University of Heidelberg, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
Richard entered the University of Heidelberg in 1896, and among his professors were the great Otto Bütschli and Karl Gegenbaur. In 1902, at Heidelberg, he defended his thesis.
Gallery of Richard Goldschmidt
1 Geschwister-Scholl-Platz, 80539 Munich, Germany
From 1898 to 1901 Richard studied at the University of Munich, where Richard Hertwig was teaching.
University of Heidelberg, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
Richard entered the University of Heidelberg in 1896, and among his professors were the great Otto Bütschli and Karl Gegenbaur. In 1902, at Heidelberg, he defended his thesis.
Richard Goldschmidt was a German-born American zoologist and geneticist. His experimental work in genetics led to the recognition that genes control important factors in embryonic development and thus in evolution.
Background
Richard Goldschmidt was born on April 12, 1878, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He was the son of Solomon and Emma (Flürscheim) Goldschmidt. He belonged to a very old German-Jewish family that had included scientists, artists, bankers, and industrialists. His father managed a coffeehouse combined with a wine trade and a confectionery.
Education
Richard attended the Gymnasium in Frankfurt. He entered the University of Heidelberg in 1896, and among his professors were the great Otto Bütschli and Karl Gegenbaur. In 1898 he continued his studies at the University of Munich (now Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München), where Richard Hertwig was teaching. In 1902, at Heidelberg, he defended his thesis on the maturation, fertilization, and embryonic development of the worm Polystomum integerrimum. He later received Honorary Doctor of Medicine from the University of Kiel in 1929 and Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Madrid in 1934.
In 1903 Goldschmidt became Hertwig’s assistant and in 1904, a Privatdozent. He remained at Munich until 1913. In that year Theodor Boveri and Carl Correns organized the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Biology in Berlin. Goldschmidt was appointed director of the genetics department, a post that he was to hold until 1935.
Having received a grant from the Club Autour du Monde Goldschmidt went to Japan in order to continue his research. When World War I broke out he was in Honolulu and went from there to San Francisco. He was detained in the United States, where he worked at various universities. In 1917 he was placed in an internment camp and finally was repatriated to Germany. In 1935, when conditions for Jewish scientists had become impossible under the Nazi regime, Goldschmidt decided to leave Germany. He received offers from England and Turkey, but he accepted a professorship at the University of California and left for America in July 1936. He began a new life in Berkeley, where he remained until his death. He rapidly organized a laboratory and formed a group of students and friends.
A zoologist, biologist, and geneticist of exceptional ability, an original thinker, a great traveler, and an indefatigable worker, Goldschmidt produced more than 250 memoirs and articles and about twenty books. Very broad general knowledge combined with great specialization enabled him to interpret new facts and to study individual problems thoroughly. Three orientations emerge quite clearly. He was interested at first in morphological problems and in the cytology, fertilization, meiosis, histology, comparative anatomy, and embryology of the trematodes, nematodes (Ascaris), and the Acrania. From the time of his appointment at Munich he was concerned with many students who were preparing dissertations. In 1906 he provided them with a vehicle for publication by founding a new journal, Archiv für Zellforschung.
During the same period Goldschmidt undertook a series of researches on moths of the genus Lymantria. The work lasted for twenty-five years. He was interested in a problem of microevolution: industrial melanism. Through recognizing that the melanic mutant possesses a selective advantage, he became one of the pioneers of population genetics. He postulated the existence of macromutants, produced by alteration of the early embryonic processes. These he called “hopeful monsters.”
As early as 1916 Goldschmidt had fashioned a physiological theory of heredity (one gene, one enzyme). He published it only in 1920 in a book which marks the beginning of physiological genetics. At this time he left the Lymantria, which had been widely studied, and selected the Drosophila for examination.
With this change in material the third major period of research began. Goldschmidt studied the physiological genetics of the Drosophila and established that in the vestigial series the genetically controlled clipping of the wings can be influenced by the introduction of dominance modifiers.
Goldschmidt is usually referred to as a "non-Darwinian." However, he did not object to the general microevolutionary principles of the Darwinians. He veered from the synthetic theory only in his belief that a new species develops suddenly through discontinuous variation, or macromutation. Goldschmidt believed that the neo-Darwinian view of gradual accumulation of small mutations was important but could account for variation only within species (microevolution) and was not a powerful enough source of evolutionary novelty to explain new species. Instead he believed that large genetic differences between species required profound "macro-mutations" a source for large genetic changes (macroevolution) which once in a while could occur as a "hopeful monster".
Quotations:
"Biologists seem inclined to think that because they have not themselves seen a 'large' mutation, such a thing cannot be possible. But such a mutation need only be an event of the most extraordinary rarity to provide the world with the important material for evolution."
Membership
Member, honorary; member, foreign. Member numerous academies, learned societies in 12 different countries.
Personality
An amateur of the history of science, Goldschmidt wrote biographies of biologists he had known throughout the world. In addition, he wrote popular articles and books on science.
Interests
Music, oriental art
Connections
Richard Goldschmidt married Elsa Kühnlein on March 15, 1906. They had two children: Ruth Emma and Hans.