Charles Birch

Louis Charles Birch FAA (8 February 1918, Melbourne – 19 December 2009) was an Australian geneticist specialising in population ecology and was also well known as a theologian, writing widely on the topic of science and religion, winning the Templeton Prize in 1990.^[1] The prize recognised his work ascribing intrinsic value to all life.

Birch was educated at University of Melbourne, receiving a Bachelor's of Agricultural Science in 1939, and his first job was in the entomology department at the Waite Agricultural Research Institute in the University of Adelaide, where he earned a Doctorate of Science in 1941.^[2] During his six years of entomological research with his then-supervisor, Herbert Andrewartha, with whom he forged a close relationship, Birch demonstrated that external processes, driven by weather and other types of disturbance, were vastly important in controlling the numbers and distribution of animals. This radical challenge to the prevailing views, namely that populations were self-regulating based on competition for limited resources, would be one of Birch's major and enduring contributions to the science of ecology.^[3]

In 1948, Birch became a senior lecturer in the Department of Zoology at the University of Sydney. Birch was later promoted to a Readership in Zoology in 1954 and then the Challis Chair of Biology, which he held from1960 through 1984.^[4]

Publications

• The Distribution and Abundance of Animals, with H. G. Andrewartha. University of Chicago Press, 1954
• Nature and God, SCM Press, 1965
• Confronting the Future: Australia and the world: the next hundred years, Penguin Books, 1975 (2nd edition 1993) ISBN 0-14-021937-4
• Genetics and the Quality of Life, with Paul Abrecht. Pergamon Press, 1975. ISBN 0-08-018210-0
• Another Australia in a Just and Sustainable Global Society: An Address University of Newcastle, 1976.
• The Liberation of Life: From the Cell to the Community, with John B. Cobb Jr., Cambridge University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-521-23787-4
• The Ecological Web: more on the distribution and abundance of animals, with H. G. Andrewartha. University of Chicago Press, 1984. ISBN 0-226-02033-9
• Liberating Life: Contemporary Approaches to Ecological Theory, Orbis, 1990 ISBN 0-88344-689-8
• On Purpose, UNSW Press, 1990. ISBN 0-86840-371-7 (published in the USA as A Purpose for Everything: Religion in a Postmodern World View, Twentythird Publications, 1990. ISBN 0-89622-453-8)
• Regaining Compassion for Humanity and Nature, UNSW Press, 1993. ISBN 0-86840-213-3
• Feelings, UNSW Press, 1995. ISBN 0-86840-151-X
• Living With the Animals: The Community of God's Creatures, with Lukas Vischer. Risk Book Series, World Council of Churches, 1996. ISBN 2-8254-1227-9
• Biology and the Riddle of Life, co-published by UNSW Press (Australia), 1999. ISBN 0-86840-785-2
• Life and Work: Challenging Economic Man, with David Paul. UNSW Press, 2003. ISBN 0-86840-670-8
• Science and Soul, co-published by UNSW Press (Australia), 2007 and Templeton Foundation Press (USA), 2008. ISBN 978-0-86840-958-0

References

External links

• Australian Biography - Charles Birch
• Why I became a Panexperientialist by Charles Birch
• Charles Birch, Science and Soul - Charles Birch interviewed by Stephen Crittenden on The Religion Report, ABC Radio National, 19 December 2007
• Obituary - Sydney Morning Herald 23 December 2009