Georges Cuvier
Baron Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier (23 August 1769–13 May 1832), usually called Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist.[1]
Georges Cuvier | |
|---|---|
 Georges Cuvier | |
| Born | 23 August 1769 |
| Died | 13 May 1832 |
| Nationality | French |
| Known for | establishing extinction, catastrophism, opposition to evolution, stratigraphy |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | natural history, paleontology, anatomy |
| Institutions | Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle |
Cuvier was a very important figure in scientific circles in Paris during the early 19th century. He helped establish the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology by comparing living animals with fossils. He proved extinction was a fact. He was the most influential person believing in catastrophism in geology in the early 19th century. His most famous work is the Règne animal distribué d'après son organisation 1817; translated into English as The Animal Kingdom.
Cuvier was a member of the elite Académie française and the French Academy of Sciences. He is remembered for strongly opposing the evolutionary theories of Lamarck and Geoffroy. Cuvier believed there was no evidence for the evolution of organic forms, but there was evidence for successive creations after catastrophic extinction events.[2]
Some of Cuvier's most influential followers were Louis Agassiz, and Richard Owen. His is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.
He was the elder brother of Frédéric Cuvier (1773–1838), also a naturalist. Cuvier died in Paris, of cholera.
Georges Cuvier Media
Portrait by François-André Vincent, 1795
Birthplace of Georges Cuvier in Montbéliard
Cuvier's tomb in the Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris
- Portrait of Baron Georges Cuvier, holding a fish fossil Iconographic Collections*Keywords: Georges Chretien Dagobert Cuvier; Chollet; Giraud
Georges Cuvier's 1812 skeletal reconstruction of Anoplotherium commune. The stratigraphy and lack of modern analogue in the extinct mammal was proof of extinction and ecological succession.
These Indian elephant and mammoth jaws were included in 1799 when Cuvier's 1796 paper on living and fossil elephants was printed.
Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus from the 1834 Czech edition of Cuvier's Discours sur les revolutions de la surface du globe
Plate from Le Règne Animal, 1828 edition
Plate from Le Règne Animal, 1828 edition
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References
- ↑ Outram, Dorinda 1984. Georges Cuvier: vocation, science and authority in post-revolutionary France. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
- ↑ Larson, Edward J. 2004. Evolution: the remarkable history of a scientific theory. New York: Modern Library. ISBN 0-679-64288-9