Joseph L. Graves Jr.

Last updated
Joseph L. Graves Jr.
Born1955 (age 68–69)
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Oberlin College (BA)
Wayne State University (PhD)
Occupation(s) Evolutionary biologist and Geneticist

Joseph L. Graves Jr. (born 1955) is an American evolutionary biologist and geneticist. He is a professor of biological science at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and a former associate dean for research at the Joint School for Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, which is jointly administered by North Carolina A & T State University and UNC Greensboro. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

His past research has included an examination of the evolution and physiological performance in Drosophila , a genus of small flies often called fruit flies. His work includes the genomics of adaptation, as well as the response of bacteria to metallic nanoparticles. A particular application of this research has been to the evolutionary theory of aging. [1]

Drawing upon his background in evolutionary biology and genetics, he has also written two books that address myths and theories of race in American society. Graves has made appearances in six documentary films on these topics.

He has been a principal investigator on grants from the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Arizona Disease Research Commission, and is a Fellow of the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. [4] [2]

Early life and education

Graves was born in 1955 and received his B.A. in biology from Oberlin College in 1977 and his PhD from Wayne State University in 1988. [5]

Childhood experiences shaped Graves' interest in race and racism: "My parents were poor. They didn't know how to read. I had to teach myself how to read," he says. "The school system of my home was racially biased. When I was in kindergarten teachers wanted to declare me mentally retarded so that I could be placed in a special education curriculum. The regular curriculum had a tracking system," Graves continues. "For no apparent reason, all the black kids ended up in the lower track." But, by graduation day, years later, Graves had risen to be among the highest ranked students at his high school. He accepted an academic scholarship to attend Oberlin College and graduated from there with an A.B. in Biology in 1977. His next two years were spent at the Institute for Tropical Disease at the University of Lowell. He then earned a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship to begin his PhD work at the University of Michigan in 1979. He completed his PhD in Evolutionary, Environmental, and Systematic Biology at Wayne State University in 1988. This work afforded him the prestigious President's Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California, Irvine from 1988 to 1990.

Career

Graves joined the faculty at the University of California, Irvine in 1990. Afterward he held positions at the University of California, Irvine; at the West campus of Arizona State University, with a joint appointment in African American Studies at the main campus of Arizona State University in Tempe; and as University Core Director at Fairleigh Dickinson University, before finally receiving his joint appointment to North Carolina A & T State University and UNC Greensboro.

Research

Most Americans still believe that there is some biological legitimacy to our socially constructed racial categories. However, our modern scientific understanding of human genetic diversity flies in the face of all of our social stereotypes.

— Joseph L. Graves, Jr. [6]

Working with Laurence D. Mueller, Graves found that population density is an important factor in determining both the immediate chances of survival and the course of natural selection for small organisms such as fruit flies. [7] In "Chance, Development, and Aging", Human Biology December 2001, Graves wrote that the explanation of individual patterns of aging must take into account subtle mechanisms such as extensive chance variations in cell number and connections, in cell fates during differentiation, and in physiological patterns that arise during development. Graves has studied the tiny insects for more than a decade in pursuit of greater understanding of senescence, the process of aging.

In addition to the study of aging, Graves is interested in the history and philosophy of science as it relates to the biology of race and racism in western society. [8] He has received a fair amount of attention from the press for his writings on this topic, especially his strong statements about the socially constructed nature of race. [9] [10] [11] According to his profile on the University of North Carolina Minority Health Project website, he believes:

there are still significant academic and popular views of race that are mired in the biological determinism of the 19th century and the application of proper scientific method and philosophy, along with quantitative genetics reveals the underlying racist ideology of these programs. [12]

Personal life

In addition to his research interests, Graves has also been an active participant in the struggle to protect and improve the teaching of science in the public schools. [13] He advocates discussing human biological variation and race in high school and college science curricula. [14]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

John Philippe Rushton was a Canadian psychologist and author. He taught at the University of Western Ontario until the early 1990s, and became known to the general public during the 1980s and 1990s for research on race and intelligence, race and crime, and other purported racial correlations.

Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of various kinds, including those characterized by close kinship relations. By the 17th century, the term began to refer to physical (phenotypical) traits, and then later to national affiliations. Modern science regards race as a social construct, an identity which is assigned based on rules made by society. While partly based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning. The concept of race is foundational to racism, the belief that humans can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Lewontin</span> American evolutionary biologist and mathematician (1929–2021)

Richard Charles Lewontin was an American evolutionary biologist, mathematician, geneticist, and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, he applied techniques from molecular biology, such as gel electrophoresis, to questions of genetic variation and evolution.

The concept of race as a categorization of anatomically modern humans has an extensive history in Europe and the Americas. The contemporary word race itself is modern; historically it was used in the sense of "nation, ethnic group" during the 16th to 19th centuries. Race acquired its modern meaning in the field of physical anthropology through scientific racism starting in the 19th century. With the rise of modern genetics, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete. In 2019, the American Association of Biological Anthropologists stated: "The belief in 'races' as natural aspects of human biology, and the structures of inequality (racism) that emerge from such beliefs, are among the most damaging elements in the human experience both today and in the past."

Steven Peter Russell Rose is an English neuroscientist, author, and social commentator. He is an emeritus professor of biology and neurobiology at the Open University and Gresham College, London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">G. Ledyard Stebbins</span> American botanist and geneticist (1906-2000)

George Ledyard Stebbins Jr. was an American botanist and geneticist who is widely regarded as one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. Stebbins received his Ph.D. in botany from Harvard University in 1931. He went on to the University of California, Berkeley, where his work with E. B. Babcock on the genetic evolution of plant species, and his association with a group of evolutionary biologists known as the Bay Area Biosystematists, led him to develop a comprehensive synthesis of plant evolution incorporating genetics.

William McGinnis is an American molecular biologist who is a professor of biology at the University of California San Diego. At UC San Diego he has also served as the Chairman of the Department of Biology from July 1998 to June 1999, as Associate Dean of the Division of Natural Sciences from July 1, 1999 to June 2000, and as Interim Dean of the newly established Division of Biological Sciences from July 1, 2000 to February 1, 2001. McGinnis was appointed Dean of the Divisional Biological Sciences on July 1, 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Simberloff</span> American ecologist and professor

Daniel Simberloff is an American biologist and ecologist. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1969. He is currently Gore Hunger Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Tennessee, editor-in-chief of the journal Biological Invasions, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francisco J. Ayala</span> Philosopher and biologist (1934–2023)

Francisco José Ayala Pereda was a Spanish-American evolutionary biologist and philosopher who was a longtime faculty member at the University of California, Irvine, and University of California, Davis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Sloan Wilson</span> American biologist (born 1949)

David Sloan Wilson is an American evolutionary biologist and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He is a son of author Sloan Wilson, a co-founder of the Evolution Institute, and a co-founder of the spinoff nonprofit Prosocial World. He has studied social evolution in Binghamton.

David Burton Wake was an American herpetologist. He was professor of integrative biology and Director and curator of herpetology of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley. Wake is known for his work on the biology and evolution of salamanders as well as general issues of vertebrate evolutionary biology. He has served as president of the Society for the Study of Evolution, the American Society of Naturalists, and American Society of Zoologists. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Linnean Society of London, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and in 1998 was elected into the National Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the 2006 Leidy Award from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernest Everett Just</span> American biologist (1883–1941)

Ernest Everett Just was a pioneering biologist, academic and science writer. Just's primary legacy is his recognition of the fundamental role of the cell surface in the development of organisms. In his work within marine biology, cytology and parthenogenesis, he advocated the study of whole cells under normal conditions, rather than simply breaking them apart in a laboratory setting.

Michael R. Rose is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine.

Jeffery Lee Dangl is an American biologist. He is currently John N. Couch Professor of Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Theodore Garland Jr. is a biologist specializing in evolutionary physiology at the University of California, Riverside.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grover C. Stephens</span>

Grover Cleveland Stephens, Jr., was an American marine biologist and comparative physiologist at the University of Minnesota and the University of California, Irvine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan H. Goodman</span>

Alan H. Goodman is a biological anthropologist and author. He served as president of the American Anthropological Association from 2005 to 2007. With Yolanda Moses, he co-directs the American Anthropological Association's Public Education Project on Race. His teaching, research and writing focuses on understanding how poverty, inequality and racism “get under the skin.” He received his PhD from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Goodman was a pre-doctoral research fellow in stress physiology at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm and a postdoctoral fellow in international nutrition at the University of Connecticut and the Salvador Zubirán National Institute of Health Sciences and Nutrition, Mexico.

Paul E. Turner is an American evolutionary biologist and virologist, the Rachel Carson Professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale University, and a faculty member in microbiology at the Yale School of Medicine. His research focuses on the evolutionary genetics of viruses, particularly bacteriophages and RNA viruses transmitted by mosquitoes.

Travis E. Huxman is an American plant physiological ecologist.

Albert Farrell Bennett is an American zoologist, physiologist, evolutionary biologist, author, and academic. He is Dean Emeritus of the School of Biological Sciences at University of California, Irvine.

References

  1. 1 2 "Joseph L. Graves". North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.
  2. 1 2 "Dr. Joseph L. Graves, Jr". EVOS: Evolutionary Studies Program at Binghamton University.
  3. ↑ "Dr. Joseph L. Graves Lecture". Dartmouth College. 4 January 2018.
  4. ↑ "Joseph L. Graves". This View of Life.
  5. ↑ "Joseph L. Graves Jr. (1955 - )". University of Washington.
  6. ↑ Graves, Joseph L (January 1, 2002). "The Biological Case Against Race" (PDF). American Outlook. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 15, 2006. Retrieved November 15, 2006.
  7. ↑ "Population density effects on longevity" Genetica Volume 91, Numbers 1-3 / February 1993
  8. ↑ Graves, Joseph (15 January 2019). "James Watson's racism is a product of his time -- but that doesn't excuse it". CNN. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
  9. ↑ "Science can be used for oppression or liberation". SocialistWorker.org. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
  10. ↑ "Evolutionary Biologist Puts Agassiz's Views on Race Under Microscope | News | The Harvard Crimson". www.thecrimson.com. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
  11. ↑ "An intelligent argument on race". www.insidehighered.com. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
  12. ↑ Graves profile at the University of North Carolina's Minority Health Project
  13. ↑ Joseph L. Graves, Jr., Ph.D. Archived 2007-06-22 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ↑ "Why We Should Teach Our Students about Race." Reports of the National Center for Science Education, v22 n3 p23-26 May–June 2002
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.