Jerry Hirsch
Jerry Hirsch | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | May 3, 2008 | (aged 85)
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
Awards | 2006 Dobzhansky Award from the Behavior Genetics Association |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Behavior genetics |
Institutions | Columbia University University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
Thesis | The determinants of learning without awareness (1955) |
Notable students | Tim Tully |
Jerome Edwin Hirsch (September 20, 1922 – May 3, 2008) was an American psychologist known for his pioneering work in behavior genetics, and for his advocacy for social justice.[1][2][3] He has been described as "the pioneer who brought quantitative genetic analysis to the study of behavior."[4]
Biography
[edit]He was born on September 20, 1922, in Manhattan, New York City.[3]
Hirsch began his interest in behavior genetics in the 1950s, as a student at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied under Edward C. Tolman and Robert Tryon.[5] From 1956 to 1960, he was an assistant professor at Columbia University, where he worked alongside Theodosius Dobzhansky.[3] He later conducted multiple influential studies on the genetic origins of behaviors in Drosophila melanogaster, Dobzhansky's favorite species.[5][6] He subsequently continued this research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,[4] where he became an associate professor of psychology and zoology in 1960. He became a full professor of psychology there in 1963, of zoology in 1966, and of ecology, ethology, and evolution in 1976.[7] On March 30, 1970, he hosted the founding meeting of the Behavior Genetics Association at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[8] He was the editor-in-chief of Animal Behaviour from 1968 to 1972[3] and of the Journal of Comparative Psychology from 1983 to 1988.[9] He retired from the University of Illinois in 1993, and remained an active emeritus professor there until 2004.[7]
He died on May 3, 2008, at his home in Urbana, Illinois.[3]
Criticism of hereditarians
[edit]Hirsch was an early and vocal critic of the work of Arthur Jensen, who argued that group differences in educational ability were heritable. Hirsch argued that Jensen's work was a misuse and misrepresentation of behavior genetics[10] and that Jensen's "avowed goals" were "as heinously barbaric as were Hitler's and the anti-abolitionists".[11] In the mid-1960s, William Shockley tried to convince Hirsch to support his views on the heritability of racial differences in IQ. This attempt was unsuccessful, and Hirsch subsequently called the nature-nurture debate a "pseudo-question".[12]
References
[edit]- ^ "Examining Group Behavior on the Fly". Frontiers Magazine. 2009. Retrieved 2017-09-07.
- ^ "Jerry Hirsch (1922-2008)". Institute for the Study of Academic Racism. Archived from the original on September 7, 2017. Retrieved 2017-09-07.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ a b c d e Wahlsten, D.; McGuire, T. R. (2008-11-01). "Obituary". Genes, Brain and Behavior. 7 (8): 833–835. doi:10.1111/j.1601-183X.2008.00437.x. ISSN 1601-183X.
- ^ a b Greenspan, Ralph J. (2008-03-11). "The origins of behavioral genetics". Current Biology. 18 (5): R192–R198. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2008.01.015. PMID 18334190. S2CID 16125328.
- ^ a b Tully, Tim (1996-11-26). "Discovery of genes involved with learning and memory: An experimental synthesis of Hirschian and Benzerian perspectives". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 93 (24): 13460–13467. Bibcode:1996PNAS...9313460T. doi:10.1073/pnas.93.24.13460. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 33631. PMID 8942957.
- ^ Mestel, Rosie (2002-06-03). "Fly Trials of 1950s Evolve". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2017-09-07.
- ^ a b "Jerry Hirsch CV" (PDF). Archived from the original on September 9, 2017.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ "Founding of the behavior genetics association". Social Biology. 17 (2): 147–148. June 1970. doi:10.1080/19485565.1970.9987863. ISSN 0037-766X.
- ^ Roubertoux, Pierre L. (2008-10-05). "Jerry Hirsch (20 September 1922–3 May 2008): A Tribute". Behavior Genetics. 38 (6): 561–564. doi:10.1007/s10519-008-9231-2. ISSN 0001-8244. PMID 18836858. S2CID 45682729.
- ^ Panofsky, Aaron (2014-07-07). Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics. University of Chicago Press. p. 80. ISBN 9780226058597.
- ^ Hunt, Morton (2017-09-29). The New Know-nothings: The Political Foes of the Scientific Study of Human Nature. Routledge. pp. 73–74. ISBN 9781351478632.
- ^ Tucker, William H. (1996). The Science and Politics of Racial Research. University of Illinois Press. p. 195. ISBN 9780252065606.