J.B.S. Haldane as I knew him, with a brief account of his contribution to mutation research

J.B.S. Haldane made important contributions to several sciences although he did not possess an academic qualification in any branch of science. A classical scholar, who grew up in a scientific household in Oxford, Haldane was taught the principles of scientific experimentation from his childhood by his father, the distinguished physiologist John Scott Haldane. Collaborating with his father, Haldane contributed to respiratory physiology but soon switched to genetics, especially population genetics. He investigated mathematically the dynamics of selection – mutation balance in populations – concluding that it is mutation that determines the course of evolution. Besides genetics, Haldane was noted for his important contributions to enzyme kinetics, origin of life, biometry, cybernetics, cosmology and deep sea diving, among others.