Homepage | Professor Joe Cain

John Ruskin (1854) The Opening of the Crystal Palace. Title page

Ruskin’s 1854 Critique of Crystal Palace (Sydenham)

John Ruskin did not like the new Crystal Palace Sydenham when it opened in 1854. In Opening of the Crystal Palace (1854), he launches his critique, arguing that while the glass structure [...]

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. 1854 Photograph.

Queen Victoria Visited Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited Crystal Palace Dinosaurs several times during the site’s construction in 1853 and 1854. In November 1853, the Royals visited the Model-Room, or Studio, of [...]

Ernst Mayr’s (1942) Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist. Title page

Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942) by Ernst Mayr

Ernst Mayr‘s (1904-2005) book, Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist was published in 1942 by Columbia University Press in their Columbia Biological Series. This [...]

Sample Medical Card for Croydon Schoolboys 1920s-1930s

Medical Cards for Croydon Schoolchildren 1920s-1930s

Historians must make more – and more creative – use of AI technologies for data analysis as well as for routine task of data sorting and transcription. To create a [...]

HPSC0155 Science Communication Final Project

UCL’s Science Communication MSc degree culminates in a science communication project of the student’s own design. This project is documented by a project proposal in Term 3 and a final product submitted near the end […]

HPSC0097 Research Project

Postgraduate taught students in UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS) undertake summer research projects resulting in dissertations or research reports. Professor Joe Cain supervises some students in this work, as do all academic […]

HPSC0028 History of Life Sciences

A historical survey of the biological sciences from the Enlightenment to the present. What are the big names and big ideas? How were they received at the time and appropriated later? Who’s been ignored and […]

Physiological Genetics: Sewall Wright Taught Me, volume 3. Edited by Joe Cain. ISBN 9781906267049

Physiological Genetics: Sewall Wright Taught Me, volume 3 | EGP

Sewall Wright taught throughout his long career. Between 1926-1955, he worked at the University of Chicago. During this time, he developed and taught both undergraduate and graduate courses. By the early 1930s, Wright’s teaching load […]

Vernon Kellogg Headquarters Nights 9781906267322 Euston Grove Press | soldiers in the trenches during World War 1

Darwinism or Militarism? Headquarters Nights (Vernon Kellogg) | EGP

Headquarters Nights was the 1917 account by Vernon Kellogg of conversations and experiences at the headquarters of the German Army in France and Belgium during World War 1, following one man’s transformation from an opponent of all wars […]

Cumberland Clark. 1929. Shakespeare and Science. ISBN 978-1-906267-39-1.

Shakespeare and Science: Biology, Physics, Chemistry and More from the Bard | EGP

Cumberland Clarke’s Shakespeare and Science is a monumental compilation of the William Shakespeare’s many references to natural and celestial phenomena, including a careful study of the Bard’s interest in, and dramatic use of, natural phenomena. […]

Professor Joe Cain

UCL Professor of History and Philosophy of Biology

Synthesis Period in Evolutionary Studies

Historical Significance of George Gaylord Simpson’s Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944)

Patricide in the Repeated Assassination of George Gaylord Simpson

JBS Haldane’s Mathematical Theory of Natural and Artificial Selection (1924-1934)

George Gaylord Simpson (1902-1984) bibliography

One Hundred and One Mendelians – Buttolph (2008)

Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

Ruskin’s 1854 Critique of Crystal Palace (Sydenham)

Queen Victoria Visited Crystal Palace Dinosaurs

GenAI in Research

Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942) by Ernst Mayr

Medical Cards for Croydon Schoolchildren 1920s-1930s

Categories

Featured

Bernissart Iguanodons in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels

Recent Posts

HPSC Modules 2026-27