Carl Frederick Abel Pantin FRS (30 March 1899 – 14 January 1967) was a British

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

. He was educated at

Tonbridge School (God Giveth the Increase) , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day and boarding , religion = , president = , head_label ...

and

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...

. In 1937, he won the Trail Medal of the Linnean Society, was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 1937, won one of its

Royal Medal The Royal Medal, also known as The Queen's Medal and The King's Medal (depending on the gender of the monarch at the time of the award), is a silver-gilt medal, of which three are awarded each year by the Royal Society, two for "the most important ...

s in 1950. Pantin was president of the Linnean Society 1958 - 1961, and won the

Linnean Medal The Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society of London was established in 1888, and is awarded annually to alternately a botanist or a zoologist or (as has been common since 1958) to one of each in the same year. The medal was of gold until 1976, and ...

, with Richard E. Holttum, in 1964. He was

Professor of Zoology, Cambridge University The Professorship of Zoology is a professorship at the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1866 it was originally the 'Professorship of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy', but was renamed in 1934. The title has also been used for single-tenure profess ...

from 1959 to 1966, and president of the

Marine Biological Association The Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (MBA) is a learned society with a scientific laboratory that undertakes research in marine biology. The organisation was founded in 1884 and has been based in Plymouth since the Citadel H ...

from 1960 to 1966.

Pantin was married to Amy Moir Philip Smith (see image of 1939 register), the sister of botanist Edith Philip Smith.

Cosmo-Darwinism

Pointing to the serendipitous qualities for the emergence of life of such substances as carbon and water, Pantin in 1965 postulated the existence of multiple universes, from which ours had been selected on a principle “analogous to the principle of

Natural Selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...

” H. Kragh, ''Conceptions of Cosmos'' (Oxford 2007) p. 238, - an early anticipation of the

anthropic principle The anthropic principle, also known as the "observation selection effect", is the hypothesis, first proposed in 1957 by Robert Dicke, that there is a restrictive lower bound on how statistically probable our observations of the universe are, beca ...

References

1899 births 1967 deaths 20th-century British zoologists Fellows of the Royal Society Royal Medal winners Presidents of the Linnean Society of London People educated at Tonbridge School Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Professors of Zoology (Cambridge, 1866) {{UK-zoologist-stub