Hermann Joseph Muller (December 21, 1890 – April 5, 1967) was an American
geneticist
A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic processes ...
, educator, and
Nobel laureate best known for his work on the physiological and genetic effects of
radiation (
mutagenesis
Mutagenesis () is a process by which the genetic information of an organism is changed by the production of a mutation. It may occur spontaneously in nature, or as a result of exposure to mutagens. It can also be achieved experimentally using lab ...
), as well as his outspoken political beliefs.
Muller frequently warned of long-term dangers of
radioactive fallout
Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...
from
nuclear war and
nuclear testing, which resulted in greater public scrutiny of these practices.
Early life
Muller was born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, the son of Frances (Lyons) and Hermann Joseph Muller Sr., an artisan who worked with metals. Muller was a third-generation American whose father's ancestors were originally Catholic and came to the United States from
Koblenz.
His mother's family was of mixed Jewish (descended from
Spanish and Portuguese Jews
Spanish and Portuguese Jews, also called Western Sephardim, Iberian Jews, or Peninsular Jews, are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in the Iberian Peninsula during the ...
) and Anglican background, and had come from Britain.
Among his first cousins are
Herbert J. Muller
Herbert J. Muller (1905–1980) was an American historian, academic, government official and writer. He received his education at Cornell University. He taught at Cornell, Purdue and Indiana University (1959-1980), served in the Department of Sta ...
and
Alfred Kroeber
Alfred Louis Kroeber (June 11, 1876 – October 5, 1960) was an American cultural anthropologist. He received his PhD under Franz Boas at Columbia University in 1901, the first doctorate in anthropology awarded by Columbia. He was also the first ...
(Kroeber is
Ursula Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the '' Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was ...
's father).
As an adolescent, Muller attended a
Unitarian church and considered himself a
pantheist
Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has e ...
; in high school, he became an
atheist. He excelled in the public schools. At 16, he entered
Columbia College. From his first semester, he was interested in biology; he became an early convert of the
Mendelian
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 ...
-
chromosome
A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins are ...
theory of heredity—and the concept of genetic
mutation
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA replication, DNA or viral repl ...
s and
natural selection
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...
as the basis for
evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
. He formed a biology club and also became a proponent of
eugenics
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior o ...
; the connections between biology and society would be his perennial concern. Muller earned a
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...
degree in 1910.
Muller remained at Columbia (the pre-eminent American zoology program at the time, due to
E. B. Wilson and his students) for graduate school. He became interested in the ''
Drosophila
''Drosophila'' () is a genus of flies, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or (less frequently) pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many speci ...
'' genetics work of
Thomas Hunt Morgan
Thomas Hunt Morgan (September 25, 1866 – December 4, 1945) was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, embryologist, and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries elucidating the role that ...
's fly lab after undergraduate bottle washers
Alfred Sturtevant
Alfred Henry Sturtevant (November 21, 1891 – April 5, 1970) was an American geneticist. Sturtevant constructed the first genetic map of a chromosome in 1911. Throughout his career he worked on the organism ''Drosophila melanogaster'' with ...
and
Calvin Bridges
Calvin Blackman Bridges (January 11, 1889 – December 27, 1938) was an American scientist known for his contributions to the field of genetics. Along with Alfred Sturtevant and H.J. Muller, Bridges was part of Thomas Hunt Morgan's famous "Fl ...
joined his biology club. In 1911–1912, he studied metabolism at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
, but remained involved with Columbia. He followed the
drosophilist {{Unreferenced, date=May 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot)
Drosophilist is a term used to refer to both the specific group of scientists trained in the laboratory of Thomas Hunt Morgan, and more generally any scientist who uses the vinegar fly ''Drosoph ...
s as the first genetic maps emerged from Morgan's experiments, and joined Morgan's group in 1912 (after two years of informal participation).
In the fly group, Muller's contributions were primarily theoretical—explanations for experimental results and ideas and predictions for new experiments. In the emerging collaborative culture of the drosophilists, however, credit was assigned based on results rather than ideas; Muller felt cheated when he was left out of major publications.
Career
In 1914,
Julian Huxley offered Muller a position at the recently founded William Marsh Rice Institute, now
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranked among the top universities ...
; he hurried to complete his
Doctor of philosophy
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
degree and moved to Houston for the beginning of the 1915–1916 academic year (his degree was issued in 1916). At Rice, Muller taught biology and continued ''Drosophila'' lab work. In 1918, he proposed an explanation for the dramatic discontinuous alterations in ''
Oenothera lamarckiana
''Oenothera glazioviana'' is a species of flowering plant in the evening primrose family known by the common names large-flowered evening-primrose and redsepal evening primrose. ''Oenothera lamarckiana'' was formerly believed to be a different s ...
'' that were the basis of
Hugo de Vries
Hugo Marie de Vries () (16 February 1848 – 21 May 1935) was a Dutch botanist and one of the first geneticists. He is known chiefly for suggesting the concept of genes, rediscovering the laws of heredity in the 1890s while apparently unaware o ...
's
theory of
mutationism
Mutationism is one of several alternatives to evolution by natural selection that have existed both before and after the publication of Charles Darwin's 1859 book ''On the Origin of Species''. In the theory, mutation was the source of novelty, cr ...
: "balanced lethals" allowed the accumulation of recessive mutations, and rare
crossing over events resulted in the sudden expression of these hidden traits. In other words, de Vries's experiments were explainable by the Mendelian-chromosome theory. Muller's work was increasingly focused on
mutation rate
In genetics, the mutation rate is the frequency of new mutations in a single gene or organism over time. Mutation rates are not constant and are not limited to a single type of mutation; there are many different types of mutations. Mutation rates ...
and
lethal mutations. In 1918, Morgan, short-handed because many of his students and assistants were drafted for the U.S. entry into
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, convinced Muller to return to Columbia to teach and to expand his experimental program.
At Columbia, Muller and his collaborator and longtime friend
Edgar Altenburg
Edgar Altenburg (January 11, 1888 – August 27, 1967) was an American biologist who conducted seminal research into evolution and genetics.
Biography
Altenburg was born on January 11, 1988, in New Jersey, United States. He was the son of ...
continued the investigation of lethal mutations. The primary method for detecting such mutations was to measure the sex ratios of the offspring of female flies. They predicted the ratio would vary from 1:1 due to recessive mutations on the X chromosome, which would be expressed only in males (which lacked the functional allele on a second X chromosome). Muller found a strong temperature dependence in mutation rate, leading him to believe that spontaneous mutation was the dominant mode (and to initially discount the role of external factors such as ionizing radiation or chemical agents). In 1920, Muller and Altenburg coauthored a seminal paper in ''
Genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...
'' on "modifier genes" that determine the size of mutant ''Drosophila'' wings. In 1919, Muller made the important discovery of a mutant (later found to be a
chromosomal inversion) that appeared to suppress crossing over, which opened up new avenues in mutation-rate studies. However, his appointment at Columbia was not continued; he accepted an offer from the
University of Texas
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
and left Columbia after the summer of 1920.
Muller taught at the University of Texas from 1920 until 1932. Soon after returning to Texas, he married mathematics professor
Jessie Marie Jacobs, whom he had courted previously. In his early years at Texas, Muller's ''Drosophila'' work was slow going; the data from his mutation rate studies were difficult to interpret. In 1923, he began using
radium
Radium is a chemical element with the symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rathe ...
and
X-rays
An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nbs ...
,
but the relationship between radiation and mutation was difficult to measure because such radiation also sterilized the flies. In this period, he also became involved with eugenics and human genetics. He carried out a study of twins separated at birth that seemed to indicate a strong hereditary component of
I.Q.
An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. The abbreviation "IQ" was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term ''Intelligenzq ...
Muller was critical of the new directions of the eugenics movement (such as anti-immigration), but was hopeful about the prospects for positive eugenics. In 1932, at the
Third International Eugenics Congress, Muller gave a speech and stated, "eugenics might yet perfect the human race, but only in a society consciously organized for the common good".
Discovery of X-ray mutagenesis
In 1926, a series of major breakthroughs began. In November, Muller carried out two experiments with varied doses of X-rays, the second of which used the crossing over suppressor stock ("ClB") he had found in 1919. A clear, quantitative connection between radiation and lethal mutations quickly emerged. Muller's discovery created a media sensation after he delivered a paper entitled "The Problem of Genetic Modification" at the Fifth International Congress of Genetics in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
; it would make him one of the better-known public intellectuals of the early 20th century. By 1928, others had replicated his dramatic results, expanding them to other
model organisms, such as
wasp
A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. ...
s and
maize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...
. In the following years, he began publicizing the likely dangers of radiation exposure in humans (such as physicians who frequently operate X-ray equipment or shoe sellers who radiated their customers' feet).
His lab grew quickly, but it shrank again following the onset of the
Great Depression. Especially after the stock market crash, Muller was increasingly pessimistic about the prospects of
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
. Some of his visiting lab members were from the
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, and he helped edit and distribute an illegal leftist student newspaper, ''The Spark''. It was a difficult period for Muller both scientifically and personally; his marriage was falling apart, and he was increasingly dissatisfied with his life in Texas. Meanwhile, the waning of the eugenics movement, ironically hastened by his own work pointing to the previously ignored connections between environment and genetics, meant that his ideas on the future of human evolution had reduced impact in the public sphere.
Work in Europe
In September 1932, Muller moved to Berlin to work with the Russian expatriate geneticist
Nikolay Timofeeff-Ressovsky; a trip intended as a limited sabbatical stretched into an eight-year, five-country journey. In Berlin, he met two physicists who would later be significant to the biology community:
Niels Bohr
Niels Henrik David Bohr (; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922 ...
and
Max Delbrück
Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück (; September 4, 1906 – March 9, 1981) was a German–American biophysicist who participated in launching the molecular biology research program in the late 1930s. He stimulated physical scientists' interest int ...
. The
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
movement was precipitating the rapid emigration of scientific talent from Germany, and Muller was particularly opposed to the politics of National Socialism. The FBI was investigating Muller because of his involvement with ''The Spark'', so he chose instead to go to the Soviet Union (an environment better suited to his political beliefs). In 1933, Muller and his wife reconciled, and their son
David E. Muller and she moved with Hermann to
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
. There, at the Institute of Genetics, he imported the basic equipment for a ''Drosophila'' lab—including the flies—and set up shop. The institute was moved to
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
in 1934, and Muller and his wife were divorced in 1935.
In the USSR, Muller supervised a large and productive lab, and organized work on medical genetics. Most of his work involved further explorations of genetics and radiation. There he completed his eugenics book, ''Out of the Night'', the main ideas of which dated to 1910. By 1936, however,
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
's repressive policies and the rise of
Lysenkoism
Lysenkoism (russian: Лысенковщина, Lysenkovshchina, ; uk, лисенківщина, lysenkivščyna, ) was a political campaign led by Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko against genetics and science-based agriculture in the mid-20th ce ...
was making the USSR an increasingly problematic place to live and work. Muller and many of the Russian genetics community did what they could to oppose
Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (russian: Трофим Денисович Лысенко, uk, Трохи́м Дени́сович Лисе́нко, ; 20 November 1976) was a Soviet agronomist and pseudo-scientist.''An ill-educated agronomist with hu ...
and his
Larmarckian evolutionary theory, but Muller was soon forced to leave the Soviet Union after Stalin read a translation of his eugenics book and was "displeased by it, and...ordered an attack prepared against it."
Muller, with about 250 strains of ''Drosophila'', moved to
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
in September 1937, after brief stays in
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...
and
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
. In 1938, with war on the horizon, he began looking for a permanent position back in the United States. He also began courting Dorothea "Thea" Kantorowicz, a German refugee; they were married in May 1939. The Seventh International Congress on Genetics was held in Edinburgh later that year; Muller wrote a "Geneticists' Manifesto" in response to the question: "How could the world's population be improved most effectively genetically?" He also engaged in a debate with the perennial genetics gadfly
Richard Goldschmidt
Richard Benedict Goldschmidt (April 12, 1878 – April 24, 1958) was a German-born American geneticist. He is considered the first to attempt to integrate genetics, development, and evolution. He pioneered understanding of reaction norms, gen ...
over the existence of the gene, for which little direct physical evidence existed at the time.
Later career
![First Street 1001, Muller House, Vinegar Hill HD](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/First_Street_1001%2C_Muller_House%2C_Vinegar_Hill_HD.jpg)
When Muller returned to the United States in 1940, he took an untenured research position at
Amherst College, in the department of
Otto C. Glaser. After the U.S. entry into
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, his position was extended indefinitely and expanded to include teaching. His ''Drosophila'' work in this period focused on measuring the rate of spontaneous (as opposed to radiation-induced) mutations. Muller's publication rate decreased greatly in this period, from a combination of lack of lab workers and experimentally challenging projects. However, he also worked as an adviser in the
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
(though he did not know that was what it was), as well as a study of the mutational effects of
radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, we ...
. Muller's appointment was ended after the 1944–1945 academic year, and despite difficulties stemming from his socialist political activities, he found a position as professor of zoology at
Indiana University
Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana.
Campuses
Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI.
*Indiana Universi ...
. Here, he lived in a
Dutch Colonial Revival
Dutch Colonial is a style of domestic architecture, primarily characterized by gambrel roofs having curved eaves along the length of the house. Modern versions built in the early 20th century are more accurately referred to as "Dutch Colonial Rev ...
house in
Bloomington's
Vinegar Hill
Vinegar is an aqueous solution of acetic acid and trace compounds that may include flavorings. Vinegar typically contains 5–8% acetic acid by volume. Usually, the acetic acid is produced by a double fermentation, converting simple sugars to ...
neighborhood.
In 1946, Muller was awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...
, "for the discovery that mutations can be induced by X-rays". Genetics, and especially the physical and physiological nature of the gene, was becoming a central topic in biology, and X-ray mutagenesis was a key to many recent advances, among them
George Beadle
George Wells Beadle (October 22, 1903 – June 9, 1989) was an American geneticist. In 1958 he shared one-half of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Edward Tatum for their discovery of the role of genes in regulating biochemical eve ...
and
Edward Tatum
Edward Lawrie Tatum (December 14, 1909 – November 5, 1975) was an American geneticist. He shared half of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1958 with George Beadle for showing that genes control individual steps in metabolism. The ...
's work on ''
Neurospora
''Neurospora'' is a genus of Ascomycete fungi. The genus name, meaning "nerve spore" refers to the characteristic striations on the spores that resemble axons.
The best known species in this genus is '' Neurospora crassa'', a common model organ ...
'' that established in 1941 the
one gene-one enzyme hypothesis
1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...
.
[Carlson, ''Genes, Radiation, and Society'', pp. 304–318] In Muller's Nobel Prize lecture, he argued that no threshold dose of radiation existed that did not produce
mutagenesis
Mutagenesis () is a process by which the genetic information of an organism is changed by the production of a mutation. It may occur spontaneously in nature, or as a result of exposure to mutagens. It can also be achieved experimentally using lab ...
, which led to the adoption of the
linear no-threshold model
The linear no-threshold model (LNT) is a dose-response model used in radiation protection to estimate stochastic health effects such as radiation-induced cancer, genetic mutations and teratogenic effects on the human body due to exposure to io ...
of radiation on cancer risks.
The Nobel Prize, in the wake of the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, focused public attention on a subject Muller had been publicizing for two decades - the dangers of radiation. In 1952,
nuclear fallout
Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...
became a public issue; since
Operation Crossroads
Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity in July 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices since the ...
, more and more evidence had been leaking out about
radiation sickness and death caused by
nuclear testing. Muller and many other scientists pursued an array of political activities to defuse the threat of
nuclear war. With the
Castle Bravo
Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of '' Operation Castle''. Detonated on March 1, 1954, the device was the most powerful ...
fallout controversy in 1954, the issue became even more urgent. In 1955, Muller was one of 11 prominent intellectuals to sign the
Russell–Einstein Manifesto
The Russell–Einstein Manifesto was issued in London on 9 July 1955 by Bertrand Russell in the midst of the Cold War. It highlighted the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and called for world leaders to seek peaceful resolutions to international ...
, the upshot of which was the first
1957 Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, which addressed the control of nuclear weapons.
[John Bellamy Foster (2009). ''The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet'', Monthly Review Press, New York, pp. 71–72.] He was a signatory (with many other scientists) of the 1958 petition to the United Nations, calling for an end to nuclear weapons testing, which was initiated by the Nobel Prize-winning chemist
Linus Pauling.
Muller's opinions on the effect of radiation on mutagenesis were used by
Rachel Carson
Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose influential book '' Silent Spring'' (1962) and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental ...
in her book ''
Silent Spring
''Silent Spring'' is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading d ...
'', however, his opinions have been criticized by some scientists; geneticist
James F. Crow called Muller's view "alarmist" and wrote that it created in the public "an irrational fear of low-level radiation relative to other risks".
It has been argued that Muller's opinion was not supported by studies on the
survivors of the atomic bombings, or by research on mice, and that he ignored another study that contradicted the
linear no-threshold model
The linear no-threshold model (LNT) is a dose-response model used in radiation protection to estimate stochastic health effects such as radiation-induced cancer, genetic mutations and teratogenic effects on the human body due to exposure to io ...
he supported, thereby affecting the formulation of policy that favored this model.
Muller was awarded the
Linnean Society of London
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 colle ...
's
Darwin-Wallace Medal in 1958 and the Kimber Genetics Award of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1955. He served as president of the American Humanist Association from 1956 to 1958. The
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...
selected him as its Gibbs Lecturer for 1958. He retired in 1964. The ''Drosophila'' basic units of inheritance, their
chromosomal arms, are named "
Muller elements" in Muller's honor.
H. J. Muller and science fiction writer
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the '' Earthsea'' fantasy series. She was ...
were
first cousins once removed
Most generally, in the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a cousin is a type of familial relationship in which two relatives are two or more familial generations away from their most recent common ancestor. Commonly, ...
; his father (Hermann J. Muller Sr.) and her father's mother (Johanna Muller Kroeber) were siblings, the children of Nicholas Müller, who immigrated to the United States in 1848, and at that time dropped the umlaut from his name. Another cousin was
Herbert J. Muller
Herbert J. Muller (1905–1980) was an American historian, academic, government official and writer. He received his education at Cornell University. He taught at Cornell, Purdue and Indiana University (1959-1980), served in the Department of Sta ...
, whose grandfather Otto was another son of Nicholas and a sibling of Hermann Sr. and Johanna.
Personal life
Muller is survived by his daughter, Helen J. Muller, now a professor emerita at the
University of New Mexico
The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...
, who has a daughter,
Mala Htun, also a professor at the University of New Mexico. His son,
David E. Muller, professor emeritus of mathematics and computer science at the
University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...
and at
New Mexico State University
New Mexico State University (NMSU or NM State) is a public land-grant research university based primarily in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest public institution of higher education in New Mexico and one of the state's ...
, died in 2008 in
Las Cruces, New Mexico
Las Cruces (; "the crosses") is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New Mexico and the seat of Doña Ana County. As of the 2020 census the population was 111,385. Las Cruces is the largest city in both Doña Ana County and southern Ne ...
. David's mother was Jessie Jacobs Muller Offermann (1890–1954), Hermann's first wife. Helen's mother was Dorothea Kantorowicz Muller (1909–1986), Hermann's second wife, who came to the U.S. in 1940 as a German Jewish refugee.
He had a brief affair with
Milly Bennett.
Notable former students
*
Raissa L. Berg
*
Elof Axel Carlson
*
H. Bentley Glass
*
C. P. Oliver
*
Wilson Stone
;Former postdoctoral fellows
*
George D. Snell
;Worked in lab as undergraduates
*
Carl Sagan
Bibliography
*Herman Joseph Muller, '' Modern Concept of Nature'' (SUNY Press, 1973). .
*Herman Joseph Muller, ''Man's Future Birthright'' (SUNY Press, 1973). .
* H. J. Muller, ''Out of the Night: A Biologist's View of the Future'' (Vanguard Press, 1935).
* H. J. Muller, ''Studies in Genetics: The Selected Papers of H. J. Muller'' (Indiana University Press, 1962).
See also
*
Mutagenesis
Mutagenesis () is a process by which the genetic information of an organism is changed by the production of a mutation. It may occur spontaneously in nature, or as a result of exposure to mutagens. It can also be achieved experimentally using lab ...
*
Bateson–Dobzhansky–Muller model
The Bateson–Dobzhansky–Muller model, also known as Dobzhansky–Muller model, is a model of the evolution of genetic incompatibility, important in understanding the evolution of reproductive isolation during speciation and the role of natural s ...
*
Repository for Germinal Choice
*
Muller's ratchet
In evolutionary genetics, Muller's ratchet (named after Hermann Joseph Muller, by analogy with a ratchet effect) is a process through which, in the absence of recombination (especially in an asexual population), an accumulation of irreversible d ...
*
Muller's morphs
*
History of biology
The history of biology traces the study of the living world from ancient to modern times. Although the concept of ''biology'' as a single coherent field arose in the 19th century, the biological sciences emerged from traditions of medicine a ...
*
History of genetics
The history of genetics dates from the classical era with contributions by Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Aristotle, Epicurus, and others. Modern genetics began with the work of the Augustinian friar Gregor Johann Mendel. His work on pea plants, publis ...
*
History of model organisms
The history of model organisms began with the idea that certain organisms can be studied and used to gain knowledge of other organisms or as a control (ideal) for other organisms of the same species. Model organisms offer standards that serve as ...
References
External links
* including the Nobel Lecture on December 12, 1946 ''The Production of Mutations''
*
The Muller manuscripts, 1910–1967in archives of the Indiana University
On the origins of the linear no-threshold (LNT) dogma by means of untruths, artful dodges and blind faith Edward J. Calabrese, Environmental Research 142 (2015) 432–442.
Hermann J. Muller CollectionCold Spring Harbor Laboratory Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muller, Hermann Joseph
1890 births
1967 deaths
Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
American Nobel laureates
Academics of the University of Edinburgh
American atheists
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American people of German descent
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Columbia College (New York) alumni
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History of genetics
Indiana University faculty
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Radiation health effects researchers
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Columbia University faculty
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