Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Historical Influence of Cuvier on Darwin
1: I argue that the works of Georges Cuvier is a more highly notable influence of the works of Darwin. He serves as a positive influence in regards to Darwin's comparative studies.
2: French zoologist Georges Cuvier, born in the late 18th century, is well known for his studies and correlations between four types of beings, of which he termed vertebrates, mollusks, articulates, and radiates. He is most noted, however, for his works on comparative anatomy through the use of paleontology, as well as early attempts at recreating extinct species through the studies of individual fossil parts.
3: Who gets better access to limited resources?
A: Darwin's notes hypothesized that creatures who are better adapted to the environment will gain greater control of resources within their habitat. Cuvier believed that bearing specific adaptations required pre-requisite evolutionary traits that are linked to one another. For example, having sharp teeth in a carnivore requires that they have strong and mature bones as well as capable jaw muscles and force upon biting, or that a swift animal bear more flexible joint muscles and are relatively light. By having a single characteristic evolve, creatures in turn alter traits or structures adjacent to the one they are originally altering; this allows for evolutionary adaptations that aid in a creature's attempt to control environmentally limited resources better.
4: I feel that Darwin could have developed his theory of natural selection, although not nearly as completed without the works of Cuvier. This is due to Cuvier's specialty of comparison between similar species, a work that Darwin further advanced in his studies. The law of co-ordinance structured by Cuvier, listed in the answer for #3, also serves as a key point for Dawin's theory to be fully detailed.
#5: Darwin made known his studies of natural selection within On the Origin of Species. While making it the best seller of its year, it received heavy criticism from scientists, traditionalists, and especially the churches, which refuted Darwin's studies with the still prevalent creationist theories of the time. Before publication, however, he was noted for some fears concerning forms of religious prosecution as well as protest from his pious wife. Despite the pressure from the church and opposing scientists, the book was published and released in 1859.
Source: http://www.cosmovisions.com/Williams040501.htm
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Keep in mind a couple of things. These are essentially papers and should be treated as such, complete with correct formatting and full paragraphs for each point. Second, the idea here was to explore how each of these scientists might have influenced Darwin's work. Other than the issue of extinction, the key issue that applied most directly to Darwin (as an opposing idea) was Cuvier's concept of "catastrophism", defined as the process by which old species are eliminated (go extinct) through cataclysmic events, such as floods, and new ones are created in their place. While Cuvier recognized that extinction occurred, he argued that evolution, or change, in organisms did not. New organisms did not evolve from older one. They arose through independent acts of creation by a creator. It was this denial of evolution that best contrasted Cuvier with Darwin.
ReplyDeleteThe bullet point you chose needed to be explained. Expand. How does Cuvier's work contribute/support this idea of resources? I suggest that Cuvier most likely influenced the idea of the role the environment played in the rise of new organisms. Even though he didn't feel that organisms changed in response to environmental change, he argued that environmental change was responsible for the extinction of species, leading to the creation of new ones.
I tend to agree that Darwin likely would have developed his theory with or without Cuvier, though I tend to give Cuvier less importance than you have. Cuvier's work was already quite old by the time Darwin was in school. His comparative anatomy work was probably more important to Darwin than his denial of evolutionary theory.
The final question asks about the time before Darwin published. You do not his early concerns regarding the church and his wife (well done) but it is important to recognize that these concerns delayed publishing for more than 20 years. Note that the church did not "refute" his ideas... that implies that their response falsified the work. It is more accurate to say that they challenged his ideas, albeit unsuccessfully.
In reading about Cuvier, I found that he was more concerned with anatomy than evolution. You state how he studied the anatomy of creatures as well as fossils which I don't see to be directly related to Darwin's development of his theory. I understand how you relate how they both studied the anatomy of similar species, but they came to different conclusions which is why I have to disagree that Cuvier's work had the most influence over Darwin's work.
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