Otto Heinrich Schindewolf (7 June 1896 – 10 June 1971) was a German

paleontologist 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 ...

who studied the

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

s and

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda (Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head ...

Biography

Schindewolf was on the faculty at the

University of Marburg The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the wor ...

from 1919 until 1927. Then he became director of the Geological Survey of Berlin. In 1948 he became a professor at the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Wü ...

, where he retired as professor emeritus in 1964. He was a saltationist who opposed the theory of gradual evolution, and in the 1930s suggested that major evolutionary transformations must have occurred in large leaps between species. This idea became known as the Hopeful Monster theory and was further taken and developed up by the geneticist

Richard Goldschmidt Richard Benedict Goldschmidt (April 12, 1878 – April 24, 1958) was a German-born American geneticist. He is considered the first to attempt to integrate genetics, development, and evolution. He pioneered understanding of reaction norms, gen ...

in the 1940s. Schindewolf was also the first to suggest, in 1950, that

mass extinction An extinction event (also known as a mass extinction or biotic crisis) is a widespread and rapid decrease in the biodiversity on Earth. Such an event is identified by a sharp change in the diversity and abundance of multicellular organisms. It ...

s might have been caused by extraterrestrial impacts or nearby

supernova A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...

. From 1948 until his retirement in 1964, Schindewolf was professor of Geology and Paleontology at the

Evolution

As a saltationist Schindewolf had supported

macromutation Mutationism is one of several alternatives to evolution by natural selection that have existed both before and after the publication of Charles Darwin's 1859 book ''On the Origin of Species''. In the theory, mutation was the source of novelty, cr ...

s as part of his evolutionary theory. He was known for presenting an alternative interpretation of the

fossil record 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 in ...

, combining

orthogenesis Orthogenesis, also known as orthogenetic evolution, progressive evolution, evolutionary progress, or progressionism, is an obsolete biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a definite direction towards some go ...

mutationism Mutationism is one of several alternatives to evolution by natural selection that have existed both before and after the publication of Charles Darwin's 1859 book ''On the Origin of Species''. In the theory, mutation was the source of novelty, cr ...

and extraterrestrial impacts, as opposed to Darwin's

gradualism Gradualism, from the Latin ''gradus'' ("step"), is a hypothesis, a theory or a tenet assuming that change comes about gradually or that variation is gradual in nature and happens over time as opposed to in large steps. Uniformitarianism, incrementa ...

. Schindewolf's theory claimed that variation tended to move in a predetermined direction. His theory became known as typostrophism and stated that

occurs due to a periodic cyclic model of evolutionary processes which are predestined to go through a life cycle dictated by factors internal to the organism. Part of his "typostrophism" (German: ''Typostrophe'') theory advocated sudden evolutionary change by macromutations but he later dropped this view. His theory of orthogenesis (guided, straight-line evolution) and eventual decay went through three stages (typogenesis xplosion of new types typostasis aintenance of types and typolysis plitting of types, degeneration claimed to be embedded within a cyclical view of the

ary process. His theory also proposed that mass

extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

s, especially the ones at the end of the

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleoz ...

period 252 million years ago, were the result of

cosmic radiation Cosmic rays are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Solar System in our own ...

caused by

explosions. Schindewolf speculated that a supernova star explosion could emit radiation lethal to organisms if close enough to earth. He proposed that the radiation from a supernova could have two effects, extinguishing many species of life and causing macromutations which in turn could cause new

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

to originate. Schindewolf was the only scientist to have speculated that the first

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

may have hatched from a reptile's egg. It was only a speculation and he abandoned the view of macromutations in later publications.Otto Schindewolf. (1969). ''Über den “Typus” in morphologischer und phylogenetischer Biologie''. Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. His book ''Basic Questions in Paleontology'' was published in German in 1950 and was translated into English in 1993 with a foreword written by

Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould (; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely read authors of popular science of his generation. Gould sp ...

Bibliography

(incomplete) * Wenz W. (1938–1944) ''Teil 1: Allgemeiner Teil und

Prosobranchia Prosobranchia was a large taxonomic subclass of sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. This taxon of gastropods dates back to the 1920s. It has however been proven to be polyphyletic (consisting of more than one lineage of descent). Gene ...

''. In: Schindewolf O. H. (ed.) ''Handbuch der Paläozoologie, Band 6,

Gastropoda The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. ...

'', Verlag Gebrüder Bornträger, Berlin, xii + 1639 pp. His ''Basic Questions in Paleontology'' was published in German in 1950, and was a landmark work in the field of paleontology and evolution.

References

External links

* * (17 December 1938). "Handbuch der Paläozoologie". ''Nature'' 142: 1057 – review of the book. {{DEFAULTSORT:Schindewolf, Otto Heinrich 1896 births 1971 deaths Catastrophism German paleontologists German malacologists Mutationism Orthogenesis 20th-century German zoologists