Theodosius Dobzhansky

Quotes

• “The evolution of life, and the evolutionary origin of mankind, are scientifically established as firmly and completely as any historical event not witnessed by human observers. Any concession to anti-evolutionists, suggesting that there are scientific reasons to doubt the facticity of evolution, would be propagating a plain untruth.”
• “The living world is not a single array . . . connected by unbroken series of intergrades.”
• “My genes have indeed determined what I am, but only in the sense that, given the succession of environments and experiences that were mine, a carrier of a different set of genes might have become unlike myself.”
• “Seen in the light of evolution, biology is, perhaps, intellectually the most satisfying and inspiring science. Without that light it becomes a pile of sundry facts -- some of them interesting or curious but making no meaningful picture as a whole.”
• “Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts. As pointed out above, the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness.”
• “No known human group . . . simply throw[s] out its dead without any ritual or ceremony. In stark contrast, no animal practices burial of dead individuals of its own species.”

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Key facts

Born

Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky , ( 1900-01-25 ) January 25, 1900, Nemirov , Russian Empire (now Nemyriv, Ukraine )

Died

December 18, 1975 (1975-12-18) (aged 75), Davis, California , US

Alma mater

University of Kiev

Known for

Bateson–Dobzhansky–Muller model

Spouse

Natalia Sivertzeva ​ ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1924 ) ​

Children

Sophie Coe

Parents

Grigory Dobzhansky (father) Sophia Voinarsky (mother)

Awards

Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal (1941) Guggenheim Fellowship (1959) National Medal of Science (1964) Franklin Medal (1973)

Fields

Evolutionary biology , genetics

Institutions

University of Kiev (1921–1924) , University of Leningrad (1924–1927) , Columbia University (1927–1928, 1940–1962) , California Institute of Technology (1928–1940) , Rockefeller University (1962–1970) , University of California, Davis (1971–1975)

Doctoral advisor

Yuri Filipchenko

Doctoral students

Bruce Wallace , Richard Lewontin

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Image

Dobzhansky no Brasil em 1943.jpg

via Wikidata · CC0