Talk:Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau

last name, first name
The French Wikipedia alphabetizes his name as "Quatrefages de Bréau, Jean Louis Armand de". We currently alphabetize it as "Bréau, Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de". I'm not sure which is correct, but I would favor the French version since he is, after all, French. Kaldari (talk) 23:47, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Vandalism
Repeated ungrammatical sentences have been inserted "although do not accept evolutionism he maintained communication with Darwin", "Quatrefages never accept the evolution". It hard to tell if this is vandalism or not. According to reliable sources Quatrefages was an opponent of natural selection, not evolution. Skeptic from Britain (talk) 22:12, 7 August 2018 (UTC)


 * IP is continuing his crusade on this, I now consider this blatant vandalism. Skeptic from Britain (talk) 17:59, 8 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Same IP is now using this account 80.225.30.224 (talk) 18:04, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Quatrefages was not anti-evolution
Quatrefages was not entirely anti-evolution. Here are some quotes that demonstrate this:

"He [Quatrefages] explicitly defended the right and necessity for propounding theories, but said that, in the very important question of evolution, the matter should be kept much more open than either the pro-Darwinists or the anti-Darwinists wanted. While the evolutionists insisted on more variation than could be substantiated by the facts, the anti-evolutionists were too dogmatic and went beyond the facts in denying any changed. In contrast Quatrefages underlined the fact of human ignorance. Toward transformism he remained agnostic and was critical of the true believers on either side of him."

Source:Thomas F. Glick. (1988). The Comparative Reception of Darwinism. pp. 132-133

"Quatrefages was already in 1860 (and before) a devout monogenist. Furthermore, he remained very critical of all evolutionary theories promoted during his life time, without being an anti-evolutionist, strictly speaking... It will be remembered that de Quatrefages identified two distinct causes of change acting at two different levels. An unknown cause was responsible for the origin of species and another for changes within the species. According to de Quatrefages (1905), it is under this latter cause exclusively that human evolution was molded, for he held that humankind constituted a single species, as demonstrated especially through the fluidity of the crossbreedings taking place among its living representatives."

Source: Richard Delisle. (2006). Debating Humankind's Place in Nature, 1860-2000: The Nature of Paleoanthropology. p. 60

De Quatrefages rejected human evolution, but not evolution for animals or plants:

"De Quatrefages opposed Broca and Darwin, but in such an informed and courteous way that he earned the respect of Darwin's friends and enemies alike. He was considered to be Darwin's most perceptive critic in France. In 1869, de Quatrefages published a series of essays on Darwinism in the Revue de deux Mondes, which were incorporated four years later into Darwin et ses Precurseurs Francais. He was thoroughly familiar with the history of evolutionary theory, but for both scientific and humanistic reasons would not apply evolution to man. De Quatrefages claimed that there was no proof of human evolution and, therefore, that it should not be accepted. Man belonged in a separate kingdom (regne), above the plant and animal kingdoms. One did not have to choose between transformism and creationist; de Quatrefages proposed a middle course, professing ignorance of the origin of species."

Source: Paul Alfred Erickson (1974). The Origins of Physical Anthropology. University of Connecticut. p. 49 80.225.30.224 (talk) 17:52, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

There is a review Quatrefages's book The Human Species in the The American Naturalist, which reads:

"While he accepts the doctrine of natural selection, claims that we have not yet discovered any vera causa of transmutation of species, though expressing his willingness to accept a theory of evolution when a good working one is discovered. He meanwhile strongly insists upon the fact that the early races of man have been modified during their migrations, and that the prehistoric races have been acted upon by climatic changes, thus far De Quatrefages is an evolutionist."

Source: Online at JSTOR 80.225.30.224 (talk) 18:11, 14 August 2018 (UTC)