Richard Levins

Richard Levins
Levins in 2015
BornJune 1, 1930
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
DiedJanuary 19, 2016(2016-01-19) (aged 85)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Ethnicity
Ukrainian Jewish heritage
Alma materCornell University (agriculture and mathematics),
Columbia University
Known formathematical ecology, political activism, population genetics,
evolution in changing environments, farming in Cuba, and metapopulations (a Marxist theory of biology)
Societies
US National Academy of Sciences (resigned), Cuban Academy of Sciences, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
* American Public Health Association
Spouse(s)Rosario Morales (1950), died 2011; 3 children: Aurora Levins Morales, born February 24, 1954, Indiera Baja, Maricao, Puerto Rico, Ricardo Levins Morales,[1] Alejandro 'Jandro' Levins[2]
Scientific career
Fieldsmathematical ecology, evolutionary biology, scientific modelling, loop analysis, complexity, philosophy of science, “looking at the whole”
InstitutionsUniversity of Puerto Rico (1961 to 1967),
University of Havana,
New York University,
University of Chicago,
Harvard University,
Harvard School of Public Health
ThesisTheory of fitness in a heterogeneous environment, published by Essex Institute, New York, 1965 (1965)
External image
image icon Dr. Richard Levins, teaching

Richard Levins (June 1, 1930 – January 19, 2016)[3] was a Marxist biologist, a population geneticist, biomathematician, mathematical ecologist, and philosopher of science[4][5][6] who researched diversity in human populations. Until his death, Levins was a university professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a long-time political activist. He was best known for his work on evolution and complexity in changing environments and on metapopulations.

Levins also had written on philosophical issues in biology and modelling. One of his influential articles is "The Strategy of Model Building in Population Biology". He has influenced a number of contemporary philosophers of biology.[citation needed] Levins often boasted publicly that he was a 'fourth generation Marxist' and often had said that the methodology in his Evolution in Changing Environments was based upon the introduction to Marx's Grundrisse, the author's notes (not published until 1939) for Das Kapital. With the evolutionary geneticist Richard Lewontin, Levins had written a number of articles on methodology, philosophy, and social implications of biology. Many of these are collected in The Dialectical Biologist. In 2007, the duo published a second thematic collection of essays titled Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on Ecology, Agriculture, and Health.[7]

Also with Lewontin, Levins had co-authored a number of satirical articles criticizing sociobiology, systems modeling in ecology, and other topics under the pseudonym Isadore Nabi.

  1. ^ "Ricardo Levins Morales Art Store - Political Art Posters, Note Cards, Buttons Minneapolis, MN RLM Arts".
  2. ^ LinkedIn profile of Alejandro Levins
  3. ^ In memoriam: Richard Levins, ecologist, biomathematician, and philosopher of science
  4. ^ Weisberg, Michael (2006). "Richard Levins' Philosophy of Science". Biology and Philosophy. 21 (5): 603–605. doi:10.1007/s10539-006-9048-4.
  5. ^ Wimsatt, William (2001). "Richard Levins as Philosophical Revolutionary". Biology & Philosophy. 16: 103–108. doi:10.1023/A:1006616300969.
  6. ^ Winther, Rasmus Grønfeldt (2007). "On the dangers of making scientific models ontologically independent: Taking Richard Levins' warnings seriously". Biology & Philosophy. 21 (5): 703–724. doi:10.1007/s10539-006-9053-7.
  7. ^ Lewontin, Richard; Levins, Richard (November 2007). Biology Under the Influence: Dialectical Essays on the Coevolution of Nature and Society. NYU Press. ISBN 978-1583671573.