Harold Hillman (16 August 1930 – 5 August 2016) was a British scientist and expert in the

neurobiology Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, development ...

execution Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the State (polity), state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to ...

methods. He was born in London.Richard Stevenson
Good Scientists, Bad Science? Clinging To A 'Dubious' Position Can Destroy A Career
The Scientist, July 25, 1988

Theories

Hillman caused controversy in biological fields with his insistence that structures seen in cells under the

electron microscope An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...

were little more than artefacts. He maintained that up to 90 percent of the brain is made up of "a fine, granular material that is virtually liquid," and that the brain only has two cell types, instead of four. Mainstream scientists maintain that as fixation techniques have been compared with other analysis techniques, there is no explanation for why all the different techniques should produce identical artifacts. Hillman's main field was neurobiology and

resuscitation Resuscitation is the process of correcting physiological disorders (such as lack of breathing or heartbeat) in an acutely ill patient. It is an important part of intensive care medicine, anesthesiology, trauma surgery and emergency medicine. W ...

, in which his work was largely uncontroversial.

Charitable work

Hillman was a founder member of

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

, and later produced research for the charity.

Career

Hillman was Reader in

Physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

at the

University of Surrey The University of Surrey is a public research university in Guildford, Surrey, England. The university received its royal charter in 1966, along with a number of other institutions following recommendations in the Robbins Report. The institut ...

from 1965 until 1989, when he took early retirement after being threatened with loss of tenure. He wrote in 1996: "I believe that I am the only tenured academic in Britain who has lost his tenure because of his or her scientific views." In 1997, he was awarded the Ig Nobel Peace Prize for his report "The Possible Pain Experienced During Execution by Different Methods." Harold Hillman died peacefully of

heart failure Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, a ...

on 5 August 2016. He was survived by his wife, their children, and their grandchildren.

Personal life

Hillman was born to David Hillman (artist), a well known producer of stained glass, who was the son of Rabbi

Shmuel Yitzchak Hillman Rabbi Shmuel Yitzchak Hillman (2 July 1868 – 1 June 1953) was a renowned Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jewish Talmudic scholar, posek and rabbi and served as a Beth din#Officers of a Beth/Beis Din, dayan of the London Beth Din. Life and work Shmue ...

. His brothers were

Ellis Hillman Ellis Simon Hillman (17 November 1928 – 21 January 1996) was a British Labour politician, local councillor, Mayor of the London Borough of Barnet (1994–95) and polytechnic history lecturer. Hillman was born into a political family, related bo ...

and

Mayer Hillman Mayer Hillman (born 1931) is a British architect and town planner, and Senior Fellow Emeritus since 1992 at the Policy Studies Institute, University of Westminster where he worked for at least thirty years. Early life Mayer Hillman was born in ...

, and he was a cousin of

Isaac Herzog Isaac "Bougie" Herzog ( he, יצחק "בוז׳י" הרצוג, Yitskhak "Buzhi" Hertsog; born 22 September 1960) is an Israeli politician who has been serving as the 11th president of Israel since 2021. He is the first president to be born in ...

Bibliography

* "What price intellectual honesty?” asks a neurobiologist, published in Brian Martin (editor)
Confronting the Experts
(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), , pp. 99–130 (includes a bibliography of his works to 1996) *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hillman, Harold 1930 births 2016 deaths British neuroscientists Academics of the University of Surrey Ig Nobel laureates