Georges Dagobert and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

French anatomist Georges Léopold Chrétien Frédéic Dagobert, Baron Cuvier (1769-1832) concluded fossils bones belonged to an extinct species. He noted that some fossils resembled modern species, and some did not. Cuvier opposed Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829), who argued that species could be modified by the environment and acquired characteristics gained during an organism’s life could be inherited by the organism’s offspring. This was later disproved, though Lamarck was the first to propose the concept of evolution.

Cuvier also questioned Carolus Linnaeus, who argued that species had not changed since the beginning of time. Cuvier proposed that there were four separate creations, not one. The first was the creation of marine invertebrates, then reptiles, mammals, and finally, humans. At the end of each episode, God destroyed the earth with a universal cataclysm. This theory allowed an explanation for fossils discovered at different strata in the Earth’s crust and for chaotic rock formations.

Further Reading