Jean Rostand

Jean Rostand ( born October 30, 1894 in Paris, † September 4, 1977 in Ville d'Avray ) was a French biologist, philosopher and writer.

Rostand was the son of playwright Edmond Rostand and the poet Rosemonde Gérard and brother of the poet Maurice Rostand. He studied at the Sorbonne, where he earned degrees in philosophy in 1911 and 1913/14 degrees in physiology, biochemistry, and mineralogy. At this time he had his own laboratory in his parents' home in Cambon in the Pyrenees. As a biologist, he dealt among other things with experiments on embryology and parthenogenesis. Above all, he is known as a writer, as an activist (for example, against the death penalty and against nuclear armament ) with humanistic concerns. He was a well-known freethinkers, Honorary President of the Society of Freethinkers ( Libre Pensee ). He wrote numerous books in which he popularized the sciences, especially about the history of biology, but also, for example, about eugenics and the idea of ​​cryonics Robert Ettinger he should have delivered.

In 1936 he built the Biology Department at the Palais de la Découverte in Paris on with.

In 1959 he was admitted to the Académie française. In 1955 he was awarded the Grand Prix de la Fondation Singer- Polignac. Jean Rostand in 1959 awarded the Kalinga Prize for the Popularization of Science.