September 28, 2018, University of Queensland
A University of Queensland researcher has uncovered how a French scientist and ibis researcher conducted the first test of evolution more than 50 years before Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species.
UQ Centre for Policy Futures researcher Dr. Caitlin Curtis has found that the sacred ibis – a cousin of the Australian 'bin chicken' – became central to the history of evolution when several mummified birds were taken from Egypt to France in 1798.
"The ibis mummies were taken by Napoleon's army to Paris, and played a surprising role in an early debate about evolution," Dr. Curtis said.
"Two naturalists, Georges Cuvier and Jean-Baptist Lamarck, disagreed about the significance of the mummified Egyptian sacred ibises.
"Cuvier took careful measurements and determined that no changes had happened when comparing the mummified birds against modern specimens.
"He went on to conclude that this was proof that species could not change over time, opposing the emerging evolutionary ideas of Lamarck."
But Lamarck disagreed, arguing not enough time had passed to see any differences, and that environmental conditions would also have had to change.
"This was significant at a time when evolution was not yet an idea," Dr. Curtis said.
"Cuvier was a prominent scientist who had a lot of voice and power within society, and he continued the debate through to Lamarck's death—even criticising Lamarck's belief in evolution at his eulogy – setting back the idea for decades."
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