howeenterprise.com
Monday, August 7, 2017
Page #10
Texas History Minute In 1948, Glass became a professor of genetics at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He became an active member of the community and served on the Baltimore Board of School Commissioners from 1954 to 1958, guiding the local schools through the early years of desegregation. Glass also steadily built a reputation among academics and the general public alike for his work. Throughout his Dr. Ken Bridges career, he wrote upwards of 500 academic articles. Glass published Dr. Bridges is a Texas native, Genes and The Man in 1943 to writer, and history professor. He explain genetics to a wider audience. He served as editor of can be reached at the Quarterly Review of Biology drkenbridges@gmail.com. for 42 years from 1944 until 1986. He also served as editor of the respected journal Science in 1953. In addition, he wrote a column on H. Bentley Glass was at one time science issues for the Baltimore one of the most famous scientists Evening Sun. in the nation. His life was a journey that began with missionary His scientific work included parents and a Texas education. developing theories on genetic Glass traveled the world, wrote volumes of books, made important drift, or how often changes in traits appear within a given population. scientific discoveries, and in the 1950s and 1960s, helped the entire He also served on the Atomic nation start thinking about science Energy Commission as an advisor in the 1950s on issues surrounding and the ethics of the latest the impact of radiation on living discoveries. organisms. It was Glass who His parents, both devout Baptists, implanted the idea in the American imagination that roaches, with were from Texas and went to their abilities to withstand China to serve as missionaries. radiation, may be the only Glass was born in Yeshien, in eastern China, in 1906. Because of survivors of a nuclear holocaust. his parent’s work serving the spiritual and physical needs of the He was outspoken on a variety of people of China, he spent most of scientific issues. He called for nuclear disarmament in the 1960s. his childhood there. He condemned eugenics laws that When it was time to start college, sterilized groups for perceived Glass moved to Texas. He enrolled genetic weaknesses. He served a president of more than half a at Decatur Baptist College in dozen scientific groups throughout Decatur before transferring to Baylor University in Waco. After his career. As he had throughout much of his career, he continued to earning a bachelors degree in biology, he taught school briefly in write and speak about ethical the small town of Timpson in East issues in science and research, publishing Science and Ethical Texas. He returned to Baylor to Values in 1965 and The Ethical complete a masters degree in Basis of Science in 1969. biology before enrolling at the University of Texas where he earned his doctorate in genetics in Glass took controversial stands. He served as president of the 1932. Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1955 to He went to Berlin for a few years 1965. Some of his predictions, to conduct research at the Kaiser such as his belief that people may Wilhelm Institute, where he was one day have to undergo genetic disturbed by the purge of Jews testing before they had children, from academic and research caused much controversy as well positions as Nazi rule took root. as his prediction of the advent of He left Germany quickly and test-tube babies. worked briefly as a researcher in Missouri before beginning teaching In 1965, Glass left Johns Hopkins at Stephens College in central Missouri. Before long, he accepted to take the role of academic vicepresident and biology professor at a position at Goucher College in the State University of New York Baltimore, Maryland.
© 2017 The Howe Enterprise
American Philosophical Library in at Stony Brook. He continued to Philadelphia, commuting more than work to educate not only the next 100 miles each way from his home generation of scientists but the public at large. In 1967, he stated in outside New York City to Pennsylvania. At the age of 89, he an interview, “If we are going to build a civilization based on science, retired for good. He lived a quiet then the man in the street is going to life in retirement in Boulder, Colorado. He died one day before have to learn what science is.” his ninety-ninth birthday in 2005. He left a large legacy in the popular He stepped down from his mind about science, having worked administrative role in 1971 and retired from teaching in 1976 at the for his lifelong goals he described age of 70, but he continued to work. as “educating laymen in the questing spirit of science and His mind and drive remained reminding science of its social strong. For the next 19 years, he responsibility." worked as an archivist at the
a
