Garland Allen

Professor, Department of Biology

Office Contact Information

Office

Life Sciences 202D

Mailbox

Washington University in St. Louis
Campus Box 1137
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130-4899

Phone

(314) 935-6808

Fax

(314) 935-4432

allen@biology.wustl.edu

Research Interests

Professor Garland E. Allen's research interests are in the area of history and philosophy of biology - particularly genetics, embryology, and evolution - and their interrelationships between 1880 and 1950. This work focuses particularly in the early development of the Mendelian-chromosome theory as formulated in the work of T.H. Morgan and his group at Columbia University and later at the California Institute of Technology. Growing out of this work have been a series of studies of the scientific, economic, and social history of "eugenics" (defined in the early part of the century as "the science of human improvement through better breeding"). The history of eugenics provides a number of insights into the interrelationships between science and its social context, and raises many issues of ethical, legal, and social importance that are surfacing today in the midst of the Human Genome Project.

Photo caption: Logo from the program of the Third International Congress of Eugenics, August 1932. Eugenics was viewed as a tree drawing from many disciplines, especially genetics, anthropology, and statistics, for its sources.

Selected Publications

Allen Garland, Baker, Jeffrey (2001) Biology: Scientific Process and Social Issues:Bethesda, MD, Fitzgerald Scientific Press//John Wiley: ISBN: 1-891786-09-1

Allen, Garland. (2001) Essays on Science and Society: Is a New Eugenics Afoot? Science 294, October 5, 2001; 59-61.

Allen, Garland. (2002) The Classical Gene: Its Nature and Its Legacy. In: Parker, Lisa and Ankeny, Rachel Ankeny (eds), Mutating Concepts, Evolving Disciplines: Genetics, Medicine and Society (Dordrecht, Netherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers; 2002:11-41.

Allen Garland, Macleod, Roy (eds). (2002) Science, History and Social Activism: A Tribute to Everett Mendelsohn. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 228. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer, 2002. ISBN 1-4020-0495-8.

Allen, Garland E. (2002) "The Ideology of Elimination: American and German Eugenics, 1900-1945." In Francis R. Nicosia and Jonathan Huener, eds. Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany New York: Berghahn Books, 2002: 13-39.

Allen, Garland. (2002) The Changing Image of Biology in the Twentieth Century. In: Stamhuis, Ida, Koetsier, Teun, De Pater, Cornelius (eds), The Changing Image of the Sciences . Dordrecht, Netherlands, Kluwer Academic Publishers; 2002:43-83.

Allen, Garland. (2003) Mendal and Modern Genetics: The Legacy for Today. Endeavour 27. June, 2003; 2: 63-68.

Allen, Garland. (2004) DNA and Human-Behavior Genetics: Implications for the Criminal Justice System. In: Lazer, David (ed) DNA and the Criminal Justice System. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA; 2004: 287-314.

Allen, Garland (2004) Mendelian Genetics and Postgenomics: The Legacy for Today. In: Ayala, Francisco J. (ed) Ernst Mayr Centennial Volume, Ludus Vitalis XII. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA; Summer 2004: 213-236.

Allen, Garland. (2004) A Pact with the embryo: Viktor Hamburger, holistic and mechanistic philosophy in the development of neuroembryology, 1927-1955. Journal of the History of Biology 2004. 37: 421-475.

Allen, Garland. (2005) Mechanism, Vitalism and Organicism in Late Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Biology: The Importance of Historical Context. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 2005. 36: 261-283.

Adams, M. B., G. E. Allen, and S. Weiss. (2005) Human heredity and politics: a comparative institutional study of the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor (United States), the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics (Germany) and the Maxim Gorky Medical Genetics Institute (USSR). Osiris 20: 232-262.

Allen, Garland. (2006) A Century of Evo-Devo: The Dialectics of Analysis and Synthesis in Twentieth-Century Life Sciences. In: Maienschein, Jane and Laublicher, Manfred (eds) Evo-Devo, Past and Present. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA; 2006: 123-167.

Curriculum Vitae

G Allen CV.pdf