Henry Fairfield Osborn

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Henry Fairfield Osborn : biography

August 8, 1857 – November 6, 1935

Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sr. ForMemRS (August 8, 1857 – November 6, 1935) was an American geologist, paleontologist, and eugenicist, and the president of the American Museum of Natural History for 25 years.

Theories

Dawn Man Theory

Osborn was a critic of Darwinism and instead developed his own evolution theory of man’s origins called the "Dawn Man Theory". His theory was founded on the discovery of Piltdown Man (Eanthropus) which was dated to the Late (Upper) Pliocene. Writing before Piltdown was exposed as a hoax, the Eanthropus or "Dawn Man" Osborn maintained sprung from a common ancestor with the ape during the Oligocene period which he believed developed entirely separately during the Miocene (16 million years ago). Therefore Osborn argued that all apes (Simia) following the pre-Darwinian classification of Linnaeus had evolved entirely parallel to the ancestors of man (homo)."Recent Discoveries Relating to the Origin and Antiquity of Man", Henry Fairfield Osborn, Science, New Series, Vol. 65, No. 1690, May 20, 1927, pp. 481-488."Man was Never an Ape", Popular Science, 1927, Aug 1927, Vol. 111, No. 2, p. 35."The Hunt for the Dawn Monkey: Unearthing the Origins of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans", Christopher Beard, University of California Press, 2006."Human evolution: an illustrated introduction", Roger Lewin, Wiley-Blackwell, 2005, p. 15. Osborn himself wrote:

While believing in common ancestry between man and ape, Osborn denied that this ancestor was ape-like. The common ancestor between man and ape Osborn always maintained was more Human than ape. Writing to Arthur Keith in 1927, he remarked "…when our Oligocene ancestor is found it will not be an ape, but it will be surprisingly pro-human".Lewin, 1997, p. 56. His student William K. Gregory called Osborn’s idiosyncratic view on man’s origins as a form of "Parallel Evolution" but many creationists misinterpreted Osborn, greatly frustrating him, and believed he was asserting man had never evolved from a lower life form.Lewin, 1997, p. 57.

Aristogenesis

Osborn was a believer in Orthogenesis, he coined the term "Aristogenesis" for his theory. Osborn described Aristogenesis as "a creative principle causing the [evolutionary] development towards a certain end".Suid-Afrikaanse joernaal van wetenskap, Volume 76, South African Association for the Advancement of Science, 1981, p. 78 According to Osborn Aristogenesis was a mysterious factor in evolution, an intelligent agency and creative principle, with the ultimate outcome of evolution being the production of mankind.Biological abstracts, Volume 9, Part 1, BioSciences Information Service of Biological Abstracts, 1935, p. 1Proceedings of the American philosophical society held at Philadelphia for promoting useful knowledge, Volumes 73-74, American Philosophical Society, 1934, p. 152

Early life and career

Son of the prominent railroad tycoon William Henry and Virginia Reed Osborn, Henry Fairfield Osborn was born in Fairfield, Connecticut, 1857. He studied at Princeton University (1873-1877), obtaining a B.A. in geology and archaeology, where he was mentored by paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope. Two years later, Osborn took a special course of study in anatomy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons and Bellevue Medical School of New York under Dr. William H. Welch, and subsequently studied embryology under Thomas Huxley as well as Francis Maitland Balfour at Cambridge University, England."After Twenty Years:The Record of the Class of 1877", Princeton University, 1877-1897, p. 72. Trenton, N. J. 189."Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935)", Hervey W. Shimer, Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 72, No. 10, May, 1938, pp. 377-379. In 1880, Osborn obtained a Sc.D. in paleontology from Princeton, becoming a Lecturer in Biology and Professor of Comparative Anatomy from the same university (1883-1890). In 1891, Osborn was hired by Columbia University as a professor of zoology; simultaneously, he accepted a position at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, where he served as the curator of a newly formed Department of Vertebrate Paleontology. As a curator, he assembled a remarkable team of fossil hunters and preparators, including William King Gregory, Roy Chapman Andrews, a gentleman allegedly a possible inspiration for the creation of the fictional archeologist Indiana Jones, and Charles R. Knight, who made murals of dinosaurs in their habitats and sculptures of the living creatures. Thanks to his considerable family wealth and personal connections, he succeeded Morris K. Jesup as the president of the museum’s Board of Trustees in 1908, serving until 1933, during which time he accumulated one of the finest fossil collections in the world. Long a member of the US Geological Survey, Osborn became its senior vertebrate paleontologist in 1924. He led many fossil-hunting expeditions into the American Southwest, starting with his first to Colorado and Wyoming in 1877. Osborn conducted research on Tyrannosaurus brains by cutting open fossilized braincases with a diamond saw."Introduction," in Larsson (2001). Pg. 20. (Modern researchers use computed tomography scans and 3D reconstruction software to visualize the interior of dinosaur endocrania without damaging valuable specimens.)"Abstract," in Larsson (2001). Pg. 19.He accumulated a number of prizes for his work in paleontology. In 1901, Osborn was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He described and named Ornitholestes in 1903, Tyrannosaurus rex in 1905, Pentaceratops in 1923, and Velociraptor in 1924. In 1929 Osborn was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences. Despite his considerable scientific stature during the 1900s and 1910s, Osborn’s scientific achievements have not held up well, for they were undermined by ongoing efforts to bend scientific findings to fit his own racist and eugenicist viewpoints.