Edwin G. Conklin

Edward Grant Conklin

Conklin, Edwin G. (24 November 1863 - 20 November 1952)

A United States biologist and zoologist, Conklin was born in Waldo, Ohio.

He was educated at Ohio Wesleyan and Johns Hopkins universities, then became a professor of biology at Ohio Wesleyan (1891-94) and professor of zoology at Northwestern University (1894-96), the [http://www.upenn.edu/ University of Pennsylvania (1896-1908), and Princeton (after 1908).

In 1995 the Society for Developmental Biology inaugurated the Edwin Grant Conklin Medal in his honor.

Conklin was listed by the Lloyd and Mary Morain as a supporter of the American Humanist Association.

In his Humanistic Aspects of the Unity in Science, Chauncey Leake wrote,

TIme cover, 3 July 1939

When my revered teacher, Edwin Grant Conklin was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science he formulated a memorable statement on the purpose, the method, and the spirit of science. The purpose of science, he said,d is like that of religion - to find the truth about ourselves and our environment. The method is one of continual skepticism, self-critical and self-corrective, seeking data which are independently verifiable. The methodology proceeds either by experimental reasoning with logical and consistent coherence as in mathematics, or by observation, tentative explanation, controlled experimentation, and inducible conclusions as in the life sciences. The attitude or spirit of science as a concept, is realization that the findings of scientific effort are tentative and relative, that the validity of scientific conclusions rests on voluntary agreement among those who examine the evidence, and that unwelcome truth is better than cherished error. This is a value judgment, and gives moral significance to the whole concept of science. All of this is based on a concern, in scientific effort, for the welfare of humanity as a whole.