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

Early years

William Ernest Castle was born on a farm in

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

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 a ...

in Granville, Ohio, a Baptist college that emphasized 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 ...

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 ...

, 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 high ...

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 institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

and at the Knox College in

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

, 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 an ...

, but after the rediscovery of

Mendelian genetics 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 popularized ...

in 1900, he turned to mammalian 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 ...

. 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 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 ...

'', 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, embryologist, and science author who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1933 for discoveries elucidating the role tha ...

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." Alfre ...

Bussey Institution

In 1908 Castle moved from the

Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology 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 l ...

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 alon ...

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 ...

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 worki ...

''. 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 stori ...

and William Bates) had doubted

Darwin Darwin may refer to: Common meanings * Charles Darwin (1809–1882), English naturalist and writer, best known as the originator of the theory of biological evolution by natural selection * Darwin, Northern Territory, a territorial capital city i ...

'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 Multifactorial (having many factors) can refer to: * The multifactorial in mathematics. * Multifactorial inheritance A quantitative trait locus (QTL) is a locus (section of DNA) that correlates with variation of a quantitative trait in the phe ...

. (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 William Bainbridge Castle (November 30, 1814 – February 28, 1872) was an American politician of the Whig Party who served as the 11th and final mayor of Ohio City from 1853 to 1854 and the 14th mayor of Cleveland, Ohio from 1855 to 1856. Ca ...

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, and Health promotion ...

, 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