Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky was a prominent Russian and American geneticist and evolutionary biologist.
32 Facts About Theodosius Dobzhansky
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Theodosius Dobzhansky was a central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the modern synthesis.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky was awarded the US National Medal of Science in 1964 and the Franklin Medal in 1973.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky was born on January 25,1900, in Nemirov, Russian Empire, the only child of Grigory Theodosius Dobzhansky, a mathematics teacher, and Sophia Voinarsky.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky was given an unusual name, Theodosius, because he was born after his middle-aged parents prayed for a child to St Theodosius of Chernigov.
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At high school, Theodosius Dobzhansky collected butterflies and decided to become a biologist.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky attended the University of Kiev between 1917 and 1921, where he then studied until 1924 specializing in entomology.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky then moved to Leningrad to study under Yuri Filipchenko, where a Drosophila melanogaster laboratory had been established.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky immigrated to the United States in 1927 on a work-study scholarship from the International Education Board of the Rockefeller Foundation.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky followed Morgan to the California Institute of Technology from 1930 to 1940.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky's work was instrumental in spreading the idea that it is through mutations in genes that natural selection takes place.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky returned to Columbia University from 1940 to 1962.
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In 1941, Theodosius Dobzhansky was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, of which he was a member.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1942.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky was one of the signatories of the 1950 UNESCO statement The Race Question.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1953.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky then moved to the Rockefeller Institute until his retirement in 1971.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 1965.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky was renowned as the president of the Genetics Society of America in 1941, president of the American Society of Naturalists in 1950, president of the Society for the Study of Evolution in 1951, president of the American Society of Zoologists in 1963, a member of the board of directors of the American Eugenics Society in 1964, and president of the American Teilhard de Chardin Association in 1969.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky published three editions of his book Genetics and the Origin of Species.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky explained how three levels could describe the processes of evolutionary population genetics: the origin of raw materials by mutations of genes and chromosomes, the changes in populations by changes in frequencies and combinations of mutations, the fixation of changes by reproductive isolation.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky decided to remove the chapter on Polyploidy in the third edition.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky included precise, quantitative evidence on effective natural selection in laboratory and free populations.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky argued that science should not give in to the misuses to which it had been subjected, and that the concept of animal and plant races has been important in biology; the modern synthesis used the concept for describing the diverging biological populations differing in gene frequencies.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky's concern dealt with religion in human life which he speaks about in his book The Biology of Ultimate Concern in 1967.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky sought to put an end to the pseudoscience that purports genetic makeup to determine race, and thus rank in society.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky stated that a true bloodline for man could not be identified.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky did not believe that a person's genetic makeup decided whether or not he would be a great man but rather that man "has the rare opportunity 'to direct his evolution'".
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Theodosius Dobzhansky retired in 1971, moving to the University of California, Davis where his student Francisco J Ayala had been made assistant professor, and where he continued working as an emeritus professor.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky published one of his most famous essays "Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution" in 1973, influenced by the paleontologist and priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky was cremated, and his ashes were scattered in the Californian wilderness.
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Theodosius Dobzhansky believed that God and science can be reconciled through the idea that the Creator brought about his plan through the processes of evolution.