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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE APR 1353 t36/

 

BERKELEY * DAVIS * IRVINE * LOS ANGELES * RIVERSIDE * SAN DIEGO * SAN FRANCISCO

 

 

 

. DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY
8 April 1987 RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA 92521

Dear Josh,

Lester Barth was a student of Charles M. Child at the
University of Chicago. Thereafter he spent a year, I believe, in
Germany--probably in Hans Spemann's lab but I am not sure on that

one (old editions of American Men of Science should have the
info.)

Arthur Pollister took his degree with Robert H. Bowen who
had received his Ph.D. degree from Columbia in 1920 and stayed on the
faculty until his early death in 1929 (then Franz Schrader was
called from Bryn Mawr--following the path of Wilson & Morgan).
Although Bowen was Pollister's prof, surely E. B. Wilson must
have exerted a profound effect.

I have not heard from Pollister for several years but have
just been told of a recent address: Box 456, Port Morris, NJ
08349.

You will have a problem with Francis’ tree. I will tell you
what happened and you can decide how it might be represented.

Francis was a year (?) behind me in graduate school
(although we took the qualifying exams at the same time). I was
working on temperature & rates of development in frog eggs and he
became interested in one aspect of the work, which he developed
for his Ph.D. thesis. Both of us were being "Supervised" by
Lester Barth but that wonderful person left us alone but always
supported us if there was need to do so. Very shortly before
Francis was to finish his work (maybe Betty Ryan can give better
details), Francis decided to switch to having Pollister as his
major professor. Barth was somewhat puzzled and very unhappy. I
waS most surprised and, upon asking FJR "Why?", was told that he
felt sorry for AWP because he did not have any students. There

must have been more to this affair than that but FJR insisted
that was it.

As you so rightly point out, it was Beadle & Tatum who
really set FJR on his line of research. FJR did not go to
Stanford to work on Neurospora and only began to did so, as he
told me, when Beadle showed him of the remarkably exact growth
rates of N. in relation to temperature. So he studied that aspect
and later switched to the more exciting things that N. can do.

Much enjoyed reading the two articles. Some day you should
write the true story of your attempting to crash the CSH meeting
and present your results. One of the main reasons, poignant
though practical, that FJR thought you should go to Yale and work
with Tatum had to do with society, not science. There was greater
intolerance in the academic profession then than today and FJR
really thought that a young Jewish scientist would have better
opportunities graduating from Yale that from the Zoology Depart-
ment of Columbia, which in the minds of many was far too liberal
in the "sorts of people" it graduated. Francis was enormously
fond of you and he would surely have liked to see such an impor-
tant breakthgrough as your's coming from his lab. He was right in
giving that advice. As we two know, he was great in many ways. Is
there anyone else in science today who know this? I hope so.

It is good to reflect that, in this often sad world,
some things do improve--tolerance is one of them (at least in
some nations and for some things).

I still think of you as in that photograph of 1945.

A good example of a postmature discovery, that also meets
your three attributes, is pointed up by that wonderful remark of
Thomas Henry Huxley who, when learning of Darwin's hypothesis of
natural selection, said "How extremely stupid not to have
thought of that!"

Science as a Way of Knowing continues to flourish but the
workload has become awesome.

My very best,

 

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