Ralph Vary Chamberlin[a] (January 3, 1879 – October 31, 1967) was an American biologist, ethnographer, and historian from Salt Lake City, Utah.

He was a faculty member of the University of Utah for over 25 years, where he helped establish the School of Medicine and served as its first dean, and later became head of the zoology department.

In the early twentieth century, Chamberlin was among a quartet of popular Mormon professors at Brigham Young University whose teaching of evolution and biblical criticism resulted in a 1911 controversy among University and Church officials, eventually resulting in the resignation of him and two other professors despite widespread support from the student body, an event described as Mormonism's "first brush with modernism".

[5] Born to Mormon parents, the young Chamberlin attended Latter-day Saints' High School,[6] and although very interested in nature, initially decided to study mathematics and art before choosing biology.

degree in 1898, and subsequently spent four years teaching high school and some college-level courses in biology as well as geology, chemistry, physics, Latin, and German at Latter-day Saints' University.

[15] Zoologist Thomas H. Montgomery regarded Chamberlin's monograph as one of "decided importance" in using the structure of pedipalps (male reproductive organs) to help define genera, and in its detailed descriptions of species.

[1] In late 1907 and early 1908, Chamberlin became involved in a bitter lawsuit with fellow Utah professor Ira D. Cardiff that would cost them both their jobs.

[23] In March 1908 the university regents fired both Chamberlin and Cardiff, appointing a single new professor to head the departments of zoology and botany.

LDS College professor J. H. Paul, in a letter to Brimhall, had written Chamberlin was "one of the world's foremost naturalists, though, I think, he is only about 28 years of age.

[26] Chamberlin joined a pair of newly hired brothers on the faculty, Joseph and Henry Peterson, who taught psychology and education.

The four academics, all active members of the Church,[27] were known for teaching modern scientific and philosophic ideas and encouraging lively debate and discussion.

In an essay titled "Some Early Hebrew Legends" Chamberlin concluded: "Only the childish and immature mind can lose by learning that much in the Old Testament is poetical and that some of the stories are not true historically.

[33] After leaving Brigham Young, Chamberlin was employed as a lecturer and George Leib Harrison Foundation research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania from 1911 to 1913.

[34][35][36] From March 1913 to December 31, 1925, he was the Curator of Arachnids, Myriapods, and Worms at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, where many of his scientific contributions were made.

He soon began expanding the size and diversity of the biology program, and by the time of his retirement the faculty consisted of 16 professors, seven instructors, and three special lecturers.

[44][45] He established the journal Biological Series of the University of Utah and supervised the graduate work of several students who would go on to distinguished careers, including Willis J. Gertsch, Wilton Ivie, William H. Behle and Stephen D. Durrant; the latter three would later join Chamberlin as faculty members.

[51] He retired in 1948, and in 1957, an honor ceremony was held by the Utah Phi Sigma Society in which a portrait of Chamberlin painted by Alvin L. Gittins was donated to the university and a book of commemorative letters produced.

"Chamberlin was noted by colleagues at Utah for being a lifelong champion of the scientific method and instilling in his students ideas that natural processes must be used to explain human existence.

Angus and Grace Woodbury wrote that one of his greatest cultural contributions was his ability "to lead the naive student with fixed religious convictions gently around that wide gulf that separated him from the trained scientific mind without pushing him over the precipice of despair and illusion.

[55] His colleague and former student Stephen Durrant stated "by word, and especially by precept, he taught us diligence, inquisitiveness, love of truth, and especially scientific honesty".

[56] Durrant compared Chamberlin to noted biologists such as Spencer Fullerton Baird and C. Hart Merriam in the scope of his contributions science.

[57] On July 9, 1899, Chamberlin married Daisy Ferguson of Salt Lake City, with whom he had four children: Beth, Ralph, Della, and Ruth.

[e] The majority of his research concerned the taxonomy of arthropods and other invertebrates, but his work also included titles in folklore, economics, anthropology, language, botany, anatomy, histology, philosophy, education, and history.

He described over 100 new species and 22 new genera of polychaete worms in a two-volume work considered one of the "great monuments" in annelid taxonomy by the former director of the Hopkins Marine Station,[39] and published on Utah's molluscan fauna.

[85] His resulting publication, "The Ethno-botany of the Gosiute Indians of Utah", is considered the first major ethnobotanical study of a single group of Great Basin peoples.

At BYU he published several articles in the student newspaper on topics such as historical criticism of the Bible and the relationship of evolutionary theory with religious beliefs.

[96] Stake President George W. McCune described a 1922 meeting in which Chamberlin testified "to the effect that all his labors and researches in the laboratories of science, while very interesting, and to a great extent satisfying to the intellect, did not satisfy the soul of man, and that he yearned for something more," adding Chamberlin "bore testimony that he knew that ours is the true Church of Jesus Christ.