125-403: Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric, baron Cuvier (23 August 1769 – 13 May 1832), known as Georges Cuvier ( / ˈ k j uː v i eɪ / ; French: [ʒɔʁʒ(ə) kyvje] ), was a French naturalist and zoologist , sometimes referred to as the "founding father of paleontology". Cuvier was a major figure in natural sciences research in the early 19th century and was instrumental in establishing
250-689: A foreign member of the Royal Society , and in 1812, a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences . In 1812, he became a correspondent for the Royal Institute of the Netherlands , and became a member in 1827. Cuvier was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1822. Cuvier then devoted himself more especially to three lines of inquiry: (i)
375-469: A fossil skeleton known at that time as the "Ohio animal". In his second paper in 1796, he described and analyzed a large skeleton found in Paraguay , which he would name Megatherium . He concluded this skeleton represented yet another extinct animal and, by comparing its skull with living species of tree-dwelling sloths, that it was a kind of ground-dwelling giant sloth . Together, these two 1796 papers were
500-545: A heavy, pachyderm -like animal, as Owen was proposing, but had slender forelimbs. Owen was granted right of first refusal on any freshly dead animal at the London Zoo. His wife once arrived home to find the carcass of a newly deceased rhinoceros in her front hallway. At the same time, Sir Thomas Mitchell 's discovery of fossil bones, in New South Wales , provided material for the first of Owen's long series of papers on
625-538: A job at Fiquainville chateau in Normandy as tutor to the only son of the Comte d'Héricy , a Protestant noble. There, during the early 1790s, he began his comparisons of fossils with extant forms. Cuvier regularly attended meetings held at the nearby town of Valmont for the discussion of agricultural topics. There, he became acquainted with Henri Alexandre Tessier (1741–1837), who had assumed a false identity. Previously, he had been
750-417: A long time would produce only by multiplying what a lesser time produces. Since a lesser time produced no organic changes, neither, he argued, would a much longer time. Moreover, his commitment to the principle of the correlation of parts caused him to doubt that any mechanism could ever gradually modify any part of an animal in isolation from all the other parts (in the way Lamarck proposed), without rendering
875-462: A malicious, dishonest and hateful individual. He has been described in one biography as being a "social experimenter with a penchant for sadism. Addicted to controversy and driven by arrogance and jealousy". Deborah Cadbury stated that Owen possessed an "almost fanatical egoism with a callous delight in savaging his critics." An Oxford University professor once described Owen as "a damned liar. He lied for God and for malice". Gideon Mantell claimed it
1000-417: A moment bear the examination of anyone who has dissected a hand, a viscus, or even a feather. Instead, he said, the typical form makes an abrupt appearance in the fossil record, and persists unchanged to the time of its extinction. Cuvier attempted to explain this paleontological phenomenon he envisioned (which would be readdressed more than a century later by " punctuated equilibrium ") and to harmonize it with
1125-476: A naturalist, studies the world by observing plants and animals directly. Because organisms are functionally inseparable from the environment in which they live and because their structure and function cannot be adequately interpreted without knowing some of their evolutionary history, the study of natural history embraces the study of fossils as well as physiographic and other aspects of the physical environment". A common thread in many definitions of natural history
1250-544: A part of science proper. In Victorian Scotland, the study of natural history was believed to contribute to good mental health. Particularly in Britain and the United States, this grew into specialist hobbies such as the study of birds , butterflies, seashells ( malacology / conchology ), beetles, and wildflowers; meanwhile, scientists tried to define a unified discipline of biology (though with only partial success, at least until
1375-570: A pearl in the dunghill of Normandy", he wrote his friend Antoine-Augustin Parmentier . As a result, Cuvier entered into correspondence with several leading naturalists of the day and was invited to Paris. Arriving in the spring of 1795, at the age of 26, he soon became the assistant of Jean-Claude Mertrud (1728–1802), who had been appointed to the chair of Animal Anatomy at the Jardin des Plantes . When Mertrud died in 1802, Cuvier replaced him in office and
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#17328512987131500-688: A physician and well-known agronomist, who had fled the Terror in Paris. After hearing Tessier speak on agricultural matters, Cuvier recognized him as the author of certain articles on agriculture in the Encyclopédie Méthodique and addressed him as M. Tessier. Tessier replied in dismay, "I am known, then, and consequently lost."—"Lost!" replied M. Cuvier, "no; you are henceforth the object of our most anxious care." They soon became intimate and Tessier introduced Cuvier to his colleagues in Paris"I have just found
1625-452: A popular legend that Cuvier could reconstruct the entire bodily structures of extinct animals given only a few fragments of bone. At the time Cuvier presented his 1796 paper on living and fossil elephants, it was still widely believed that no species of animal had ever become extinct. Authorities such as Buffon had claimed that fossils found in Europe of animals such as the woolly rhinoceros and
1750-690: A relative, where he could borrow volumes of the Comte de Buffon 's massive Histoire Naturelle . All of these he read and reread, retaining so much of the information, that by the age of 12, "he was as familiar with quadrupeds and birds as a first-rate naturalist." He remained at the gymnasium for four years. Cuvier spent an additional four years at the Caroline Academy in Stuttgart , where he excelled in all of his coursework. Although he knew no German on his arrival, after only nine months of study, he managed to win
1875-596: A rule, gradually change into a succeeding, distinct fossil form. A deep-rooted source of his opposition to the gradual transformation of species was his goal of creating an accurate taxonomy based on principles of comparative anatomy. Such a project would become impossible if species were mutable, with no clear boundaries between them. According to the University of California Museum of Paleontology, "Cuvier did not believe in organic evolution, for any change in an organism's anatomy would have rendered it unable to survive. He studied
2000-485: A seminal or landmark event, becoming a turning point in the history of paleontology , and in the development of comparative anatomy , as well. They also greatly enhanced Cuvier's personal reputation and they essentially ended what had been a long-running debate about the reality of extinction . In 1799, he succeeded Daubenton as professor of natural history in the Collège de France . In 1802, he became titular professor at
2125-469: A statue of Darwin. A bust of Owen by Alfred Gilbert (1896) is held in the Hunterian Museum, London . A species of Central American lizard, Diploglossus owenii , was named in his honour by French herpetologists André Marie Constant Duméril and Gabriel Bibron in 1839. The Sir Richard Owen Wetherspoons pub in central Lancaster is named in his honour. Owen has been described by some as
2250-407: A subject of the most indefatigable application; and long lists of sovereigns, princes, and the driest chronological facts, once arranged in his memory, were never forgotten." At the age of 10, soon after entering the gymnasium , he encountered a copy of Conrad Gessner 's Historiae Animalium , the work that first sparked his interest in natural history . He then began frequent visits to the home of
2375-598: A way, his chronological dating of Earth's history somewhat reflected Lamarck's transformationist theories. Cuvier also worked alongside Alexandre Brongniart in analyzing the Parisian rock cycle. Using stratigraphical methods, they were both able to extrapolate key information regarding Earth history from studying these rocks. These rocks contained remnants of molluscs, bones of mammals, and shells. From these findings, Cuvier and Brongniart concluded that many environmental changes occurred in quick catastrophes, though Earth itself
2500-423: Is Le Règne Animal (1817; English: The Animal Kingdom ). In 1819, he was created a peer for life in honour of his scientific contributions. Thereafter, he was known as Baron Cuvier. He died in Paris during an epidemic of cholera . Some of Cuvier's most influential followers were Louis Agassiz on the continent and in the United States, and Richard Owen in Britain. His name is one of the 72 names inscribed on
2625-482: Is a domain of inquiry involving organisms , including animals , fungi , and plants , in their natural environment , leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is called a naturalist or natural historian . Natural history encompasses scientific research but is not limited to it. It involves the systematic study of any category of natural objects or organisms, so while it dates from studies in
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#17328512987132750-460: Is also echoed by H.W. Greene and J.B. Losos: "Natural history focuses on where organisms are and what they do in their environment, including interactions with other organisms. It encompasses changes in internal states insofar as they pertain to what organisms do". Some definitions go further, focusing on direct observation of organisms in their environments, both past and present, such as this one by G.A. Bartholomew: "A student of natural history, or
2875-453: Is known as the principle of the correlation of parts. He writes: This idea is referred to as Cuvier's principle of correlation of parts, which states that all organs in an animal's body are deeply interdependent. Species' existence relies on the way in which these organs interact. For example, a species whose digestive tract is best suited to digesting flesh but whose body is best suited to foraging for plants cannot survive. Thus in all species,
3000-400: Is most often defined as a type of observation and a subject of study, it can also be defined as a body of knowledge, and as a craft or a practice, in which the emphasis is placed more on the observer than on the observed. Definitions from biologists often focus on the scientific study of individual organisms in their environment, as seen in this definition by Marston Bates: "Natural history is
3125-399: Is the inclusion of a descriptive component, as seen in a recent definition by H.W. Greene: "Descriptive ecology and ethology". Several authors have argued for a more expansive view of natural history, including S. Herman, who defines the field as "the scientific study of plants and animals in their natural environments. It is concerned with levels of organization from the individual organism to
3250-523: The Jardin des Plantes ; and in the same year, he was appointed commissary of the institute to accompany the inspectors general of public instruction. In this latter capacity, he visited the south of France, but in the early part of 1803, he was chosen permanent secretary of the department of physical sciences of the Academy, and he consequently abandoned the earlier appointment and returned to Paris. In 1806, he became
3375-538: The American Society of Naturalists and Polish Copernicus Society of Naturalists . Professional societies have recognized the importance of natural history and have initiated new sections in their journals specifically for natural history observations to support the discipline. These include "Natural History Field Notes" of Biotropica , "The Scientific Naturalist" of Ecology , "From the Field" of Waterbirds , and
3500-518: The BA meeting, where William Flower performed the dissection). Visual evidence of the supposedly missing structures ( posterior cornu and hippocampus minor ) was used, in effect, to indict Owen for perjury: Owen had argued that the absence of those structures in apes was connected with the lesser size to which the ape brains grew, but he then conceded that a poorly developed version might be construed as present without preventing him from arguing that brain size
3625-667: The Bible . He attributed the different time periods he was aware of as intervals between major catastrophes, the last of which is found in Genesis . Cuvier's claim that new fossil forms appear abruptly in the geological record and then continue without alteration in overlying strata was used by later critics of evolution to support creationism, to whom the abruptness seemed consistent with special divine creation (although Cuvier's finding that different types made their paleontological debuts in different geological strata clearly did not). The lack of change
3750-472: The Duchy of Württemberg . His mother, who was much younger than his father, tutored him diligently throughout his early years, so he easily surpassed the other children at school. During his gymnasium years, he had little trouble acquiring Latin and Greek, and was always at the head of his class in mathematics, history, and geography. According to Lee, "The history of mankind was, from the earliest period of his life,
3875-521: The Great Exhibition of 1851 , but 33 were eventually produced when the Crystal Palace was relocated to Sydenham , in south London. Owen famously hosted a dinner for 21 prominent men of science inside the hollow concrete Iguanodon on New Year's Eve 1853. However, in 1849, a few years before his death in 1852, Gideon Mantell had realised that Iguanodon , of which he was the discoverer, was not
Georges Cuvier - Misplaced Pages Continue
4000-540: The Hunterian Museum . He held the latter office until 1856 when he became superintendent of the natural history department of the British Museum . He then devoted much of his energies to a great scheme for a National Museum of Natural History, which eventually resulted in the removal of the natural history collections of the British Museum to a new building at South Kensington : the British Museum (Natural History) (now
4125-792: The Natural History Museum ). He retained office until the completion of this work, in December 1883, when he was made a knight of the Order of the Bath . Owen always tended to support orthodox men of science and the status quo . The royal family presented him with the cottage in Richmond Park and Robert Peel put him on the Civil List . In 1843, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences . In 1844 he became an associated member of
4250-476: The Natural History Society of Northumbria founded in 1829, London Natural History Society (1858), Birmingham Natural History Society (1859), British Entomological and Natural History Society founded in 1872, Glasgow Natural History Society, Manchester Microscopical and Natural History Society established in 1880, Whitby Naturalists' Club founded in 1913, Scarborough Field Naturalists' Society and
4375-515: The Ptero-Dactyle in 1809, (later Latinized as Pterodactylus antiquus )—the first known member of the diverse order of pterosaurs . In 1808 Cuvier identified a fossil found in Maastricht as a giant marine lizard, the first known mosasaur . Cuvier speculated correctly that there had been a time when reptiles rather than mammals had been the dominant fauna. This speculation was confirmed over
4500-525: The Renaissance , making it one of the longest-lasting of all natural history books. From the ancient Greeks until the work of Carl Linnaeus and other 18th-century naturalists, a major concept of natural history was the scala naturae or Great Chain of Being , an arrangement of minerals, vegetables, more primitive forms of animals, and more complex life forms on a linear scale of supposedly increasing perfection, culminating in our species. Natural history
4625-628: The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew botanical collection (see Attacks on Hooker and Kew ), orchestrated by Acton Smee Ayrton : Owen's lost scientific standing was not due solely to his underhanded dealings with colleagues; it was also due to serious errors of scientific judgement that were discovered and publicized. A fine example was his decision to classify man in a separate subclass of the Mammalia (see Man's place in nature ). In this, Owen had no supporters at all. Also, his unwillingness to come off
4750-539: The ancient Greco-Roman world and the mediaeval Arabic world , through to European Renaissance naturalists working in near isolation, today's natural history is a cross-discipline umbrella of many specialty sciences; e.g., geobiology has a strong multidisciplinary nature. The meaning of the English term "natural history" (a calque of the Latin historia naturalis ) has narrowed progressively with time, while, by contrast,
4875-512: The biological and geological sciences. The two were strongly associated. During the heyday of the gentleman scientists , many people contributed to both fields, and early papers in both were commonly read at professional science society meetings such as the Royal Society and the French Academy of Sciences —both founded during the 17th century. Natural history had been encouraged by practical motives, such as Linnaeus' aspiration to improve
5000-497: The humanities (primarily what is now known as classics ) and divinity , with science studied largely through texts rather than observation or experiment. The study of nature revived in the Renaissance , and quickly became a third branch of academic knowledge, itself divided into descriptive natural history and natural philosophy , the analytical study of nature. In modern terms, natural philosophy roughly corresponded to modern physics and chemistry , while natural history included
5125-638: The modern evolutionary synthesis ). Still, the traditions of natural history continue to play a part in the study of biology, especially ecology (the study of natural systems involving living organisms and the inorganic components of the Earth's biosphere that support them), ethology (the scientific study of animal behavior), and evolutionary biology (the study of the relationships between life forms over very long periods of time), and re-emerges today as integrative organismal biology. Amateur collectors and natural history entrepreneurs played an important role in building
Georges Cuvier - Misplaced Pages Continue
5250-633: The "Natural History Miscellany section" of the American Naturalist . Natural history observations have contributed to scientific questioning and theory formation. In recent times such observations contribute to how conservation priorities are determined. Mental health benefits can ensue, as well, from regular and active observation of chosen components of nature, and these reach beyond the benefits derived from passively walking through natural areas. Richard Owen Sir Richard Owen KCB FRMS FRS (20 July 1804 – 18 December 1892)
5375-734: The Chair changed its name to Chair of Comparative Anatomy . The Institut de France was founded in the same year, and he was elected a member of its Academy of Sciences . On 4 April 1796 he began to lecture at the École Centrale du Pantheon and, at the opening of the National Institute in April, he read his first paleontological paper, which subsequently was published in 1800 under the title Mémoires sur les espèces d'éléphants vivants et fossiles . In this paper, he analyzed skeletal remains of Indian and African elephants , as well as mammoth fossils , and
5500-618: The Eiffel Tower . Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier was born in Montbéliard , where his Protestant ancestors had lived since the time of the Reformation. His mother was Anne Clémence Chatel; his father, Jean-Georges Cuvier, was a lieutenant in the Swiss Guards and a bourgeois of the town of Montbéliard. At the time, the town, which would be annexed to France on 10 October 1793, belonged to
5625-562: The Hunterian collection, Owen did not confine his attention to the preparations before him but also seized every opportunity to dissect fresh subjects. He was allowed to examine all animals that died in London Zoo 's gardens and, when the Zoo began to publish scientific proceedings, in 1831, he was the most prolific contributor of anatomical papers. His first notable publication, however, was his Memoir on
5750-659: The Natural History Institute (Prescott, Arizona): Natural history – a practice of intentional focused attentiveness and receptivity to the more-than-human world, guided by honesty and accuracy – is the oldest continuous human endeavor. In the evolutionary past of our species, the practice of natural history was essential for our survival, imparting critical information on habits and chronologies of plants and animals that we could eat or that could eat us. Natural history continues to be critical to human survival and thriving. It contributes to our fundamental understanding of how
5875-647: The Nature of Limbs in 1849. At the end of On the Nature of Limbs , Owen suggested that humans ultimately evolved from fish as the result of natural laws, which resulted in Owen being criticized in the Manchester Spectator for denying that species such as humans were created by God. Owen, as president-elect of the British Association , announced his authoritative anatomical studies of primate brains, claiming that
6000-492: The Pearly Nautilus (London, 1832), which was soon recognized as a classic. Thenceforth, he continued to make important contributions to every department of comparative anatomy and zoology for a period of over fifty years. In the sponges, Owen was the first to describe the now well-known Venus' Flower Basket or Euplectella (1841, 1857). Among Entozoa, his most noteworthy discovery was that of Trichina spiralis (1835),
6125-603: The Royal Institute of the Netherlands. When this Institute became the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1851, he joined as a foreign member. In 1845, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. He died at home on 15 December 1892 and is buried in the churchyard at St Andrew's Church , Ham , near Richmond, Surrey . While occupied with the cataloguing of
6250-633: The Royal Society's Zoological Council for plagiarism . Another reason for his criticism of the Origin , some historians claim, was that Owen felt upstaged by Darwin and supporters such as Huxley, and his judgment was clouded by jealousy. Owen in Darwin's opinion was Owen also resorted to the same subterfuge he used against Mantell, writing another anonymous article in the Edinburgh Review in April 1860. In
6375-539: The Sorby Natural History Society, Sheffield , founded in 1918. The growth of natural history societies was also spurred due to the growth of British colonies in tropical regions with numerous new species to be discovered. Many civil servants took an interest in their new surroundings, sending specimens back to museums in the Britain . (See also: Indian natural history ) Societies in other countries include
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#17328512987136500-469: The animal unable to survive. In his Éloge de M. de Lamarck ( Praise for M. de Lamarck ), Cuvier wrote that Lamarck's theory of evolution rested on two arbitrary suppositions; the one, that it is the seminal vapour which organizes the embryo; the other, that efforts and desires may engender organs. A system established on such foundations may amuse the imagination of a poet; a metaphysician may derive from it an entirely new series of systems; but it cannot for
6625-448: The animal were found. Owen envisioned a resemblance of the animal to the living arthropod Limulus . Most of his work on reptiles related to the skeletons of extinct forms and his chief memoirs, on British specimens, were reprinted in a connected series in his History of British Fossil Reptiles (4 vols. London 1849–1884). He published the first important general account of the great group of Mesozoic land-reptiles, and he coined
6750-531: The arrival of human beings. Cuvier's early work demonstrated conclusively that extinction was indeed a credible natural global process. Cuvier's thinking on extinctions was influenced by his extensive readings in Greek and Latin literature; he gathered every ancient report known in his day relating to discoveries of petrified bones of remarkable size in the Mediterranean region. Influence on Cuvier's theory of extinction
6875-410: The article, Owen was critical of Darwin for not offering many new observations, and heaped praise (in the third person) upon himself, while being careful not to associate any particular comment with his own name. Owen did praise, however, the Origin 's description of Darwin's work on insect behaviour and pigeon breeding as "real gems". Owen was also a party to the threat to end government funding of
7000-665: The basic principles of biostratigraphy . Among his other accomplishments, Cuvier established that elephant-like bones found in North America belonged to an extinct animal he later would name as a " mastodon ", and that a large skeleton dug up in present-day Argentina was of a giant, prehistoric ground sloth , which he named Megatherium . He also established two ungulate genera from the Paris Basin named Palaeotherium and Anoplotherium based on fragmentary remains alone, although more complete remains were later uncovered. He named
7125-452: The brains of all human races were really of similar size and intellectual ability, and that the fact that humans had brains that were twice the size of large apes like male gorillas, even though humans had much smaller bodies, made humans distinguishable. He was the first director in Natural History Museum in London and his statue was in the main hall there until 2009, when it was replaced with
7250-499: The continents existing ten millennia ago collapsed, allowing the ocean floors to rise higher than the continental plates and become the continents that now exist today. The latter proposed that a massive tsunami hit the globe, leading to mass extinction. Whatever the case was, he believed that the deluge happened quite recently in human history. In fact, he believed that Earth's existence was limited and not as extended as many natural scientists, like Lamarck , believed it to be. Much of
7375-477: The deep past that had been destroyed by catastrophe. Cuvier came to believe that most, if not all, the animal fossils he examined were remains of species that had become extinct. Near the end of his 1796 paper on living and fossil elephants, he said: Contrary to many natural scientists' beliefs at the time, Cuvier believed that animal extinction was not a product of anthropogenic causes. Instead, he proposed that humans were around long enough to indirectly maintain
7500-469: The discovery of the Iguanodon , completely excluding any credit for the original discoverer of the dinosaur, Gideon Mantell . This was not the first or last time Owen would falsely claim a discovery as his own. It has also been suggested by some authors that Owen even used his influence in the Royal Society to ensure that many of Mantell's research papers were never published. Owen was finally dismissed from
7625-451: The diversity of the natural world. Natural history was understood by Pliny the Elder to cover anything that could be found in the world, including living things, geology, astronomy, technology, art, and humanity. De Materia Medica was written between 50 and 70 AD by Pedanius Dioscorides , a Roman physician of Greek origin. It was widely read for more than 1,500 years until supplanted in
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#17328512987137750-489: The economic condition of Sweden. Similarly, the Industrial Revolution prompted the development of geology to help find useful mineral deposits. Modern definitions of natural history come from a variety of fields and sources, and many of the modern definitions emphasize a particular aspect of the field, creating a plurality of definitions with a number of common themes among them. For example, while natural history
7875-410: The ecosystem, and stresses identification, life history, distribution, abundance, and inter-relationships. It often and appropriately includes an esthetic component", and T. Fleischner, who defines the field even more broadly, as "A practice of intentional, focused attentiveness and receptivity to the more-than-human world, guided by honesty and accuracy". These definitions explicitly include the arts in
8000-710: The emergence of professional biological disciplines and research programs. Particularly in the 19th century, scientists began to use their natural history collections as teaching tools for advanced students and the basis for their own morphological research. The term "natural history" alone, or sometimes together with archaeology, forms the name of many national, regional, and local natural history societies that maintain records for animals (including birds (ornithology), insects ( entomology ) and mammals (mammalogy)), fungi ( mycology ), plants (botany), and other organisms. They may also have geological and microscopical sections. Examples of these societies in Britain include
8125-430: The evidence he used to support his catastrophist theories has been taken from his fossil records. He strongly suggested that the fossils he found were evidence of the world's first reptiles, followed chronologically by mammals and humans. Cuvier didn't wish to delve much into the causation of all the extinction and introduction of new animal species but rather focused on the sequential aspects of animal history on Earth. In
8250-458: The extinct mammals of Australia, which were eventually reprinted in book-form in 1877. He described Diprotodon (1838) and Thylacoleo (1859), and extinct species kangaroos and wombats of gigantic size. Most fossil material found in Australia and New Zealand was initially sent to England for expert examination, and with the assistance of the local collectors Owen became the first authority on
8375-411: The field of botany, be it as authors, collectors, or illustrators. In modern Europe, professional disciplines such as botany, geology, mycology , palaeontology , physiology , and zoology were formed. Natural history , formerly the main subject taught by college science professors, was increasingly scorned by scientists of a more specialized manner and relegated to an "amateur" activity, rather than
8500-634: The field of natural history, and are aligned with the broad definition outlined by B. Lopez, who defines the field as the "Patient interrogation of a landscape" while referring to the natural history knowledge of the Eskimo ( Inuit ). A slightly different framework for natural history, covering a similar range of themes, is also implied in the scope of work encompassed by many leading natural history museums , which often include elements of anthropology, geology, paleontology, and astronomy along with botany and zoology, or include both cultural and natural components of
8625-417: The fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology through his work in comparing living animals with fossils. Cuvier's work is considered the foundation of vertebrate paleontology , and he expanded Linnaean taxonomy by grouping classes into phyla and incorporating both fossils and living species into the classification. Cuvier is also known for establishing extinction as a fact—at the time, extinction
8750-432: The fossilized records of ancient Earth. He also attempted to verify the water catastrophe by analyzing records of various cultural backgrounds. Though he found many accounts of the water catastrophe unclear, he did believe that such an event occurred at the brink of human history nonetheless. This led Cuvier to become an active proponent of the geological school of thought called catastrophism , which maintained that many of
8875-410: The fossilized remains of several species of animals mixed together. Anatomists reassembling these skeletons ran the risk of combining remains of different species, producing imaginary composite species. However, by examining the functional purpose of each bone and applying the principle of correlation of parts, Cuvier believed that this problem could be avoided. Natural history Natural history
9000-502: The foundation for scientific racism , and published work on the supposed differences between racial groups' physical properties and mental abilities. Cuvier subjected Sarah Baartman to examinations alongside other French naturalists during a period in which she was held captive in a state of neglect. Cuvier examined Baartman shortly before her death, and conducted a dissection following her death that disparagingly compared her physical features to those of monkeys. Cuvier's most famous work
9125-454: The functional significance of each body part must be correlated to the others, or else the species cannot sustain itself. Cuvier believed that the power of his principle came in part from its ability to aid in the reconstruction of fossils. In most cases, fossils of quadrupeds were not found as complete, assembled skeletons, but rather as scattered pieces that needed to be put together by anatomists. To make matters worse, deposits often contained
9250-444: The geological column, the ordered layers of sedimentary rock, of the Paris basin. They concluded that the layers had been laid down over an extended period during which there clearly had been faunal succession and that the area had been submerged under sea water at times and at other times under fresh water. Along with William Smith 's work during the same period on a geological map of England, which also used characteristic fossils and
9375-407: The geological features of the earth and the history of life could be explained by catastrophic events that had caused the extinction of many species of animals. Over the course of his career, Cuvier came to believe there had not been a single catastrophe, but several, resulting in a succession of different faunas. He wrote about these ideas many times, in particular, he discussed them in great detail in
9500-509: The human brain had structures that ape brains did not and that therefore humans were a separate sub-class, starting a dispute which was subsequently satirised as the Great Hippocampus Question . Owen's main argument was that humans have much larger brains for their body size than other mammals including the great apes. In 1862 (and later occasions) Huxley took the opportunity to arrange demonstrations of ape brain anatomy (e.g. at
9625-405: The human mummies and the skeletons of present-day men." Lamarck dismissed this conclusion, arguing that evolution happened much too slowly to be observed over just a few thousand years. Cuvier, however, in turn criticized how Lamarck and other naturalists conveniently introduced hundreds of thousands of years "with a stroke of a pen" to uphold their theory. Instead, he argued that one may judge what
9750-524: The idea that fossils came from those that are currently living. The idea that these bones belonged to elephants living – but hiding – somewhere on Earth seemed ridiculous to Cuvier, because it would be nearly impossible to miss them due to their enormous size. The Megatherium provided another compelling data point for this argument. Ultimately, his repeated identification of fossils as belonging to species unknown to man, combined with mineralogical evidence from his stratigraphical studies in Paris, drove Cuvier to
9875-530: The late twentieth century, however, has led to a resurgence of interest among historians of science and other scholars in this aspect of Cuvier's work. Cuvier collaborated for several years with Alexandre Brongniart , an instructor at the Paris mining school, to produce a monograph on the geology of the region around Paris. They published a preliminary version in 1808 and the final version was published in 1811. In this monograph, they identified characteristic fossils of different rock layers that they used to analyze
10000-488: The mammoth were remains of animals still living in the tropics (i.e. rhinoceros and elephants ), which had shifted out of Europe and Asia as the earth became cooler. Thereafter, Cuvier performed a pioneering research study on some elephant fossils excavated around Paris. The bones he studied, however, were remarkably different from the bones of elephants currently thriving in India and Africa. This discovery led Cuvier to denounce
10125-519: The meaning of the related term "nature" has widened (see also History below). In antiquity , "natural history" covered essentially anything connected with nature , or used materials drawn from nature, such as Pliny the Elder 's encyclopedia of this title , published c. 77 to 79 AD , which covers astronomy , geography , humans and their technology , medicine , and superstition , as well as animals and plants. Medieval European academics considered knowledge to have two main divisions:
10250-540: The mummified cats and ibises that Geoffroy had brought back from Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, and showed they were no different from their living counterparts; Cuvier used this to support his claim that life forms did not evolve over time." He also observed that Napoleon's expedition to Egypt had retrieved animals mummified thousands of years previously that seemed no different from their modern counterparts. "Certainly", Cuvier wrote, "one cannot detect any greater difference between these creatures and those we see, than between
10375-550: The name Dinosauria from Greek δεινός ( deinos ) "terrible, powerful, wondrous" + σαύρος ( sauros ) "lizard". Owen used 3 genera to define the dinosaurs: the carnivorous Megalosaurus , the herbivorous Iguanodon and armoured Hylaeosaurus ' , specimens uncovered in southern England. With Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins , Owen helped create the first life-size sculptures depicting dinosaurs as he thought they might have appeared. Some models were initially created for
10500-549: The natural specimens in the British Museum to be given a new home. This resulted in the establishment, in 1881, of the now world-famous Natural History Museum in South Kensington , London. Bill Bryson argues that, "by making the Natural History Museum an institution for everyone, Owen transformed our expectations of what museums are for." While he made several contributions to science and public learning, Owen
10625-616: The palaeontology of the region. While occupied with so much material from abroad, Owen was also busily collecting facts for an exhaustive work on similar fossils from the British Isles and, in 1844–1846, he published his History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds , which was followed by many later memoirs, notably his Monograph of the Fossil Mammalia of the Mesozoic Formations (Palaeont. Soc., 1871). One of his latest publications
10750-403: The parasite infesting the muscles of man in the disease now termed trichinosis (see also, however, Sir James Paget ). Of Brachiopoda he made very special studies, which much advanced knowledge and settled the classification that has long been accepted. Among Mollusca , he described not only the pearly nautilus but also Spirula (1850) and other Cephalopoda , both living and extinct, and it
10875-400: The preliminary discourse (an introduction) to a collection of his papers, Recherches sur les ossements fossiles de quadrupèdes ( Researches on quadruped fossil bones ), on quadruped fossils published in 1812. Cuvier's own explanation for such a catastrophic event is derived from two different sources, including those from Jean-André Deluc and Déodat de Dolomieu . The former proposed that
11000-455: The principle of faunal succession to correlate layers of sedimentary rock, the monograph helped establish the scientific discipline of stratigraphy . It was a major development in the history of paleontology and the history of geology . In 1800 and working only from a drawing, Cuvier was the first to correctly identify in print, a fossil found in Bavaria as a small flying reptile, which he named
11125-500: The proposition that the abrupt changes the Earth underwent over a long period of time caused some species to go extinct. Cuvier's theory on extinction has met opposition from other notable natural scientists like Darwin and Charles Lyell . Unlike Cuvier, they didn't believe that extinction was a sudden process; they believed that like the Earth, animals collectively undergo gradual change as a species. This differed widely from Cuvier's theory, which seemed to propose that animal extinction
11250-458: The pterosaur Pterodactylus , described (but did not discover or name) the aquatic reptile Mosasaurus , and was one of the first people to suggest the earth had been dominated by reptiles, rather than mammals, in prehistoric times. Cuvier is also remembered for strongly opposing theories of evolution, which at the time (before Darwin 's theory) were mainly proposed by Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire . Cuvier believed there
11375-553: The school prize for that language. Cuvier's German education exposed him to the work of the geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner (1750–1817), whose Neptunism and emphasis on the importance of rigorous, direct observation of three-dimensional, structural relationships of rock formations to geological understanding provided models for Cuvier's scientific theories and methods. Upon graduation, he had no money on which to live as he awaited an appointment to an academic office. So in July 1788, he took
11500-663: The strength of his reputation, however, continued to discourage naturalists from speculating about the gradual transmutation of species, until Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species more than two decades after Cuvier's death. Early in his tenure at the National Museum in Paris, Cuvier published studies of fossil bones in which he argued that they belonged to large, extinct quadrupeds. His first two such publications were those identifying mammoth and mastodon fossils as belonging to extinct species rather than modern elephants and
11625-487: The structure and classification of the Mollusca ; (ii) the comparative anatomy and systematic arrangement of the fishes; (iii) fossil mammals and reptiles and, secondarily, the osteology of living forms belonging to the same groups. In 1812, Cuvier made what the cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans called his "Rash dictum": he remarked that it was unlikely that any large animal remained undiscovered. Ten years after his death,
11750-504: The study in which he identified the Megatherium as a giant, extinct species of sloth. His primary evidence for his identifications of mammoths and mastodons as separate, extinct species was the structure of their jaws and teeth. His primary evidence that the Megatherium fossil had belonged to a massive sloth came from his comparison of its skull with those of extant sloth species. Cuvier wrote of his paleontological method that "the form of
11875-546: The study of animals and Plants—of organisms. ... I like to think, then, of natural history as the study of life at the level of the individual—of what plants and animals do, how they react to each other and their environment, how they are organized into larger groupings like populations and communities" and this more recent definition by D.S. Wilcove and T. Eisner: "The close observation of organisms—their origins, their evolution, their behavior, and their relationships with other species". This focus on organisms in their environment
12000-437: The surface of the globe ). After Cuvier's death, the catastrophic school of geological thought lost ground to uniformitarianism , as championed by Charles Lyell and others, which claimed that the geological features of the earth were best explained by currently observable forces, such as erosion and volcanism, acting gradually over an extended period of time. The increasing interest in the topic of mass extinction starting in
12125-515: The system of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus . The British historian of Chinese science Joseph Needham calls Li Shizhen "the 'uncrowned king' of Chinese naturalists", and his Bencao gangmu "undoubtedly the greatest scientific achievement of the Ming". His works translated to many languages direct or influence many scholars and researchers. A significant contribution to English natural history
12250-402: The thoughtful professor of the laws of organic economy can reconstruct the entire animal." However, Cuvier's actual method was heavily dependent on the comparison of fossil specimens with the anatomy of extant species in the necessary context of his vast knowledge of animal anatomy and access to unparalleled natural history collections in Paris. This reality, however, did not prevent the rise of
12375-456: The tooth leads to the form of the condyle , that of the scapula to that of the nails, just as an equation of a curve implies all of its properties; and, just as in taking each property separately as the basis of a special equation we are able to return to the original equation and other associated properties, similarly, the nails, the scapula, the condyle, the femur, each separately reveal the tooth or each other; and by beginning from each of them
12500-403: The two decades following his death by a series of spectacular finds, mostly by English geologists and fossil collectors such as Mary Anning , William Conybeare , William Buckland , and Gideon Mantell , who found and described the first ichthyosaurs , plesiosaurs , and dinosaurs . In a 1798 paper on the fossil remains of an animal found in some plaster quarries near Paris, Cuvier states what
12625-552: The word "dinosaur" would be coined by Richard Owen in 1842. During his lifetime, Cuvier served as an imperial councillor under Napoleon , president of the Council of Public Instruction and chancellor of the university under the restored Bourbons , Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, a Peer of France, Minister of the Interior, and president of the Council of State under Louis Philippe . He
12750-475: The world works by providing the empirical foundation of natural sciences, and it contributes directly and indirectly to human emotional and physical health, thereby fostering healthier human communities. It also serves as the basis for all conservation efforts, with natural history both informing the science and inspiring the values that drive these. As a precursor to Western science , natural history began with Aristotle and other ancient philosophers who analyzed
12875-600: The world's large natural history collections, such as the Natural History Museum, London , and the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. Three of the greatest English naturalists of the 19th century, Henry Walter Bates , Charles Darwin , and Alfred Russel Wallace —who knew each other—each made natural history travels that took years, collected thousands of specimens, many of them new to science, and by their writings both advanced knowledge of "remote" parts of
13000-564: The world. The plurality of definitions for this field has been recognized as both a weakness and a strength, and a range of definitions has recently been offered by practitioners in a recent collection of views on natural history. Prior to the advent of Western science humans were engaged and highly competent in indigenous ways of understanding the more-than-human world that are now referred to as traditional ecological knowledge . 21st century definitions of natural history are inclusive of this understanding, such as this by Thomas Fleischner of
13125-777: The world—the Amazon basin , the Galápagos Islands , and the Indonesian Archipelago , among others—and in so doing helped to transform biology from a descriptive to a theory-based science. The understanding of "Nature" as "an organism and not as a mechanism" can be traced to the writings of Alexander von Humboldt (Prussia, 1769–1859). Humboldt's copious writings and research were seminal influences for Charles Darwin, Simón Bolívar , Henry David Thoreau , Ernst Haeckel , and John Muir . Natural history museums , which evolved from cabinets of curiosities , played an important role in
13250-402: Was "a pity a man so talented should be so dastardly and envious". Richard Broke Freeman described him as "the most distinguished vertebrate zoologist and palaeontologist ... but a most deceitful and odious man". Charles Darwin stated that "No one fact tells so strongly against Owen ... as that he has never reared one pupil or follower." Owen famously credited himself and Georges Cuvier with
13375-522: Was a controversial figure among his contemporaries, both for his disagreements on matters of common descent and for accusations that he took credit for other people's work. Owen became a surgeon's apprentice in 1820 and was appointed to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1826. In 1836, Owen was appointed Hunterian professor at the Royal College, and in 1849, he succeeded William Clift as conservator of
13500-630: Was a little work entitled Antiquity of Man as deduced from the Discovery of a Human Skeleton during Excavations of the Docks at Tilbury (London, 1884). Sometime during the 1840s Owen came to the conclusion that species arise as the result of some sort of evolutionary process. He believed that there were a total of six possible mechanisms: Parthenogenesis , prolonged development, premature birth, congenital malformations, Lamarckian atrophy , Lamarckian hypertrophy and transmutation, of which he thought transmutation
13625-531: Was an English biologist , comparative anatomist and palaeontologist . Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils . Owen produced a vast array of scientific work, but is probably best remembered today for coining the word Dinosauria (meaning "Terrible Reptile " or "Fearfully Great Reptile"). An outspoken critic of Charles Darwin 's theory of evolution by natural selection , Owen agreed with Darwin that evolution occurred but thought it
13750-785: Was basically static through the Middle Ages in Europe—although in the Arabic and Oriental world, it proceeded at a much brisker pace. From the 13th century, the work of Aristotle was adapted rather rigidly into Christian philosophy , particularly by Thomas Aquinas , forming the basis for natural theology . During the Renaissance, scholars (herbalists and humanists, particularly) returned to direct observation of plants and animals for natural history, and many began to accumulate large collections of exotic specimens and unusual monsters . Leonhart Fuchs
13875-422: Was catastrophic. However, Cuvier's theory of extinction is still justified in the case of mass extinctions that occurred in the last 600 million years, when approximately half of all living species went completely extinct within a short geological span of two million years, due in part by volcanic eruptions, asteroids, and rapid fluctuations in sea level. At this time, new species rose and others fell, precipitating
14000-540: Was considered by many of Cuvier's contemporaries to be merely controversial speculation. In his Essay on the Theory of the Earth (1813) Cuvier proposed that now-extinct species had been wiped out by periodic catastrophic flooding events. In this way, Cuvier became the most influential proponent of catastrophism in geology in the early 19th century. His study of the strata of the Paris basin with Alexandre Brongniart established
14125-746: Was consistent with the supposed sacred immutability of "species", but, again, the idea of extinction, of which Cuvier was the great proponent, obviously was not. Many writers have unjustly accused Cuvier of obstinately maintaining that fossil human beings could never be found. In his Essay on the Theory of the Earth , he did say, "no human bones have yet been found among fossil remains", but he made it clear exactly what he meant: "When I assert that human bones have not been hitherto found among extraneous fossils, I must be understood to speak of fossils, or petrifactions, properly so called". Petrified bones, which have had time to mineralize and turn to stone, are typically far older than bones found to that date. Cuvier's point
14250-536: Was eminent in all these capacities, and yet the dignity given by such high administrative positions was as nothing compared to his leadership in natural science. Cuvier was by birth, education, and conviction a devout Lutheran , and remained Protestant throughout his life while regularly attending church services . Despite this, he regarded his personal faith as a private matter; he evidently identified himself with his confessional minority group when he supervised governmental educational programs for Protestants . He also
14375-405: Was he who proposed the universally-accepted subdivision of this class into the two orders of Dibranchiata and Tetrabranchiata (1832). In 1852 Owen named Protichnites – the oldest footprints found on land. Applying his knowledge of anatomy, he correctly postulated that these Cambrian trackways were made by an extinct type of arthropod , and he did this more than 150 years before any fossils of
14500-565: Was his collection of specimens from the New World, many of them obtained from Native Americans. He also maintained an archive of Native American observations, legends, and interpretations of immense fossilized skeletal remains, sent to him by informants and friends in the Americas. He was impressed that most of the Native American accounts identified the enormous bones, teeth, and tusks as animals of
14625-402: Was made by parson-naturalists such as Gilbert White , William Kirby , John George Wood , and John Ray , who wrote about plants, animals, and other aspects of nature. Many of these men wrote about nature to make the natural theology argument for the existence or goodness of God. Since early modern times, however, a great number of women made contributions to natural history, particularly in
14750-507: Was more complex than outlined in Darwin's On the Origin of Species . Owen's approach to evolution can be considered to have anticipated the issues that have gained greater attention with the recent emergence of evolutionary developmental biology . Owen was the first president of the Microscopical Society of London in 1839 and edited many issues of its journal – then known as The Microscopic Journal . Owen also campaigned for
14875-497: Was no evidence for evolution , but rather evidence for cyclical creations and destructions of life forms by global extinction events such as deluges . In 1830, Cuvier and Geoffroy engaged in a famous debate , which is said to exemplify the two major deviations in biological thinking at the time – whether animal structure was due to function or (evolutionary) morphology. Cuvier supported function and rejected Lamarck's thinking. Cuvier also conducted racial studies which provided part of
15000-415: Was often placid for extended periods of time in between sudden disturbances. The 'Preliminary Discourse' became very well known and, unauthorized translations were made into English, German, and Italian (and in the case of those in English, not entirely accurately). In 1826, Cuvier published a revised version under the name, Discours sur les révolutions de la surface du globe ( Discourse on the upheavals of
15125-405: Was one of the three founding fathers of botany, along with Otto Brunfels and Hieronymus Bock . Other important contributors to the field were Valerius Cordus , Konrad Gesner ( Historiae animalium ), Frederik Ruysch , and Gaspard Bauhin . The rapid increase in the number of known organisms prompted many attempts at classifying and organizing species into taxonomic groups , culminating in
15250-581: Was still the major way of distinguishing apes and humans. Huxley's campaign ran over two years and was devastatingly successful at persuading the overall scientific community, with each "slaying" being followed by a recruiting drive for the Darwinian cause. The spite lingered. While Owen had argued that humans were distinct from apes by virtue of having large brains, Huxley claimed that racial diversity blurred any such distinction. In his paper criticizing Owen, Huxley directly states: Owen countered Huxley by saying
15375-413: Was that all human bones found that he knew of, were of relatively recent age because they had not been petrified and had been found only in superficial strata. He was not dogmatic in this claim, however; when new evidence came to light, he included in a later edition an appendix describing a skeleton that he freely admitted was an "instance of a fossil human petrifaction". The harshness of his criticism and
15500-564: Was the least likely. Science historian Evelleen Richards has argued that Owen was likely sympathetic to developmental theories of evolution, but backed away from publicly proclaiming them after the critical reaction that had greeted the anonymously published evolutionary book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation in 1844 (it was revealed only decades later that the book had been authored by publisher Robert Chambers ). Owen had been criticized for his own evolutionary remarks in his On
15625-744: Was very active in founding the Parisian Biblical Society in 1818, where he later served as a vice president. From 1822 until his death in 1832, Cuvier was Grand Master of the Protestant Faculties of Theology of the French University. Cuvier was critical of theories of evolution, in particular those proposed by his contemporaries Lamarck and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, which involved the gradual transmutation of one form into another. He repeatedly emphasized that his extensive experience with fossil material indicated one fossil form does not, as
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