Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (1887 – 1975)He is British biologist and scientific administrator who contributed much to the beneficial use science in society. He was knighted in 1958.
The grandson of the famous biologist T.H Huxley (1825 – 95), and his brother of the writer Aldous Huxley, Julian Huxley studied at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, receiving his zoology degree in 1909. He spent some time studying marine sponges at the Naples Zoological Station before returning to Oxford in 1910 as a zoology lecturer. Two years later he moved to the Rice Institute, Houston, Texas, as a research associate to establish the biology department. In 1916 he returned home to enlist in the Intelligence Corps. After the war he was made a fellow
of New College, Oxford during which time he organized the University expedition to Spitsbergen (1921).Huxley was appointed professor of zoology at King’s College, London, in 1925 but resigned two years later to allow more time to research His notable studies of the differential growth of different body parts, Problem of Relative Growth (1932), were but one facet of his wide ranging interests he wrote many popular articles, essays, especially on ornit
hology and evolution, and co-produced several history films, including the Private Life of the Gannet (1934). He adopted a firmly humanistic philosophical stance, as evidenced by Religion Without Revelation.Huxley served (1935 – 42), as secretary of the Zoological Society of London and instigated an ambitious programme rebuilding, unfortunately he never realized because of the war. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1938. He became widely known through his appearances on the BBC programme Brains Trust.
In 1946 Huxley was appointed as the first director general of the newly founded United Nations Economic and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), during which time he traveled widely and identified the growing problem population expansion and environmental destruction. No stranger to controversy, Huxley supported the contentious view that the human race could benefit from planned parent hood using artificial insemination by donors of ‘superior characteristics’.
Sir Julian Sorell Huxley (1887 – 1975)
