William B. Provine is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 historian of science

History of science

The history of science is the study of the historical development of human understandings of the natural world and the domains of the social sciences....

, particularly of evolutionary biology and population genetics

Population genetics

Population genetics is the study of allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four main evolutionary processes: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene flow. It also takes into account the factors of recombination, population subdivision and population...

. He is the Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professor at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 and is a professor in the Departments of History, Science and Technology Studies, and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Cornell University Department of History

|- valign="top" ! style="border-top: solid 1px #aaaaaa;" | College | style="border-top: solid 1px #aaaaaa;" | Arts and Sciences |- valign="top" ! style="border-top: solid 1px #aaaaaa;" | Department Chair | style="border-top: solid 1px #aaaaaa;" | Barry Strauss...

. He holds a B.S., M.A. and Ph.D from the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

. He was born in Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

.

Biography

Provine is an atheist

Atheism

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

 and outspoken critic of intelligent design

Intelligent design

Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...

. He is well known for engaging in debates with theist philosophers and scientists about the existence of God and the viability of intelligent design as a theory to explain the mechanism of 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...

. Provine is also a hard determinist, rejecting the idea of free will. Professor Provine appeared in Ben Stein

Ben Stein

Benjamin Jeremy "Ben" Stein is an American actor, writer, lawyer, and commentator on political and economic issues. He attained early success as a speechwriter for American presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford...

's movie Expelled.

Provine supervised the thesis written by Bad Religion

Bad Religion

Bad Religion is a punk rock band that formed in Los Angeles in 1979. Their current line-up consists of Greg Graffin , Brett Gurewitz , Jay Bentley , Greg Hetson , Brian Baker and Brooks Wackerman . Gurewitz is also the founder of the label Epitaph Records, which has released almost all of the...

 member Greg Graffin

Greg Graffin

Gregory Walter Graffin, Ph.D. is an American punk rock musician, college professor, and author. He is most recognized as the lead vocalist and songwriter of the noted Los Angeles band Bad Religion, which he co-founded in 1979 and is the band's only constant member, even though it now features two...

. Graffin was a student of paleobiology at Cornell. Provine also supervised the sociology thesis of Steve Leveen

Steve Leveen

Steve Leveen is the CEO and co-founder with his wife, Lori Granger Leveen, of Levenger. Established in 1987, Levenger designs and sells high-end products geared toward reading, writing and working with ideas...

 in 1982. In 1970, Provine was instrumental in the founding of Cornell's Risley Residential College

Risley Residential College

Prudence Risley Residential College for the Creative and Performing Arts, commonly known as Risley Residential College, Risley Hall, or just Risley, is a program house at Cornell University...

. He was the first faculty member in residence.

Selected bibliography

• The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics, 1971, ISBN 0-226-68465-2
• Mayr, E. and W. B. Provine, eds. The Evolutionary Synthesis: Perspectives on the Unification of Biology, 1980 ISBN 0674272250
• Sewall Wright and Evolutionary Biology, 1986, ISBN 0-226-68473-3
• Provine, W. B., ed. Evolution: Selected papers by Sewall Wright, 1986, ISBN 0226910539
• "Geneticists and race", 1986, American Zoologist 26:857-887.
• "Progress in evolution and meaning in life", 1989, In: M. Nitecki, ed., Evolutionary Progress, ISBN 0-226-58692-8
• Cain, A. J. and W. B. Provine "Genes and ecology in history" in Berry, R. J., T. J. Crawford, G. M. Hewitt, eds. Genes in Ecology: 33rd Symposium of the British Ecological Society, 1992 ISBN 0-521-54936-1

External links

• Cornell page