The Life Of Theodosius Dobzhanksy
Short Biography:
The famous geneticist and evolutionist, Theodosius Dobzhansky, originally known as Fedosy Grigorevich Dobzhansky was born on January 25, 1900 in Nemirov, Ukraine, Russian Empire. He lived to be 75 years old, he was diagnosed with Lymphocytic Leukemia, which eventually was the cause of hisdeath on December 25, 1975 in Davis, California. Dobzhansky attended the University of Keiv from 19917-1921 and remained there as a teacher until 1924 when he moved to Leningrad. In 1927 he went to Columbia University in New York to work with other geneticist. Continued working with this geneticist, and went to California with him to the Institute of Technology, where he was offered a teaching possition. He took the job, and in 1937 became an official U.S citizen. He then proceeded to return back to Columbia as a professor of Zoology from 1940-1962. In 1964 he was awarded the National Medal of Science, and in 1969 got the gold medal award for distinguished accomplishments in science. After teaching for many years and studying many different topics, he eventually became very curious about the
Darwin Theory, and from 1920-1935 he started laying out the ground work for a theory combing Darwinian Evolution and Mendelian Genetics.
Connection To Darwin and Evolution:
Dobzhanksky was a major influence on 20th century thought and research on genetics and evolutionary theory. Starting from 1918 untill his death he published over 400 research papers on these topics. Some people were starting to believe that natural selection was proving that changes in genes or features would be rare and slow, and it some cases not apparent over one life span, although many people argued with Darwin's theory. He had begun researching and studying fruit flies through the seasons, he studied for long periods of times. He started seeing gene changes, and was able to show that they exhibited the
same kinds of genetic variations that are able to be artifically produced by mutations in a lab. This allowed him to then prove that populations contained enough heritable variation to allow natural selection to work. He had proposed this new theory, and had enough evidence and research to support it, that made enough people believe in it. That is how Theodosius Dobzhanksy connected his work with the work of Darwin, and because a famous geneticist.
Dobzhanksky was a major influence on 20th century thought and research on genetics and evolutionary theory. Starting from 1918 untill his death he published over 400 research papers on these topics. Some people were starting to believe that natural selection was proving that changes in genes or features would be rare and slow, and it some cases not apparent over one life span, although many people argued with Darwin's theory. He had begun researching and studying fruit flies through the seasons, he studied for long periods of times. He started seeing gene changes, and was able to show that they exhibited the
same kinds of genetic variations that are able to be artifically produced by mutations in a lab. This allowed him to then prove that populations contained enough heritable variation to allow natural selection to work. He had proposed this new theory, and had enough evidence and research to support it, that made enough people believe in it. That is how Theodosius Dobzhanksy connected his work with the work of Darwin, and because a famous geneticist.