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Rao Veena | Fellow Visitor
2014-08-13 - 2014-10-15 | Research area: History of Biology
J. B. S. Haldane’s ‘Indian Period’
J. B. S. Haldane, one of the great names in post-Darwinian evolutionary biology, spent the last seven years of his life in India. He continued to work actively until the end. My project deals with aspects of J. B. S. Haldane’s ‘Indian Period’ as revealed in his extensive writings and, more broadly, deals with the history of evolutionary thinking. During the time he spent in India Haldane modified, and to an extent revised, his views on organic evolution. Besides that, he originated entirely new ideas. Some of them have been fruitful, others controversial and a few have been barely followed up. Among the themes explored in Haldane’s ‘Indian’ writings that I propose to work on at the KLI are niche construction, macroevolution, popular reactions to Darwinian ideas and philosophical underpinnings of evolutionary thought.