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C. D. Darlington | |
|---|---|
| Born | 19 December 1903 Chorley, Lancashire |
| Died | 26 March 1981(1981-03-26) (aged 77) |
| Alma mater | University of London |
| Awards | Royal Medal (1946) Mendel Medal (1972) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Genetics, Botany, Cytology |
| Author abbrev. (botany) | C.D.Darl. |
Cyril Dean DarlingtonFRS[1] (19 December 1903 – 26 March 1981) was an Englishbiologist,cytologist,geneticist, andeugenicist. He discovered the mechanics ofchromosomal crossover,[2] its role ininheritance, and thus its importance toevolution. He was theSherardian Professor of Botany at theUniversity of Oxford from 1953 to 1971.
Darlington's research on genetics contributed to themodern evolutionary synthesis in the 20th century.[3] However, many of his views are controversial; Darlington was listed in 1999 by theSouthern Poverty Law Center as an example of a prominentrace scientist who espousedantisemitism, eugenics, racism, andsocial Darwinism.[4]
Cyril Darlington was born inChorley, a smallcotton town inLancashire,England in 1903. He had one brother, six years older. His father, William, was a teacher at a small school. When Darlington was eight, the family moved toLondon. His childhood was an unhappy one, characterized by a stern, bitter, and frustrated father, who struggled againstpoverty. Darlington enjoyed neither sports nor studies (including at theMercers' School andSt Paul's School, London).[5][6][7] He began to develop a disdain for authority. He decided to become a farmer inAustralia, so he applied to the South Eastern Agricultural College atWye, known later asWye College. He was an indifferent student, but his social life took a turn for the better when he took up boxing, with moderate success. He was then six feet three inches tall, and an imposing figure. One subject that captured his imagination, however, wasMendelian genetics, taught by themyriapodologist Stanley Graham Brade-Birks.[8] Darlington's interest in the subject began after he discoveredThomas Hunt Morgan'sThe Physical Basis of Heredity. He graduated with a London UniversityOrdinary degree in 1923.
After being turned down for a scholarship to go to Trinidad as a farmer, Darlington was encouraged in 1923 by one of his professors to apply for a scholarship at theJohn Innes Horticultural Institution inMerton. He wrote to its director,William Bateson, famous for having introduced the word "genetics" into biology. His application was unsuccessful, but he obtained a temporary post as an unpaid technician. Bateson had just hired acytologist, Frank Newton, who became a mentor to Darlington. Darlington published his first scientific paper on thetetraploidy of the sour cherry and was hired as a permanent employee.
Shortly after, both Bateson and Newton died within a year of each other andJ.B.S. Haldane came to the Innes. Although neither anexperimentalist nor cytologist, Haldane formed a close friendship with Darlington. He began to make contributions to the understanding of the relationship betweenchromosomal crossover and the events observed duringmeiosis.
In February 1929 he made a study trip with fellowbotanistJohn Macqueen Cowan to theNear East.[9] In 1931 he began writing the bookRecent Advances in Cytology, which was published in 1932. He became Director of the Cytology Department in 1937, and he became director of the Innes two years later, 15 years after his arrival as an unpaid volunteer. He was elected aFellow of the Royal Society on 20 March 1941. A few months after that, he was awarded theRoyal Medal, and then was elected president of the Genetical Society. In 1947 he co-founded withRonald Fisher the journalHeredity: An International Journal of Genetics, as a response toJ.B.S. Haldane joining theCommunist party and "taking theJournal of Genetics with him".[10]
He left the Innes in 1953 and accepted theSherardian Chair of Botany atOxford University. He developed an interest in the Botanic Garden, going on to establish the 'Genetic Garden'. He was also involved in extending the teaching of science, especially genetics, in the university.[citation needed] He continued to voice support for the belief that human genetics determined behaviour.
In 1972 he, along with 50 other scientists, signed "Resolution on Scientific Freedom Regarding Human Behavior and Heredity" in which a genetic approach to understanding the behaviour of man was strongly defended. He staunchly defended his colleague,John Baker, who published the controversial bookRace in 1974, in the fight againstLysenkoism. Asked by a reporter forThe Sunday Times whether or not he was aracist for this connection to John Baker, who believed that no civilizations had ever arisen in Africa, all "negrids" had a "fetid smell" and were "less evolved,"[11] Darlington replied: "Well, I'm regarded as one by everyone except theJews, whoare racist, and who utterly agree with my views."[citation needed]
Darlington retired from his official position at the university in 1971, but remained in the university, writing and publishing his work. He died in Oxford in 1981. He had five children, two of whom committedsuicide.
In his later years, Darlington increased his participation in the public debate about the role of science in society, and especially its interaction with politics and government. Beginning in 1948, he published strong condemnations of the denouncement of Mendelian genetics in favour ofLysenkoism in theSoviet Union.[citation needed] Some genetics institutes were destroyed, and prominent geneticists were purged or murdered. These events caused an upheaval among the leaders of genetics in the west, many of whom wereleftist,socialists,communists, andMarxists.[citation needed] This caused a break between Haldane and Darlington, who was intransigent in hisanti-authoritarian views.
Darlington developed an interest in the application of genetic insights to the understanding of human history. He believed that not only were there differences in the character and culture between individuals, but that thesedifferences also exist between races. To him, understanding of these differences in scientific terms was not only interesting in its own right, but was crucial to the development of a civil society.[12] Darlington writes that "as slaves,"enslaveddiasporic Africans "improved in health and increased in numbers," without addressing the role offorced slave breeding in the United States. He repeated the myth that their environment was "more favorable than anything they had experienced in Africa." According to Darlington,emancipation of slaves resulted in the withdrawal of "discipline" and "protection" resulting in social problems such as "drugs,gambling, andprostitution."
Darlington concluded: "Theintellectually well-endowed races, classes, and societies have a moral responsibility for the problems ofrace mixture, of immigration and exploitation, that have arisen from their exercise of economic and political power. They may hope to escape from these responsibilities by claiming an intellectual and, therefore, moral equality between all races, classes, and societies. But the chapters of this book, step by step, deprive them of the scientific and historical evidence that might support such a comfortable illusion."
Darlington was opposed to theUNESCO Statement of Race. He agreed with Darwin's classical view: "The races differ also in constitution, in acclimatization, and in liability to certain diseases. Their mental characteristics are likewise very distinct; chiefly as it would appear in their emotional, but partly in their intellectual, faculties." To simplify, Darlington believed that there is a difference not just in skin color and disease vulnerability between races, but also inintelligence.
Darlington thought that there might be a biological justification to prohibitinterracial marriages "if intermarriage were not contrary to the habits of all stable communities and therefore in no need of discouragement."[citation needed] He refused to sign the revised 1951 statement which conceded thatracial differences in intelligence possibly existed. Darlington's dissenting commentary was printed with the statement.[13]
(A partial list)
In the 2022 second season episode "The Primal Theory" of the animated seriesPrimal, a fictionalised version of Darlington appears as a main character, voiced byJeremy Crutchley.[16]
