VANCOUVER, BC, August 13, 2021 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to honor Gary N.A. Botting with inclusion in Who's Who in the World. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, widespread publication and publicity, and prominence in their specific fields. An accomplished geneticist, English professor, legal scholar, lawyer and author with seven degrees to his name, Dr. Botting has received many awards for his achievements from organizations as diverse as the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He is truly a Renaissance man.
Dr. Botting is celebrating more than six decades of excellence as an author, having published more than 40 books throughout his several careers. He began his career in journalism at South China Morning Post, later turning his creative focus to poetry and playwriting. He was a professor of English literature and creative writing in Canada for 20 years prior to entering law school at the age of 45. Raised a Jehovah's Witness, in the 1980s and 90s, he published two widely quoted exposes on the sect: The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses (University of Toronto Press) and Fundamental Freedoms and Jehovah's Witnesses (University of Calgary Press). He spent the next three decades as a criminal defense lawyer and legal scholar, writing legal histories and textbooks for legal practitioners, including lawyers and judges. He has appeared as defense and appellate counsel at every level of the Canadian judicial system.
His annus mirabilis was 2004-2005, when besides completing his second Ph.D. (in law) and receiving a postdoctoral fellowship tenable in the United States, he published the important biography Chief Smallboy: In Pursuit of Freedom (Fifth House), the legal history Extradition between Canada and the United States (Brill), and the first of five editions of Canadian Extradition Law Practice (LexisNexis)—the only textbook on extradition in Canada available during that decade. Since then, he has published two editions of Streaking! The Collected Poems of Gary Botting, and two novels: Campbell's Kids (2015) about a pyromaniac murderer who appears to get away with her crimes (but really doesn't); and Crazy Gran (2016), a story set in upstate New York backdropped by the attacks on the World Trade Center. He is also author of three editions of Halsbury's Laws of Canada: Extradition, and several other texts on the law, including Wrongful Conviction in Canadian Law (2011) and, most recently, Dangerous Offender Law (LexisNexis, 2021), as well as ten published books of poetry and more than thirty plays for stage, radio and screen.
Born in England, Dr. Botting immigrated to Canada in the 1950s, and gained world recognition in 1960 and 1961 for winning back-to-back first prizes in the Ontario Science Fair and the United States National Science Fair–International. His exhibits demonstrated a novel technique to enable the intergeneric hybridization of giant silk moths: surgically transplanting their pheromone scent sacs from one species to another. His experiments as a teenager had applications not only for silk production (his hybrids produced finer silk) but also for pest control, since they involved manipulation of pheromones that could control Gypsy moth proliferation. His scientific acumen earned him an honorary degree in entomology and genetics, several trips to Washington D.C., and travel grants from the American Institute of Biological Sciences and the United States National Academy of Sciences to visit universities throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. To this day, his observations about moths are reported in prestigious scientific journals such as the Linnean Society (see https://academic.oup.com/biolinnean/issue/129/3).
Dr. Botting holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and philosophy from Trent University, a Bachelor of Laws/D. Juris from the University of Calgary, a Master of Arts in English from Memorial University of Newfoundland, a Master of Fine Arts in playwriting and Ph.D. in English literature from University of Alberta, and a Master of Laws and Ph.D. in Law from University of British Columbia. In recognition of his diverse writing career and excellence as a legal scholar, Dr. Botting was presented with the 2015 Trent University Distinguished Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award. Earlier, his plays garnered him ten Alberta Culture Playwriting Awards and a CAIS Writing Award.
He credits his success to being open to exploring new paths, and to challenging accepted assumptions, from God to the Big Bang—especially when the presuppositions of society defy logic and common sense: "Trust the science—not the scientists. And definitely don't trust politicians—or anyone else who claims to have a monopoly on Truth!"
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