Trained as a biologist (University of Chicago undergraduate degree; Ph.D. from Stanford in 1942 in microbial ecology) Garrett Hardin spent most of his career at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where his title was Professor of Human Ecology.He was born in Dallas, Texas, and grew up in various places in the Midwest, spending summers on his grandparents' farm in Missouri.

Very few biologists, short of Charles Darwin, have generated the levels of controversy that Hardin's thinking and writing have. The controversies, which continue today, center on two metaphors of human-ecological relationships; "the tragedy of the commons" and "the lifeboat ethic."

Hardin is widely credited with inventing the idea of the tragedy of the commons, but his work was long preceded by an ancient rhyme about the tragedy that results from stealing...