The variety of attitudes among palaeontologists faced with evolution (1840-1870)

Abstract

A variety of attitudes existed among paleontologists faced with evolution, or transformism, in 1840-1870. D’Orbigny, forcefully contributing to stratigraphy, was a catastrophist and a natural creationist. Brongniart, also catastrophist, had a more religious blend of creationism. D’Omalius d’Halloy and Gérard were explicitely transformists before Darwin, the former being religious and the latter not. Bronn and d’Archiac had a continuous view of the history of life, yet were not transformists, for scientific reasons. Gaudry became an enthusiastic evolutionist and was religious. Their different philosophico-religious opinions reveal that, in their varied attitudes toward transformism, scientific considerations were far more important than anything else; philosophical considerations played a role, and religious choices had little influence.