H. Bentley Glass

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H. Bentley Glass
BornJanuary 17, 1906
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Doctoral advisorHermann Joseph Muller

Hiram Bentley Glass (January 17, 1906 – January 16, 2005) was an American geneticist and noted columnist.

Career

Born in

Baltimore Evening Sun newspaper. He taught at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri and at Goucher College
in Maryland before joining the faculty at Johns Hopkins.

Glass was a frequent attendee of the

State University of New York at Stony Brook. He was an honorary member of the National Association of Biology Teachers.[3] He was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1959,[4][5] and to the American Philosophical Society in 1963.[6] Glass was a critic of creationism
.

Glass's scientific papers were donated to and are available at the American Philosophical Society.

Throughout his long scientific career, he held many distinguished academic titles, including

Glass on Genetic Determinism

Like his doctoral mentor H. J. Muller, Glass was deeply troubled by eugenics. In response to the views of Charles Davenport, Morris Steggerda and others, Glass wrote an essay, "Geneticists Embattled: Their Stand Against Rampant Eugenics and Racism in America During the 1920s and 1930s" (1986). The following excerpt is emblematic:

"Let us remember that the genes which are passed down in the egg and sperm from one generation to another are simply molecules of DNA, selected over eons as providing individuals to survive in a real world and to reproduce when mature. The genes control only the kinds of proteins that are actually made in the cell and tissues of the growing, developing individual, or control the turning on and turning off of these synthetic processes at appropriate times and in appropriate tissues during development. Their effects, whether fortunate or unfortunate, depend on the circumstances of the environment, biological, social cultural. Behavior reflects the changes in state and attitude assumed by a growing, developing being as its situation becomes altered. Darwinian evolution is based on the selection (read “preservation” or “perpetuation”) of whatever genetic differences promote survival and reproduction, although that may include even such forms of behavior as altruism if thereby genes like those of the self-sacrificing individual are preserved in the related beings saved from death or infertility. But the circumstances—-that is, the environment—-define what is a “good” gene and what is a “bad” one. The flaw in Social Darwinism, and likewise in the over-extended sociobiology, is to ignore the interdependency of genes and environment—-to think in absolute terms of good or bad genes, good or bad phenotypes."

(excerpt from "Geneticists Embattled," p. 148)

Editorial work

In collaboration with

Conrad Waddington
wrote as follows:

It deals with the most fundamental problem of analytical biology — the chemical nature and functioning of the basic units on which biological organisms are based. The contributors are ... of the very highest standard ... Workers in the large field of chromosomes, genes, nucleic acids and viruses will find the book essential.

Selected bibliography

References

  1. S2CID 34594871
    .
  2. ^ "H. Bentley Glass, Provocative Science Theorist, Dies at 98". The New York Times.
  3. doi:10.2307/4441884
  4. ^ "Hiram Bentley Glass". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2022-11-07.
  5. ^ "H. Bentley Glass". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2022-11-07.
  6. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2022-11-07.
  7. ISBN 978-0801804090
    .
  8. doi:10.1113/expphysiol.1958.sp001300
    .
  9. doi:10.1086/414912
    .
  10. doi:10.1086/402834
    .

External links
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