Law of
Ecology, which states "You cannot do only one thing", and used the
ubiquitous
phrase "Nice guys finish last" to sum up the "selfish gene"
concept
of life and evolution. Hardin
received a B.S. in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1936 and a PhD in microbiology from Stanford University in 1941.
Moving to the University of California, Santa
Barbara in 1946, he served there as Professor of Human Ecology from 1963 until his (nominal) retirement in 1978.A major focus of his
career, and one to which he returned repeatedly, was the issue of human overpopulation. This led
to writings on controversial subjects such as abortion, which
earned him criticism from the political right, and immigration and sociobiology, which
earned him criticism from the political left. In his essays he also tackled subjects such as conservation and
creationism. In 1994 he was one of 52 signatories on "Mainstream Science on
Intelligence", an editorial written by Linda Gottfredson and
published in the Wall Street Journal, which
defended the findings on race and intelligence in The Bell Curve.[2]Hardin and his wife Jane were both
members of the Hemlock Society (now Compassion & Choices), and
believed in individuals choosing their own time to die. They committed suicide in their Santa Barbara home in
September 2003, shortly after their 62nd wedding anniversary. He was 88 and she
was 81.