Richard Owen

[[File:Dinornis1387.jpg|thumb|right|165px|No, he didn't kill Big Bird. That's Owen with a moa (''Dinornis novaezealandiae'') skeleton.]]{{evolution}}
'''Sir Richard Owen''' {{lived|1804|1892}} was an [[English]] anatomist who was the foremost expert on [[paleontology]] and [[comparative anatomy]] during his heyday, and was also was an infamous opponent of [[Darwin]]'s [[theories]] and [[hypotheses]] concerning [[evolution]] by [[natural selection]]. Owen is perhaps best remembered today for coining the term "[[dinosaur]]" to describe the clade of extinct reptilian beasts (except for [[birds]], but don't expect [[creationists]] to tell you that).<ref>[https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-lancashire-31623397 Sir Richard Owen: The Man Who Invented the Dinosaur] by the [[BBC]]</ref> Owen agreed with Darwin that evolution occurred, but he differed with Darwin over the details of how and why evolution occurred.<ref>Cosans, Christopher E. (2009). Owen's Ape & Darwin's Bulldog: Beyond Darwinism and Creationism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 1–192. ISBN 978-0-253-22051-6.</ref>

This dispute with Darwin (and then, perhaps inevitably, Sir [[Thomas Henry Huxley]], who was to become Owen's nemesis in his later years) ultimately led to the loss of Owen's credibility as a scientist, while also, in a way, foreshadowing the eventual rise of the "[[creation scientists]]".<ref group=note>Thereby essentially making Owen the world's first creation scientist.</ref>

Owen was noted for his deeply unpleasant character, being described as "deceitful and odious"<ref>[https://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=A27b&pageseq=1 Freeman, R. B. 2007. Charles Darwin: A companion.] Darwin Online, 2006</ref> and as "a damned liar. He lied for God and for malice."<ref>[https://www.strangescience.net/owen.htm Sir Richard Owen] Strange Science, 2024</ref> Not above taking credit for the work of others, he was dismissed from the Royal Society's Zoological Council for plagiarism.<ref>[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Short-History-Nearly-Everything-Bryson/dp/0552997048 A Short History of Nearly Everything p. 123.] Bill Bryson, 2003</ref>

==Paleontology==
[[File:Richard Owen original.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Owen on one of his better days.]]
Owen's contributions to the rising science of paleontology were vast; it would be decades before he would be superseded by paleontologists such as [[Edward Drinker Cope]].<ref group=note>These other paleontologists were perhaps more honest than Owen was and therefore made better scientists.</ref> One of the feathers in Owen's cap, besides the aforementioned naming of the dinosaurs as a taxonomic [[cladistics|clade]], was his 1863 description of the famous [[List of transitional fossils|example of a transitional fossil]] ''[[Archaeopteryx]]'' specimen discovered in a German limestone deposit in 1861, two years prior. Owen, however, had a [[bias]] that resulted in him downplaying certain aspects of the transitional nature of ''Archaeopteryx'', and he claimed that it was "just a mere bird". He then proceeded to instead sow discord among paleontologists by insinuating that birds evolved from [[pterosaur]]s rather than dinosaurs, allowing him to both distance himself from that absurd notion and then use the discord he had sewn as an example to heap scorn on evolutionary scientists' credibility.<ref>"[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_htQ8HJ1cA Pterosaurs are Terrible Lizards]" by [[AronRa]], March 2013</ref>

Owen was also the first to notice the resemblance certain newly discovered "[[synapsid|reptiles]]" from [[South Africa]] held to [[mammals]]. He described and named these specimens, including ''Dicynodon''. He dubbed them Amonodontia, which would eventually be recognized as a clade of {{wpl|therapsid||,}} or "mammal-like reptile". Over thirty years of study on them led to his 1875 tome ''Catalogue of the Fossil Reptilia of South Africa''.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books/about/Descriptive_and_Illustrated_Catalogue_of.html?id=BWJYAAAAYAAJ Google books]</ref> Owen also described a certain few extinct [[South American]] mammal genera, supplied by Darwin himself.<ref>"[https://archive.org/details/b21298701/page/n4/mode/2up Description of the skeleton of an extinct gigantic sloth: Mylodon robutus, Owen, with observations on the osteology, natural affinities, and probable habits of the megatherioid quadrupeds in general]" - text supplied by the [[Internet Archive]]</ref>

Owen also was the one who recognized the now famous [[transitional fossil]] ''[[Basilosaurus]]'' as being a whale, rather than a reptile as {{wpl|Richard Harlan}} originally described it as. Of course, Owen being Owen, he had to rename the taxon to an admittedly more fitting ''Zeuglodon'' (meaning "yoked tooth" in reference to ''Basilosaurus''' rooted teeth, rather than having the atavistic undifferentiated conical teeth modern toothed whales have), but the rules of zoological nomenclature being what they are, the name given by Harlan was retained.<ref>"[https://archive.org/details/observationsonce00owen/page/n3/mode/2up Observations on certain fossil bones from the collection of the Academy of Sciences of Philadelphia]" (1847), courtesy of the Internet Archive</ref>

==Evolution==
Perhaps the thing that permanently did in Owen's career were his false allegations that [[humans]] and [[ape]]s qualify as belonging to two separate subclasses of [[Mammalia]], justifying this blatantly false assertion by claiming that "apes lack a fundamental structure of the [[brain]] that only humans possess, that is, the hippocampus minor." Even when Huxley famously called him out on his crap, Owen [[Argumentum ad nauseam|kept repeating]] this [[Bullshit|blatant lie]] anyway, which led the English satirist Charles Kingsley to famously lampoon this charade of Owen's with the following aside from his classic children's novel ''The Water Babies'':

<blockquote>You may think that there are other more important differences between you and an ape, such as being able to speak, and make machines, and know right from wrong, and say your [[prayers]], and other little matters of that kind; but that is a child's fancy, my dear. Nothing is to be depended on but the great hippopotamus test. If you have a hippopotamus major in your brain, you are no ape, though you had four hands, no feet, and were more apish than the apes of all aperies. But if a hippopotamus major is ever discovered in one single ape's brain, nothing will save your great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- great- greater- greatest- grandmother from having been an ape too.</blockquote>

After Owen's death, Huxley famously, and arrogantly, asserted that "hardly any of these speculations and determinations have stood the test of investigation, or, indeed, that any of them were ever widely accepted. I am not sure that anyone but the historian of anatomical science is ever likely to recur to them." Contrary to Huxley's overconfident bravado, Owen has been somewhat vindicated by the eyes of history, with his important work in paleontology and comparative anatomy providing much of substance to the development of evolutionary theory, even though Owen himself is probably turning over in his grave at the thought of it.<ref>[http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/owen.html Richard Owen] biography available from the University of California Museum of Paleontology Berkeley</ref>

==See also==
*[[Thomas Henry Huxley]] — His hated arch-nemesis
*[[Non-Darwinian evolution]] — the competing theories

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
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[[Category:Biologists]]
[[Category:British people]]
[[Category:Evolution]]
[[Category:History of science]]
[[Category:Paleontologists]]
[[Category:Shysters]]

Categories: Biologists, British people, Evolution, History of science, Paleontologists, Shysters