Research paper

The variety of attitudes among palaeontologists faced with evolution (1840-1870)

---

MARC GODINOT
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, UMR 7207 CR2P, Case Postale 38, Département d’Histoire de la Terre, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, 8, rue Buffon, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France. godinot@mnhn.fr
Corresponding author

---

ABSTRACT

A variety of attitudes existed among paleontologists faced with evolution, or transformism, in 1840-1870. D’Orbigny, forcefully contributing to stratigraphy, was a catastrophist mand a natural creationist. Brongniart, also catastrophist, had a more religious blend of creationism. D’Omalius d’Halloy and Gérard were explicitely transformists before Darwin, the former being religious and the latter not. Bronn and d’Archiac had a continuous view of the history of life, yet were not transformists, for scientific reasons. Gaudry became an enthusiastic evolutionist and was religious. Their different philosophico-religious opinions reveal that, in their varied attitudes toward transformism, scientific considerations were far more important than anything else; philosophical considerations played a role, and religious choices had little influence.

---

Keywords: History of palaeontology, evolution, creation, fossil record.

How to cite: Godinot, M. 2012. The variety of attitudes among palaeontologists faced with evolution (1840-1870). Spanish Journal of Palaeontology, 27 (2), 143-158.

Received 30 April 2012, Accepted 17 September 2012, Published 31 December 2012

https://doi.org/10.7203/sjp.27.2.18122

---