King and Jukes' "Non-Darwinian Evolution", published in Science in 1969 shortly after Motoo Kimura first mooted the neutral theory, brought together a variety of experimental evidence and theoretical arguments in support of the idea that the vast majority of mutations, at the molecular level, are neither beneficial nor harmful. As the intentionally provocative title implies, King and Jukes suggested that for most molecular evolution, genetic drift rather than natural selection is the main factor. King himself was "a staunch but progressive Darwinian", but he enjoyed the strong reactions the paper provoked.[3] This marked the beginning of the controversy over neutral evolution and the "neutralist-selectionist debate", primarily between organismal and molecular biologists, which would continue throughout King's career. His later work in this area focused on neutral substitutions, isoalleles, and the measurement of variation through electrophoresis.[4]
King became an associate editor of the Journal of Molecular Evolution in 1971, shortly after the journal's founding. He co-authored a 1981 textbook, Biology, The Science of Life. King died unexpectedly in 1983 from a brain hemorrhage caused by acute myelomonocytic leukemia.[5] King was survived by his second wife Ethel and their two children as well as six children from his first marriage.
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