Raymond Pearl was an American biologist, who was born in the 3rd of June, 1879. He was considered to be one of the renowned founders of biogerontology. He passed most parts of his career at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Raymond Pearl was a fertile writer of various academic books, articles and papers and a dedicated populariser and a good communicator of science. At his death, in the 17th of November, 1940, 841 publications were named to honor him.
Raymond Pearl was born in an upper-middle class family in New England. He stood out among the top meritorious students at school, then he went to the Dartmouth College where achieved his PhD. Pearl then spent a year studying under Karl Pearson at University College, London in 1906. At that time he discovered biometry, which appeared to provide a solution to the problems he was occupied with in zoology, biology and eugenics. After returning to the US, he continued with his interests, but it was changed from biometry to Mendelian genetics.
Raymond Pearl maintained a light interest in eugenics, but in 1927 he published one of the best articles, The Biology of Superiority, which put several questions on the basic assumptions of eugenics.
It was the first attack on eugenics by someone comprehended as being a part of the movement. It also added to the initiation of population control movement and reform eugenics, in which Pearl played a valuable part by founding the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population Problems.
In spite of his seeming rejection of eugenics, Raymond Pearl maintained comparatively good relations with some of the major eugenicists and was never shy of conveying highly snobbish and class-oriented views. He made various statements which were represented as being anti-Semitic. On the other hand, Pearl worked as an advisor for the Black civil rights groups. The scientific interests of Pearl which also include his love of statistics indicate that, had he lived, he would surely have secured the top position of population genetics which was rising at the time with valuable contributions from J. B. S. Haldane, Ronald Fisher and Sewall Wright.
In 1926 Raymond Pearl founded, the Quarterly Review of Biology. In 1908 Max Rubner found from his observation that mammals of different longevity and size had same mass specific metabolic output. Longevity of fruit flies depends upon ambient temperature inversely. Partly based on this theory, Raymond Pearl also affirmed that most of the life span is inversely proportional to the basic metabolic rate. Pearl consented to the ideas of Alexis Carrel that normal somatic cells do not age and aging is thus a process which occurs due to some dysfunction at the level of the body. Pearl had a speculation that the lifespan of different living beings was determined by some of the vital cell components that were exhausted or damaged more rapidly in animals due to a faster metabolic rate.
Raymond Pearl was popularly known for his outlook of life and his passion for drink, food, music and parties. He was an important member of the Saturday Night Club which also had H. L. Mencken. Prohibition made no scratch in the drinking habits of Pearl. In 1926, one of the books of Pearl, Alcohol and Longevity, exhibited that drinking of alcohol in moderation is connected with greater longevity than either drinking heavily or abstaining from it. In 1938, Pearl?s work and data presented the negative health effects due to the smoking of tobacco. In the 17th of November, 1940 Pearl complained of chest pain and died later on that day.
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