Jean Albert Gaudry (16 September 1827 – 27 November 1908) was a French geologist and

palaeontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

. He was born at

St Germain-en-Laye Saint-Germain-en-Laye () is a Communes of France, commune in the Yvelines Departments of France, department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris, from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. ...

, and was educated at the Catholic

Collège Stanislas de Paris The Collège Stanislas de Paris (), colloquially known as Stan, is a highly selective private Catholic school in Paris, situated on " Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs" in the 6th arrondissement. It has more than 3,000 students, from preschool to '' clas ...

. He was a notable proponent of

theistic evolution Theistic evolution (also known as theistic evolutionism or God-guided evolution) is a theological view that God creates through laws of nature. Its religious teachings are fully compatible with the findings of modern science, including biological ...

.Buffetaut, Éric. (1987). ''A Short History of Vertebrate Palaeontology''. Croom Helm. p. 117

Career

At the age of twenty-five he made explorations in

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

and

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

, residing in the latter country from 1855 to 1860. He then investigated the rich deposit of

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

vertebrata at Pikermi and brought to light a remarkable

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

ian fauna,

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

in age, and intermediate in its forms between European, Asiatic and African types. He also published an account of the geology of the island of Cyprus (''Mém. Soc. Géol. de France'', 1862). In 1853, while still in Cyprus, he was appointed assistant to A d'Orbigny, who was the first to hold the chair of palaeontology in the museum of natural history at Paris. In 1872 he succeeded to this important post; in 1882 he was elected member of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (French: ''Académie des sciences'') is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV of France, Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific me ...

. In 1885

Philippe Thomas Philippe Thomas (4 May 1843 – 12 February 1910) was a French veterinarian and amateur geologist who discovered large deposits of phosphates in Tunisia. Despite the huge economic importance of his discovery, he received little recognition during ...

was assigned to the Tunisian Scientific Exploration Mission at Gaudry's recommendation. Later Gaudry helped Thomas write the ''Essai d'une description géologique de la Tunisie'', which reported the results of the Tunisian research. In 1895 Gaudry was elected a foreign member of the

Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

. In 1900 he presided over the meetings of the eighth International Congress of Geology then held in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. He was elected a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

in 1900. He is distinguished for his researches on fossil mammalia, and for the support which his studies have rendered to the theory of evolution. He has also occasionally studied other topics. Among others, he described

Early Permian 01 or '01 may refer to: * The year 2001, or any year ending with 01 * The month of January * 1 (number) Music * '01 (Richard Müller album), 01'' (Richard Müller album), 2001 * 01 (Son of Dave album), ''01'' (Son of Dave album), 2000 * 01 (Urban ...

Haptodus baylei ''Haptodus'' is an extinct genus of basal (phylogenetics), basal sphenacodont, member of the clade that includes therapsids and hence, mammals. It was at least in length. It lived in present-day France during the Early Permian. It was a medium-s ...

'', whose affinities he could not determine at the time, but which is now known to be a synapsid closely related to therapsids.

Evolution

Statue Albert Gaudry MNHN (Matthieu Gauvain)

Gaudry was one of the first scientists to invent a

phylogenetic tree A phylogenetic tree (also phylogeny or evolutionary tree Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA.) is a branching diagram or a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological spec ...

for fossil forms in 1866. Gaudry was an advocate of

. In his book ''Essai de paléontologie philosophique'' (1896) he considered evolution to be a divine plan guided by God.

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...

cited Gaudry's palaeontological research from his excavations at Pikermi in the second edition of ''

On Origin of Species ''On the Origin of Species'' (or, more completely, ''On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life''),The book's full original title was ''On the Origin of Species by Me ...

'', 1872 and ''The Descent of Man'', 1871. His research was also positively cited by

Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural se ...

. Gaudry discovered and reconstructed several new mammal species that he considered were intermediates, he believed these were evidence for evolution but differed from Darwin in believing they were the result of a plan by God. Because of his spiritual beliefs, he rejected the idea 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 ...

and struggle for existence.Tort, Patrick. ''The Interminable Decline of Lamarckism in France''. In Eve-Marie Engels,

Thomas F. Glick Thomas F. Glick (born January 28, 1939) is an American academic who taught in the departments of history and gastronomy at Boston University from 1972 to 2012. He served as the history department's chairperson from 1984 to 1989, and again from 1994 ...

. (2008). ''The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe''. Continuum. p. 335. "Albert Gaudry (1827–1908), a creator of evolutionary palaeontology, was both a transformist and an admirer of Darwin, but his spiritualist beliefs and his vision of a cosmic order led him to reject the theory of the struggle for existence, which he considered to be a mere hypothesis." Paleontologist Éric Buffetaut has written that "Gaudry's strong religious feelings made it difficult for him to accept Darwin's mechanistic vision of an evolution based on chance and natural selection. Evolution was acceptable to him because it revealed a unity in the organic world which was the mark of divine works."

Publications

*''Animaux fossiles et géologie de l'Attique'' (2 vols., 1862–1867)
''Considérations Générales sur les Animaux Fossiles de Pikermi''
(1866) *''Cours de paléontologie'' (1873) *''Animaux fossiles du Mont Lebéron'' (1873) *''Les Enchaînements du monde animal dans les temps géologiques'' (''Mammifères tertiaires'', 1878 ; ''Fossiles primaires'', 1883; ''Fossiles secondaires'', 1890) *''Essai de paléontologie philosophique'' (1896) Brief memoir with portrait in ''Geol. Mag.'' (1903), p. 49. Source

Quotes

If we recognise that organised beings have little by little been transformed, we shall regard them as plastic substances which an artist has been pleased to knead during the immense course of ages, lengthening here, broadening or diminishing there, as the sculptor, with a piece of clay, produces a thousand forms, following the impulse of his genius. But we shall not doubt that the artist was the Creator himself, for each transformation has borne a reflection of his infinite beauty.

Notes

References