Name John Heslop-Harrison Notable awards Royal Society | ||
Died January 23, 1967, Birtley, United Kingdom |
John William Heslop Harrison, FRS (1881–1967), was Professor of Botany at King's College, Durham University (now Newcastle University), best remembered for an alleged academic fraud.
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Isle of Rum
Heslop Harrison, an established academic and Fellow of the Royal Society, was in 1948 accused by John Raven, a University of Cambridge classics tutor, of making false claims to have discovered certain plant species on the Isle of Rum on the west coast of Scotland. Whether or not such grasses were on Rum is pivotal to a theory that the islands escaped the last ice age. The fraud claim is described — and its veracity supported — in Karl Sabbagh's book, A Rum Affair. Recently more proof about forgeries committed by Heslop-Harrison emerged.
Lamarckian experiments
Heslop Harrison was described as a loner who avoided as much contact as possible with other professionals and conducted most of his experiments at his home in Birtley, Tyne and Wear. He was a supporter of Lamarckian evolution from his experiments with moths and sawflies. According to researcher Michael A. Salmon "Heslop Harrison claimed to have experimental proof that physical changes in the life of an individual moth or sawfly could be passed on to its progeny, according to the theory of Lamarck... For example, Heslop Harrison thought that melanism resulted from the effect of pollution on individual moths which somehow altered their genes. When others attempted to repeat his experiment, however, they always seemed to come up with different results."
In the 1920s, Heslop Harrison conducted experiments on the peppered moth, claiming to have evidence for the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Other scientists failed to replicate his results. His experiments were criticized by J. B. S. Haldane.
Family
Heslop Harrison's fourth son was Jack Heslop-Harrison who became director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1970. His daughter Helena married the botanist William Andrew Clark.