John Baker

John Randal Baker FRS (23 October 1900 – 8 June 1984) was an English biologist, zoologist, and microscopist, and a professor at the University of Oxford, where he was Emeritus Reader in Cytology. He received his D.Phil. at the University of Oxford in 1927.

Early life Baker was the youngest of five children born to Rear Admiral Julian Alleyne Baker and his wife Geraldine Eugenie (née Alison).

Born in Woodbridge, Baker grew up in a country home near Bromyard. At age ten, he was sent to Boxgrove School, near Guildford. Due to World War I, his schooling there was cut short and he joined the Bournemouth School of Flying at age sixteen. Though he achieved a pilot's certificate, he was excluded from the Royal Flying Corps due to inadequate eyesight and thereafter joined the Oxford University Officers' Training Corps. and, for this work, he would in 1958 receive the Oliver Bird Medal from the Family Planning Association. Interestingly, Baker's great-grandfather, Sir Archibald Alison, had in 1840 published a book titled The principles of population. that black people have a "fetid smell". According to a 1974 review by A. O. Ladimeji in Race & Class, Baker misrepresents or misunderstands the history of the study of race. Per Ladimeji, "Most of Baker's biological data comes from the nineteenth century with no corroboration from recent research." Ladimeji wrote that most of Baker's more outlandish claims had already been refuted by available studies at the time of publication.