Among the great scientists who have improved the history of science, there is one of them who has all the honor since he is one of the most illustrious of all time. We are talking about Georges Cuvier. He is the scientist who has given its name to paleontology and comparative anatomy. His exploits have been widely echoed in the world of science and have advanced in many areas from the time of its inception to the present.
In this article we are going to tell you all the feats and biography of Georges Cuvier
Georges Cuvier's Beginnings
Like all scientists, this man had his first beginnings. His full name is Georges Leopold Chrétien Frederic Dagobert, Baron de Cuvier, and was born in the town of Montbéliard, in France, on August 23, 1769. From a very young age he showed a great interest in the world of nature and a privileged mind. We already know that when we dedicate ourselves to something that we really love and like, we can obtain greater returns and discoveries both on our own and with the help of others.
This man was passionate about nature and added to his privileged intelligence. For this reason, during the years that the French Revolution lasted, Georges Cuvier devoted himself to studying all the anatomy of mollusks in order to deepen the knowledge he had wanted about natural history and comparative anatomy. He did not stay still before so much theory but wanted to apply the practice as soon as possible. In this way, and with great passion for what he did, in 1795 he managed to get a job at the Natural History Museum in Paris.
This meant a great step for this man since his recognition led him to be named later as the Permanent Secretary of Physical and Natural Sciences of the National Institute. In this museum he was able to study in great depth the comparative anatomy of different living beings. In order to do this, he had to dissect thousands and thousands of animals while analyzing all the skeletons in order to find answers about evolution and the relationships that exist between species that science has not known until now.
We must remember that the scientific method in these times was very different from today. Today we have large databases with valuable and detailed information on hundreds and hundreds of thousands of animals and plants. When it comes to studying about something, we have the facility that we already have the foundations built. Georges Cuvier's feat was much more valuable as he had to one by one having to dissect all these animals in order to study their anatomy from scratch.
Classification of the animal kingdom according to Georges Cuvier
All the studies that Georges Cuvier carried out throughout the French Revolution allowed him to be able to classify the animal kingdom by expanding and perfecting the Linnaean system. The knowledge acquired and captured in their studies could break with the previously held idea that animals were part of a continuous line. This continuous line advanced from the simplest animals to human beings, the latter being the most complex.
This scientist grouped the animal kingdom according to what he saw in his comparative structural and morphological studies. In this way, he divided the kingdom of animals into 4 different types: the radiated, the articulated, the mollusks and the vertebrates. These basic approaches are what made a difference in what comes to be the development of science. It was the statement that the parts of the body of an animal are related to each other forming a coordinated whole.
Although this seems quite logical today, Georges Cuvier was the first to be able to raise and explain it scientifically. It is this concept or the one that helps to provide the basis for subsequent Darwinian research to better contemplate the evolution of the living world.
Founder of paleontology
As we have mentioned before, Georges Cuvier he was the founding father of paleontology. And it is that it played a fundamental role in the development of this science thanks to its principles about the correlation that exists between structure and function in animal anatomy. He was able to reconstruct the complete skeletons of fossil animals wishing he did not have all the pieces of it. This has great merit at the time in which it was given that, as we have mentioned before, at this time there were no databases of living beings.
He was in charge of studying many fossils and they served to show the rest of the world that our planet had been populated by a very diverse fauna throughout the centuries. This marked a milestone in his career and occurred in 1812. In this year he presented to the scientific community the fossil of a flying reptile, something that would never be seen complete before. The reptile is I call it Pterodactylus and it is one of the best known prehistoric reptiles in the world. Added to this feat is the previous presentation of the fossilized skeleton of an elephant, now extinct, which has served so that today Georges Cuvier is considered the founding father of paleontology.
Despite his discoveries and exploits, he was not an advocate for evolution. Among his theories he shared that of catastrophism. This theory proposes that each extinction that has been has been caused by a universal catastrophe that was followed by a process of creation of a new fauna on the planet.
All the contributions that this scientist has made have caused him to be considered one of the most eminent of his time. He received numerous decorations and recognitions from scientific and political figures of his time. He died on May 13, 1832 in Paris from cholera. His name was written together with other great scientists of the times on the Eiffel Tower.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about the scientist Georges Cuvier.