Richard Levins

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Richard Levins
Levins in 2015
BornJune 1, 1930
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
DiedJanuary 19, 2016(2016-01-19) (aged 85)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Ethnicity
Ukrainian Jewish heritage
Alma mater
farming in Cuba, and metapopulations
(a Marxist theory of biology)
Societies
US National Academy of Sciences (resigned), Cuban Academy of Sciences, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
* American Public Health Association
Spouse(s)Rosario Morales (1950), died 2011; 3 children:
Harvard School of Public Health
ThesisTheory of fitness in a heterogeneous environment, published by Essex Institute, New York, 1965 (1965)
External image
image icon Dr. Richard Levins, teaching

Richard Levins (June 1, 1930 – January 19, 2016)

philosopher of science[4][5][6] who researched diversity in human populations. Until his death, Levins was a university professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a long-time political activist. He was best known for his work on evolution and complexity in changing environments and on metapopulations
.

Levins also had written on philosophical issues in

Marx's Grundrisse, the author's notes (not published until 1939) for Das Kapital. With the evolutionary geneticist Richard Lewontin, Levins had written a number of articles on methodology, philosophy, and social implications of biology. Many of these are collected in The Dialectical Biologist. In 2007, the duo published a second thematic collection of essays titled Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health.[7]

Also with Lewontin, Levins had co-authored a number of satirical articles criticizing sociobiology, systems modeling in ecology, and other topics under the pseudonym Isadore Nabi. Levins and Lewontin managed to place a ridiculous biography of Nabi and his achievements in American Men of Science, thereby showing how little editorial care and fact-checking work went on in that respected reference work.

Biography

Richard Levins was of Ukrainian Jewish heritage and was born on June 1, 1930, in

Red Diapers. He reportedly had read Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters (1926) at age 8 (in 1938) and his first of Charles Darwin's books at age 12 (in 1942). At the age of 10, Levins had been inspired by the essays of the Marxist biological polymath J. B. S. Haldane, whom Levins considers to be the equal of Albert Einstein
in scientific importance.

Levins studied

US National Academy of Sciences but resigned because of the Academy's role in advising the US military during the war. He had been a member of the US and Puerto Rican Communist Parties, the Movimiento Pro Independencia[10][11] (the Independence movement in Puerto Rico), and the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, and he was on an FBI surveillance list
.

Until his death, Levins was John Rock Professor of Population Sciences

Harvard School of Public Health.[15] In the early 1990s, Levins and others formed the Harvard Working Group on New and Resurgent Diseases. Their work showed that alarming new infections had sprung from changes in the environment, either natural or caused by humans (Wilson et al. 1994).[16]

During his final two decades, Levins had concentrated on application of ecology to agriculture, particularly in the economically less-well-developed nations of this planet. As a member of the OXFAM-America Board of Directors and former chair of their subcommittee on Latin America and the Caribbean, Richard Levins worked from a critique of the industrial-commercial pathway of development and promoted alternative development pathways which focused attention upon (a) economic viability with (b) population equity, (c) ecological and social sustainability, and (d) empowerment of the dispossessed.

When his wife Rosario died in 2011, his daughter Aurora moved in with her father in his Cambridge, Massachusetts home.

One of Levins's grandchildren is Minneapolis-based hip hop artist Manny Phesto.[17][18]

Levins died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 19, 2016.[19][20]

A species of lizard, Sphaerodactylus levinsi, is named in his honor.[21]

Evolution in changing environments

This article is about the oceanic phenomenon. For the electrical signaling schemes, see
loop current
.
A Map of the Loop Current

Prior to Levins' work,

J. R. Hicks) and extends Sewall Wright's path analysis to the analysis of causal feedback loops
.

Metapopulation theory

The term metapopulation was coined by Levins in 1969 to describe a "population of populations".[22] Populations inhabit a landscape of suitable habitat patches, each capable of hosting a local sub-population. Local populations may become extinct and be subsequently recolonized by immigration from patches; the fate of such a system of local populations (i.e., the metapopulation) depends on the balance between extinctions and colonizations. Levins introduced a model consisting of a single differential equation, nowadays known as the Levins model, to describe the dynamics of average patch occupancy in such systems. Metapopulation theory has since become an important area of spatial ecology, with applications in conservation biology, population management, and pest control.[23][24]

Quotations

  • "The world is stranger than we can imagine and surprises are inevitable in science. Thus we found, for example, that pesticides increase pests, antibiotics can create pathogens, agricultural development creates hunger, and flood control leads to flooding. But some of these surprises could have been avoided if the problems had been posed big enough to accommodate solutions in the context of the whole." - Dr. Richard Levins

Awards

Levins at HSPH Reception for his 85th birthday, May 21, 2015

Selected bibliography

  • Levins, R. "Genetic Consequences of Natural Selection," in Talbot Waterman and Harold Morowitz, eds., Theoretical and Mathematical Biology, Yale, 1965, pp. 372–387.
  • Levins, R (1966). "The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology". American Scientist. 54: 421–431.
  • Levins, R. Evolution in Changing Environments, Princeton University Press, 1968.
  • Levins, R. "Some demographic and genetic consequences of environmental heterogeneity for biological control", Bulletin of the Entomological Society of America, 15:237–240, 1969.[22]
  • Levins, R. "Extinction", in M. Gerstenhaver, Editor. Some Mathematical Problems in Biology. American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI, Pages 77–104. In this historic paper, Levins coined the term 'metapopulation' (now widely used).
  • Levins, R. "Evolution in communities near equilibrium", in M. L. Cody and J.M. Diamond (eds) Ecology and Evolution of Communities, Harvard University Press, 1975.
  • Nabi, I., (pseud.) "An Evolutionary Interpretation of the English Sonnet: First Annual Piltdown Man Lecture on Man and Society," Science and Nature, no. 3, 1980, 71-73.
  • Levinsin, R., Haila, Y. Marxilaisena biologinen Yhdysvalloissa. Richard Levinsin haastattelu [Yrjö Haila]. Tiede & edistys 8(1):29-37 (1983).
  • Levins, R. and R.C. Lewontin, The Dialectical Biologist, Harvard University Press, 1985.
  • Puccia, C.J. and Levins, R. Qualitative Modeling of Complex Systems: An Introduction to Loop Analysis and Time Averaging, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 1986.
  • Levins, R. and Vandermeer, J. "The agroecosystem embedded in a complex ecological community" in: Carroll R.C., Vandermeer J. and Rosset P., eds., Agroecology, New York: Wiley and Sons, 1990.
  • Haila, Y., and Levins, R. Humanity and Nature, London: Pluto Press, 1992.
  • Grove, E.A.; Kocic, V.L.; Ladas, G.; Levins, R. (1993). "Periodicity in a simple genotype selection model". Diff Eq and Dynamical Systems. 1 (1): 35–50.
  • Awerbuch T.E. Evolution of mathematical models of epidemics. In: Wilson, Levins, and Spielman (eds).Disease in Evolution. New York Academy of Sciences, New York 1994, 225-231.
  • Wilson, M., Levins, R., and Spielman, A. (eds). Disease in Evolution. New York Academy of Sciences, New York 1994
  • Levins, R.; Awerbuch, T.E.; Brinkman, U.Eckardt; Epstein, P.; Makhaoul, N.; Possas, C.A.; Puccia, C.; Spielman, A.; Wilson, M. (1994). "Preparing for new diseases". American Scientist. 82: 52–60.
  • Levins, R (1996). "Ten propositions on science and antiscience". Social Text. 46 (46/47): 101–111.
    S2CID 13696213
    .
  • Awerbuch T.E., Brinkman, U., Eckardt, I., Epstein, P., Ford, T., Levins, R., Makhaoul, N., Possas, C.A., Puccia, C., Spielman, A., and Wilson, M., Globalization, development, and the spread of disease. In: Goldsmith and Mander (eds.) The Case Against the Global Economy, Sierra Club Books, 1996, 160–170.
  • Levins, R. "Touch Red," in Judy Kaplan and Linn Shapiro, eds., Red Diapers: Growing up in the Communist Left, U. of Illinois, 1998, pp. 257–266.
  • Levins, R (1998). "Dialectics and systems theory". Science and Society. 62 (3): 373–399.
  • Levins, R (1998). "The internal and external in explanatory theories". Science as Culture. 7 (4): 557–582.
    doi:10.1080/09505439809526525
    .
  • Levins, R.; Lopez, C. (1999). "Toward an ecosocial view of health". International Journal of Health Services. 29 (2): 261–293.
    S2CID 37698734
    .
  • Awerbuch T., Kiszewski A., and Levins, R., Surprise, Nonlinearity and Complex Behavior. In– Health Impacts of Global Environmental Change: Concepts and Methods; Martens and Mcmichael (eds), 96-102, 2002
  • Levins, R (2003). "Whose Scientific Method? Scientific Methods for a Complex World, New Solutions". New Solutions. 13 (3): 261–274.
    S2CID 9858874
    .
  • Karpati, A.; Galea, S.;
    PMID 12406806
    .
  • Awerbuch, T.E., Gonzalez, C., Hernandez, D., Sibat, R., Tapia, J.L., Levins, R., and Sandberg S., The natural control of the scale insect Lepidosaphes gloverii on Cuban citrus. Inter American Citrus Network newsletter No21/22, July 2004.
  • S2CID 28410132
    .
  • Lewontin, R.C. and Levins, R., "Biology Under The Influence, Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health," New York: Monthly Review Press, 2007.
  • Predescu, M.; Levins, R.;
    doi:10.3934/dcdsb.2006.6.605
    .
  • Awerbuch T., and Levins, R. Mathematical Models for Health Policy. in Mathematical Models, [Eds. Jerzy A. Filar, and Jacek B. Krawczyk], in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), Developed under the Auspices of the UNESCO, Eolss Publishers, Oxford, UK, [1], 2006
  • Predescu, M., Sirbu, R., Levins, R., and Awerbuch T., On the Dynamics of a Deterministic and Stochastic Model for Mosquito Control. Applied Mathematics Letters, 20, 919-925, 2007.
  • Awerbuch, T.E., Levins, R., The Aging Heart and the Loss of Complexity—a Difference Equation Model. Preliminary report. American Mathematical Society, (1056-39-2059), presented at AMS Convention, San Francisco, California, January 13, 2010
  • Levins, R., Una pierna adentro, una pierna afuera. CopIt ArXives & EditoraC3, Mexico. SC0005ES.
    ISBN 978-1-938128-073
    , 2015
  • Levins, R., Scientific Method for Today’s Market, The Mathematical Intelligencer, 37 (1), 47-47, 2015 (March 1).

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Ricardo Levins Morales Art Store - Political Art Posters, Note Cards, Buttons Minneapolis, MN RLM Arts".
  2. ^ a b LinkedIn profile of Alejandro Levins
  3. ^ In memoriam: Richard Levins, ecologist, biomathematician, and philosopher of science
  4. ^ Weisberg, M. Richard Levins’ Philosophy of Science, Biology and Philosophy, November 2006, Volume 21, Issue 5, pp 603-605, First online: 05 January 2007, accessed 1/22/2016
  5. ^ Wimsatt, W. Richard Levins as Philosophical Revolutionary, Biology and Philosophy, January 2001, Volume 16, Issue 1, pp 103-108, accessed 1/22/2016
  6. ^ Winther, R.S. On the dangers of making scientific models ontologically independent: taking Richard Levins’ warnings seriously, Biology and Philosophy, November 2006, Volume 21, Issue 5, pp 703-724, First online: 16 January 2007, accessed 1/22/2016
  7. ISBN 978-1583671573
  8. ^ Aurora Levins Morales Blog: http://www.AuroraLevinsMorales.com/blog.html
  9. ^ "Heath Anthology of American LiteratureAurora Levins Morales - Author Page".
  10. ^ "Historia del Movimiento Pro Independencia".
  11. ^ "Americas Summit Sans United States: Venezuela, Argentina To Push For Puerto Rican Independence". Fox News Latino. 2 November 2021.
  12. ^ "John Rock Professor of Population Sciences - Harvard Catalyst Profiles - Harvard Catalyst". Archived from the original on 2014-09-03.
  13. ^ "Stephen Jay Gould: What Does it Mean to Be a Radical?".
  14. ^ Human Ecology, Course #: GHP253-01, basic course in the HSPH Program in Human Ecology Archived 2014-09-11 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ "Home - Richard Levins - Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health".
  16. ^ Wilson, M.E., Levins, R., Spielman, A. (eds). 1994. Disease in Evolution: Global Changes and Emergence of Infectious Diseases. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Series. Volume 740. New York Academy of Sciences, New York, NY. Accessed 1/22/2016
  17. ^ Tran, Kyle "New Local Music" MN Daily Planet
  18. ^ Thompson, Eric "Top 10 Must See Music Videos This Week" retrieved (8/4/15) City Pages
  19. ^ In memoriam: Richard Levins, ecologist, biomathematician, and philosopher of science, Harvard Chan School faculty memorial announcement, January 22, 2016
  20. ^ Richard Levins, 1930-2016
  21. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5
    . ("Levins", p. 156).
  22. ^
    S2CID 85600923
  23. ISBN 978-0-12-323448-3. {{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help
    )
  24. ISBN 978-0470016176
    .
  25. ^ "TLAXCALA: LEVINS".
  26. ^ "Is human behavior controlled by our genes? Richard Levins reviews "The Social Conquest of Earth"". Climate & Capitalism. August 2012.
  27. ^ "Richard Levins - Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research". Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2014-07-02.
  28. ^ Education in Latin America: Challenges for Latin Americans, U.S. Latinos. Spring 1999, Richard Levins: Honorary Degree Archived 2014-07-15 at the Wayback Machine
  29. ^ "Bienvenido a Yahoo Grupos". Archived from the original on 2014-07-15. Retrieved 2014-07-02.
  30. ^ "College of the Atlantic commencement closes Bar Harbor school's 40th year". Bangor Daily News. June 3, 2012. Retrieved 22 October 2014.
  31. ^ Abstract of Milton Terris Global Health Award lecture: "One Foot in, One Foot out" Archived 2015-04-02 at the Wayback Machine
  32. Harvard School of Public Health
    , May 21–23, 2015.
  33. ^ Awerbuch, T., M. S. Clark, P. J. Taylor (eds), The Truth is the Whole: Essays in Honor of Richard Levins, The Pumping Station, 2018.

External links

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