ERNST MAYR LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES OF THE MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY, HARVARD UNIV. R North CarolinaNorth State University inRaleigh. critiques of science, often from aMarxist ited together. After periodsattheUniversity neighbouring genetic sequences to beinher - Kojima ongenetic linkage, thetendency of population genetics andworked withKen-Ichi Here, hefocused primarilyonmathematical 1954. in populations.Hecompletedoratory hisPhD impact onthevariability of natural andlab investigation of the nature of selection and its in theworld. Lewontin adopted Dobzhansky’s the most influential evolutionary geneticist oflaboratory Theodosius Dobzhansky, then persuaded Lewontin to join the Columbia Columbia University in New York City. Dunn studied withavisitor, Leslie C.Dunn,from member specializingin genetics, soLewontin early 1950s. At thetime,Harvard hadnofaculty University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the atHarvardand originallystudied biology middle-class Jewish family in New York City, speculative tales”. Lewontin has died aged 92. plausibility aloneasacriterion foraccepting ered, amongotherthings, a“reliance upon ( written withhiscolleague Stephen Jay Gould of Marco San andthePanglossian paradigm’, testing. Hiscelebrated spandrels essay ‘The racist ideology, especiallywithregard to IQ ment). He despised the use to of justify biology as adaptationsof anorganism to itsenviron adaptationism (the idea that all traits evolved He was anoutspoken and criticof sociobiology tionship between science, and society. politics perspective, inspired newthinkingontherela workers tend to beindebtto banks”. to become bankers, whilethechildren of oil explain why “thechildren of oilmagnates tend saw noplace forhisdiscipline inattempts to of molecular population genetics. Lewontin experiment,laboratory they set thecourse ical andstatistical analysis, fieldwork and and individuals. Moving between mathemat- variation, exploring itseffect ongenes, groups revealed how natural selection to acts shape tural inequity. Lewontin and his collaborators Pioneer of molecularevolution whocampaigned against biologicalracism. (1929–2021) Richard Lewontin C. Obituary Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B. That year, Lewontin joined thefacultyat Richard Lewontin was borninto anupper- Lewontin’s sometimes controversial the use of science to rationalize struc and for his advocacybiology against molecular tools into evolutionary ing geneticist, best known forbringing ichard Lewontin was agroundbreak
205 , 581–598; 1979) skew ------Chicago and,withHubby, publishedtwo 1960s, attempts to study genetic variation 595–609; 1966), whichopenedtheway forthe landmark papers (Genetics of measuring genetic variability. between proteins could provide anewmeans They realized thatdetecting smalldifferences and size) to study thefruitfly Drosophila resis (which separates moleculesby charge the biochemicaltechnique of electropho Lewontin metJackHubby, whowas adapting impasse. Onavisitto theUniversity of Chicago, in natural populationswere approaching an at Harvard. Chicago, Illinois,hespenttherest of hiscareer of Rochester, NewYork, andtheUniversity of of its support forsecretof itssupport war research. With US NationalAcademy of Sciences, because tions ledhimto renounce to the hiselection and economic inequality. Hisfervent convic- against racial discrimination, theVietnamWar increasingly politically active, speaking out on thisquestion. at Harvard, brought DNA sequencing to bear Lewontin’s and Walter Gilbert’s laboratories In 1984, Kreitman, Martin working between genetic variability in natural populations. about whethernatural selection maintains iability, addressing along-standing dispute higher thanexpected amountsof genetic var ulation genetics. These papers alsorevealed and marked thebeginningof molecularpop widespread applicationof electrophoresis Lewontin moved to the University of During histimeatRochester intheearly In Chicago inthe1960s, Lewontin became ©
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A 54 l l r i , 577–594 and g h t s r e s e r v e d . - - - . racism. Apportion Hislandmarkpaper ‘The biosocial phenomena. favoured biological explanations of complex against reductionism anddeterminism that essays treated science arguing aspolitics, his critiques of sociobiology, many of these and (1985)lished laterBiologist asTheDialectical and societyfrom perspective, aMarxist pub tion alsoledto aseries of essays onbiology crop plants.Lewontin andLevins’s collabora- research, such as the development of hybrid investigate the role of capital in agricultural Ford Foundation, heassembled agroup to ecologist DickLevins from andsupport the e-mail: [email protected]. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. and Philosophy of Science at the University of and is a professor of History in the Department many books about iconoclastic biologists, Lewontin’s laboratory in 1997. He has co-edited Michael R. Dietrich spent a sabbatical in his greatest source of prideasascientist. said Ishouldwrite about allof them.They were —morehis laboratory than100 people—and every graduate student, postdoc andvisitor at about hislife, hepulledoutof hisdeskalist of When, in1997, Iasked himhow Ishouldwrite biography anditscelebration of the individual. andsocially engagedphers of biology scholars. agenda forgenerations of biologists, philoso sequences. Hisresearch andreflections set an well astheirsocial,cultural andpoliticalcon- philosophical foundationsof hisdiscipline as thinker, willingto challenge and thescientific tic biologist. He was a profoundly critical for decades. Trump. Hecontinued to publishinthisrealm the administration of USPresident Donald and Leon Kamin, and reissued in 2017 during Nature (1984), co-authored withSteven Rose andHuman Ideology, Biology, in OurGenes: on scientific andsocialgrounds, notablyinNot mental testing inthe1980s, heopposed them race were again putforward inthecontext of genetic basis. Whenbiologicalarguments for him to argue thatsuch hadno distinctions ‘racial groups’ thanbetween them,leading 1972) foundmore variation withinso-called Vol.ogy 6 (eds T. Dobzhansky ment of Human Diversity’ (in In keeping with his socialism, he disliked Lewontin described himself as a pessimis Lewontin alsospoke upagainst biological Biology Under theInfluence (2007).Biology Like Nature |Vol 595 |22 July 2021 |489 Evolutionary Biol Evolutionary et al.) Springer,
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