Jeffrey Archer
English author and former politician (born 1940)
Richard Owen
English biologist and paleontologist (1804-1892)
Sir Richard Owen 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.
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About the Richard Owen
Sir Richard Owen 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 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 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 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.
10 Quotes by Richard Owen
- 1.
No naturalist has devoted more painstaking attention to the structure of the barnacles than Mr. Darwin.
Richard OwenEnglish biologist and paleontologist (1804-1892)
- 2.
That the variability of an organism to a certain extent is a constant and certain condition of life we admit, otherwise there would be no distinguishable individuals of a species.
Richard OwenEnglish biologist and paleontologist (1804-1892)
- 3.
The powers, aspirations, and mission of man are such as to raise the study of his origin and nature, inevitably and by the very necessity of the case, from the mere physiological to the psychological stage of scientific operations.
Richard OwenEnglish biologist and paleontologist (1804-1892)
- 4.
But, as we have before been led to remark, most of Mr. Darwin’s statements elude, by their vagueness and incompleteness, the test of Natural History facts.
Richard OwenEnglish biologist and paleontologist (1804-1892)
- 5.
Mr. Darwin contributes some striking and ingenious instances of the way in which the principle partially affects the chain, or rather network of life, even to the total obliteration of certain meshes.
Richard OwenEnglish biologist and paleontologist (1804-1892)
- 6.
Mr. Darwin refers to the multitude of the individual of every species, which, from one cause or another, perish either before, or soon after attaining maturity.
Richard OwenEnglish biologist and paleontologist (1804-1892)
- 7.
Every step in the progress of this study has tended to obliterate the technical barriers by which logicians have sought to separate the inquiries relating to the several parts of man’s nature.
Richard OwenEnglish biologist and paleontologist (1804-1892)
- 8.
Manifold subsequent experience has led to a truer appreciation and a more moderate estimate of the importance of the dependence of one living being upon another.
Richard OwenEnglish biologist and paleontologist (1804-1892)
- 9.
Cuvier had preceded Lamarck in specifying the kinds and degrees of variation, which his own observations and critical judgment of the reports of others led him to admit.
Richard OwenEnglish biologist and paleontologist (1804-1892)
- 10.
The relationship between a Russian and a bottle of vodka is almost mystical.
Richard OwenEnglish biologist and paleontologist (1804-1892)