William Ernest Castle (October 25, 1867 – June 3, 1962) was an early

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

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 processe ...

Early years

William Ernest Castle was born on a farm in

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

and took an early interest in natural history. He graduated in 1889 from

Denison University Denison University is a private liberal arts college in Granville, Ohio. One of the earliest colleges established in the former Northwest Territory, Denison University was founded in 1831. The college was first called the Granville Literary and ...

in Granville, Ohio, a Baptist college that emphasized

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

, and went on to become a teacher of

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

Ottawa University Ottawa University (OU) is a private Baptist university with its main campus in Ottawa, Kansas, a second residential campus in Surprise, Arizona, and adult campuses in the Kansas City, Phoenix and Milwaukee metropolitan areas. It was founded in ...

Ottawa, Kansas Ottawa (pronounced ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Franklin County, Kansas, United States. It is located on both banks of the Marais des Cygnes River near the center of Franklin County. As of the 2020 census, the population of the c ...

, where he published his first paper on the flowering plants of the area. After three years of teaching, botany won out over Latin.http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/castle-william-e.pdf

Education

Castle entered the senior class of

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 higher le ...

in 1892 and in 1893 took a second A.B. degree with honors. He was appointed laboratory assistant in zoology, an A.M. degree in 1894 and a Ph.D. in 1895. He then taught zoology at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

and at the Knox College in

Galesburg, Illinois Galesburg is a city in Knox County, Illinois, United States. The city is northwest of Peoria. At the 2010 census, its population was 32,195. It is the county seat of Knox County and the principal city of the Galesburg Micropolitan Statistical ...

, each for a year.

Harvard and Drosophila

Castle returned to Harvard in 1897. His early work focused on

embryology Embryology (from Greek ἔμβρυον, ''embryon'', "the unborn, embryo"; and -λογία, '' -logia'') is the branch of animal biology that studies the prenatal development of gametes (sex cells), fertilization, and development of embryos and ...

, but after the rediscovery of

Mendelian genetics Mendelian inheritance (also known as Mendelism) is a type of biology, biological Heredity, inheritance following the principles originally proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 and 1866, re-discovered in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns, an ...

in 1900, he turned to

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

ian genetics, especially that of the

guinea pig The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig (''Cavia porcellus''), also known as the cavy or domestic cavy (), is a species of rodent belonging to the genus ''Cavia'' in the family Caviidae. Breeders tend to use the word ''cavy'' to describe the ani ...

. In 1903 Castle intervened in the debate on mathematical foundations of Mendelian genetics. He corrected some tentative work of

Udny Yule George Udny Yule FRS (18 February 1871 – 26 June 1951), usually known as Udny Yule, was a British statistician, particularly known for the Yule distribution. Personal life Yule was born at Beech Hill, a house in Morham near Haddingto ...

on breeding by deliberate selection and genetics. In so doing, he anticipated what has now become known as the Hardy–Weinberg law. Formulated in the terms "as soon as selection is arrested the race remains stable at the degree of purity then attained", it appeared in his paper of November that year. At Harvard,

Charles W. Woodworth Charles William Woodworth (April 28, 1865 – November 19, 1940) was an American entomologist. He published extensively in entomology and founded the Entomology Department at the University of California, Berkeley. He was the first person to breed ...

suggested to Castle that Drosophila might be used for genetical work. ''T.H. Morgan's Nobel Prize biography mentioning C. W. Woodworth's suggestion and W. E. Castle's use of Drosophila.'' (Fro
Nobel Lectures
Physiology or Medicine 1922–1941, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1965.) Retrieved May 14, 2018. Castle was the first to use the fruit fly ''

Drosophila melanogaster ''Drosophila melanogaster'' is a species of fly (the taxonomic order Diptera) in the family Drosophilidae. The species is often referred to as the fruit fly or lesser fruit fly, or less commonly the "vinegar fly" or "pomace fly". Starting with Ch ...

'', and it was his work that inspired

T.H. Morgan Thomas Hunt Morgan (September 25, 1866 – December 4, 1945) was an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist, Embryology, embryologist, and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries elucidating t ...

to use ''Drosophila'' and the basis of Morgan's 1933

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

Bussey Institution

In 1908 Castle moved from the

Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan cler ...

to the

Bussey Institution The Bussey Institute (1883–1936) was a respected biological institute at Harvard University. It was named for Benjamin Bussey, who, in 1835, endowed the establishment of an undergraduate school of agriculture and horticulture and donated land in ...

for Applied Biology. There his most famous PhD student was

Sewall Wright Sewall Green Wright FRS(For) Honorary FRSE (December 21, 1889March 3, 1988) was an American geneticist known for his influential work on evolutionary theory and also for his work on path analysis. He was a founder of population genetics alongsi ...

who graduated in 1915. The same year he was elected to membership in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. When the

Eugenics Record Office The Eugenics Record Office (ERO), located in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, United States, was a research institute that gathered biological and social information about the American population, serving as a center for eugenics and human heredity ...

was founded in 1912, he served as a member of its scientific advisory board, and in 1916 he was one of the 10 founders of the

scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...

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 ...

''. His work with hooded rats provided important evidence that evolution could occur by the action of selection on small variations in traits. Other biologists (including

T. H. Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The stor ...

and William Bates) had doubted Darwin's belief in the sufficiency of small variations (acted upon by natural selection over long periods of time) to explain evolution. He realized that the traits acted upon could be multifactorial. (2)

Later years

Castle retired from Harvard in 1936 when the Bussey Institution closed, and took up a position at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, as Research Associate in mammalian genetics. In 1955 he was awarded the Kimber Genetics Award of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. His last of 242 papers was published in 1961 when he was 91 years old.

Family

In 1896, Castle married Clara Sears Bosworth, and they had three sons, one of whom died as a teenager. The others became professors at Harvard, William B. Castle of

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

, and the younger Edward Castle, of

plant physiology Plant physiology is a subdiscipline of botany concerned with the functioning, or physiology, of plants. Closely related fields include plant morphology (structure of plants), plant ecology (interactions with the environment), phytochemistry (bi ...

.http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/castle-wb.pdf