Garland Allen

Title:	Professor of Biology
Degree:	PHD, Harvard University MA, Harvard University BA, University of Louisville
Dept:	American Culture Studies Biology
Office:	Life Science Bldg 202D
Mailbox:	Campus Box 1137 One Brookings Drive St. Louis, MO 63130-4899 Hide Full Mailing Address
Phone:	(314) 935-6808
E-mail:	gallen@wustl.edu

Courses
History of the Life Sciences in the 20th Century, The Darwinian Revolution

Research Interests
Professor Garland E. Allen's research interests are in the area of history and philosophy of biology - particularly genetics, embryology, and evolution - and their interrelationships between 1880 and 1950. This work focuses particularly in the early development of the Mendelian-chromosome theory as formulated in the work of T.H. Morgan and his group at Columbia University and later at the California Institute of Technology. Growing out of this work have been a series of studies of the scientific, economic, and social history of "eugenics" (defined in the early part of the century as "the science of human improvement through better breeding"). The history of eugenics provides a number of insights into the interrelationships between science and its social context, and raises many issues of ethical, legal, and social importance that are surfacing today in the midst of the Human Genome Project.

Selected Publications:

Allen, G.E. (1999) Modern biological determinism: The Violence Initiative, the Human Genome Project, and the new eugenics. The Practices of Human Genetics, ed. by M. Fortun and E. Mendelsohn, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, p. 1-23.

Allen, G.E. (1999) Genetics, eugenics and the medicalization of social behavior: Lessons from the past. Endeavour 23 1: 10-19.

Allen, G.E. (2000) The reception of Mendelism in the United States, 1900-1930. Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences 3: 1081-1088.

Allen, G.E., Baker, J.J.W. (2001) Biology: Scientific Process and Social Issues, Fitzgerald Press, Bethesda.

Allen, G.E. (2001) The biological basis of crime: An historical and methodological study. Hist. Stud. Phys. Biol. Sci. 31: 183-222.