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Georges Cuvier
(1769-1832)
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/cuvier.html
A catastrophist. A racist.
An egomaniac who used
his reputation to intimidate
others.
All these descriptions fit
Georges Cuvier, but
http://www.strangescience.net/cuvier.htm
they are only part of the
story.
Early Years...
•born August 23, 1769, at Montbéliard,
a French-speaking community.
•studied at a school which the Duke of
Wurttemberg had founded, the Carolinian
Academy in Stuttgart, from 1784 to 1788.
•took a position as tutor to a noble family
in Normandy, which kept him away from
French Revolution;
•named to a position in the local government
and began to make his reputation as a
naturalist.
Beginning of a Career
 Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire- professor of
zoology at the Museum of Natural History
in Paris
- Read some of Cuvier’s Studies
- Invited Cuvier to join the museum staff
- Cuvier accepted the offer and eventually
became a professor of animal anatomy at
the museum
Work At The Museum
 Cuvier collaborated with Hilaire for a short
time until it became clear that they held
opposing views concerning origin of and
relationships between species.
 Cuvier devoted most of his time at the
museum to the continued study of
comparative anatomy.
•extended the classification scheme of Linnaeus by
grouping related classes into phyla. (*This was a significant
step up from Linnaeus’ system).
•saw organisms as integrated wholes, in which
each part's form and function were integrated
into the entire body, no part could be modified
without impairing this functional integration.
•Cuvier’s work with comparative anatomy led him to
reject the organic evolution theories of his time.
Studied mummified
cats brought back from
Napoleon's invasion of
Egypt, and showed that
they were no different
from their living
counterparts.
Photographs courtesy National Museums Liverpool
Used this to support his
claim that lifeforms did
not evolve over time.
Cuvier had the legendary ability to
reconstruct organisms from fragmentary
fossils, and many of his reconstructions
turned out to be strikingly accurate.
From Georges Cuvier,
Fossil Bones and Geological
Catastrophes by Martin J.S. Rudwick
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/history_08
This print shows the recovery of the first
mosasaur fossils in 1780. Cuvier used the
fossils to support his radical ideas on extinction.
“The Great American Incognitum”
 Fossil bones from Big
Bone Lick, KY found
in 1790’s.
 Some identified it
incorrectly as those of
a mammoth
http://www.boonecountyheritage.org/content/History/Clark1807.asp
Putting the pieces together...
 Americans
overestimated its
size by 6 fold
 tusks in eye
sockets?
 put tusks on upside
down like fangs
http://www.common-place.org/vol-04/no-02/semonin/
By 1795, the bones had made it to Paris and
delivered to Cuvier. He was the first to identify
the animal as an elephant relative. He called it
Mastodon, meaning “nipple tooth”.
http://www.calvin.edu/academic/geology/mastodon/species.htm
A 1798 paper by Cuvier
contained this drawing
showing the differences
between the lower jaws
of a mammoth (top)
and an Indian elephant.
These differences supported
the idea that mammoths
were indeed extinct.
In 1803, T. Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis
into the wilderness of the Louisiana Territory
advising the explorer to keep an eye peeled
for mammoths.
He thought great beasts still might be at
large in the unexplored vastness .
Lewis and William Clark found no such
animals, and Jefferson's quest for a live
mammoth came to an end.
•Cuvier published results
of study after study
documenting the past
existence of large
mammals that resembled
no living species: the giant
ground sloth, the Irish Elk,
and many others.
•With these studies, Cuvier
launched modern
vertebrate paleontology.
So, Cuvier is responsible for
- the Jurassic Park movies in
-a round-about way!
-
Cuvier’s ideas on evolution…
Catastrophism
 Cuvier’s work with fossils made him wonder why
entire species had become extinct.
 He believed that vast changes had occurred at
some point in Earth history in the form of sudden
land upheavals and floods, which destroyed entire
animal species & carved out the present features
of the Earth.
 Sound Familiar?? – THE GENESIS FLOOD!!!
 Noted that deeper
strata of sedimentary
rock had diversity of
organisms more
different from present
day life than more
recent strata.
 His reason:
catastrophism.
http://www.acnatsci.org/museum/jefferson/otherPages/cuvier_revolutions.html
Idealized cross section of the Paris Basin after
Cuvier, 1812)
Cuvier & His Contemporaries
 There was strong tension between Cuvier & some
of his contemporaries such as Lamarck and
Hilaire.
 Cuvier successfully discredited Lamarck’s
evolutionary Theory of the Inheritance of
Acquired Characteristics, which said, traits
developed by parents are passed on directly to
offspring.
Cuvier/Contemporaries(Cont.)
 In addition, Cuvier also disagreed with Hilaire’s
claim that all animals were “representatives of
only one type” (This is the idea of common
ancestry)
 Cuvier believed that each species was distinct and
created for its own special purpose.
 He also held that “any similarities between
organisms were due to common functions, not
common ancestry”
Cuvier/Contemporaries(Cont.)
 Cuvier/Hilaire differences culminated in a
public debate in 1830
 Cuvier won the debate, but his antievolutionary thinking never took hold due
to the impending shift into Darwinian
evolution shortly after.
 Cuvier died on May 13, 1832, due to the 1st
ever cholera epidemic to hit Paris.
Ironic Conclusions
- Cuvier pointed out the key issue of “why were
animals anatomically different?”
- His study of fossils led to the extensive study of
the fossil record in search of transitional forms and
examination of the different stratification layers.
- His establishment of the existence of extinction
led to the theory of Natural Selection, which says,
entire species would die off due to a particular
weakness or deficiency.
- And as we know, Natural Selection is the
benchmark of Darwinian Evolution