German-born Israeli geneticist and historian (1929–2019)
Raphael "Rafi" Falk (July 14, 1929 – September 15, 2019)[1][2][3] was a German-born Israeli geneticist and historian of science. He was professor emeritus of
genetics at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem in
Israel. His early research was on the genetics of Drosophila; from 1983 he was active in researching the
history and
philosophy of science, with a particular focus on genetics.[4][5]
Early life
Falk was born in
Frankfurt am Main,
Germany.[6] When he was aged 5, amid the rise of Nazism in Germany, his family left for Palestine.[7]
Education and career
He was educated at the
University of Stockholm, where he worked with
Gert Bonnier, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He subsequently completed his
postdoc with
H. J. Muller and
Curt Stern.[4][8][7] His former teacher,
Elisabeth Goldschmidt, eventually persuaded him to switch his research focus from Drosophila genetics to the history and philosophy of genetics as it pertains to the people of Israel.[5] By the 1950s and 60s, his work appreciated the ways in which X-rays induced mutations in the flies in a way that Muller's original work in the 1920s had not.[7]
From the early 1980s, Falk increasingly turned his attention to the history and philosophy of biology, becoming "one of the leading practitioners of the field".[7] He also began to look at the interactions between studies on the population genetics of Jews and Zionist agendas, and ultimately published his body of research on the subject first in Hebrew in 2006 and in English in 2017 as Zionism and the Biology of the Jews.[7]
Personal life
He was married to psychologist and probability theorist
Ruma Falk.[9]
Books
Falk's books include:
The Concept of the Gene in Development and Evolution: Historical and Epistemological (edited with Peter J. Beurton and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, Cambridge, University Press, 2000)[10]
Genetic Analysis: A History of Genetic Thinking (Cambridge University Press, 2011)[11]
Zionism and the Biology of Jews (Springer, 2017), English translation from the
Hebrew: הציונות והביולוגיה של היהודים (Ressling, 2006)[12]
^Müller-Wille, Staffan (July 2012). "Raphael Falk: Genetic Analysis: A History of Genetic Thinking. Studies in Philosophy of Biology, edited by Michael Ruse: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 344 pages, price: $110.00 (hardback)". Science & Education. 21 (7): 1051–1053.
doi:
10.1007/s11191-012-9473-5.
ISBN978-0-521-88418-1.
ISSN0926-7220.
S2CID140370335.
^Aderet, Ofer (September 10, 2020).
"2020-1932 החוקרת שבדקה מה הסיכוי" [The researcher who examined the chances of a coincidence: Prof. Roma Falk, who died last month, has used statistics and psychology to examine why only fools seek hidden meeting in a casual meeting on the street]. Haaretz (in Hebrew).
^Reviews of The Concept of the Gene in Development and Evolution: David Magnus (2001), Journal of the History of Biology,
JSTOR4331671; Robert Olby (2002), British Journal for the History of Science,
JSTOR4028207; Sheldon Penman (2001), "What Are Genes, Anyway?", American Scientist,
JSTOR27857403; J. Chris Pires (2001), Plant Systematics and Evolution,
JSTOR23645013