He – literally – dove into danger to study life’s mysteries, from the depths of the sea to the edge of the stars. His mind unraveled the secret code of evolution while his heart laughed at fear. He once said: The universe is not only queerer than we imagine, but queerer than we can imagine. He was the most interesting scientist in the world.
I’m talking about JBS Haldane, the legendary geneticist from the first half of the 20th century. My already large respect for him recently increased further when I came across a poem he wrote after being treated for colorectal cancer:
My rectum is a serious loss to me,
But I’ve a very neat colostomy,
And hope, as soon as I am able,
To make it keep a fixed time-table.
So do not wait for aches and pains
To have a surgeon mend your drains;
If he says “cancer” you’re a dunce
Unless you have it out at once,
For if you wait it’s sure to swell,
And may have progeny as well.
My final word, before I’m done,
Is “Cancer can be rather fun”.
Thanks to the nurses and Nye Bevan
The NHS is quite like heaven
Provided one confronts the tumour
With a sufficient sense of humour.
The full poem is here.
Here is another evolutionary biologist, John Maynard Smith, talking about Haldane. Maynard Smith was Haldane’s doctoral student and knew him well. Later in the same series of videos, he talks about Haldane’s death.
As he lay dying in India, he had in his hand a stone which he had picked up in Israel, in the stream in which David is said to have picked up the stone that he used to kill Goliath. And apparently he was holding this stone as he lay dying, and [his wife] Helen said, when he drops it, I’ll know he has died.
Nehaveigur 