and evolutionary biologist. A staunch Marxist, he was critical of Britain's role in the Suez Crisis
, and chose to leave Oxford and moved to India
and became an Indian citizen. He was one of the founders (along with Ronald Fisher
and Sewall Wright
) of population genetics
.
Haldane was born in Oxford
to physiologist
John Scott Haldane and Louisa Kathleen Haldane (née Trotter), and descended from an aristocratic intellectual Scottish family (See Haldane family).
My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel, or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world.
It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.
I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages: (i) this is worthless nonsense; (ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view; (iii) this is true, but quite unimportant; (iv) I always said so.
An ounce of algebra is worth of a ton of verbal argument.