Editing Alfred Kinsey (section)

== Initial research on entomology ==
In the fall of 1914, Kinsey entered Bowdoin College, where he studied entomology under Manton Copeland, and was admitted to the Zeta Psi fraternity, in whose house he lived for much of his time at college.<ref name="weinberg">{{Cite book|author=Institute for Sex Research|editor-last=Weinberg|editor-first=Martin S.|editor-link=wikipedia:Martin S. Weinberg|year=1976|title=Sex Research: Studies from the Kinsey Institute|url=https://archive.org/details/sexresearchstudi0000unse/page/25/mode/1up|publisher=[[wikipedia:Oxford University Press|Oxford University Press]]|location=[[wikipedia:Oxford|Oxford, England]]|page=25|url-access=registration|isbn=978-0-19-502032-8|access-date=2024-11-23|df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Gathorne-Hardy |first=Jonathan |year=2000 |title=Sex, the Measure of All Things: A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey |pages=37–38 |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington, IN |isbn=0-253-33734-8}}</ref> In 1916 Kinsey was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa [[society]] and graduated magna cum laude, with degrees in biology and psychology.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Christenson |first=Cornelia V. |year=1971 |title=Kinsey: A Biography |page=29 |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington, IN }}</ref> Alfred Seguine Kinsey did not attend his son's graduation ceremony from Bowdoin, possibly as another sign of disapproval of his son's choice of career and studies.

Kinsey continued his graduate studies at Harvard University's Bussey Institute, which had one of the most highly regarded biology programs in the United States. It was there that Kinsey studied applied biology under William Morton Wheeler, a scientist who made outstanding contributions to entomology. Under Wheeler, Kinsey worked almost completely autonomously, which suited both men quite well.

Kinsey did his doctoral thesis on gall wasps, zealously collecting samples of the species. He traveled widely and took 26 detailed measurements of hundreds of thousands of gall wasps; his methodology was itself an important contribution to entomology as a science. In 1919, Kinsey was awarded a Sc.D. degree by Harvard University. In 1920 he published several papers under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, introducing the gall wasp to the scientific community and describing its phylogeny. Of the more than 18 million insects in the museum's collection, some 5 million are gall wasps collected by Kinsey.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Yudell |first=Michael |title=Kinsey's Other Report |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_6_108/ai_55127889 |journal=Natural History |issn=0028-0712 |date=July 1, 1999 |volume=108 |issue=6 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516101949/http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_6_108/ai_55127889 |archive-date=May 16, 2008 }}</ref>

Kinsey wrote a widely used high-school textbook, ''An Introduction to Biology'', which was published in October 1926.<ref>{{cite book|title=Kinsey, A Biography|first=Cornelia V.|last=Christenson|year=1971|location=Bloomington, IN |publisher=Indiana University Press|page=57|isbn=0-253-14625-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.textbookhistory.com/?p=21 |title=If Kinsey's Textbook Could Talk … |publisher=Textbook History |date=March 28, 2010 |access-date=December 4, 2013}}</ref> The book endorsed evolution and unified, at the introductory level, the previously separate fields of zoology and botany.
 <blockquote>''An Introduction to Biology'' was unlike any other textbook on the market... Kinsey's textbook was noteworthy for the strong position it took on evolution...In his textbook Kinsey laid out the basic facts of evolution in a manner-of-fact matter, as though he were discussing the life cycle of the fruit fly. ... The chapter called "Further Evidence of Change" was especially blunt...Kinsey defined evolution as "the scientific word for change", and while he acknowledged that there are some people who "think they don't believe in evolution", he tried to show his students the folly of such reasoning. To find proof of evolution, students had only to look at things they used daily...Kinsey ridiculed the man who denounced evolution but owned a new breed of dog or smoked a cigar made from a recently improved variety of tobacco, saying, "When he says he doesn't believe in evolution, I wonder what he means."<ref>{{cite book|last=Jones |first=James H. | title=Alfred C. Kinsey: A Life |year=2004 |location = New York| publisher=W. W. Norton and Co. | pages=188–189}}</ref> </blockquote>
Kinsey co-authored ''Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America'', published in 1943, with Merritt Lyndon Fernald. The original draft of the book was written in 1919–1920, while Kinsey was still a doctoral student at the Bussey Institute, and Fernald was working at the Arnold Arboretum.<ref>Del Tredici, Peter. "The Other Kinsey Report." ''[[Natural History (magazine)|Natural History]]'', ISSN 0028-0712, July 1, 2006, vol. 115, issue 6.</ref>