Cuvier, Georges

(1769-1832) (Baron Cuvier)

   zoologist and paleontologist

   Born in Montbéliard, Georges, baron Cuvier, who is considered the founder of comparative anatomy, served as an instructor in France. Invited to Paris in 1795 to work at the newly reorganized Museum of Natural History, he was soon appointed professor of zoology. Cuvier formulated two anatomic principles: that of the subordination of organs, and that of the correlation of forms. He also attempted to establish a zoological classification (Vertebrata, Articulata, Radiata, and Mollusca). Regarding fossils, he proved the existence of extinct species, thereby laying the foundations for the study of paleontology. His work served too as the basis for the transformist theory of existence, while at the same time he was a supporter of the theory of catastrophism and other ideas of his associates Etienne geoffrey saint-hilaire and jean-baptiste lamarck, with whose theories he later broke. In contrast to their evolutionary ideas, Cuvier argued that species are immutable. Cuvier's system of classification dominated natural history until the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of the Species in 1859. Among Cuvier's principal works are Leçons d'anatomie comparée (1800-1805); Recherches sur les ossements fossiles (1812-13); La Règne animal distribué selon son organisation (1816-17); Description géologique des environs de Paris(1822); Discours sur les révolutions de la surface de la globe (1825); and Histoire naturelle de poissons (1828). Cuvier was named to the Academy of Sciences in 1795 and to the academie française in 1818.