J.B.S. Haldane and sul ja funtey*

eee
By

Krishna R. Dronamraju
Genetics Center
P.O. Box 772481
Houston, Texas 77215

* Presented at the Symposium: "Julian Huxley 1887-1975; Biologist

and Statesman of Science", Rice University, Houston, Texas, U.S.A.,
September 25-27, 1987.

 

 
Krishna R. Dronamraju
Nine pages

J.B.S. Haldane and Julian Huxley

The lifespans of J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964) and Julian Huxley
(1887-1975) overlapped for much of their lives. Both attended
Eton and Oxford. Huxley was the senior by five years. Both
came from distinguished scientific families. Julian was deeply
influenced by his grandfather Thomas Henry Huxley, the great
19th century zoologist and evolutionist ("Darwin's bulldog").
Haldane's early research interests were guided and fostered by
his father John Scott Haldane, the eminent Oxford physiologist.
The two families were closely entwined in friendship. Growing

up in Oxford, the Huxley brothers - Julian and Aldous -enjoyed

(now Lady Mitchisor
the close friendship of Jack (JBS) Haldane and his sister Naomi/

When Julian's first child, Anthony, was born in 1920, J.S.
Haldane and his wife Kathleen provided much parental guidance
and advice, which was of great comfort to Juliette (now Lady
Huxley).

In the years following world war I, Julian Huxley and J.B.S.
Haldane were Fellows of New College, Oxford - Huxley in Zoology,
and Haldane in Physiology. Haldane was a frequent visitor to

_the then newly married Huxleys. In his Memories, Huxley wrote:

“One of our most frequent visitors was Jack Haldane, he too a
Fellow of New College, teaching physiology, though he had taken

a First in Greats. He was another odd character. He dropped in
whenever he liked - which was usually at tea-time - and devoured
plates of biscuits, protesting that he couldn't eat a crumb, while
reciting Shelley and Milton and any other poet you chose, by the
yard. He had a fantastic memory and knowledge of the classics,

and enjoyed displaying them." (page 137).

 
It was in 1920 that Huxley conducted his famous experiments
on the metamorphosis of the axolotl, which is seldom seen in its
adult stage. His discovery > {inducing the transformation of the
larva by feeding it on thyroid gland) received much attention in the
popular press, and caused Haldane to warn Huxley that he would
lose all credibility in the scientific community. A few years
later, it was Haldane's turn, when his biological predictions
in Daedalus (1924) made him:anequally famous figure. It was also
during those Oxford years that Haldane's sister Naomi dragged
them all into acting; see her contribution "Beginnings" in bronameajay

After the Oxford years, the lives of Haldane and Huxley diverged.
In 1923, Haldane left for Cambridge to become the Dunn reader in
Biochemistry under F.G. Hopkins. In 1925, Huxley resigned from his
position as Demonstrator in Zoology at Oxford and accepted the
Chair of Zoology at King's College, University of London. However,
he resigned from that post as well shortly afterwards when invited
by H.G. Wells to collaborate with himself and his son G.P. Wells
in writing The Science of Life (1929-30). Haldane, in the meantime,
began his series of papers on the mathematical theory of natural
selection (1924), which formed the foundation (along with the works
of R.A. Fisher and Sewall wright) for theoretical population genetics.
Popular writing

Both Huxley and Haldane first came to the public attention in the
1920s. Huxley's initial fame due to his axolotl work was soon

followed by his Essays in Popular Science (1926) and The Stream of

 

Life (1928), and above all, The Science of Life (1929-30) with H.G.
a in writing

and G.P. Wells. Huxley and Haldane collaborated/a successful text

Animal Biology (1927). Haldane's first book Daedalus (1924) was

soon followed by Callinicus (1925) and the collected essays entitled

 

 
3
Possible Worlds and other essays (1927), establishing once and for
all Haldane's brilliance as a first rate scientist as well as a
superb popularizer.

Haldane's popularization covered a far greater range of subjects
than Huxley's, encompassing geology, astronomy, statistics, as well
as a number of biological sciences. Collections of essays by Haldane
appeared as books with such titles as The Inequality of Man and other
Essays (1932), Heredity and Politics (1938), Keeping Cool and other
Essays (1940), A Banned Broadcast and other Essays (1946), Science
Advances (1947), and Everything has a History (1951). From the late
1930s onwards, Haldane's writings had a decidedly Marxist flavor.
Huxley's writings included biological topics, colonial education
in Africa, social planning, Soviet genetics, wild life, humanism,
and travel notes. His books include A Scientist among the Soviets
(1932), Africa View (1931), The Uniqueness of Man (1941), New
Bottles for New Wine (1957), The Humanist Frame (1961), Essays
of a Humanist (1964), Memories (1970), and Memories II (1973).

One of Huxley's most influential books was Religion without
Revelation (1927). In arriving at his religious philosophy, Huxley
was influenced by the essays of Lord Morley, which he came across
while browsing in a public library at Colorado Springs. This book
and his aunt Mary Ward's book, Robert Elsmere, together made a
deep impression on Huxley's mind, converting him to religious
humanism. In Religion without Revelation, Huxley stated his belief
that "any religion which stresses the need for propiating an
external Power will be diverted away from the more essential task
of using and organizing the spiritual forces that lie within each
individual...... I believe in the religion of life."

Biological interests

 
Biological interests

Huxley's biological interests included animal behavior, amphibian
metamorphosis, allometry, and embryogenesis. His twin interests in
taxonomy and Darwinian evolution were skillfully interwoven in
his Evolution: The Modern Synthesis (1942). Huxley's observations
on the courtship behavior of the great crested grebe opened up an
entirely new aspect of vertebrate ethology. He introduced the term
‘ritualization’ to describe the evolutionary process by which such
behavior-patterns as feeding or feather-preening might become
dissociated from their original functions and used in self-exhausting
ceremonies. His work provided important evidence that Darwinian
sexual selection did not account for some of the ceremonies of
sexual behavior by birds, because these were not performed until
long after their mates were chosen (Huxley, 1914). Huxley's most
important contribution was in the measurement of relative growth.
Inspired by the early work of his Oxford tutor,Geoffrey Smith,
(1905) on differential growth-rates, Huxley compared the growth in
width of the abdomen of female fiddler-crabs (Uca_pugnax), with the
growth in width of the carapace. The abdomenal width is expressed
as a percentage of carapace-width. In very young specimens, the
width of the abdomen was found to be similar in both sexes, but
it became broader in adult females by allometric growth. In 1924,
Huxley published a brief but important paper on the heterogonic
growth of the larger 'chela’', in the male crab. He derived an
expression to measure heterogonic growth; y = bxk , where
k #8 a measure of the differential growth of the chela in relation
to the rest of the body, y is the weight of the chela in relation
to that of the rest of the body, x, and b is a constant representing

y expressed as a fraction of x, the latter being considered to be
5
unity for the purpose. Huxley emphasized the relevance of this
work to the taxonomist, because animals with heterogonic growth
cannot be described meaningfully (with respect to their heterogonic
organs), except in terms of k. He continued his studies of relative
growth in a number of species (e.g. the size of the forceps of the
earwig, Forficula auricularia), and summed up his work in Problems
of Relative Growth (1932). He emphasized the mistake made by
systematists when defining species and other groups in terms of
percentage relationships of parts of the body.

It is of interest to note that Huxley's interests in relative
growth may be traced back to his first researches in dedifferentiation
and morphogenesis. For instance, he studied the varying rates at
which the organs underwent dedifferentiation in the ascidian
Clavellina lepadiformis (1926). With G.R. de Beer, he showed

that when exposed to poisons, the hydroids of Obelia geniculata

 

and Campanularia sp. tended to dedifferentiate and to be resorbed
into the stolon, or, if detached, became ovoid,undifferentiated
bodies. Various parts of the body dedifferentiated at markedly
different speeds (1923).

These few examples can only give very brief glimpses of Huxley's
diverse biological interests, which include bird watching as well
as experimental embryology. Extensive summaries can be found in
the biographical memoir, written by his pupil J.R. Baker (1978),
and in Huxley's Memories (1970) and Memories II (1973).

In contrast to Huxley's formal scientific training (in Zoology),
Haldane never took a degree in science. His formal academic
qualification was a B.A. degree in classics and humanities from
Oxford. His first experiments and first publication (in 1912)

were the result of his father J.S. Haldane's influence, and were

 
6

concerned with the physiological aspects of CO poisoning. Other
studies dealt with the effects of ingesting various chemicals

and of breathing various gaseous mixtures on the blood pH and
components of blood and urine. However, Haldane was also involved
simultaneously in genetic research from 1912 onwards, and spent
much of his life in this field. From 1923 to 1933, he was formally
identified as a 'biochemist' and occupied the Sir William Dunn
Readership in Biochemistry at Cambridge in the Department headed
by F. Gowland Hopkins. From the 1930s until his death in 1964,

he made significant contributions to a number of other fields

as well; especially statistics, biometry, and animal behavior.
During the years 1937-1957, he was Weldon Professor of Biometry

at University College, London. (This was in contrast to Huxley,
who resigned from the Chair of Zoology at King's College, London,
in 1927, and was a free-lance biologist and intellectual-at-large,
with the exception of his appointments at the London Zoo, and later
at Unesco.)

Haldane's early contributions to genetics were in the measurement
of linkage. He suggested the unit of map distance (and the first
mapping function) in 1919, measuring it in terms of centi-Morgans
(cM), a term that is still in vogue today. After the pioneering -
work of Garrod (1909) on the biochemical basis of gene action,
Haldane (1920) was one of the few geneticists, who emphasized
this point of view. However, it was in the mathematical or theoretical
basis of evolution that Haldane made important contributions. It was
this work, along with those of Wright and Fisher, that became the
foundation for population genetics. Haldane's early papers emphasized

the measurement of selection in large populations. His contributiong
7

to human genetics were equally impressive and include the first
estimation of a human mutation rate (for hemophilia). Among other
works, Haldane's papers laid the basis for estimating genetic
damage resulting from ionizing radiation, and for the study of
infectious disease as a selective agent in relation to the
maintenance of certain balanced polymorphisms in human populations.
Haldane was especially noted for conducting painful experiments
in diving physiology, with himself as the chief guineapig, during
world war II. He firmly believed that medical personnel and
physiologists should pioneer in taking physiological risks. He
emphasized the application of diving physiology to space medicine
as it would involve working under no gravitation. Much of this
pioneering work of Haldane (conducted in the 1930s and 1940s)

has since become incorporated into space research. Haldane's interest
in space research and Soviet science was noted by Lederberg (1987).
Common interests

Huxley and Haldane shared the view that the Darwinian theory of
evolution, especially by natural selection, was the most significant
aspect of scientific research of their time. Both devoted considerable
attention to this problem during their lives. Haldane's approach was
mathematical, putting it firmly on a quantitative footing. Huxley
was interested in a number of aspects - among them, the species
concept in taxonomy, and sexual selection - and played the role of
a grand synthesiser. Both believed in the education of the public,
using mass media. Haldane and Huxley were the intellectual products
of a most exciting time, and represented the best of English liberal
education, which enabled them to indulge in a great diversity of
intellectual endeavors. They have done their utmost to pass on this

knowledge and tradition to the succeeding generations.

From about 1935 onwards, Haldane embraced marxism and wrote very
8

passionate essays on its application to science. However, he became
disillusioned when the science of genetics was suppressed in the
Soviet Union under the influence of T.D. Lysenko, especially after
1949, and slowly dissociated himself from marxist philosophy and
its applications. Soon after, in the 1950s, he took up another
(equally passionate) interest in India and Hindu philosophies,

and migrated to India in 1957, where he died in 1964.

Huxley, in contrast, continued to advocate ‘Evolutionary Humanism’
in its widest sense, applying it to include both the sciences and
the arts. He wrote C.P. Snow that his concept of ‘Evolutionary

Humanism' could bridge the ‘culture gap' discussed by Snow:

"I would have thought that you should extend this idea of the

third culture, and make it everything based on the ideas of evolution
and its course, both biological and psychosocial. If so, this would
be more than a bridge - it would be a new pattern of thinking about
nature and human nature, which would not merely reconcile the
existing conflict but transcend it in a new pattern." (letter from
Huxley to Snow, October 29, 1963, Rice University Archives).

Both Huxley and Haldane were major figures in twentieth century
science. Their contribution to our science and culture has been
quite profound, in extending the boundaries of our knowledge, in
public education, and in the application of science to human affairs.
Huxley's influence on world affairs included his work for Unesco,
and Haldane's,through such works as Daedalus (1924),which profoundly
influenced Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932).

Bibliography
Extensive references to the works of Huxley and Haldane can be found
in the following books.

Baker, J.R. (1978) Julian Huxley. Scientist and World Citizen,

 
1887-1975. Paris: UNESCO.
Dronamraju, K.R. (1985) Haldane: The Life and Work of J.B.S. Haldane
with special reference to India. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press.
(Haldane's interest in Soviet science, especially their space research
program, was expressed on several occasions. It is of interest to
note his comments on the occasion of the launching of the Sputnik

in 1957; see "Sputnik + 30" by Dr. Joshua Lederberg, in The Scientist,

October 5, 1987.)