E. B. Ford

Infobox Scientist
name = Edmund Brisco "Henry" Ford
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caption = Edmund Brisco "Henry" Ford
birth_date = 23rd April 1901
birth_place = Papcastle, Cumbria
death_date = 2nd January 1988
death_place =
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citizenship =
nationality = British
ethnicity =
field = ecological geneticist
work_institutions =
alma_mater = Oxford University
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prizes = Royal Society's Darwin Medal
religion =
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Professor Edmund Brisco "Henry" Ford, FRS, Hon. FRCP (23rd April 1901-2nd January 1988) was a British ecological geneticist. He was a leader among those British biologists who investigated the role of natural selection in nature. As a schoolboy Ford became interested in lepidoptera, the group of insects which includes butterflies and moths. He went on to study the genetics of natural populations, and invented the field of ecological genetics. Ford was awarded the Royal Society's Darwin Medal in 1954. Later, in 1968, he was awarded UNESCO's Kalinga Prize for the popularisation of science [Citation
id = PMID:3279315
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3279315
last=Clarke
first=C
publication-date=1988 Mar 3
year=1988
title=Edmund Brisco Ford (1902-1988).
volume=332
issue=6159
periodical=Nature
pages=20
doi = 10.1038/332020a0] .

Ford was born in Papcastle, Cumbria, England in 1901. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford University, graduating in zoology in 1924.

Life

Ford never married, had no children, and was considered decidedly eccentric. Non-academic information on his life is hard to come by, mostly consisting of scattered remarks made by colleagues. He campaigned strenuously against the admission of female Fellows to All Souls College. Miriam Rothschild, an outstanding zoologist, was one of the few women with whom Ford was on good terms. Rothschild and Ford campaigned for the legalisation of male homosexuality in Britain. Ford was on good terms with Theodosius Dobzhansky, who did ground-breaking work on ecological genetics with "Drosophila" species: they exchanged letters and visits.

Marren (1995) has a biographical chapter on him; Ford also had a biographical memoir from The Royal Society. [Clarke B 1995. Edmund Brisco Ford. "Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London"]

Career

Ford's career was based entirely at Oxford University. A.J. Cain said he took a degree in classics before turning to zoology. [Cain A.J. and Provine W.B. 1992. In Berry R.J. et al (eds) "Genes in ecology". Blackwell, Oxford.] Ford read zoology at Oxford, and was taught genetics by Julian Huxley. "The lecturer whose interests most closely reflected mine was Julian Huxley. I owe him a great debt, especially for inspiration... Even though Huxley was... only at Oxford from 1919 to 1925, he was the most powerful voice in developing the selectionist attitude there... I met Ray Lankester through E.B. Poulton. He was already an old man... but talked to me a good deal of Charles Darwin and Pasteur, both of whom he knew." [Ford E.B. 1980. Some recollections pertaining to the evolutionary synthesis. In Mayr E. and Provine W.B. (eds) "The evolutionary synthesis: perspectives on the unification of biology". Harvard 1980; 2nd ed 1998, p336-8. [effectively, this is an intellectual autobiography] ]

Ford was appointed University Demonstrator in Zoology in 1927 and Lecturer at University College, Oxford in 1933. Specialising in genetics, he was appointed University Reader in Genetics in 1939 and was the Director of the Genetics Laboratory, 1952-1969, and Professor of Ecological Genetics 1963-1969. Ford was one of the first scientists to be elected a Fellow of All Souls College since the seventeenth century.

Ford had a long working relationship with R.A. Fisher. By the time Ford had developed his formal definition of genetic polymorphism, [Ford E.B. 1940. Polymorphism and taxonomy. In Huxley J. "The new systematics". Oxford.] Fisher had got accustomed to high selection values in nature. He was most impressed by the fact that polymorphism concealed powerful selective forces (Ford gave human blood groups as an example). Like Fisher, he continued the natural selection versus genetic drift debate with Sewall Wright, whom Ford believed put too much emphasis on genetic drift. It was as a result of Ford's work, as well as his own, that Dobzhansky changed the emphasis in the third edition of his famous text from drift to selection. [Dobzhansky T. 1951. "Genetics and the Origin of Species". 3rd ed, Columbia University Press N.Y.]

Ford was an experimental naturalist who wanted to test evolution in nature. He virtually invented the field of research known as ecological genetics. His work on the wild populations of butterflies and moths was the first to show that the predictions made by R.A. Fisher were correct. He was the first to describe and define genetic polymorphism, and predicted that human blood group polymorphisms might be maintained in the population by providing some protection against disease [Ford E.B. 1942. "Genetics for medical students". Methuen, London.] . Six years after this prediction it was found to be so, [Ford E.B. 1949. Polymorphism. "Biological Reviews" 20, 73.] and furthermore, heterozygous advantage was decisively established by a study of AB x AB crosses. [Chung C.S. and Morton N.E. 1961 Selection at the ABO locus. "Am J Human Genetics" 13, 9-27.] His magnum opus was "Ecological Genetics", which ran to four editions and was widely influential. [Ford E.B. 1964, 4th edn 1975. "Ecological genetics". Chapman and Hall, London.] He laid much of the groundwork for subsequent studies in this field, and was invited as a consultant to help set up similar research groups in several other countries.

Amongst Ford's many publications, perhaps the most popularly successful was the first book in the New Naturalist series, "Butterflies". [Ford E.B. 1945, 3rd ed 1977. "Butterflies". New Naturalist #1 Collins, London.] Ford also went on in 1955 to write "Moths" [Ford E.B. 1955, 3rd edn 1972. "Moths". New Naturalist #30 HarperCollins, London.] in the same series, one of only a few to have authored more than one book in the series.

Ford became Professor, and then Emeritus Professor of Ecological Genetics, University of Oxford. He was a Fellow of All Souls College, and Honorary Fellow of Wadham College. He was elected FRS in 1946, and awarded the Darwin Medal in 1954.

Ecological genetics

E.B. Ford worked for many years on genetic polymorphism. [Ford E.B. 1940. Polymorphism and taxonomy. In Huxley J. "The new systematics". Oxford.] Polymorphism in natural populations is frequent; the key feature is the occurrence together of two or more discontinuous forms of a species in some kind of balance. So long as the proportions of each form is above mutation rate, then selection must be the cause. As early as 1930 Fisher had discussed a situation where, with alleles at a single locus, the heterozygote is more viable than either homozygote. That is a typical genetic mechanism for causing this type of polymorphism. The work involves a synthesis of field observations, taxonomy, and laboratory genetics. [Huxley J.S. 1955. Morphism and evolution. "Heredity" 9, 1-52.] [Ford E.B. 1964, 4th edn 1975. "Ecological genetics". Chapman and Hall, London.]

Peppered moth

Ford was the supervisor of Bernard Kettlewell during Kettlewell's famous experiments on the evolution of melanism in the peppered moth, "Biston betularia".

The entomologist Michael Majerus discussed criticisms that had been made of Kettlewell's experimental methods in his 1998 book "".Majerus, M.E.N. (2004) [http://www.gen.cam.ac.uk/Research/Majerus/Darwiniandisciple.doc The Peppered moth: decline of a Darwinian disciple.] (.doc download)] This book was misrepresented in reviews, and the story was picked up by creationist campaigners. In her controversial book "Of Moths and Men", Judith Hooper (2002) gave a critical account of Ford's supervision and relationship with Kettlewell, and implied that the work was fraudulent or at least incompetent. Careful studies of Kettlewell's surviving papers by Rudge (2005) and Young (2004) found Hooper's suggestion of fraud to be unjustified, and that "Hooper does not provide one shred of evidence to support this serious allegation”.Rudge, D.W. (2005). "Did Kettlewell Commit Fraud? Re-examining the Evidence.", "Public Understanding of Science" 14 (3) (pp. 249–268).] Young, M. (2003). " [http://www.talkreason.org/articles/moonshine.cfm Moonshine: Why the Peppered Moth Remains an Icon of Evolution] ."] Majerus himself described "Of Moths and Men" as "littered with errors, misrepresentations, misinterpretations and falsehoods".

Bibliography

* Clarke B 1995. Edmund Brisco Ford. "Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London."
* Creed R (ed) 1971. "Ecological genetics and evolution: Essays in honour of E.B.Ford". Blackwell, Oxford. [an outstanding volume]
* Hooper, Judith 2002. "Of moths and men". Norton.
* Huxley, Julian 1954. Morphism and evolution. "Heredity" 9, 1-52.
* Kettlewell H.B.D. 1973. "The Evolution of Melanism". Oxford. (jointly dedicated to Ford and the Nuffield Foundation)
* Marren P. 1995. "The New Naturalists". HarperCollins: London
* Vane-Wright R.I. and Ackery P.R. 1984. "The biology of butterflies". Symposia of the Royal Entomological Society of London no 11.

Works by Ford

* Ford E.B. (1931, 8th ed 1965). "Mendelism and evolution". Methuen, London.
* Carpenter G.D.H. and E.B. Ford (1933) "Mimicry". Methuen, London
* Ford E.B. (1938, 2nd ed 1950). "The study of heredity". Butterworth, London. 2nd edn Oxford University Press.
* Ford E.B. (1940). Polymorphism and taxonomy. In Huxley J. "The new systematics". Oxford.
* Ford E.B. (1942, 7th edn 1973). "Genetics for medical students" Chapman and Hall: London.
* Ford E.B. (1945, 3rd edn 1977). "Butterflies". New Naturalist #1 Collins: London.
* Ford E.B. (1951). "British butterflies". Penguin, London
* Ford E.B. (1955, 3rd edn 1972). "Moths". New Naturalist #30 HarperCollins, London
* Ford E.B. (1964, 4th edn 1975). "Ecological genetics". Chapman and Hall, London
* Ford E.B. (1965). "Genetic polymorphism". All Souls Studies, Faber & Faber, London
* Ford E.B. (1976). "Genetics and adaptation". Institute of Biology studies, Edward Arnold, London
* Ford E.B. (1979). "Understanding genetics". Faber and Faber, London
* Ford E.B. (1980). Some recollections pertaining to the evolutionary synthesis. In Mayr E. and Provine W.B. (eds) "The evolutionary synthesis: perspectives on the unification of biology". Harvard 1980; 1998. [effectively, this is an intellectual autobiography]
* Ford E.B. (1981). "Taking genetics into the countryside". Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London
* Ford E.B. and J.S. Haywood (1984). "Church treasures of the Oxford district". Alan Sutton, Gloucester. (n.b. This is not on genetics!)

References

External links

#Papers co-written with R.A. Fisher are available on the University of Adelaide's website at cite web |url=http://www.library.adelaide.edu.au/digitised/fisher/index.html |title=The R.A. Fisher Digital Archive |accessdate=2007-09-09 |format= |work=