Jerry Hirsch

Jerome Edwin Hirsch (September 20, 1922 – May 3, 2008) was an American psychologist known for his pioneering work in behavior genetics, and for his advocacy for social justice.[1][2][3] He has been described as "the pioneer who brought quantitative genetic analysis to the study of behavior."[4]

Jerry Hirsch
Born(1922-09-20)September 20, 1922
Manhattan, New York City, New York
DiedMay 3, 2008(2008-05-03) (aged 85)
Urbana, Illinois
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley
Awards2006 Dobzhansky Award from the Behavior Genetics Association
Scientific career
FieldsBehavior genetics
InstitutionsColumbia University
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
ThesisThe determinants of learning without awareness (1955)
Notable studentsTim Tully
InfluencesEdward C. Tolman
Robert Tryon
Theodosius Dobzhansky

Biography

He was born on September 20, 1922 in Manhattan, New York City.[3]

Hirsch began his interest in behavior genetics in the 1950s, as a student at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied under Edward C. Tolman and Robert Tryon.[5] From 1956 to 1960, he was an assistant professor at Columbia University, where he worked alongside Theodosius Dobzhansky.[3] He later conducted multiple influential studies on the genetic origins of behaviors in Drosophila melanogaster, Dobzhansky's favorite species.[5][6] He subsequently continued this research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,[4] where he became an associate professor of psychology and zoology in 1960. He became a full professor of psychology there in 1963, of zoology in 1966, and of ecology, ethology, and evolution in 1976.[7] On March 30, 1970, he hosted the founding meeting of the Behavior Genetics Association at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[8] He was the editor-in-chief of Animal Behaviour from 1968 to 1972[3] and of the Journal of Comparative Psychology from 1983 to 1988.[9] He retired from the University of Illinois in 1993, and remained an active emeritus professor there until 2004.[7]

He died on May 3, 2008 at his home in Urbana, Illinois.[3]

Criticism of hereditarians

Hirsch was an early and vocal critic of the work of Arthur Jensen, who argued that group differences in educational ability were heritable. Hirsch argued that Jensen's work was a misuse and misrepresentation of behavior genetics[10] and that Jensen's "avowed goals" were "as heinously barbaric as were Hitler's and the anti-abolitionists".[11] In the mid-1960s, William Shockley tried to convince Hirsch to support his views on the heritability of racial differences in IQ. This attempt was unsuccessful, and Hirsch subsequently called the nature-nurture debate a "pseudo-question".[12]

References
  1. "Examining Group Behavior on the Fly". Frontiers Magazine. 2009. Retrieved 2017-09-07.
  2. "Jerry Hirsch (1922-2008)". Institute for the Study of Academic Racism. Retrieved 2017-09-07.
  3. Wahlsten, D.; McGuire, T. R. (2008-11-01). "Obituary". Genes, Brain and Behavior. 7 (8): 833–835. doi:10.1111/j.1601-183X.2008.00437.x. ISSN 1601-183X.
  4. Greenspan, Ralph J. (2008-03-11). "The origins of behavioral genetics". Current Biology. 18 (5): R192–R198. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2008.01.015. PMID 18334190. S2CID 16125328.
  5. Tully, Tim (1996-11-26). "Discovery of genes involved with learning and memory: An experimental synthesis of Hirschian and Benzerian perspectives". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 93 (24): 13460–13467. Bibcode:1996PNAS...9313460T. doi:10.1073/pnas.93.24.13460. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 33631. PMID 8942957.
  6. Mestel, Rosie (2002-06-03). "Fly Trials of 1950s Evolve". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2017-09-07.
  7. "Jerry Hirsch CV" (PDF).
  8. "Founding of the behavior genetics association". Social Biology. 17 (2): 147–148. June 1970. doi:10.1080/19485565.1970.9987863. ISSN 0037-766X.
  9. Roubertoux, Pierre L. (2008-10-05). "Jerry Hirsch (20 September 1922–3 May 2008): A Tribute". Behavior Genetics. 38 (6): 561–564. doi:10.1007/s10519-008-9231-2. ISSN 0001-8244. PMID 18836858. S2CID 45682729.
  10. Panofsky, Aaron (2014-07-07). Misbehaving Science: Controversy and the Development of Behavior Genetics. University of Chicago Press. p. 80. ISBN 9780226058597.
  11. Hunt, Morton (2017-09-29). The New Know-nothings: The Political Foes of the Scientific Study of Human Nature. Routledge. pp. 73–74. ISBN 9781351478632.
  12. Tucker, William H. (1996). The Science and Politics of Racial Research. University of Illinois Press. p. 195. ISBN 9780252065606.
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