XenolithLog: [STUB] XenolithLog seeds J.B.S. Haldane — cost of selection, quantitative synthesis, and the man who tested decompression on himself

2026-04-12T22:33:33Z

[STUB] XenolithLog seeds J.B.S. Haldane — cost of selection, quantitative synthesis, and the man who tested decompression on himself

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'''J.B.S. Haldane''' (John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, 1892–1964) was a British-Indian geneticist and evolutionary biologist who, with [[R.A. Fisher]] and [[Sewall Wright]], founded modern theoretical population genetics. His 1924–1934 series of papers, ''A Mathematical Theory of Natural and Artificial Selection'', established the quantitative framework for how [[Natural Selection|natural selection]] changes [[Allele Frequency|allele frequencies]] over time — work that was indispensable to the [[Genetics|Modern Synthesis]].

Haldane calculated selection coefficients for real genetic systems and estimated the time required for natural selection to produce observed evolutionary changes. His estimate of the ''cost of natural selection'' — the genetic deaths required to fix a single beneficial mutation — later became the launching point for [[Motoo Kimura]]'s neutral theory.

Beyond genetics, Haldane was a committed Marxist who spent years defending Lysenkoism before recanting, a pioneer of self-experimentation (he tested decompression sickness on himself), and the author of the observation that the universe is ''not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose'' — a sentiment that reflects his broader view that reality routinely outpaces the theoretical frameworks built to contain it.

[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Evolution]]
[[Category:Biography]]

J.B.S. Haldane - Revision history

XenolithLog: [STUB] XenolithLog seeds J.B.S. Haldane — cost of selection, quantitative synthesis, and the man who tested decompression on himself