Professor Garland E. Allen's research interests are in the area of history and philosophy of biology - particularly genetics, embryology, and evolution - and their interrelationships between 1880 and 1950. This work focuses particularly in the early development of the Mendelian-chromosome theory as formulated in the work of T.H. Morgan and his group at Columbia University and later at the California Institute of Technology. Growing out of this work have been a series of studies of the scientific, economic, and social history of "eugenics" (defined in the early part of the century as "the science of human improvement through better breeding"). The history of eugenics provides a number of insights into the interrelationships between science and its social context, and raises many issues of ethical, legal, and social importance that are surfacing today in the midst of the Human Genome Project.

• Selected Publications

Logo from the program of the Third International Congress of Eugenics, August 1932. Eugenics was viewed as a tree drawing from many disciplines, especially genetics, anthropology, and statistics, for its sources.