1948 in science

August 7 – Teaching and research in Mendelian genetics is prohibited in the Soviet Union in favour of Lysenkoist theories of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.^[3]^[4]
October 5 – Delegates to a conference organised by Sir Julian Huxley at Fontainebleau agree to formation of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.^[5]
November 20 – The South Island takahē, a flightless bird generally thought to have been extinct for fifty years, is rediscovered by Geoffrey Orbell near Lake Te Anau in the South Island of New Zealand.
Last recorded sighting of the Caspian tiger in Kazakhstan.
Publication of Fairfield Osborne's Our Plundered Planet, a Malthusian critique of human environmental destruction.^[6]^[7]

Medicine and human sciences

January 5 – The first Kinsey Report, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, is published in the United States.
April 7 – The World Health Organization is established by the United Nations.
July 5 – The National Health Service begins functioning in the United Kingdom, giving the right to universal healthcare, free at point of use.^[12]
Winter 1948/49 – Outbreak of Akureyri disease in Iceland.
In psychology, Bertram Forer demonstrates the Barnum effect (that people tend to accept generalised descriptions of personality as uniquely applicable to themselves).
Julius Axelrod and Bernard Brodie identify the analgesic properties of acetaminophen.

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January 30 – Akira Yoshino, Japanese chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
March 1 – Alison Richard, English primatologist and academic.
March 9 – László Lovász, Hungarian computer scientist.
March 21 – Robert Watson, British atmospheric chemist.
May – David Mabberley, English-born plant taxonomist.
June 13 – Nina L. Etkin (died 2009), American anthropologist and biologist.
June 28 – Kenneth Alan Ribet, American mathematician.
July 20 – Martin Green, Australian solar cell researcher.
August 4 – Giorgio Parisi, Italian theoretical physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics.
August 7 – James P. Allison, American immunologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
August 25 – Nicholas A. Peppas, Greek chemical and biomedical engineer.
August 29 – Robert S. Langer, American biomedical engineer.
August 30 – Victor Skumin, Russian scientist, psychiatrist and psychologist; describes Skumin syndrome in 1978.
September 2 – Christa McAuliffe, born Sharon Christa Corrigan (died 1986), American astronaut.
October 29 – Frans de Waal, Dutch primatologist.
October 31 – Mu-ming Poo, Chinese neuroscientist.
December 30 – Randy Schekman, American cell biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Margaret Allen, American cardiothoracic surgeon.
Robert Plomin, American-born psychologist.

Astronomy and space science