RIP, Dick. Very sad news; he was a big influence on me scientifically and personally.  One anecdote. At his lunchtime seminars, he used to read his mail while people were talking, and that used to bother me until I saw him reading his mail while HE was talking. I will miss him and Mary Jane.

I write with a most  heavy heart and a great deal of personal sadness at the death of my longtime Teacher, Mentor and Friend Richard C. Lewontin, the Alexander Agassiz Research Professor of Biology and Zoology at Harvard. I started studying with Dick at the University of Chicago  on the first Monday of the first full week of January 1970 because of his strident opposition to the Vietnam War, which I already opposed as a mid-teenager. I figured Dick would have something to teach me. He certainly did—for the rest of my life .The courage, integrity and principles of Dick Lewontin have always  inspired and motivated  me from the very beginning of my career in higher education. I shall always fondly regret that I could not continue working with him. The last time I spoke to Dick was to wish him a happy 85th Birthday. He was still working  in his Lab at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. The picture in  today’s New York Times is exactly the way Dick looked when he started teaching me when I was 19. It brings back so many fine memories of his life and  career so well spent to make the World a better place. Humanity and Science have been impoverished by Dick’s death. And I also note with  sadness the recent passing of his beautiful wife and the  love of his life Mary Jane. RIP.
Francis A. Boyle
Professor of Law
Author of the U.S. domestic implementing legislation for the Biological Weapons Convention, known as the Biological Weapons Anti-terrorism Act of 1989, that was passed unanimously by both Houses of the United States Congress and signed into law by President George Bush Sr.

Dear friends, dear comrades,
I am an old friend, unbeknownst to him, of Richard Lewontin.
This teacher and companion of ours, generous sower of knowledge, did not know the name of each plant he sowed.
I, Memi Campana, Italian, teacher, thirsty for knowledge, passionate defender of the dignity of life, I am part of his harvest, and from him I learned to be a good farmer of souls and minds.
Thanks Riccardo, for having happily violated the ancient prohibition that prohibits man from attending the tree of knowledge.
May the earth you have made fertile be light to you