John Alexander Moore (June 27, 1915 – May 26, 2002) was an American
zoology
Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...
professor
Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...
.
Early life and education
Moore was born to Louise Hammond Blume and George Douglas Moore, a lawyer, in Charles Town, West Virginia in 1915. Four years later his parents divorced and Moore traveled with his mother first to
Carson City, Nevada
Carson City, officially the Carson City Consolidated Municipality, is an Independent city (United States), independent city and the capital of the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 58,63 ...
, and
Oakland, California
Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...
, until she remarried and moved the family to
Markham, Virginia, two years after her divorce.
Although the schools he attended at the time were not the best, Moore's location in the
Blue Ridge Mountains
The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the United States, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Highlands range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States and extends 550 miles southwest from southern ...
kindled his interest in birds from a young age; Moore published his first academic article in ''
The Auk
''Ornithology'', formerly ''The Auk'' and ''The Auk: Ornithological Advances'', is a peer-reviewed scientific journal and the official publication of the American Ornithological Society (AOS). It was established in 1884 and is published quarterly ...
'' at age 15.
In the early 1930s Moore's mother divorced again and took the family to Washington, D.C., and then to New York City. Moore finished his last two years of high school at
Haaren High School
Haaren High School was a public high school in the Midtown Manhattan area of New York City in New York, United States. It was located at 899 Tenth Avenue, between 58th Street and 59th Street, in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood.
The buildin ...
. He also volunteered at the
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...
.
Despite his humble background he was accepted to
Columbia College as an undergraduate after a strong interview. While there, he married fellow embryology graduate student Betty Clark in 1938. Both had studied under
Lester Barth
Lester is an ancient Anglo-Saxon surname and given name.
People
Given name
* Lester Bangs (1948–1982), American music critic
* Lester Oliver Bankhead (1912–1997), American architect
* Lester W. Bentley (1908–1972), American artist from ...
. It was likely Moore's suggestion in the 1930s that influenced
Lester Sharp
Lester Whyland Sharp (April 21, 1887 in Saratoga Springs, New York – July 17, 1961 in Nuevo, California) was an American botanist, a pioneer in cytogenetics. and Franz Schrader to coin the term
kinetochore
A kinetochore (, ) is a flared oblique-shaped protein structure associated with duplicated chromatids in eukaryotic cells where the spindle fibers, which can be thought of as the ropes pulling chromosomes apart, attach during cell division to ...
, which refers to a genetic structure key to
chromosome congression
A chromosome is a package of DNA containing part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes, the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with nucleosome-forming packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells, the most importa ...
during metazoan
mitosis
Mitosis () is a part of the cell cycle in eukaryote, eukaryotic cells in which replicated chromosomes are separated into two new Cell nucleus, nuclei. Cell division by mitosis is an equational division which gives rise to genetically identic ...
.
Career
From 1939 to 1941 Moore tutored biology at
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn in New York City, United States. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls nearly 14,000 students on a campus in the Midwood and Flatbush sections of Brooklyn as of fall ...
and from 1941 to 1943 he taught biology at
Queens College
Queens College (QC) is a public college in the New York City borough of Queens. Part of the City University of New York system, Queens College occupies an campus primarily located in Flushing.
Queens College was established in 1937 and offe ...
. In 1943 Moore was hired by
Barnard College
Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...
to teach zoology. He was promoted to full professor in 1950 and was made the chair of the zoology department at
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
. Moore received a
Fulbright Scholarship
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...
in 1952; he and his wife spent a year in Australia using cross-fertilization to study frog
speciation
Speciation is the evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species. The biologist Orator F. Cook coined the term in 1906 for cladogenesis, the splitting of lineages, as opposed to anagenesis, phyletic evolution within ...
. The resulting monograph, published in 1961, described 94 frog species. An illustration of one of the frogs discussed in Moore's monograph, the
Corroboree frog, was featured on an Australian postage stamp.
No longer a department chair, Moore continued teaching at Columbia until 1968 when he was hired by
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Riverside, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of Cali ...
(UCR). Although Moore reached mandatory retirement age in 1982, UCR allowed Moore to keep his office and continue to teach until his death in 2002.
Since 2013, Moore has been listed on the Advisory Council of the
National Center for Science Education
The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a Nonprofit organization, not-for-profit membership organization in the United States whose stated mission is to educate the press and the public on the scientific and educational aspects of con ...
.
Published works
In his lifetime, Moore published more than 180 journal articles and books.
In 1957, Moore published a seminal textbook, ''Principles of Zoology''. From 1960 to 1976, Moore developed and supervised the yellow version of the
Biological Sciences Curriculum Study
BSCS Science Learning, formerly known as Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS), is an educational center that develops curricular materials, provides educational support, and conducts research and evaluation in the fields of science and techn ...
(BSCS). With the wide implementation of BSCS, the yellow version sold two million copies and was adapted for use in 11 different countries. During his retirement, Moore pursued improving methods of teaching science, publishing the ''Science as a Way of Knowing'' series. Moore became a vocal opponent of
creationism
Creationism is the faith, religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of Creation myth, divine creation, and is often Pseudoscience, pseudoscientific.#Gunn 2004, Gun ...
. He wrote several publications about this issue including ''Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences'' in 1999.
His last publication, ''From Genesis to Genetics'', was written as a repudiation of efforts to replace the science curriculum with biblical literalism.
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References
Citations
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Moore, John Alexander
American herpetologists
Columbia College (New York) alumni
1915 births
2002 deaths
Educators from Charles Town, West Virginia
University of California, Riverside faculty
Haaren High School alumni
20th-century American zoologists
Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Presidents of the American Society of Naturalists