H. Bentley Glass

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hiram Bentley Glass (born January 17, 1906 in the Chinese Empire , † January 16, 2005 in Boulder , Colorado ) was an American geneticist and science writer.

Life

Glass was the son of Baptist missionaries in China, attended Decatur Baptist College in Texas and graduated from Baylor University with a bachelor's degree. From 1926 to 1928 he was a biology teacher at Timpson High School, Texas, where he also successfully coached the football team (although he had previously had no idea about football). He then continued his studies at Baylor University (master’s degree) and at the University of Texas , where he received his PhD in genetics under Hermann Joseph Muller . As a post-doctoral student he was at the University of Oslo and at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, where he witnessed the rise of the National Socialists, which he disapproved of as a liberal, and at the University of Missouri. He taught at Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri, and Goucher College, Maryland, before becoming a professor at Johns Hopkins University . He was also a regular science columnist in Baltimore for the Baltimore Evening Sun and a regular at symposia at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (on whose council he was). In 1959 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences . Since 1963 he was an elected member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1965 he became a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook .

He published books on the history of biology, biology in society and scientific ethics and dealt with biology pedagogy (1959 to 1965 he was on the Council of the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) and supervised the modern findings adapted new editions of the biology books for schools and 1971 he President of the National Association of Biology Teachers).

He is also known for a number of controversial predictions, for example, in his 1970 speech as President of the AAAS, he declared that scientific progress would stop in a generation or two ( Gunther Stent advocated similar ideas at the time ).

As chairman of a committee of the American Association of University Professors , he criticized several American universities in the mid-1950s for dismissing professors for alleged communist backgrounds. As president of the organization (1958–1960) he rejected the oath of loyalty on principle, arguing that the disloyal would swear perjury anyway.

Also in the 1950s, he drew attention to the danger of nuclear fallouts from nuclear weapon explosions on the genetic make-up. In the event of a nuclear war, he predicted that the insects (whereby he emphasized the cockroach in a succinct phrase ) would dominate life on earth as the most adapted species.

As a scientist, he studied genetic drift between neighboring populations. According to his calculations, the African American population in the United States had a gene pool of which 30% came from the white population. In a 1967 Times interview, he predicted the disappearance of races in the future.

In 1969 he was President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science . He was editor of Science and Scientific Monthly and from 1944 to 1986 the Quarterly Review of Biology and President of Biological Abstracts . In 1967 he was President of the American Society of Human Genetics . From 1955 to 1965 he was President of the Maryland Section of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). From 1954 to 1956 he was President of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) and he was President of the American Society of Naturalists . From 1967 to 1970 he was President of Phi Beta Kappa .

He was married to Suzanne G. Smith for 59 years (died 2003) and had one daughter.

Fonts

  • Progress or Catastrophe: The Nature of Biological Science and Its Impact on Human Society, Praeger Publishers, 1985
  • with Owsei Temkin , William L. Straus: Forerunners of Darwin, 1745-1859, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968
  • The Biology of Nuclear War, The American Biology Teacher, Vol. 24, Oct. 1962, pp. 407-425.
  • Ethical Basis of Science, Haifa, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, 1969
  • Science and ethical values, Greenwood Press, 1981
  • Geneticists Embattled: Their Stand Against Rampant Eugenics and Racism in America During the 1920s and 1930s, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Volume 130, 1986, pp. 130-155

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Member History: H. Bentley Glass. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 22, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Glass, H. Bentley
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Glass, Hiram Bentley (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American geneticist and science writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 17, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Chinese Empire
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 2005
Place of death Boulder , Colorado