Alister hardy biography of donald

  • Sir Alister Hardy was a marine biologist who specialized in the study of plankton -- and don't even think of laughing; he got knighted for it.
  • Professor Sir Alister Clavering Hardy FRS (1896-1985) was Head of the Zoology Department in Oxford University between 1946 and 1961.
  • From Mr Michael Hardy and Mrs Belinda Farley (son and daughter).

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    Text Biography

    Hardy, Alister Clavering (1896–1985)

    English marine biologist who designed the Hardy plankton continuous recorder. His development of methods for ascertaining the numbers and types of minute sea organisms helped to unravel the intricate web of life that exists in the sea.

    Hardy was born in Nottingham on 10 February 1896 and was educated at Oundle School and then at Exeter College, Oxford. He served in World War I as a lieutenant and later as a captain 1915–19. The following year he studied at the Stazione Zoologica in Naples and returned to the UK in 1921 to become assistant naturalist in the fisheries department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. In 1924 he joined the Discovery expedition to the Antarctic as chief zoologist and on his return in 1928 he was appointed professor of zoology and oceanography at Hull University, where he founded the department of oceanography. In 1942 he was made professor of natural history at the University of Aberdeen

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    Zoology and Religion: The Work of Alister Hardy

    The Human Context Of Alister Hardy’s Thought

    Professor Sir Alister Clavering Hardy FRS (1896-1985) was Head of the Zoology Department in Oxford University between 1946 and 1961. He was widely recognised as the outstanding marine biologist of his day, and for reasons that will become clear, he had a great interest in organic evolution. Hardy was one of a group of Oxford educated zoologists who were strongly influenced by Julian Huxley during the period whilst he was writing Evolution: The Modern Synthesis, first published in 1942.2 That book was described in the American Naturalist at the time as “The outstanding evolutionary treatise of the decade, perhaps of the century.” Also, in 1974, when the 3rd edition of Huxley’s book was published, Hardy contributed to the extended introduction. Furthermore, with Huxley and E.B. Ford, he was one of the editors of the influential text Evolution As A Process.3 

  • alister hardy biography of donald

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    A Brief Mystery of Light

    We met the brilliant Alister Hardy in the gods installment.

    Hardy began his postwar academic career in zoology, and after graduation worked as a naturalist in a fisheries laboratory. From 1924 to 1928 he was ledare zoologist for the upptäckt Oceanographic Expedition to the Antarctic. A succession of high-end academic postings followed, finishing with the Linacre Chair of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at Oxford, where his enthusiastic students included a young Richard Dawkins.

    Hardy was knighted for his services to the British fishing industry in 1957. Only upon retirement in 1961 did the esteemed marine biologist and author feel secure enough to chart deeper waters.

    “All my life I have sampled the sea, building up an ecological picture of a hidden world, which inom could not examine at first grabb, even with an aqualung. In a way, inom am casting my nets into a different kind of ocean,” he told The Observer in 1969.

    When Hardy came to Oxford at the p