J. B. S. Haldane
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Haldane in 1914
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| Born | 5 November 1892
Oxford, England
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| Died | 1 December 1964 (aged 72)
Bhubaneswar, India
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| Citizenship |
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| Education | Eton College |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford |
| Known for | |
| Spouse(s) |
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| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
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| Institutions | |
| Academic advisors | Frederick Gowland Hopkins |
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| Military career | |
| Service/ | British Army |
| Years of service | 1914–1920 |
| Rank | Captain |
| Battles/wars | First World War |
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS (/ˈhɔːldeɪn/; 5 November 1892 – 1 December 1964) was a British-Indian scientist known for his work in the study of physiology, genetics, evolutionary biology, and mathematics. He made innovative contributions to the fields of statistics and biostatistics.
His article on abiogenesis in 1929 introduced the "primordial soup theory", and it became the foundation to build physical models for the chemical origin of life. Haldane established human gene maps for haemophilia and colour blindness on the X chromosome, and codified Haldane's rule on sterility in the heterogametic sex of hybrids in species. He correctly proposed that sickle-cell disease confers some immunity to malaria. He was the first to suggest the central idea of in vitro fertilisation, as well as concepts such as hydrogen economy, cis and trans-acting regulation, coupling reaction, molecular repulsion, the darwin (as a unit of evolution) and organismal cloning. In 1957 he articulated Haldane's dilemma, a limit on the speed of beneficial evolution which subsequently proved incorrect. He willed his body for medical studies, as he wanted to remain useful even in death. He is also remembered for coining the words "clone" and "cloning" in human biology, and "ectogenesis".
Haldane's first paper in 1915 demonstrated genetic linkage in mammals. Subsequent works established a unification of Mendelian genetics and Darwinian evolution by natural selection whilst laying the groundwork for modern evolutionary synthesis and thus helped to create population genetics.
Haldane was a professed socialist, Marxist, atheist and humanist whose political dissent led him to leave England in 1956 and live in India, becoming a naturalised Indian citizen in 1961. He was the son of John Scott Haldane.
Arthur C. Clarke credited him as "perhaps the most brilliant science populariser of his generation". Nobel laureate Peter Medawar called Haldane "the cleverest man I ever knew". According to Theodosius Dobzhansky, "Haldane was always recognized as a singular case"; and to Michael J. D. White, "the most erudite biologist of his generation, and perhaps of the century."
Biography
His father John Scott Haldane c. 1910
Early life and education
Haldane was born in Oxford to John Scott Haldane, a physiologist, scientist, a philosopher and a Liberal, and Louisa Kathleen Trotter, a Conservative. His younger sister, Naomi Mitchison, became a writer, and his uncle was Viscount Haldane and his aunt the author Elizabeth Haldane. Descended from an aristocratic and secular family of the Clan Haldane, he would later claim that his Y chromosome could be traced back to Robert the Bruce.
He grew up at 11 Crick Road, North Oxford. He learnt to read at the age of three, and at four, after injuring his forehead he asked the doctor, "Is this oxyhaemoglobin or carboxyhaemoglobin?". From age eight he worked with his father in their home laboratory where he experienced his first self-experimentation,
the method he would later be famous for. He and his father became their
own "human guinea pigs", such as in their investigation on the effects
of poison gases. In 1899 his family moved to "Cherwell", a late
Victorian house at the outskirts of Oxford with its own private
laboratory.
His formal education began in 1897 at Oxford Preparatory School (now Dragon School), where he gained a First Scholarship in 1904 to Eton.
In 1905 he joined Eton, where he experienced severe abuse from senior
students for allegedly being arrogant. The indifference of authority
left him with a lasting hatred for the English education system.
However, the ordeal did not stop him from becoming Captain of the
school. He studied mathematics and classics at New College at the University of Oxford and obtained first-class honours in mathematical moderations in 1912 and first-class honours in Greats in 1914. He became engrossed in genetics and presented a paper on gene linkage in vertebrates
in the summer of 1912. His first technical paper, a 30-page long
article on haemoglobin function, was published that same year, as a
co-author alongside his father.
Career
His education was interrupted by the First World War during which he fought in the British Army, being commissioned a temporary second lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion of the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) on 15 August 1914. He was promoted to temporary lieutenant on 18 February 1915 and to temporary captain on 18 October.
He served in France and Iraq, where he was wounded. He relinquished his
commission on 1 April 1920, retaining his rank of captain. For his ferocity and aggressiveness in battles, his commander called him the "bravest and dirtiest officer in my Army."
Between 1919 and 1922 he was a Fellow of New College, Oxford, where he researched physiology and genetics. He then moved to the University of Cambridge, where he accepted a readership in Biochemistry and taught until 1932. From 1927 until 1937 he was also Head of Genetical Research at the John Innes Horticultural Institution. During his nine years at Cambridge, Haldane worked on enzymes and genetics, particularly the mathematical side of genetics. He was the Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution from 1930 to 1932 and in 1933 he became full Professor of Genetics at University College London, where he spent most of his academic career. Four years later he became the first Weldon Professor of Biometry at University College London.
In 1924, Haldane met Charlotte Franken.
So that they could marry, Charlotte divorced her husband, Jack Burghes,
causing some controversy. Haldane was almost dismissed from Cambridge
for the way he handled his meeting with her. They married in 1926.
Following their separation in 1942, the Haldanes divorced in 1945. Later
that year he married Helen Spurway.
Haldane, inspired by his father, would expose himself to danger
to obtain data. To test the effects of acidification of the blood he
drank dilute hydrochloric acid,
enclosed himself in an airtight room containing 7% carbon dioxide, and
found that it 'gives one a rather violent headache'. One experiment to
study elevated levels of oxygen saturation triggered a fit which resulted in him suffering crushed vertebrae. In his decompression chamber experiments, he and his volunteers suffered perforated eardrums. But, as Haldane stated in What is Life,
"the drum generally heals up; and if a hole remains in it, although one
is somewhat deaf, one can blow tobacco smoke out of the ear in
question, which is a social accomplishment."
In India
_and_J.B.S._Haldane_in_Andra_Pradesh,_India,_1964.jpg)
Marcello Siniscalco (standing) and Haldane in Andhra Pradesh, India, 1964
J. B. S. Haldane Avenue in Kolkata, the busy connecting road from Eastern Metropolitan Bypass to Park Circus area containing Science City
In 1956, Haldane left University College London, and joined the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in Kolkata, India, where he headed the biometry unit. Officially he stated that he left the UK because of the Suez Crisis, writing: "Finally, I am going to India because I consider that recent acts of the British Government have been violations of international law." He believed that the warm climate would do him good, and that India shared his socialist dreams.
The university had sacked his wife Helen for excessive drinking and
refusing to pay a fine, triggering Haldane's resignation. He declared he
would no longer wear socks, "Sixty years in socks is enough." and always dressed in Indian attire.
He was keenly interested in inexpensive research. He wrote to Julian Huxley about his observations on Vanellus malabaricus, the yellow-wattled lapwing. He advocated the use of Vigna sinensis (cowpea) as a model for studying plant genetics. He took an interest in the pollination of Lantana camara. He lamented that Indian universities forced those who took up biology to drop mathematics. Haldane took an interest in the study of floral symmetry. In January 1961 he befriended Gary Botting,
1960 U.S. Science Fair winner in zoology (who had first visited the
Haldanes along with Susan Brown, 1960 U.S. National Science Fair winner
in botany), inviting him to share the results of his experiments
hybridising Antheraea
silk moths. J.B.S., his wife Helen Spurway, and Krishna Dronamraju were
present at the Oberoi Grand Hotel in Kolkata when Brown reminded the
Haldanes that she and Botting had a previously scheduled event that
would prevent them from accepting an invitation to a banquet proposed by
J.B.S. and Helen in their honour and had regretfully declined the
honour. After the two students had left the hotel, Haldane went on his
much-publicized hunger strike to protest what he regarded as a "U.S.
insult." When the director of the ISI, P. C. Mahalanobis,
confronted Haldane about both the hunger strike and the unbudgeted
banquet, Haldane resigned from his post (in February 1961), and moved to
a newly established biometry unit in Odisha.
Haldane took Indian citizenship; he was interested in Hinduism and became a vegetarian. In 1961, Haldane described India as "the closest approximation to the Free World." Jerzy Neyman
objected that "India has its fair share of scoundrels and a tremendous
amount of poor unthinking and disgustingly subservient individuals who
are not attractive." Haldane retorted:
Perhaps one is freer to be a scoundrel in India than elsewhere. So one was in the U.S.A in the days of people like Jay Gould, when (in my opinion) there was more internal freedom in the U.S.A than there is today. The "disgusting subservience" of the others has its limits. The people of Calcutta riot, upset trams, and refuse to obey police regulations, in a manner which would have delighted Jefferson. I don't think their activities are very efficient, but that is not the question at issue.
When on 25 June 1962 he was described in print as a "Citizen of the World" by Groff Conklin, Haldane's response was as follows:
No doubt I am in some sense a citizen of the world. But I believe with Thomas Jefferson that one of the chief duties of a citizen is to be a nuisance to the government of his state. As there is no world state, I cannot do this. On the other hand, I can be, and am, a nuisance to the government of India, which has the merit of permitting a good deal of criticism, though it reacts to it rather slowly. I also happen to be proud of being a citizen of India, which is a lot more diverse than Europe, let alone the U.S.A, the U.S.S.R or China, and thus a better model for a possible world organisation. It may of course break up, but it is a wonderful experiment. So, I want to be labeled as a citizen of India.
Death
Shortly
before his death from cancer, Haldane wrote a comic poem while in the
hospital, mocking his own incurable disease. It was read by his friends,
who appreciated the consistent irreverence with which Haldane had lived
his life. The poem first appeared in print in 21 February 1964 issue of
the New Statesman, and runs:
Cancer's a Funny Thing:
I wish I had the voice of Homer
To sing of rectal carcinoma,
This kills a lot more chaps, in fact,
Than were bumped off when Troy was sacked ...
The poem ends:
... I know that cancer often kills,
But so do cars and sleeping pills;
And it can hurt one till one sweats,
So can bad teeth and unpaid debts.
A spot of laughter, I am sure,
Often accelerates one's cure;
So let us patients do our bit
To help the surgeons make us fit.
Haldane died on 1 December 1964 in Bhubaneswar. He willed that his body be used for medical research and teaching at the Rangaraya Medical College, Kakinada.
My body has been used for both purposes during my lifetime and after my death, whether I continue to exist or not, I shall have no further use for it, and desire that it shall be used by others. Its refrigeration, if this is possible, should be a first charge on my estate.
Academic achievements
Following his father's footsteps, Haldane's first publication was on the mechanism of gaseous exchange by haemoglobin. and subsequently worked on the chemical properties of blood as a pH buffer. He investigated several aspects of kidney functions and mechanism of excretion.
Enzyme kinetics
In 1925, with G. E. Briggs, Haldane derived a new interpretation of the enzyme kinetics law described by Victor Henri in 1903, different from the 1913 Michaelis–Menten equation. Leonor Michaelis and Maud Menten
assumed that enzyme (catalyst) and substrate (reactant) are in fast
equilibrium with their complex, which then dissociates to yield product
and free enzyme. The Briggs–Haldane equation was of the same algebraic
form; but their derivation is based on the quasi-steady state
approximation, which is the concentration of intermediate complex (or
complexes) does not change. As a result, the microscopic meaning of the
"Michaelis Constant" (Km) is different. Although
commonly referring to it as Michaelis–Menten kinetics, most of the
current models typically use the Briggs–Haldane derivation.
Genetic linkage
With his sister Naomi Mitchison, Haldane started investigating Mendelian genetics in 1908, used guinea pigs and mice, publishing Reduplication in mice in 1915 the first demonstration of genetic linkage in mammals,
showing that certain genetic traits tend to be inherited together (as
was later discovered, because of their proximity on chromosomes).
As the paper was written during Haldane's service in the First World
War, James F. Crow called it "the most important science article ever
written in a front-line trench". He was the first to demonstrate linkage in chickens in 1921, and (with Julia Bell) in humans in 1937.
Haldane's principle
In his essay On Being the Right Size he outlines Haldane's principle,
which states that the size very often defines what bodily equipment an
animal must have: "Insects, being so small, do not have oxygen-carrying
bloodstreams. What little oxygen their cells require can be absorbed by
simple diffusion of air through their bodies. But being larger means an
animal must have complicated oxygen pumping and distributing systems to
reach all the cells." The conceptual metaphor to animal allometry has been of use in energy economics and secession ideas.
Origin of life
Haldane introduced the modern concept of abiogenesis in an eight-page article titled The origin of life, in the Rationalist Annual in 1929,
describing the primitive ocean as a "vast chemical laboratory"
containing a mixture of inorganic compounds – like a "hot dilute soup"
in which organic compounds could have formed. Under the solar energy the
anoxic atmosphere containing carbon dioxide, ammonia and water vapour
gave rise to a variety of organic compounds, "living or half-living
things". The first molecules reacted with one another to produce more
complex compounds, and ultimately the cellular components. At some point
a kind of "oily film" was produced that enclosed self-replicating nucleic acids, thereby becoming the first cell. J. D. Bernal named the hypothesis biopoiesis or biopoesis,
the process of living matter spontaneously evolving from
self-replicating but lifeless molecules. Haldane further hypothesised
that viruses were the intermediate entities between the prebiotic soup
and the first cells. He asserted that prebiotic life would have been "in
the virus stage for many millions of years before a suitable assemblage
of elementary units was brought together in the first cell." The idea was generally dismissed as "wild speculation". Alexander Oparin had suggested a similar idea in Russian in 1924 (published in English in 1936). The gained some empirical support in 1953 with the classic Miller–Urey experiment. Since then, the primordial soup theory (Oparin–Haldane hypothesis) has become prevalent in the study of abiogenesis.
Malaria and Sickle-Cell Anemia
In 1949, Haldane proposed that genetic disorders in humans living in malaria-endemic regions provided a phenotype with immunity to blood-borne haemophiles. He noted that mutations expressed in red blood cells, such as sickle-cell anemia and various thalassemias, were prevalent only in tropical regions where malaria has been endemic.
He further observed that these were favourable traits for natural
selection which protected individuals from receiving malarial infection. This idea was eventually confirmed by Anthony C. Allison in 1954.
Population genetics
He was one of the three major figures to develop the mathematical theory of population genetics, along with Ronald Fisher and Sewall Wright. He thus played an important role in the modern evolutionary synthesis of the early 20th century. He re-established natural selection as the central mechanism of evolution by explaining it as a mathematical consequence of Mendelian inheritance. He wrote a series of ten papers, A Mathematical Theory of Natural and Artificial Selection, deriving expressions for the direction and rate of change of gene frequencies, and also analyzing the interaction of natural selection with mutation and migration. Haldane's book, The Causes of Evolution (1932), summarised these results, especially in its extensive appendix.
His contributions to statistical human genetics included: the first methods using maximum likelihood for the estimation of human linkage maps; pioneering methods for estimating human mutation rates; the first estimates of mutation rate in humans (2 × 10−5 mutations per gene per generation for the X-linked haemophilia gene); and the first notion that there is a "cost of natural selection". At the John Innes Horticultural Institution, he developed the complicated linkage theory for polyploids; and extended the idea of gene/enzyme relationships with the biochemical and genetic study of plant pigments.
Political views
A Low cartoon featuring Haldane – "Prophesies for 1949"
Lysenko speaking at the Kremlin in 1935. Behind him are (left to right) Stanislav Kosior, Anastas Mikoyan, Andrei Andreev and Joseph Stalin.
Haldane became a socialist during the First World War; supported the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War; and then became an open supporter of the Communist Party in 1937. A pragmatic dialectical-materialist Marxist, he wrote many articles for the Daily Worker. In On Being the Right Size, he wrote: "while nationalization
of certain industries is an obvious possibility in the largest of
states, I find it no easier to picture a completely socialized British
Empire or United States than an elephant turning somersaults or a hippopotamus jumping a hedge."
Haldane has been accused by authors including Peter Wright and Chapman Pincher to have been a Soviet GRU spy codenamed Intelligentsia.
In 1938, he proclaimed enthusiastically that "I think that Marxism is true." He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1942. He was pressed to speak out about the rise of Lysenkoism
and the persecution of geneticists in the Soviet Union as
anti-Darwinist and the political suppression of genetics as incompatible
with dialectical materialism.
He shifted his polemic focus to the United Kingdom, criticizing the
dependence of scientific research on financial patronage. In 1941 he
wrote about the Soviet trial of his friend and fellow geneticist Nikolai Vavilov:
The controversy among Soviet geneticists has been largely one between the academic scientist, represented by Vavilov and interested primarily in the collection of facts, and the man who wants results, represented by Lysenko. It has been conducted not with venom, but in a friendly spirit. Lysenko said (in the October discussions of 1939): 'The important thing is not to dispute; let us work in a friendly manner on a plan elaborated scientifically. Let us take up definite problems, receive assignments from the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the USSR and fulfil them scientifically. Soviet genetics, as a whole, is a successful attempt at synthesis of these two contrasted points of view.'
By the end of the Second World War Haldane had become an explicit critic of the regime. He left the party in 1950, shortly after considering standing for Parliament as a Communist Party candidate. He continued to admire Joseph Stalin, describing him in 1962 as "a very great man who did a very good job".
Social and scientific views
Human cloning
Haldane was the first to have thought of the genetic basis for human cloning, and the eventual artificial breeding of superior individuals. For this he introduced the terms "clone" and "cloning", modifying the earlier "clon" which had been used in agriculture since the early 20th century (from Greek klon,
twig). He introduced the term in his speech on "Biological
Possibilities for the Human Species of the Next Ten Thousand Years" at
the Ciba Foundation Symposium on Man and his Future in 1963. He said:
It is extremely hopeful that some human cell lines can be grown on a medium of precisely known chemical composition. Perhaps the first step will be the production of a clone from a single fertilized egg, as in Brave New World...
On the general principle that men will make all possible mistakes before choosing the right path, we shall no doubt clone the wrong people [like Hitler]...
Assuming that cloning is possible, I expect that most clones would be made from people aged at least fifty, except for athletes
and dancers, who would be cloned younger. They would be made from people who were held to have excelled in a socially acceptable accomplishment.
Ectogenesis and in vitro fertilisation
His essay Daedalus; or, Science and the Future (1924) introduced the term ectogenesis for the concept of what is later known as in vitro fertilisation (test tube babies). He envisioned ectogenesis as a tool for creating better individuals (eugenics). Haldane's work was an influence on Huxley's Brave New World (1932) and was also admired by Gerald Heard. Various essays on science were collected and published in a volume titled Possible Worlds in 1927. His book, A.R.P. (Air Raid Precautions)
(1938) combined his physiological research into the effects of stress
upon the human body with his experience of air raids during the Spanish Civil War to provide a scientific account of the likely effects of the air raids that Britain was to endure during the Second World War.
Criticism of C.S. Lewis
Along with Olaf Stapledon, Charles Kay Ogden, I. A. Richards, and H. G. Wells, Haldane was accused by C. S. Lewis of scientism. Haldane criticised Lewis and his Ransom Trilogy for the "complete mischaracterisation of science, and his disparagement of the human race". He wrote a book for children titled My Friend Mr Leakey
(1937), containing the stories "A Meal With a Magician", "A Day in the
Life of a Magician", "Mr Leakey's Party", "Rats", "The Snake with the
Golden Teeth", and "My Magic Collar Stud"; later editions featured
illustrations by Quentin Blake.
Hydrogen-generating windmills
In 1923, in a talk given in Cambridge titled "Science and the Future", Haldane, foreseeing the exhaustion of coal for power generation in Britain, proposed a network of hydrogen-generating windmills. This is the first proposal of the hydrogen-based renewable energy economy.
Scientists
In his An Autobiography in Brief,
published shortly before his death in India, Haldane named four close
associates as showing promise to become illustrious scientists: T. A.
Davis, Dronamraju Krishna Rao, Suresh Jayakar and S. K. Roy.
Awards and honours
Haldane was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1932. The French Government conferred him its National Order of the Legion of Honour in 1937. In 1952, he received the Darwin Medal from the Royal Society. In 1956, he was awarded the Huxley Memorial Medal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain. He received the Feltrinelli Prize from Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in 1961. He also received an Honorary Doctorate of Science, an Honorary Fellowship at New College, and the Kimber Award of the US National Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the Linnean Society of London's prestigious Darwin–Wallace Medal in 1958.
Legacy
The Haldane Lecture at the John Innes Centre, where Haldane worked from 1927 to 1937 is named in his honour. The JBS Haldane Lecture of The Genetics Society is also named in his honour.
Haldane was parodied as "the biologist too absorbed in his experiments to notice his friends bedding his wife" by his friend Aldous Huxley in the novel Antic Hay (1923). Biography on him was published as A Dominant Character in 2019.
Quotations
Oxford University Museum of Natural History display dedicated to Haldane and his reply when asked to comment on the mind of the Creator.
- He is famous for the (possibly apocryphal) response that he gave when some theologians asked him what could be inferred about the mind of the Creator from the works of His Creation: "An inordinate fondness for beetles." This is in reference to there being over 400,000 known species of beetles in the world, and that this represents 40% of all known insect species (at the time of the statement, it was over half of all known insect species).
- He was often quoted as saying, "My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."
- "It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."
- "Teleology is like a mistress to a biologist: he cannot live without her but he's unwilling to be seen with her in public."
- "I had gastritis for about fifteen years until I read Lenin and other writers, who showed me what was wrong with our society and how to cure it. Since then I have needed no magnesia."
- "I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages: (i) This is worthless nonsense; (ii) This is an interesting, but perverse, point of view; (iii) This is true, but quite unimportant; (iv) I always said so."
- "Three hundred and ten species in all of India, representing two hundred and thirty-eight genera, sixty-two families, nineteen different orders. All of them on the Ark. And this is only India, and only the birds."
- "The stupidity of the mynah shows that in birds, as in men, linguistic and practical abilities are not very highly correlated. A student who can repeat a page of a text book may get first class honours, but may be incapable of doing research."
- When asked whether he would lay down his life for his brother, Haldane, presaging Hamilton's rule, supposedly replied "two brothers or eight cousins".
Publications
- Daedalus; or, Science and the Future (1924), E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., a paper read to the Heretics, Cambridge, on 4 February 1923
- second edition (1928), London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.
- see also Haldane's Daedalus Revisited (1995), ed. with an introd. by Krishna R. Dronamraju, Foreword by Joshua Lederberg; with essays by M. F. Perutz, Freeman Dyson, Yaron Ezrahi, Ernst Mayr, Elof Axel Carlson, D. J. Weatherall, N. A. Mitchison and the editor. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-854846-X
- A Mathematical Theory of Natural and Artificial Selection, a series of papers beginning in 1924
- Briggs, G. E; Haldane, J. B (1925). "A note on the kinetics of enzyme action". Biochemical Journal. 19 (2): 338–339. doi:10.1042/bj0190338. PMC 1259181. PMID 16743508. (With G.E. Briggs)
- Callinicus: A Defence of Chemical Warfare (1925), E. P. Dutton
- Possible Worlds and Other Essays (1927), Chatto & Windus; 2001 reprint, Transaction Publishers: ISBN 0-7658-0715-7 (includes "On Being the Right Size" and "On Being One's Own Rabbit")
- On Being the Right Size (1929)
- "The origin of life" in the Rationalist Annual (1929)
- Animal Biology (1929) Oxford: Clarendon
- The Sciences and Philosophy (1929) NY: Doubleday, Doran and Company. By John Scott Haldane, JBS Haldane's father.
- Enzymes (1930), MIT Press 1965 edition with new preface by the author written just prior to his death: ISBN 0-262-58003-9
- Haldane, J. B (1931). "Mathematical Darwinism: A discussion of the genetical theory of natural selection". The Eugenics Review. 23 (2): 115–117. PMC 2985031. PMID 21259979.
- The Inequality of Man, and Other Essays (1932)
- The Causes of Evolution (1932)
- Science and Human Life (1933), Harper and Brothers, Ayer Co. reprint: ISBN 0-8369-2161-5
- Science and the Supernatural: Correspondence with Arnold Lunn (1935), Sheed & Ward, Inc,
- Fact and Faith (1934), Watts Thinker's Library
- Human Biology and Politics (1934)
- "A Contribution to the Theory of Price Fluctuations", The Review of Economic Studies, 1:3, 186–195 (1934).
- My Friend Mr Leakey (1937), Jane Nissen Books reprint (2004): ISBN 978-1-903252-19-2
- "A Dialectical Account of Evolution" in Science & Society Volume I (1937)
- Haldane, J. B (1937). "View on race and eugenics: propaganda or science?". The Eugenics Review. 28 (4): 333–334. PMC 2985639. PMID 21260239.
- Bell, J; Haldane, J. B (1937). "The Linkage between the Genes for Colour-blindness and Haemophilia in Man". Annals of Human Genetics. 50 (1): 3–34. Bibcode:1937RSPSB.123..119B. doi:10.1111/j.1469-1809.1986.tb01935.x. PMID 3322165. (with Julia Bell)
- Haldane, J. B; Smith, C. A (1947). "A new estimate of the linkage between the genes for colourblindness and haemophilia in man". Annals of Eugenics. 14 (1): 10–31. doi:10.1111/j.1469-1809.1947.tb02374.x. PMID 18897933. (with C.A.B. Smith)
- Air Raid Precautions (A.R.P.) (1938), Victor Gollancz
- Heredity and Politics (1938), Allen and Unwin.
- "Reply to A.P. Lerner's Is Professor Haldane's Account of Evolution Dialectical?" in Science & Society volume 2 (1938)
- The Marxist Philosophy and the Sciences (1939), Random House, Ayer Co. reprint: ISBN 0-8369-1137-7
- Preface to Engels' Dialectics of Nature (1939)
- Science and Everyday Life (1940), Macmillan, 1941 Penguin, Ayer Co. 1975 reprint: ISBN 0-405-06595-7
- "Lysenko and Genetics" in Science & Society volume 4 (1940)
- "Why I am a Materialist" in Rationalist Annual (1940)
- "The Laws of Nature" in Rationalist Annual (1940)
- Science in Peace and War (1941), Lawrence & Wishart Ltd
- New Paths in Genetics (1941), George Allen & Unwin
- Heredity & Politics (1943), George Allen & Unwin
- Why Professional Workers should be Communists (1945), London: Communist Party (of Great Britain) In this four page pamphlet, Haldane contends that Communism should appeal to professionals because Marxism is based on the scientific method and Communists hold scientists as important; Haldane subsequently disavowed this position.
- Adventures of a Biologist (1947)
- Science Advances (1947), Macmillan
- What is Life? (1947), Boni and Gaer, 1949 edition: Lindsay Drummond
- Everything Has a History (1951), Allen & Unwin—Includes "Auld Hornie, F.R.S."; C.S. Lewis's "Reply to Professor Haldane" is available in "On Stories and Other Essays on Literature," ed. Walter Hooper (1982), ISBN 0-15-602768-2.
- "The Origins of Life", New Biology, 16, 12–27 (1954). Suggests that an alternative biochemistry could be based on liquid ammonia.
- The Biochemistry of Genetics (1954)
- Haldane, J. B (1955). "Origin of Man". Nature. 176 (4473): 169–170. Bibcode:1955Natur.176..169H. doi:10.1038/176169a0. PMID 13244650.
- Haldane, J. B. S (1957). "The cost of natural selection". Journal of Genetics. 55 (3): 511–524. doi:10.1007/BF02984069.
- Haldane, J. B (1956). "Natural selection in man". Acta Genetica et Statistica Medica. 6 (3): 321–332. doi:10.1159/000150849. PMID 13434715.
- Little Science, Big Science (1961)
- "Cancer's a Funny Thing", in New Statesman, 21 February 1964.
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