John Burdon Sanderson Haldane (1892-1964) was an English biologist who utilized mathematical analysis to study genetic phenomena and their relation to evolution.

Born at Oxford on Nov. 5, 1892, J. B. S. Haldane was the son of John Scott Haldane, a distinguished physiologist. Educated at Eton and Oxford, Haldane taught at Oxford (1919-1922), Cambridge (1922-1933), and the University of London (1933-1957), where he was elected the first Weldon professor of genetics in 1957. A lifelong Marxist, he was a member of the British Communist party, and for a number of years he was also chairman of the editorial board of the Daily Worker, the party's newspaper. In 1950, following his differences with Soviet geneticists, he resigned from the party.

Refusing to live in what he called "a criminal and police state that had attacked Egypt," Haldane emigrated to India in 1957 and became the director of the Orissa State Government Genetics and Biometry...