Socialism

Haldane helped bring their work together in what is known as the “modern synthesis.” Thanks in good part to the insights of Haldane and a few other gifted, mathematically-minded researchers, evolutionary biology became a powerful science [...] In lectures — which drew large crowds — and in pubs, Haldane tossed off important and futuristic ideas like firecrackers. He wrote a revolutionary paper that helped transform the way biologists think about the origin of life. His vision of what would become known as test-tube babies helped inspire Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” Haldane was a terrific writer in his own right. His political essays were “like razor blades in print,” [Samantha] Subramanian says. His science essays were superb [...]

At his best, Haldane was a heroic example of the scientist as activist, humanist and idealist. “He felt, as we now feel afresh in our century,” Subramanian writes, “that nations were held rapt by the wealthy, that they were warmongering and venal, that they placed the narrow interests of the powerful above the well-being of the powerless.” Many of his views on class and race have aged well. But he picked petty fights wherever he went; and he championed the Soviet Union long after Stalin began slaughtering his people and murdering his geneticists. Haldane put himself through disgraceful intellectual contortions to defend Stalinist pseudoscience. [...]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/books/review/a-dominant-character-haldane-samanth-subramanian.html