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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 career, he wrote upwards of 500 academic articles Glass published Genes and The Man in 1943 to explain genetics to a wider audience He served as editor of the Quarterly Review of Biology 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 science issues for the Baltimore Evening Sun
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His scientific work included developing theories on genetic drift, or how often changes in traits appear within a given population He also served on the Atomic Energy Commission as an advisor in the 1950s on issues surrounding the impact of radiation on living organisms It was Glass who implanted the idea in the American imagination that roaches, with their abilities to withstand radiation, may be the only survivors of a nuclear holocaust
He was outspoken on a variety of scientific issues He called for nuclear disarmament in the 1960s He condemned eugenics laws that sterilized groups for perceived genetic weaknesses He served a president of more than half a dozen scientific groups throughout his career As he had throughout much of his career, he continued to write and speak about ethical issues in science and research, publishing Science and Ethical Values in 1965 and The Ethical Basis of Science in 1969
Glass took controversial stands
He served as president of the Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1955 to 1965 Some of his predictions, such as his belief that people may one day have to undergo genetic testing before they had children, caused much controversy as well as his prediction of the advent of test-tube babies
In 1965, Glass left Johns Hopkins to take the role of academic vicepresident and biology professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook He continued to work to educate not only the next generation of scientists but the public at large In 1967, he stated in an interview, “If we are going to build a civilization based on science, then the man in the street is going to have to learn what science is ”
He stepped down from his administrative role in 1971 and retired from teaching in 1976 at the age of 70, but he continued to work His mind and drive remained strong For the next 19 years, he worked as an archivist at the
American Philosophical Library in Philadelphia, commuting more than 100 miles each way from his home outside New York City to Pennsylvania At the age of 89, he retired for good He lived a quiet life in retirement in Boulder, Colorado He died one day before his ninety-ninth birthday in 2005 He left a large legacy in the popular mind about science, having worked for his lifelong goals he described as “educating laymen in the questing spirit of science and reminding science of its social responsibility"
