William Henry Dallinger FRS (5 July 1839 – 7 November 1909) was a British minister in the Wesleyan Methodist Church. He was also an accomplished scientist, being the first to study the complete lifecycle of unicellular organisms under the microscope and studying the adaptation of such organisms to temperature. He made numerous contributions to microscopy, and was president of the

Quekett Microscopical Club The Quekett Microscopical Club is a learned society for the promotion of microscopy. Its members come from all over the world, and include both amateur and professional microscopists. It is a registered charity and not-for-profit publisher, with th ...

from 1889 to 1892. Dallinger was awarded three honorary doctorates, the Ll.D. from Victoria College, Toronto in 1884, the D.Sc. from Dublin in 1892, and the D.L.C. from Durham in 1896. Dallinger was married to Emma Ion Goldsmith (1842-1910). They had one child, son Percy Gough (1867-1930).

Research into Darwin's theories

Dallinger was one of the first to carry out a controlled evolution experiment. In the late 19th century, he cultivated small unicellular organisms in a custom-built incubator over a time period of seven years (1880–1886). Dallinger slowly increased the temperature of the incubator from an initial 60 °F up to 158 °F. The early cultures had shown clear signs of distress at a temperature of 73 °F, and were certainly not capable of surviving at 158 °F. The organisms Dallinger had in his incubator at the end of the experiment, on the other hand, were perfectly fine at 158 °F. However, these organisms would no longer grow at the initial 60 °F. Dallinger concluded that he had found evidence for Darwinian adaptation in his incubator, and that the organisms had adapted to live in a high-temperature environment. Unfortunately, Dallinger's incubator was accidentally destroyed in 1886, and Dallinger could not continue this line of research. Dallinger was an early supporter of

Darwinism Darwinism is a scientific theory, theory of Biology, biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of smal ...

. He accepted natural selection and considered

creationism Creationism is the religious belief that nature, and aspects such as the universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with supernatural acts of divine creation. Gunn 2004, p. 9, "The ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' says that creationism is 't ...

to be "absolutely untenable". He believed there was no conflict between religion and science and there was no reason to try and reconcile the Book of Genesis with geology.Michael R. Watts. (2015). ''The Dissenters: The Crisis and Conscience of Nonconformity''. Oxford University Press. p. 18.

Selected scientific publications by Dallinger

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References

External links

Article on Dallinger in ''Science in Christian Perspective''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dallinger, William 1839 births 1909 deaths British microbiologists 19th-century British biologists Critics of creationism English Methodist ministers Fellows of the Royal Society Parson-naturalists 19th-century Methodists