Last judgment: The visionary biology of J. B. S. Haldane

This paper seeks to reinterpret the life and work of J. B. S. Haldane by fo cusing on an illuminating but largely ignored essay he published in 1927, " The Last Judgment'' - the sequel to his better known work, Daedalus (1924). This astonishing essay expresses a vision of the human future over the nex t 40,000,000 years, one that revises and updates Wellsian futurism with the long range implications of the "new biology'' for human destiny. That visi on served as a kind of lifelong credo, one that infused and informed his di verse scientific work, political activities, and popular writing, and that gave unity and coherence to his remarkable career.