C. D. Darlington
Encyclopedia
Cyril Dean Darlington FRS (19 December 1903 - 26 March 1981) was an English
biologist
, geneticist
and eugenicist, who discovered the mechanics of chromosomal crossover
, its role in inheritance, and therefore its importance to evolution
.
, a small cotton town in Lancashire
, England
in 1903. His father, William was a teacher at a small school. He had one brother six years older. When he was eight, the family moved to London. His childhood was an unhappy one, characterized by a stern, bitter and frustrated father, who struggled mightily against poverty. He enjoyed neither sports, nor studies. He began to cultivate a disdain for authority. He decided to become a farmer in Australia, so he applied to the South Eastern Agricultural College at Wye, known later as Wye College
. He was a rather indifferent student, but his social life took a decided turn for the better when he took up boxing, with some success. He was now six feet three inches tall, and an imposing figure. One subject that captured his imagination, however, was Mendelian genetics, taught by a Mr. Brade-Birks. He discovered Thomas Hunt Morgan
's The Physical Basis of Heredity. He graduated with a London University degree in 1923.
. He wrote at once to its director, William Bateson
, famous for having introduced the word "genetics" into biology. His application was unsuccessful, but he wrangled a temporary post as an unpaid technician. It was an interesting time for the Innes. Bateson had spent the last two decades fighting against the notion that chromosomes were the seat of what he had been calling "heredity factors" and had only very recently capitulated. He had just hired a cytologist, Frank Newton, who now began to take Cyril under his wing. Darlington published his first scientific paper, on the tetraploidy of the sour cherry, and he was hired as a permanent employee.
Shortly after, both of his mentors, Bateson and Newton, died within a year of each other and J.B.S. Haldane came to the Innes. Although neither an experimentalist nor cytologist, Haldane formed a close friendship with Darlington, whose self-confidence grew. He began to make significant contributions to the understanding of the relationship of genetic crossing-over and the microscopically observed events that the chromosome passed through during meiosis
. In 1931 he began writing the book that would establish his reputation, Recent Advances in Cytology. It was published in 1932, and created a firestorm of controversy at first, then nearly universal acceptance as a work of the first rank. He showed that the mechanisms of evolution that acted at the level of the chromosome created possibilities far more rich than the simple mutations and deletions that affect single genes.
His now remarkable determination and achievement saw him become Director of the cytology department in 1937 and became director of the Innes two years later, just 15 years after his arrival as an unpaid volunteer. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 20 March 1941. A few months after that, he was awarded the prestigious Darwin Medal
. He was elected president of the Genetical Society. In 1947 he co-founded with Ronald Fisher
the highly successful journal Heredity: An International Journal of Genetics, as a response to J.B.S. Haldane joining the Communist party
and "taking the Journal of Genetics
with him".
, who published the controversial book "Race" in 1974. Races are, according to Baker (and Darlington), breeding populations with demarcations drawn at whatever level of detail is required for the problem at hand. Asked by a reporter for the Sunday times whether or not he was a racist, Darlington replied: "Well, I'm regarded as one by everyone except the Jews, who are racist, and who utterly agree with my views."
Darlington retired from his official position at the University in 1971, but remained in the university, tirelessly writing and publishing his work. He died in Oxford in 1981. He had five children, two of whom committed suicide.
. Some genetics institutes were destroyed, and prominent geneticists were purged or murdered. These events caused an upheaval among the leaders of genetics in the west, many of whom were leftist, socialists or even communist sympathizers and Marxists. This caused a break between Haldane and Darlington, who was intransigent in his anti-authoritarian views.
Darlington developed a strong interest in the application of genetic insights to the understanding of human history. He believed that not only were there differences in the character and culture between individuals, but that these differences also exist between races. Understanding of these differences in scientific terms was not only interesting in its own right, but was crucial to the development of a civil society.
The nature of his views on race is well illustrated by his essay in Human Variation: The Biopsychology of Age, Race, and Sex (Academic Press 1978). Darlington writes that "as slaves," Africans "improved in health and increased in numbers." The environment was "more favorable than anything they had experienced in Africa." According to Darlington, emancipation resulted in the withdrawal of "discipline" and "protection" resulting in social problems such as unemployment "drugs, gambling and prostitution." Darlington concluded: "The intellectually well-endowed races, classes, and societies have a moral responsibility for the problems of race mixture, of immigration and exploitation, that have arisen from their exercise of economic and political power. They may hope to escape from these responsibilities by claiming an intellectual and, therefore, moral equality between all races, classes, and societies. But the chapters of this book, step by step, deprive them of the scientific and historical evidence that might support such a comfortable illusion."
Darlington was opposed to the UNESCO Statement of Race
. He agreed with Darwin's classical view: "The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatization, and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual, faculties." Contrary to the UNESCO
statement. Darlington thought that there might be a biological justification to prohibit interracial marriage
s "if intermarriage were not contrary to the habits of all stable communities and therefore in no need of discouragement". He refused to sign the revised 1951 statement which conceded that racial differences in intelligence possibly existed. Darlington's dissenting commentary was printed with the statement.
Over the course of twenty five years, from 1953–1978, Darlington completed his trilogy on Man: Genetics and Man (1953), The Evolution of Man and Society (1969) and finally The Little Universe of Man (1978). In these he tried to show how the history of man can be at least partially analyzed in terms of genetic laws, breeding patterns, founder effects and Darwinian evolution. Darlington's views were an unusual endorsement of the complementary virtues of inbreeding, as well as of outbreeding.
, as he was in combating the emerging academic orthodoxy on the nature of race. His method was not that of a simple bench scientist, but ranged far into the hinterlands of human existence. His penchant for speculation and theorizing was his strongest tool for arriving at new insights and truth. He said "...I have never proved anything. I do not count on doing so...What I do count on is to assemble such evidences and arguments as will make those who disagree with me feel more and more uncomfortable."
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
biologist
Biologist
A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
, geneticist
Geneticist
A geneticist is a biologist who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a researcher or lecturer. Some geneticists perform experiments and analyze data to interpret the inheritance of skills. A geneticist is also a Consultant or...
and eugenicist, who discovered the mechanics of chromosomal crossover
Chromosomal crossover
Chromosomal crossover is an exchange of genetic material between homologous chromosomes. It is one of the final phases of genetic recombination, which occurs during prophase I of meiosis in a process called synapsis. Synapsis begins before the synaptonemal complex develops, and is not completed...
, its role in inheritance, and therefore its importance to evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
.
Early life
Cyril Darlington was born in ChorleyChorley
Chorley is a market town in Lancashire, in North West England. It is the largest settlement in the Borough of Chorley. The town's wealth came principally from the cotton industry...
, a small cotton town in Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1903. His father, William was a teacher at a small school. He had one brother six years older. When he was eight, the family moved to London. His childhood was an unhappy one, characterized by a stern, bitter and frustrated father, who struggled mightily against poverty. He enjoyed neither sports, nor studies. He began to cultivate a disdain for authority. He decided to become a farmer in Australia, so he applied to the South Eastern Agricultural College at Wye, known later as Wye College
Wye College
The College of St. Gregory and St. Martin at Wye, more commonly known as Wye College, was an educational institution in Kent, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1447 by John Kempe, the Archbishop of York, as a college for the training of priests. It is located in the small village of Wye, Kent, 60...
. He was a rather indifferent student, but his social life took a decided turn for the better when he took up boxing, with some success. He was now six feet three inches tall, and an imposing figure. One subject that captured his imagination, however, was Mendelian genetics, taught by a Mr. Brade-Birks. He discovered Thomas Hunt Morgan
Thomas Hunt Morgan
Thomas Hunt Morgan was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and embryologist and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries relating the role the chromosome plays in heredity.Morgan received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University in zoology...
's The Physical Basis of Heredity. He graduated with a London University degree in 1923.
Early professional years
After being turned down for a scholarship to go to Trinidad as a farmer, Cyril was induced in 1923 by one of his professors to apply for a scholarship at the John Innes Horticultural Institution in MertonLondon Borough of Merton
The London Borough of Merton is a borough in southwest London, England.The borough was formed under the London Government Act in 1965 by the merger of the Municipal Borough of Mitcham, the Municipal Borough of Wimbledon and the Merton and Morden Urban District, all formerly within Surrey...
. He wrote at once to its director, William Bateson
William Bateson
William Bateson was an English geneticist and a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge...
, famous for having introduced the word "genetics" into biology. His application was unsuccessful, but he wrangled a temporary post as an unpaid technician. It was an interesting time for the Innes. Bateson had spent the last two decades fighting against the notion that chromosomes were the seat of what he had been calling "heredity factors" and had only very recently capitulated. He had just hired a cytologist, Frank Newton, who now began to take Cyril under his wing. Darlington published his first scientific paper, on the tetraploidy of the sour cherry, and he was hired as a permanent employee.
Shortly after, both of his mentors, Bateson and Newton, died within a year of each other and J.B.S. Haldane came to the Innes. Although neither an experimentalist nor cytologist, Haldane formed a close friendship with Darlington, whose self-confidence grew. He began to make significant contributions to the understanding of the relationship of genetic crossing-over and the microscopically observed events that the chromosome passed through during meiosis
Meiosis
Meiosis is a special type of cell division necessary for sexual reproduction. The cells produced by meiosis are gametes or spores. The animals' gametes are called sperm and egg cells....
. In 1931 he began writing the book that would establish his reputation, Recent Advances in Cytology. It was published in 1932, and created a firestorm of controversy at first, then nearly universal acceptance as a work of the first rank. He showed that the mechanisms of evolution that acted at the level of the chromosome created possibilities far more rich than the simple mutations and deletions that affect single genes.
His now remarkable determination and achievement saw him become Director of the cytology department in 1937 and became director of the Innes two years later, just 15 years after his arrival as an unpaid volunteer. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 20 March 1941. A few months after that, he was awarded the prestigious Darwin Medal
Darwin Medal
The Darwin Medal is awarded by the Royal Society every alternate year for "work of acknowledged distinction in the broad area of biology in which Charles Darwin worked, notably in evolution, population biology, organismal biology and biological diversity". First awarded in 1890, it was created in...
. He was elected president of the Genetical Society. In 1947 he co-founded with Ronald Fisher
Ronald Fisher
Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher FRS was an English statistician, evolutionary biologist, eugenicist and geneticist. Among other things, Fisher is well known for his contributions to statistics by creating Fisher's exact test and Fisher's equation...
the highly successful journal Heredity: An International Journal of Genetics, as a response to J.B.S. Haldane joining the Communist party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
and "taking the Journal of Genetics
Journal of Genetics
The Journal of Genetics is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of genetics and evolution. It was founded in 1910 by the British geneticists William Bateson and Reginald Punnett and is one of the oldest genetics journals. It was later edited by J.B.S...
with him".
Later years
He left the Innes in 1953 and accepted the Sherardian chair of botany at Oxford University. He developed a keen interest in the Botanic Garden, going on to establish the 'Genetic Garden'. He was also involved in extending the teaching of science, especially genetics, in the university. He voiced strong support for hereditarians in an increasingly hostile academic environment. In 1972 he, along with 50 other prominent scientists signed "Resolution on Scientific Freedom Regarding Human Behavior and Heredity" in which a genetic approach to understanding the behavior of man was strongly defended. He staunchly defended his colleague in the fight against Lysenkoism, John BakerJohn Baker (biologist)
John Randal Baker FRS was a biologist, physical anthropologist, and professor at the University of Oxford in the mid-twentieth century. He is best remembered for his 1974 book, Race, which classifies human races in the same way in which animal subspecies are classified...
, who published the controversial book "Race" in 1974. Races are, according to Baker (and Darlington), breeding populations with demarcations drawn at whatever level of detail is required for the problem at hand. Asked by a reporter for the Sunday times whether or not he was a racist, Darlington replied: "Well, I'm regarded as one by everyone except the Jews, who are racist, and who utterly agree with my views."
Darlington retired from his official position at the University in 1971, but remained in the university, tirelessly writing and publishing his work. He died in Oxford in 1981. He had five children, two of whom committed suicide.
Sociobiology and the Lysenko Affair
In his later years, Darlington increased his participation in the public debate about the role of science in society, and especially, its interaction with politics and government. He published, beginning in 1948, very strong condemnations of the events in the Soviet Union, which had denounced Mendelian genetics and officially outlawed its practice in favor of LysenkoismLysenkoism
Lysenkoism, or Lysenko-Michurinism, also denotes the biological inheritance principle which Trofim Lysenko subscribed to and which derive from theories of the heritability of acquired characteristics, a body of biological inheritance theory which departs from Mendelism and that Lysenko named...
. Some genetics institutes were destroyed, and prominent geneticists were purged or murdered. These events caused an upheaval among the leaders of genetics in the west, many of whom were leftist, socialists or even communist sympathizers and Marxists. This caused a break between Haldane and Darlington, who was intransigent in his anti-authoritarian views.
Darlington developed a strong interest in the application of genetic insights to the understanding of human history. He believed that not only were there differences in the character and culture between individuals, but that these differences also exist between races. Understanding of these differences in scientific terms was not only interesting in its own right, but was crucial to the development of a civil society.
The nature of his views on race is well illustrated by his essay in Human Variation: The Biopsychology of Age, Race, and Sex (Academic Press 1978). Darlington writes that "as slaves," Africans "improved in health and increased in numbers." The environment was "more favorable than anything they had experienced in Africa." According to Darlington, emancipation resulted in the withdrawal of "discipline" and "protection" resulting in social problems such as unemployment "drugs, gambling and prostitution." Darlington concluded: "The intellectually well-endowed races, classes, and societies have a moral responsibility for the problems of race mixture, of immigration and exploitation, that have arisen from their exercise of economic and political power. They may hope to escape from these responsibilities by claiming an intellectual and, therefore, moral equality between all races, classes, and societies. But the chapters of this book, step by step, deprive them of the scientific and historical evidence that might support such a comfortable illusion."
Darlington was opposed to the UNESCO Statement of Race
The Race Question
The Race Question is the first of four UNESCO statements about issues of race. It was issued on 18 July 1950 following World War II and Nazi racism. The statement was an attempt to clarify what was scientifically known about race and a moral condemnation of racism...
. He agreed with Darwin's classical view: "The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatization, and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual, faculties." Contrary to the UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
statement. Darlington thought that there might be a biological justification to prohibit interracial marriage
Interracial marriage
Interracial marriage occurs when two people of differing racial groups marry. This is a form of exogamy and can be seen in the broader context of miscegenation .-Legality of interracial marriage:In the Western world certain jurisdictions have had regulations...
s "if intermarriage were not contrary to the habits of all stable communities and therefore in no need of discouragement". He refused to sign the revised 1951 statement which conceded that racial differences in intelligence possibly existed. Darlington's dissenting commentary was printed with the statement.
Over the course of twenty five years, from 1953–1978, Darlington completed his trilogy on Man: Genetics and Man (1953), The Evolution of Man and Society (1969) and finally The Little Universe of Man (1978). In these he tried to show how the history of man can be at least partially analyzed in terms of genetic laws, breeding patterns, founder effects and Darwinian evolution. Darlington's views were an unusual endorsement of the complementary virtues of inbreeding, as well as of outbreeding.
Method and personality
Darlington's personality was one of a remarkable combination of anti-authoritarianism, non-conformism, and scientific rationalism. He was as courageous in fighting the evils of LysenkoismLysenkoism
Lysenkoism, or Lysenko-Michurinism, also denotes the biological inheritance principle which Trofim Lysenko subscribed to and which derive from theories of the heritability of acquired characteristics, a body of biological inheritance theory which departs from Mendelism and that Lysenko named...
, as he was in combating the emerging academic orthodoxy on the nature of race. His method was not that of a simple bench scientist, but ranged far into the hinterlands of human existence. His penchant for speculation and theorizing was his strongest tool for arriving at new insights and truth. He said "...I have never proved anything. I do not count on doing so...What I do count on is to assemble such evidences and arguments as will make those who disagree with me feel more and more uncomfortable."
Books by Darlington
(A partial list)- Chromosomes and Plant Breeding, Macmillan (1932).
- Recent Advances in Cytology, Churchill (1932).
- Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants, George Allen and Unwin (1945).
- The Facts of LifeThe Facts of Life (book)The Facts of Life is a book published in 1953 by C. D. Darlington of the subject of race, heredity and evolution. Darlington was a major contributor to the field of genetics around the time of the Modern synthesis....
, George Allen and Unwin (1953). - Darwin's Place in History, Blackwell (1959).
- Chromosome Botany and the Origins of Cultivated Plants, Hafner Pub. Co (1963).
- Genetics and Man, George Allen and Unwin (1964).
- Cytology, Churchill (1965).
- The Evolution of Man and Society, (1969) ISBN 0-04-575011-4.
- The Little Universe of Man, George Allen and Unwin (1978) ISBN 0-04-570010-9.
External links
- Oren Solomon Harman (2004) The Man Who Invented the Chromosome: A Life of Cyril Darlington ISBN 0-674-01333-6.
- http://galton.org/reviews/HarmanDarlingtonReview.htm (a review of Harman's biography of Darlington - see "References" above). See The New Republic, Nature, Nature Medicine, New Scientist, Journal of the History of Biology for other reviews.
- http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/pinc/apr2000/articles/tredoux-haldane-darlington.html