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John Tyler Bonner (May 12, 1920 – February 7, 2019) was an American biologist who was a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
. He was a pioneer in the use of cellular
slime molds Slime mold or slime mould is an informal name given to several kinds of unrelated eukaryotic organisms with a life cycle that includes a free-living single-celled stage and the formation of spores. Spores are often produced in macroscopic mu ...
to understand evolution and development over a career of 40 years and was one of the world's leading experts on cellular slime moulds. Arizona State University says that the establishment and growth of developmental-evolutionary biology owes a great debt to the work of Bonner's studies. His work is highly readable and unusually clearly written and his contributions have made many complicated ideas of biology accessible to a wide audience.


Career

Bonner was the George M. Moffett Professor Emeritus of Biology at Princeton University. He was trained at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
between 1937 and 1947, aside from a stint in the
United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
from 1942 to 1946. He soon joined the faculty of Princeton University, becoming the chairman of the Princeton Biology Department between 1966 and 1977, also in 1983-84 and 1987–88. He held four honorary doctorates and was a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
. He was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
in 1969 and the
American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 1972. He was made a
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...
fellow in 1973. He was a visiting scholar at the
Indian Institute of Science The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) is a public, deemed, research university for higher education and research in science, engineering, design, and management. It is located in Bengaluru, in the Indian state of Karnataka. The institute was ...
in 1993 and the
Indian Academy of Sciences The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore was founded by Indian Physicist and Nobel Laureate C. V. Raman, and was registered as a society on 24 April 1934. Inaugurated on 31 July 1934, it began with 65 founding fellows. The first general meet ...
in 1990. He has also been visiting faculty at
Brooklyn College , mottoeng = Nothing without great effort , established = , parent = CUNY , type = Public university , endowment = $98.0 million (2019) , budget = $123.96 m ...
,
Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kille ...
and
University College, London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...
. He also was a Sheldon Travelling Fellow in 1941 in
Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...
and
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribb ...
while in graduate school, a Rockefeller Traveling Fellow 1953 in
Paris Paris () is the capital and 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), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
, France, and held Guggenheim Fellowships in 1958 and from 1971 to 1972 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He held a
National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship in Cambridge, England in 1963. He also had
Commonwealth Foundation The Commonwealth Foundation (CF) is an intergovernmental organisation that was established by the Commonwealth Heads of Government in 1966, a year after its sister organisation, the Commonwealth Secretariat. The Foundation is located at Mar ...
Book Fund Fellowships in 1971 and between 1984 and in 1985 Edinburgh, Scotland and a Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation Book Fund Fellowship in 1978 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He died in February 2019 at the age of 98.


Works

He wrote several books on developmental biology and evolution, many scientific papers, and produced a number of works in biology. He is best known as one of the world's leading experts on slime moulds and he led the way in making ''
Dictyostelium discoideum ''Dictyostelium discoideum'' is a species of soil-dwelling amoeba belonging to the phylum Amoebozoa, infraphylum Mycetozoa. Commonly referred to as slime mold, ''D. discoideum'' is a eukaryote that transitions from a collection of unicellular ...
'' a model organism central to examining some of the major questions in experimental biology. He defined the complexity of an organism as the number of types of cells in it though ''complexity theorists'' disagree, and he argued that both plant and animal taxa which have evolved later, have a greater number of cell types than their predecessors, and sought an explanation acceptable to neo-Darwinism. His works include: * ''The Cellular Slime Molds'' * ''The Evolution of Complexity by Means of Natural Selection''. * ''The Evolution of Culture in Animals'' * ''Life Cycles'' * ''Morphogenesis: an Essay on Development''
''On Development: The Biology of Form''
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...
* ''Cells and Societies'' * ''First Signals'' * ''The Ideas of Biology'' * ''Sixty Years of Biology'' * ''Size and Cycle'' * ''Why Size Matters: From Bacteria to Blue Whales''
''Lives of a Biologist: Adventures in a Century of Extraordinary Science''
Harvard University Press Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...
. * ''Randomness in Evolution''. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 2013, . His autobiography
''Lives of a Biologist: Adventures in a Century of Extraordinary Science''
was the winner of the 2002 ''ForeWord Magazine'' Book of the Year Award.


Support for evolution

Bonner was involved with one of the earliest American efforts to express scientific support for evolution. The Nobel Prize–winning American biologist Hermann J. Muller circulated a petition in May 1966 entitled: "Is Biological Evolution a Principle of Nature that has been well established by Science?". Bonner signed this manifesto, along with 176 other leading American biologists, including several Nobel Prize winners.''The Day the Scientists Voted'', Bert Thompson, Apologetics Press: Sensible Science, 2001, originally published in Reason & Revelation, 2(3):9-11, March 1982.
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See also

* ''
Biology Today ''Biology Today'' is a college-level biology textbook that went through three editions in 1972, 1975, and 1980. The first edition, published by Communications Research Machines, Inc. (CRM) and written by a small editorial team and large set of p ...
'', college-level
biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...
textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...
, contribution by Bonner


Notes


References

*''Lives of a Biologist: Adventures in a Century of Extraordinary Science'', John Tyler Bonner, Harvard University Press, May 24, 2002, *''
On Growth and Form ''On Growth and Form'' is a book by the Scottish mathematical biologist D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860–1948). The book is long – 793 pages in the first edition of 1917, 1116 pages in the second edition of 1942. The book covers many top ...
'',
D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson CB FRS FRSE (2 May 1860 – 21 June 1948) was a Scottish biologist, mathematician and classics scholar. He was a pioneer of mathematical and theoretical biology Mathematical and theoretical biology, or biomat ...
, John Tyler Bonner (editor), Cambridge University Press; Abridged edition, July 31, 1992, *''Why Size Matters: From Bacteria to Blue Whales'', John Tyler Bonner, Princeton University Press, September 13, 2006, *''On Size and Life (Scientific American Library)'', Thomas McMahon, John Tyler Bonner, Scientific American Library, May 1985, *''Sixty Years of Biology'', John Tyler Bonner, Princeton University Press, July 8, 1996, *''Size and Cycle: An Essay on the Structure of Biology'', John Tyler Bonner, Princeton University Press, January 1966, *''The Ideas of Biology'', John Tyler Bonner, Dover Publications; New Ed edition, November 11, 2002, *''The Evolution of Culture in Animals'', John Tyler Bonner, Princeton University Press, May 1, 1983, *''Evolution and Development (Life Sciences Research Report)'', John Tyler Bonner, Springer, February 1982, *''Life Cycles'', John Tyler Bonner, Princeton University Press; New Ed edition, April 3, 1995, *''Cells and Societies'', John Tyler Bonner, Princeton University Press, 1957, * ''The cellular slime molds (Investigations in the biological sciences)'', John Tyler Bonner, Princeton University Press, 1959, *''The Evolution of Complexity by Means of Natural Selection'', John Tyler Bonner, Princeton Univ Press, October 1988, * ''First Signals: The Evolution of Multicellular Development.'', John Tyler Bonner, Princeton University Press, February 15, 2001, * ''The Ideas of Biology. With Drawings by Ann Cox. '', John Tyler Bonner, Methuen (University Paperbacks), 1965, * ''Morphogenesis An Essay on Development'', John Tyler Bonner, #Princeton University Press, 1952, * ''On Development: The Biology of Form (Commonwealth Fund Publications)'', John Tyler Bonner, Harvard University Press, January 1974, * ''The Scale of Nature: A Panoramic View of the Sciences'', John Tyler Bonner (Author), Patricia Collins (Illustrator), Harper & Row, 1969, * ''Researches on cellular slime moulds: Selected papers of J.T. Bonner'', John Tyler Bonner, Indian Academy of Sciences, 1991,


External links


Official website

Concordia University Honorary Degree Citation
June 2003, Concordia University Records Management and Archives * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bonner, John Tyler 1920 births 2019 deaths Scientists from New York City Military personnel from New York City Evolutionary biologists Developmental biologists Harvard University alumni Princeton University faculty American science writers Science teachers United States Army Air Forces soldiers United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Brooklyn College faculty Members of the American Philosophical Society