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Theodosius Grigorevich Dobzhansky (Russian — Феодосий Григорьевич Добржанский; sometimes anglicized to Theodore Dobzhansky; January 25, 1900 - December 18, 1975) was a noted geneticist and evolutionary biologist. Dobzhansky was born in Ukraine (then part of Imperial Russia), emigrated to the United States in 1927.

one of architechs who produced the modern evolutionary synthesis.

view on religion and evolution: "natural selection does not work according to a foreordained plan, and species are produced not because they are needed for some purpose ... The organic diversity becomes, however, reasonable and understandable if the Creator has created the living world not by caprice but by evolution propelled by natural selection. It is wrong to hold creation and evolution as mutually exclusive alternatives. I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God’s, or Nature’s method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 B.C.E.; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way."

Biography

Early life

Dobzhansky was born on January 25, 1900 in Nemirov, Ukraine then part of Imperial Russia. An only child, his father Grigory Dobzhansky was a mathematics teacher, and his mother was Sophia Voinarsky. In 1910, the family moved to Kiev. At high school, Dobzhansky collected butterflies and decided to become a biologist. In 1915, he met Victor Luchnik who convinced him to specialise on beetles instead. Dobzhansky attended the University of Kiev between 1917 and 1921. Despite the death of both parents, he was able to complete his studies and graduate with an undergraduate degree. He began his professional career at the Polytechnic Institute of Kiev, where he studied ladybugs (Coccinellidae family, also known as ladybirds or lady beetles) in the field and Drosophila genetics in the laboraty (Hull 1988). In 1924,

Coccinellidae is a family of beetles, known variously as ladybirds (Commonwealth English), ladybugs (North American English) or lady beetles (preferred by scientists).

where he then studied until 1924. He then moved to Leningrad to study under Yuri Filipchenko, where a Drosophila melanogaster lab had been established.

On August 8, 1924, Dobzhansky married geneticist Natalia "Natasha" Sivertzev who was working with I. I. Schmalhausen in Kiev. The Dobzhanskys had one daughter, Sophie, who later married the American anthropologist Michael D. Coe.

This period was one of great social upheaval in Russia with the First World War followed by the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War that established the Soviet Union, and mass starvation.

America and Origin of Modern Synthesis

Dobzhansky emigrated to the United States in 1927 on a scholarship from International Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation arriving in New York on December 27. He worked with Thomas Hunt Morgan at Columbia University, who had pioneered of the use of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) in genetics experiments. He followed Morgan to the California Institute of Technology from 1930 to 1940. Dobzhansky is credited for having taken fruit fly research out of the laboratory and "into the field", having discovered that different regional varieties of flies were more similar to each other genetically than to flies from other regions.

Also in 1937, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. During this time he had a very public falling out with one of his Dorosophila collaborators, Alfred Sturtevant, based primarily in professional competition.

In 1937 he published one of the major works of the modern evolutionary synthesis, the synthesis of evolutionary biology with genetics, entitled Genetics and the Origin of Species, which amongst other things defined evolution as "a change in the frequency of an allele within a gene pool".

Mayr (1982) claimed that one particular publication "heralded the beginning of the synthesis, and in fact was more responsible for it than any other, Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin of Species, published in 1937.

His 1937 work Genetics and the Origin of Species is usually considered the first mature work of neo-Darwinism. Mayr (1982) claimed that this work "heralded the beginning of the synthesis, and in fact was more responsible for it than any other." Gould considere dit one fo the "founding documents for the second phase of the Synthesis") (2002). gould (2002) stated that Dobzhansky's 1937 book, Genetics and the Origin of species as "a direct and primary inspiration for the books that followed."

{First phase was construction of pouulation genetics by Fisher, Haldane, and Wright, the seond phase b rought tradiional subdiscipliens into thie framework.

both skilled Drosophila experimentalist and a specialist in taxonomy of coccinellid beetles (ladybirds).

Dobzhansky returned to Columbia University from 1940 to 1962. He then moved to the Rockefeller Institute (shortly to become Rockefeller University) until his retirement in 1971.

Final illness and the Light of Evolution

On June 1, 1968 it was discovered that Dobzhansky was suffering from lymphatic leukemia, a mild form of leukemia, and given a few months to a few years to live. Natasha died of coronary thrombosis on February 22, 1969. In 1971 he retired but continued working as an emeritus professor, moving to the University of California, Davis where his student Francisco Jose Ayala was made assistant professor.

Meanwhile, he continued working and published a famous anti-creationist essay Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution. His leukemia became more serious in the summer of 1975, on November 11 he made a trip to San Jacinto, California where he died of heart failure on December 18. He was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Californian wilderness.

Quotes:

Quote from 1951 edition (opening paragraph): "Man has always been fascinated by the great diversity of organisms which live in the world around him. Many attempts have been made to understand the meaning of this diversity and the causes that bring it about. To many minds this problem possesses an irrestible aesthetic appeal. Inasmuch as scientific inquiry is a form of aesthetic endeavor, biology owes its existence in part to this appeal."

Quote from 1970 Genetics of the Evolutionary Process: "Evolution is a creative process, in precisely the same sense in which composing a poem or a symphony, carving a statue, or painting a picture are creative acts. An art work is novel, unique, and unrepeatable...The evoltuoin of eveyr phyletic line yields a novelty that never existed before and is a unique, unrepeatable, and irreversible proceeding.... natural selection has tried out an immense number of possibilities and has discovered many wonderful ones. Among which, to date, the most wonderful is man."

Quote from 1973, Nothing in biology...... "It is ludicrous to mistake the Bible and the Koran for primers of natural science. They treat of matters even more important: the meaning of man and his relations to God. They are written in poetic symbols that were understandable to people of the age when they were written, as well as to peoples of all other ages."

Quote from 1973 also — can use in intro somewhere: There is, of course, nothing conscious or intentional in the action of natural selection. A biologic species does not say to itself, "Let me try tomorrow (or a million years from now) to grow in a different soil, or use a different food, or subsist on a different body part of a different crab." Only a human being could make such conscious decisions. This is why the species Homo sapiens is the apex of evolution. Natural selection is at one and the same time a blind and creative process. Only a creative and blind process could produce, on the one hand, the tremendous biologic success that is the human species and, on the other, forms of adaptedness as narrow and as constraining as those of the overspecialized fungus, beetle, and flies mentioned above.

"natural selection does not work according to a foreordained plan, and species are produced not because they are needed for some purpose but simply because there is an environmental opportunity and genetic wherewithal to make them possible. Was the Creator in a jocular mood when he made Psilopa petrolei for California oil fields and species of Drosophila to live exclusively on some body-parts of certain land crabs on only certain islands in the Caribbean? The organic diversity becomes, however, reasonable and understandable if the Creator has created the living world not by caprice but by evolution propelled by natural selection. It is wrong to hold creation and evolution as mutually exclusive alternatives. I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God’s, or Nature’s method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 B.C.E.; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way."

Bibliography

Books

Dobzhansky, Th. 1937. Genetics and the Origin of Species. Columbia University Press, New York. (2nd ed., 1941; 3rd ed., 1951)
The Biological Basis of Human Freedom (1954).
Dunn, L. C., & Dobzhansky, Th. 1946. Heredity, Race, and Society. The New American Library of World Literature, Inc., New York.
Dobzhansky, Th. 1955. Evolution, Genetics, & Man. Wiley & Sons, New York.
Dobzhansky, Th. 1962. Mankind Evolving. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.
Dobzhansky, Th. 1967. The Biology of Ultimate Concern. New American Library, New York.
Dobzhansky, Th. 1970. Genetics of the Evolutionary Process. Columbia University Press, New York.
Genetic Diversity and Human Equality (1973).
Dobzhansky, Th., F.J. Ayala, G.L. Stebbins & J.W. Valentine. 1977. Evolution. W.H. Freeman, San Francisco.
[Dobzhansky, Th.] 1981. Dobzhansky's Genetics of Natural Populations I-XLIII. R.C. Lewontin, J.A. Moore, W.B. Provine & B. Wallace, eds. Columbia University Press, New York. (reprints the 43 papers in this series, all but two of which were authored or co-authored by Dobzhansky)

Dobzhansky, T. 1973. Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. The American Biology Teacher 35:125-129.

External links

Colloquium on Genetics and the Origin of Species with a biography
Chapter 1 from Genetics and the Origin of Species
Theodosius Dobzhansky: A Man For All Seasons by Francisco J. Ayala
The Theodosius Dobzhansky Papers the American Philosophical Society
Transcript of Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution

External links

Credits

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@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 == Biography ==
 === Early life ===
-Dobzhansky was born on [[January 25]], [[1900]] in [[Nemirov]], [[Ukraine]] then part of [[Imperial Russia]]. An only child, his father Grigory Dobzhansky was a [[mathematics]] [[teacher]], and his mother was Sophia Voinarsky.  In [[1910]] the family moved to [[Kiev]].  At high school, Dobzhansky collected butterflies and decided to become a biologist.  In 1915 he met Victor Luchnik who convinced him to specialise on beetles instead.  Dobzhansky attended the [[University of Kiev]] between [[1917]] and [[1921]], where he then studied until 1924.  He then moved to [[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]] to study under [[Yuri Filipchenko]], where a ''[[Drosophila melanogaster]]'' lab had been established.
+Dobzhansky was born on [[January 25]], [[1900]] in [[Nemirov]], [[Ukraine]] then part of [[Imperial Russia]]. An only child, his father Grigory Dobzhansky was a [[mathematics]] [[teacher]], and his mother was Sophia Voinarsky.  In [[1910]], the family moved to [[Kiev]].  At high school, Dobzhansky collected butterflies and decided to become a biologist.  In 1915, he met Victor Luchnik who convinced him to specialise on beetles instead.  Dobzhansky attended the [[University of Kiev]] between [[1917]] and [[1921]]. Despite the death of both parents, he was able to complete his studies and graduate with an undergraduate degree. He began his professional career at the Polytechnic Institute of Kiev, where he studied ladybugs (Coccinellidae family, also known as ladybirds or lady beetles) in the field and ''Drosophila'' genetics in the laboraty (Hull 1988). In 1924,
+Coccinellidae is a family of beetles, known variously as ladybirds (Commonwealth English), ladybugs (North American English) or lady beetles (preferred by scientists).
+where he then studied until 1924.  He then moved to [[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]] to study under [[Yuri Filipchenko]], where a ''[[Drosophila melanogaster]]'' lab had been established.
 On [[August 8]], [[1924]], Dobzhansky married geneticist Natalia "Natasha" Sivertzev who was working with [[I. I. Schmalhausen]] in Kiev.  The Dobzhanskys had one daughter, Sophie, who later married the American anthropologist [[Michael D. Coe]].