Horatio Hackett Newman (March 19, 1875 – August 29, 1957) was an American zoologist and geneticist who taught at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
. Along with
Frank Rattray Lillie
Frank Rattray Lillie (June 27, 1870November 5, 1947) was an American zoologist and an early pioneer of the study of embryology. Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Lillie moved to the United States in 1891 to study for a summer at the Marine Biologi ...
and
Charles M. Child, he is credited with building the University of Chicago's
zoology
Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and ...
department into one of the best respected departments of its kind. Newman is also recognized for his research on
multiple birth
A multiple birth is the culmination of one multiple pregnancy, wherein the mother gives birth to two or more babies. A term most applicable to vertebrate species, multiple births occur in most kinds of mammals, with varying frequencies. Such bir ...
s in
human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...
s and other animal species. This included research conducted on human
twin
Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of TwinLast Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two em ...
s with
Karl Holzinger and
Frank N. Freeman, which led to the publication of their 1937 book ''Twins''. It also led to his book ''Multiple Human Births'', which was published in 1940. That year, ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' reported, "In the U.S. there are at least 2,000,000 people who are twins, triplets or quadruplets. The man who gets asked most about them is Geneticist Horatio Hackett Newman of the University of Chicago." Newman was also an outspoken defender of
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 ...
, and traveled to
Dayton
Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...
,
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
to testify as an
expert witness
An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as ...
at the
Scopes monkey trial in 1925. He was not permitted to testify in the trial, so his remarks were entered into the court's records instead.
References
External links
*
1875 births
1957 deaths
20th-century American zoologists
People from Russell County, Alabama
University of Chicago alumni
University of Michigan faculty
University of Texas faculty
University of Chicago faculty
American geneticists
{{US-zoologist-stub