Royal Australian Air Force seaplane pilot in the English Channel , he himself had a strong aversion to war, which ultimately made him the pacifist of later years.

At the end of the Second World War, he accepted the offer of a research stay at the University of Chicago , where he began studying biology in 1946 . There he also joined the Christian student movement. In 1947 he studied animal population dynamics at Oxford University .

In 1948 he returned to Australia where he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Zoology at the University of Sydney . In the following years he was also Vice Director of the University's Wesely College, before he was finally appointed Professor of Biology at the University's Challis Chair in 1958 . During his teaching activities, he also held visiting professorships in São Paulo , Minnesota and California .

Impressed by the call by the American anthropologist Margaret Mead to introduce a program for science, technology and the future at the World Council of Churches , Birch followed this call and was then a member of this program for 20 years, including thirteen years as vice-moderator for church and society. During this activity he met almost all of the important scientists in the field of population and genetics, as well as Paul R. Ehrlich . For a few years he had an influence on the Zero Population Growth Movement, which was being supported in Australia.

After the outbreak of the Vietnam War in 1965 he was one of the most violent opponents of the war and was a speaker at mass meetings in front of Sydney University, where he risked arrest precisely because of his membership in the Committee of Conscience, which gave free legal advice to conscientious objectors . During this time he also took an active part in the Wayside Chapel of the Reverend Ted Noffs, where he took part in Friday evening discussions and Sunday evening question times on current topics such as overpopulation .

In 1983 he retired after 25 years as Challis Professor of Biology at the University of Sydney.

Fonts

During his teaching and research activities, he published 150 specialist articles as well as nine books:

  • The Distribution and Abundance with Animals , 1954 (co-author: HG Andrewartha),
  • Nature and God , 1965
  • Confronting the Future: Australia and the world: the next hundred years , 1975 (2nd ed. 1993)
  • Genetics and the Quality of Life , 1975
  • The Liberation of Life: From Cell to the Community , 1981 (with John B. Cobb )
  • On Purpose , 1984
  • Liberating Life: Contemporary Approaches to Ecological Theory , 1990
  • Regaining Commission: for Humanity and Nature , 1993
  • Science & Soul , 2008.

Honors

In addition to membership of the Australian Academy of Science , the Club of Rome and the American Association for the Advancement of Science , he and Baba Amte were awarded the Templeton Prize in 1990, the world's most valuable award for individuals.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Birch, Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Birch, Louis Charles (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian agronomist, zoologist, biologist and pacifist
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Melbourne
DATE OF DEATH December 19, 2009