Edward Stuart Russell

OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

FLS (25 March 1887 – 24 August 1954) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

biologist and philosopher of biology. Russell was born near Glasgow. He studied at

Greenock Academy The Greenock Academy was a mixed non-denominational school in the west end of Greenock, Scotland. It was founded in 1855 and was originally independent, later a grammar school with a primary department, and finally a Comprehensive school only fo ...

and later at

Glasgow University The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in post-nominals; ) is a public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ...

under Sir

Graham Kerr Graham Victor Kerr (born 22 January 1934) is a British cooking personality who is best known for his television cooking show ''The Galloping Gourmet,'' which aired from 30 December 1968 to 14 September 1972. Early life Kerr was born in Bron ...

and worked with J. Arthur Thompson after he graduated. He was influenced by his friend

Patrick Geddes Sir Patrick Geddes (2 October 1854 – 17 April 1932) was a Scottish biologist, sociologist, Comtean positivist, geographer, philanthropist and pioneering town planner. He is known for his innovative thinking in the fields of urban plannin ...

and in his zoological studies, sought to find holistic principles. He also believed in

Lamarckian Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...

heritability. He was involved in fishery research, working on research vessels and publishing on the biology of cephalopods and quantitative methods for gathering fishery data. He also worked as

Fisheries Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life or, more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a., fishing grounds). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farm ...

expert, Inspector of Fisheries and as an advisor to

HM Government His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

. He was the first editor of the ''Journal du Conceil'' (now '' ICES Journal of Marine Science''). He was an honorary lecturer on animal behaviour at the

University College, London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

for about fifteen years. He was elected President of the Zoology section of the

British Association The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chief ...

in 1934. From 1940—42, he served as the President of the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collec ...

. He died at Hastings, East Sussex, from heart failure at the age of 67. Russell favored

holism Holism is the interdisciplinary idea that systems possess properties as wholes apart from the properties of their component parts. Julian Tudor Hart (2010''The Political Economy of Health Care''pp.106, 258 The aphorism "The whole is greater than t ...

and

organicism Organicism is the philosophical position that states that the universe and its various parts (including human societies) ought to be considered alive and naturally ordered, much like a living organism.Gilbert, S. F., and S. Sarkar. 2000. "Emb ...

. He was a critic of the

modern synthesis Modern synthesis or modern evolutionary synthesis refers to several perspectives on evolutionary biology, namely: * Modern synthesis (20th century), the term coined by Julian Huxley in 1942 to denote the synthesis between Mendelian genetics and s ...

and presented his own evolutionary theory uniting

developmental biology Developmental biology is the study of the process by which animals and plants grow and develop. Developmental biology also encompasses the biology of Regeneration (biology), regeneration, asexual reproduction, metamorphosis, and the growth and di ...

with heredity but opposing

Mendelian inheritance Mendelian inheritance (also known as Mendelism) is a type of biological inheritance following the principles originally proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 and 1866, re-discovered in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns, and later popularize ...

. He was influenced by

Karl Ernst von Baer Karl Ernst Ritter von Baer Edler von Huthorn (; – ) was a Baltic German scientist and explorer. Baer was a naturalist, biologist, geologist, meteorologist, geographer, and is considered a, or the, founding father of embryology. He was a m ...

and

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

. He saw

teleology Teleology (from , and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology. In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Appleton ...

as inherent in the organism.Bruce, W. Robin. (2014)
''A reflection on biological thought: whatever happened to the organism?''
''Biological Journal of the Linnean Society'' 112 (2): 354–365.

Books

''Form and Function: A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology''
(1916) * ''The Study of Living Things: Prolegomena to a Functional Biology'' (1924) * ''The Interpretation of Development and Heredity: A Study in Biological Method'' (1930)
''The Behavior of Animals''
(1934) * ''The Directiveness of Organic Activities'' (1945) * ''The Diversity of Animals: An Evolutionary Study'' (1962)

References

External links

Reviews
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Russell, E. S. 1887 births 1954 deaths Officers of the Order of the British Empire Presidents of the Linnean Society of London Theoretical biologists Alumni of the University of Glasgow Lamarckism Non-Darwinian evolution 20th-century Scottish zoologists Philosophers of biology