John Baker (biologist)

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Dr. John Randal Baker F.R.S. (1900-1984) was a biologist, physical anthropologist, and professor at the University of Oxford (where he was the Emeritus Reader in Cytology) in the mid-twentieth century. He is best remembered for his 1974 book Race, which attempts to classify human races in the same way that animal subspecies are classified.

In Race, Baker explores the nature of civilization, giving 23 criteria that can readily identify them. He explores relations between the physical/biological traits and the cultures of five civilizations. Based on these criteria, Baker declared that Mesoamerican societies such as the Aztecs and Maya were not civilizations, and that no indigenous civilizations ever arose in Africa, extremely controversial views that do not at all agree with conventional ideas about those regions. Baker rejected the methodological relativism that has characterized anthropology since the days of Franz Boas, instead going back to earlier ideas of biological determinism and cultural evolution.

[edit] Works

Sex in man and animals ... with a preface by Julian S. Huxley, 1926
Man and animals in the New Hebrides, 1929
Cytological technique, 1933
Biology in everyday life, 1934
Chemical control of conception, with a chapter by H. M. Carleton, 1935
Scientific life, 1942
Science and the planned state, 1945
Discovery of the uses of colouring agents in biological micro-technique, 1945
Path of science, by C.E. Kenneth Mees ... with the cooperation of John R. Baker ... 1946
Principles of biological microtechnique; a study of fixation and dyeing, 1958
Cytological technique; the principles underlying routine methods, 1960
Cell structure and its interpretation; essays presented to John Randal Baker, F.R.S. Edited by S. M. McGee-Russell and K. F. A. Ross, 1968
Race, 1974
Evolution : the modern synthesis by Julian Huxley ; with a new introd. edited by John R. Baker, 1974
Freedom of science, 1975
Julian Huxley, scientist and world citizen, 1887 to 1975 : a biographical memoir, with a bibliography compiled by Jens-Peter Green, 1978
Biology of parasitic protozoa, 1982
Cell theory : a restatement, history, and critique, 1988