Adam Rutherford author photo
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Adam Rutherford

Born: May 08, 1975 – Lewisham, London, England

Adam Rutherford is a British geneticist, science writer, and broadcaster whose work explores genetics, evolution, and human history. He is the author of A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, The Book of Humans, and How to Argue With a Racist, and is known for making complex biological science accessible to broad audiences.

Biography & Author's Journey

Adam Rutherford is a British geneticist, writer, and broadcaster whose career has been built on moving ideas from the laboratory into public culture. Educated at Ipswich School and then at University College London, he first trained in evolutionary genetics, including research on sexual selection in stalk-eyed flies, before completing a PhD in developmental genetics of the retina at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. His early scientific work, which examined how genes shape eye development and congenital blindness, gave him the technical grounding that later made his popular writing unusually precise and historically informed.

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Quotes

quote
Racist pseudoscience may be on the rise, but science is no ally to racists
-How to Argue With a Racist
quote
This is a story about you
-A Brief History
quote
We think of ourselves as exceptional beings, but are we really any more special than other animals?
-The Book of Humans
quote
This is the astonishing story of our inevitable journey towards the second genesis
-Creation
quote
We either find out how things are, or we don't
-The Human Genome Project was just the starting point
quote
Today we can tinker with bacteria in ways that were undreamed of
-Why we're watching: Adam Rutherford
quote
I thought I was going to die
-Following the science
quote
Science is political because it's done by scientists
-The politics of DNA and the story of eugenics
quote
Eugenics is one of those ideas which is quite difficult to define
-Prejudice in Power
quote
He does have brown eyes, and is otherwise genetically unremarkable
-JBS Haldane Lecture

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