Talk:Richard Owen

Political motives
See Huxley in his displays and recruitment was a preacher and evolution a religious belief. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.98.152.20 (talk) 16:24, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

One bit could be better supported-- "Working class militants were trumpeting man's monkey origins. To crush these ideas, Owen, as President-elect of the Royal Association, announced his authoritative anatomical studies of primate brains, showing that humans were not just a separate species but a separate sub-class." Does anyone know what specific groups of folks found Darwin's ideas politically supportive in the early days, or have a cite about him addressing these (socialist?) political implications? 68.35.68.100 05:35, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be informative to know what working class militants are being mentioned? After learning who they were, it would be even more instructive to be able to follow a citation and read their very words as they loudly and widely proclaimed that humans originated from apes.Lestrade (talk) 14:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)Lestrade
 * I have added one source: Marx --Straw Cat (talk) 12:09, 24 April 2009 (UTC)).

Edward Blythe
I removed the following statement:

(Edward Blyth is normally credited for being the first naturalist to have officially developed the idea between 1835-1837.)

First, a controversy about who first published the ideas of natural selection, etc. doesn't really fit into an article about Richard Owen; and second (more importantly) it needs to have a reliable reference.Glendoremus 21:46, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * "Edward Blyth accepted the principle that species could be modified over time, and his writings had a major influence on Charles Darwin. Blyth wrote three major articles on natural selection, published in 'The Magazine of Natural History' between 1835 and 1837.[1][2])."


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Blyth


 * Within one of the first paragraphs of the article, with two references; note the title of the second reference:


 * "An Attempt to Classify the "Varieties" of Animals, with Observations on the Marked Seasonal and Other Changes Which Naturally Take Place in Various British Species, and Which Do Not Constitute Varieties"...


 * And, secondly, given the fact that the statement previous seemed to be crediting Darwin as the sole formulator for natural selection (which is a pretty common mistake, even in most published articles and books), it felt proper to correct it here.


 * Considering that the whole article is outlining who became more predominant in naturalist circles due to perceived correctness of ideas, it seems right to at least point out that Darwin wasn't original in his sole claim to fame. More could have been brought up about his appropriating his grandfather Erasmus' ideas on evolution, or how he essentially took key concepts from others without giving credit (the same as what Owen was accused of). The short blurb is enough to lead people onto the Blyth article and better information.


 * Both criteria for your objections have been met and answered; hence, I think the short reference should be returned. Kh123


 * I don't see that this article makes any claim that Darwin was the first(or only)--it simply says: "This was one of the many influences which lead Darwin to later formulate his own ideas on the concept of natural selection" (emphasis mine). This article is about Owen and how his theories/beliefs/work interacted with Darwin's. In addition, the statement I removed says "normally credited with being the first..."--that just is not correct as the previous commentor points out.Glendoremus 14:43, 25 March 2007 (UTC)


 * It says "one of the many influences" and "his own"... after I edited and added those statements.


 * Previously, it said: "This was a spur to the inception of Darwin's theory of natural selection." Period. Hence, it makes Darwin to seem the sole formulator, which is why I changed it (My login on those changes is clearly marked in the edit history page).


 * It is a common mistake for many science writers to think that Darwin was the "great inventor" of natural selection and macro evolution, rather than the "great synthesizer" of those concepts (and even this wasn't so notable, truth be told). It is like crediting A.G. Bell for inventions in electricity rather than the appropriator that he was of others' work for his own ends. Yet it is a popular misconception that he was *the* man, and normally credited as "the first" in many minds. Same with Darwin.


 * All of the info which meets your previous objections has been either in the hyperlinks provided or in the edit log. I still think adding a hyperlink to Blyth's work and comment on Darwin not being the sole originator of the hypothesis meets the criteria of wikipedia's desire for correct, encyclopedic content. What say you? Kh123

Darwin credits Owen with natural selection
"...also gave some extracts from a correspondence between Professor Owen and the editor of the "London Review", from which it appeared manifest to the editor as well as to myself, that Professor Owen claimed to have promulgated the theory of natural selection before I had done so; and I expressed my surprise and satisfaction at this announcement..."

This was the first usage of Theory of natural selection in OoS but Darwin never gave an actual theory, nowhere did he define a formal theoryTongueSpeaker (talk) 16:12, 8 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Eh? Darwin's "theory of natural selection" appears in the first edition of 1859, this quote appears in the 5th edition of 1869. You seem to be rather mistaken. . . dave souza, talk 18:31, 8 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The passage from OoS I quoted is the first occurrence of the term ToNS - but Darwin never anywhere formally defined what the ToE is.Even on wikipedia ToNS redirects to NS. Would you Dave please provide me with the formally established ToNS.TongueSpeaker (talk) 14:33, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Natural Selection, which sets out his theory, and the phrase "theory of natural selection" is specifically used in some places such as here. If Darwin isn't being formal enough for you, that's your problem and not his. . . dave souza, talk 16:21, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Most historians who write on Owen would say he came to the conclusion that evolution occurs sometime in the 1840s, but his believing in evolution for Owen, is not the same thing as believing in the "the theory of natural selection". The theory of natural selection is a theory about how evolution occurs, and there were 6 other theories prior to the Origin that people like Owen were considering, according to Rupke. I think the remark of Darwin indicates he did not fully understand what Owen's exact views were on evolution as much as he might have. Cosans (talk) 15:23, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Both Darwin and the editor of the London Review appear to have found Owen's shifting position confusing, and further clarification of the various phases of Owen's views would be useful in this article. Darwin's understanding expressed in the fourth edition of the Origin was that Owen had expressed belief "that he promulgated the theory of natural selection in a passage read before the Zoological Society in February, 1850 ('Transact.' vol. iv. p. 15)" in a letter to the 'London Review' (May 5, 1866, p. 516), but Owen seems to have responded with a statement in Anatomy of Vertebrata, III., pages 798, 799. indicating that he had not given credence to natural selection having any effect. Did Owen go beyond "ordained continuous becoming" as an explanation? . . dave souza, talk 21:26, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

NPOV and another point
From the last paragraph under the Controversy heading:

"...it is pleasant to point out that he could be convivial and friendly to non-rival types."

That is not a neutral POV at all.

Second, it is hardly praiseworthy to state that Owen could only be civil towards those who were not "competition" to him, especially given the low means he took of dealing with those who were. In any event, the fact that he was courteous to those who were outside his field hardly counterbalances his consistent plagiarism and sock-puppeting. Tavernknight (talk) 05:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC)


 * In fact the last para is entirely irrelevant; the material above it concerns Owen's controversies with his peers. All the statements in the section are now supported by incontestable references, though some of these are still not arranged as one might wish. Incidentally, not really covered in the article, there is a great deal of evidence, based on his letters and his wife's diary, in his grandson's biography, as to Owen's careful cultivation of the upper classes. He was always obsequious to his social betters, and they did him proud in return! This might be covered in a separate section.


 * I have made the section title more specific, and cut out the last para, so now it does contain just his interaction with his peers/rivals. Macdonald-ross (talk) 12:25, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Bot-created subpage
A temporary subpage at User:Polbot/fjc/Richard Owen was automatically created by a perl script, based on this article at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges. The subpage should either be merged into this article, or moved and disambiguated. Polbot (talk) 21:38, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Bringing in more of the scholarship on Owen
I wonder if more of the scholarship on Richard Owen could be brought into his Richard Owen. Although Owen made great efforts to expand the anatomical understanding of living and extinct vertebrates and was the driving force behind the British Museum of Natural History, his arguments with Darwin and Huxley over how evolution occurs decreased the amount of attention his work got beginning in the 1860s. With the rise of evo-devo, which seeks to explore many the same aspects of evolution that most interested Owen, he has been getting more attention lately, however, from historians and philosophers of science. Several books and articles have been published about him during the last three decades. I believe it would greatly improve the quality of the Wikipedia accounts of him if people interested in him would read some of the works about him that have been published and brought some of those facts into the communities’ articles. From our perspective, Richard Owen’s approach to evolution is exotic. Owen was fluent in both French and German, was very aware of the intellectual movements on the Continent, and tried to conduct a version of Naturphilosophie in English. Michael Ruse calls him the British Naturphilosoph at one point. Owen saw evolution as involving laws of form, rapid changes, developmental shifts, and spontaneous generation. The Rupke book offers a comprehensive study of his life and ideas, and would be a good place anyone who wants to get an overview of Owen to start. A good text of Owen’s to start with is his concluding remarks of Anatomy of the Vertebrates, (pp. 786-826) which can be found online at: http://books.google.com/books?id=swgAAAAAQAAJ&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPA792,M2. (this is on the Wikipedia web page) The Evellen Richards article explores at length how and when Owen developed the theories of evolution that he defends there. Ron Amundson has just come out with a paper back edition of Owen’s On the Nature of Limbs. which would give someone a snap shot of his anatomical work…. There is an interesting difference in how Owen is portrayed politically as well: Desmond portrays him as a conservative gentleman, while Rupke tells a story of how he built alliances against the Tories with liberal Politians to get lots of government funding for a big British Museum and how he was a friend of the Christian Socialist Charles Kingsley.

Here is some of the main work that has been done on Owen’s thought:

Amundson, R., 2005, The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought: Roots of Evo-Devo, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Camardi, G. 2001, "Richard Owen, Morphology and Evolution"  Journal of History of Biology, 34: 481 -515

Cosans, C., 2009, Owen’s Ape & Darwin’s Bulldog: Beyond Darwinism and Creationism, Bloomington, Indiana University Press.

Desmond, A., 1982, Archetypes and Ancestors,  Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Owen, Richard, Ronald Amundson, Mary P. Winsor, and Kevin Padian, 2008, One the Nature of the Limbs: A Discourse, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Owen and Phillip Reid Sloan, 1992, The Hunterian Lectures in Comparative Anatomy, May and June 1837 Chicago:  University Of Chicago Press.

Richards, E., 1987,  "A Question of Property Rights: Richard Owen's Evolutionism Reassessed", British Journal of the History of Science,  20: 129-171.

Rupke, N., 1994, Richard Owen Victorian Naturalist, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Smith, C., 1997, "Worlds in Collision: Owen and Huxley on the Brain", Science in Context, 10: 343 - 365.

Strick, J., 2000, Sparks of Life: Darwinism and the Victorian Debates Over Spontaneous Generation, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. —Preceding Cosans (talk) 04:13, 11 March 2009 (UTC)]] comment added by Cosans (talk • contribs) 02:51, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Additions and a couple revisions of the Owen article
I have had some concerns about the adequacy of the page on Richard Owen and made a few additions and a couple revisions.

I have read and studied all of Owen’s papers on apes, done some dissections on ape brains to see his perspective, read much of Owen's other work on anatomy, and read almost all of the secondary scholarship on him.

Below are the some of the changes that I made and comments on what I see the issues as involved.

SUGGESTED ADDITION He agreed with Darwin that evolution occurred, but thought it was more complex than outlined in the Origin. Owen's approach to evolution can be seen as having anticipated the issues that have gained greater attention with the recent emergence of evo-devo theory.

ISSUES INVOLVED IN THE ADDITION: This gives a couple sentences in the introduction describing Owen’s thoughts on evolution. Since the original version brought up the review of Darwin, it is important spell in more detail just what approach Owen took.

ORIGIONAL VERSION Owen and Darwin's theory of evolution

SUGGESTED REVISION Owen, Darwin, and the theory of evolution

ISSUES INVOLVED IN THE REVISION: The scholarship suggests that other people including Owen believed in different theories of evolution. The revision opens the section for considering other theories of evolution besides Darwin’s, and since the article is about Richard Owen that would seem to be appropriate.

SUGGESTED ADDITION Sometime during the 1840s Owen came to the conclusion that species arise as the result of some sort of evolutionary process. He believed that there was a total of six possible mechanisms: parthenogenesis, prolonged development, premature birth, congenital malformations, Lamarckian atrophy, Lamarckian hypertrophy and transmutation, of which he thought transmutation was the least likely. The historian of science Evelleen Richards has argued the Owen was likely sympathetic to developmental theories of evolution, but backed away from publicly proclaiming them after the criticism Robert Chambers got for his evolutionary book in 1844, and that that Owen got for his evolutionary remarks in his Nature of the Limbs in 1849. At the end of On the Nature of Limbs Owen had suggested that humans ultimately evolved from fish as the result of natural laws, which resulted in him getting criticized in the Manchester Spectator for denying species like humans were created by God.

ISSUES INVOLVED IN THE ADDITION: This summarizes the key points that have been made in the history of science scholarship over Owen’s beliefs about evolution. I don’t know about any referred paper that was published after Richards’ 1987 article that does not treat him as believing in some kind of evolution.

SUGGESTED ADDITION While Owen had argued that humans were distinct from apes by virtue of having large brains, Huxley claimed that racial diversity blurred any such distinction. In his paper criticizing Owen, Huxley directly states: "if we place A, the European brain, B, the Bosjesman brain, and C, the orang brain, in a series, the differences between A and B, so far as they have been ascertained, are of the same nature as the chief of those between B and C". Owen countered Huxley by saying the brains of all human races were really of similar size and intellectual ability, and that the fact that humans had brains that were twice the size of large apes like male gorillas, even though humans had much smaller bodies, made humans distinguishable.

ISSUES INVOLVED IN THE ADDITION: This gives specific details about Owen’s debate with Huxley.

SUGGESTED ADDITION Owen was highly critical of the Origin in large part because Darwin did not refer much to the previous scientific theories of evolution that had been proposed by people like Chambers and Owen, and instead compared his theory of evolution by natural selection with the unscientific theory in the Bible. Owen found it especially ironic that while Darwin criticizes fundamentalists for believing God created each individual species, Darwin himself argues in the Origin's concluding chapter that God created the first one to twelve living things upon which natural selection acted.

ISSUES INVOLVED IN THE ADDITION: This gives the gist of what Owen argues about in his review. It gives the reader the big picture and then they can look it up and read it for themselves. —Preceding [[User:Cosans|Cosans (talk) 04:14, 11 March 2009 (UTC)]] comment added by Cosans (talk • contribs) 03:01, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Semiprotection
Each instance of vandalism seems to stick around for a few hours before being reverted, so I have semi'ed the article. If you want to unprotect, by all means go ahead but please keep an eye on it :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:48, 22 September 2009 (UTC)


 * " Owen found it especially ironic that while Darwin criticizes fundamentalists for believing God created each individual species, Darwin himself argues in the Origin's concluding chapter that God created the first one to twelve living things upon which natural selection acted. "
 * I have taken the above out, because the references given cannot be identified, and because the content is quasi-creationist. Darwin did not say "God created the first one to twelve living things". He said, on p484 of the Origin, 1st ed: "...probably all the organic beings which have ever lived have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was breathed." In any event, this article is not the place for that to be discussed. I have also made good links to the Dalton conflict and the Huxley book. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:30, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd attribute the quote in question also to Darwin's private correspondence, not to the Origin of Species. But I can be mistaken. --197.229.218.109 (talk) 21:27, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Pending changes
This article is one of a number (about 100) selected for the early stage of the trial of the Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Pending changes/Queue  are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.

The following request appears on that page:

Comments on the suitability of theis page for "Penfding changes" would be appreciated.

Please update the Queue page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any much more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 23:44, 16 June 2010 (UTC).

"Royal Association"
The article claims Owen was president of the Royal Association. I am not familiar with such a group. Do you mean British Association? Do you mean Royal Institution? (Both of these groups were venues for the controversy.) Please clarify.

Also I am looking for a reference to Owen's 1857 publication on placing Homo sapiens in a monotypic subclass. A link to a downloadable PDF would be even better. Thanks.

Solo Owl (talk) 11:10, 22 September 2010 (UTC)


 * the "RA" was the short form that the larger body was referred to, back in the day. Read the whole article and it will become clear. 72.141.106.240 (talk) 17:55, 30 June 2019 (UTC)


 * It's not at all clear what Royal Association refers to. DuncanHill (talk) 18:40, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

categories to be added
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences Category:Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences Category:Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Category:Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Category:Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

Bill Bryson
The following quote from a basic level science book written by a travel author is misplaced/irrelevant and should not be so prominently featured in the introductory section for a great biologist.

"Bill Bryson argues that, "by making the Natural History Museum an institution for everyone, Owen transformed our expectations of what museums are for".[6]"

Bill Bryson who?

Please remove. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:247:4000:4D9:5B7:5BD6:DFCD:8F0E (talk) 17:27, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I think you should reconsider. In hindsight, (which we live in), one of Owens' great contributions was to popularize museums, which hardly existed back then. Science was only available to wealthy collectors. Finding this summary in print, so we can quote it, is lucky. We need people like Bill Bryson to make these connections. One might ask - who are you? 72.141.106.240 (talk) 17:53, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 July 2017
talk about maybe who inspired him. his teachers e.c.t MusicX40 (talk) 19:23, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 19:27, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request: This article veers into editorializing/non-NPOV territory.
This article has a few problem spots that read a bit more like an editorial or hedge away from NPOV. It could use a bit of cleaning up. Specific examples that pop out immediately:

''His contributions to science and public learning notwithstanding, Owen's driving ambition, occasionally vicious temperament, and determination to succeed meant that he was not always popular with his fellow scientists. Owen was feared and even hated by some contemporaries such as Thomas Henry Huxley.''

Aside from the fact that this is not cited, was his "determination to succeed" really a reason why he was "not always popular" with his fellow scientists? Was he really "feared" and "hated"? It would sound more neutral if it was written something like this:

While he made several contributions to science and public learning, Owen was a controversial figure among his contemporaries, such as Thomas Henry Huxley.

Another problem spot:

''Upon completing his education, he contemplated the usual professional career, but his bent was evidently in the direction of anatomical research. He was induced by Abernethy to accept the position of assistant to William Clift, conservator of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. This congenial occupation soon led him to abandon his intention of medical practice and his life thenceforth was devoted to purely scientific labours. He prepared an important series of catalogues of the Hunterian Collection, in the Royal College of Surgeons and, in the course of this work, he acquired the unrivalled knowledge of comparative anatomy that enabled him to enrich all departments of the science and especially facilitated his researches on the remains of extinct animals.''

Once again, this is not cited, and it reads like something out of an editorial. Suggested improvement:

''Upon completing his education, he accepted the position of assistant to William Clift, conservator of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, on the suggestion of Abernethy. This occupation led him to abandon medical practice in favor of scientific research. He prepared a series of catalogues of the Hunterian Collection, in the Royal College of Surgeons and, in the course of this work, he acquired a knowledge of comparative anatomy that facilitated his researches on the remains of extinct animals.''

BigStalex (talk) 22:00, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done NiciVampireHeart 08:55, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Herbivorous Cetacea
The article makes reference to "herbivorous cetacea". The article on Cetacea notes that they are exclusively carnivorous. A google search indicates that "herbivorous cetacea" is an antiquated name for the Sirenians. Does anyone know if this is what the article is indeed referring to? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.112.199.2 (talk) 02:57, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Uncited material in need of citations
I am moving the following uncited material here until it can be properly supported with inline citations of reliable, secondary sources, per WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:CS, WP:NOR, WP:IRS, WP:PSTS, et al. This diff shows where it was in the article. Nightscream (talk) 14:36, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Biography
Owen was born in Lancaster in 1804, one of six children of a West Indian Merchant named Richard Owen (1754–1809). His mother, Catherine Longworth (née Parrin), was descended from Huguenots and he was educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School. In 1820, he was apprenticed to a local surgeon and apothecary and, in 1824, he proceeded as a medical student to the University of Edinburgh. He left the university in the following year and completed his medical course in St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, where he came under the influence of the eminent surgeon John Abernethy.

In July 1835 Owen married Caroline Amelia Clift in St Pancras by whom he had one son, William Owen. He outlived both wife and son. After his death, in 1892, he was survived by his three grandchildren and daughter-in-law Emily Owen, to whom he left much of his £33,000 fortune.

Upon completing his education, he accepted the position of assistant to William Clift, conservator of the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, on the suggestion of Abernethy. This occupation led him to abandon medical practice in favor of scientific research. He prepared a series of catalogues of the Hunterian Collection, in the Royal College of Surgeons and, in the course of this work, he acquired a knowledge of comparative anatomy that facilitated his researches on the remains of extinct animals.

He lived quietly in retirement at Sheen Lodge, Richmond Park, until his death in 1892.

His career was tainted by accusations that he failed to give credit to the work of others and even tried to appropriate it in his own name. This came to a head in 1846, when he was awarded the Royal Medal for a paper he had written on belemnites. Owen had failed to acknowledge that the belemnite had been discovered by Chaning Pearce, an amateur biologist, four years earlier. As a result of the ensuing scandal, he was voted off the councils of the Zoological Society and the Royal Society.

Work on invertebrates
... which was the subject of a special memoir he wrote in 1873.

Fish, reptiles, birds, and naming of dinosaurs
Owen's technical descriptions of the Vertebrata were still more numerous and extensive than those of the invertebrate animals. His Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of Vertebrates (3 vols. London 1866–1868) was indeed the result of more personal research than any similar work since Georges Cuvier's Leçons d'anatomie comparée. He not only studied existing forms but also devoted great attention to the remains of extinct groups, and followed Cuvier, the pioneer of vertebrate paleontology. Early in his career, he made exhaustive studies of teeth of existing and extinct animals and published his profusely illustrated work on Odontography (1840–1845). He discovered and described the remarkably complex structure of the teeth of the extinct animals which he named Labyrinthodontia. Among his writings on fish, his memoir on the African lungfish, which he named Protopterus, laid the foundations for the recognition of the Dipnoi by Johannes Müller. He also later pointed out the serial connection between the teleostean and ganoid fishes, grouping them in one sub-class, the Teleostomi.

He also first recognized the curious early Mesozoic synapsids, with affinities both to amphibians and mammals, which he termed Anomodontia (the mammal-like synapsids, Therapsida). Most of these were obtained from South Africa, beginning in 1845 (Dicynodon) and eventually furnished materials for his Catalogue of the Fossil Reptilia of South Africa, issued by the British Museum, in 1876. Among his writings on birds, his classical memoir on the kiwi (1840–1846), a long series of papers on the extinct Dinornithidae of New Zealand, other memoirs on Aptornis, the takahe, the dodo and the great auk, may be especially mentioned. His monograph on Archaeopteryx (1863), the long-tailed, toothed bird from the Bavarian lithographic stone, is also an epoch-making work.

His death left him unable to participate in the creation of the Crystal Palace dinosaur sculptures, and so Owen's vision of dinosaurs became that seen by the public. He had nearly two dozen lifesize sculptures of various prehistoric animals built out of concrete sculpted over a steel and brick framework; two Iguanodon, one standing and one resting on its belly, were included.

Work on mammals
With regard to living mammals, the more striking of Owen's contributions relate to the monotremes, marsupials and the anthropoid apes. He was also the first to recognize and name the two natural groups of typical Ungulate, the odd-toed (Perissodactyla) and the even-toed (Artiodactyla), while describing some fossil remains, in 1848. Most of his writings on mammals, however, deal with extinct forms, to which his attention seems to have been first directed by the remarkable fossils collected by Charles Darwin, in South America. Toxodon, from the pampas, was then described and gave the earliest clear evidence of an extinct generalized hoof animal, a pachyderm with affinities to the Rodentia, Edentata and herbivorous Cetacea. Owen's interest in South American extinct mammals then led to the recognition of the giant armadillo, which he named Glyptodon (1839) and to classic memoirs on the giant ground-sloths, Mylodon (1842) and Megatherium (1860), besides other important contributions. Owen also first described the false killer whale in 1863.

Owen, Darwin, and the theory of evolution
Following the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin had at his disposal a considerable collection of specimens and, on 29 October 1836, he was introduced by Charles Lyell to Owen, who agreed to work on fossil bones collected in South America. Owen's subsequent revelations, that the extinct giant creatures were rodents and sloths, showed that they were related to current species in the same locality, rather than being relatives of similarly sized creatures in Africa, as Darwin had originally thought. This was one of the many influences that led Darwin later to formulate his own ideas on the concept of natural selection.

At this time, Owen talked of his theories, influenced by Johannes Peter Müller, that living matter had an "organising energy", a life-force that directed the growth of tissues and also determined the lifespan of the individual and of the species. Darwin was reticent about his own thoughts, understandably, when, on 19 December 1838, as secretary of the Geological Society of London, he saw Owen and his allies ridicule the Lamarckian 'heresy' of Darwin's old tutor, Robert Edmund Grant. In 1841, when the recently married Darwin was ill, Owen was one of the few scientific friends to visit; however, Owen's opposition to any hint of transmutation made Darwin keep quiet about his hypothesis.

Darwin wrote that "I cannot swallow Man [being that] distinct from a Chimpanzee". The combative Thomas Henry Huxley used his March 1858 Royal Institution lecture to deny Owen's claim and affirmed that structurally, gorillas are as close to humans as they are to baboons. He believed that the "mental & moral faculties are essentially... the same kind in animals & ourselves". This was a clear denial of Owen's claim for human uniqueness, given at the same venue.

On the publication of Darwin's theory, in On The Origin of Species, he sent a complimentary copy to Owen, saying "it will seem 'an abomination. Owen was the first to respond, courteously claiming that he had long believed that "existing influences" were responsible for the "ordained" birth of species. Darwin now had long talks with him and Owen said that the book offered the best explanation "ever published of the manner of formation of species", although he still had the gravest doubts that transmutation would bestialize man. It appears that Darwin had assured Owen that he was looking at everything as resulting from designed laws, which Owen interpreted as showing a shared belief in "Creative Power".

As head of the Natural History Collections at the British Museum, Owen received numerous inquiries and complaints about the Origin. His own views remained unknown: when emphasising to a Parliamentary committee the need for a new Natural History museum, he pointed out that "The whole intellectual world this year has been excited by a book on the origin of species; and what is the consequence? Visitors come to the British Museum, and they say, 'Let us see all these varieties of pigeons: where is the tumbler, where is the pouter?' and I am obliged with shame to say, I can show you none of them" .... "As to showing you the varieties of those species, or of any of those phenomena that would aid one in getting at that mystery of mysteries, the origin of species, our space does not permit; but surely there ought to be a space somewhere, and, if not in the British Museum, where is it to be obtained?"

However, Huxley's attacks were making their mark. In April 1860 the Edinburgh Review included Owen's anonymous review of the Origin. In it Owen showed his anger at what he saw as Darwin's caricature of the creationist position, and his ignoring Owen's "axiom of the continuous operation of the ordained becoming of living things". As well as attacking Darwin's "disciples", Hooker and Huxley, for their "short-sighted adherence", he thought that the book symbolised the sort of "abuse of science... to which a neighbouring nation, some seventy years since, owed its temporary degradation" in a reference to the French Revolution. Darwin thought it "Spiteful, extremely malignant, clever, and... damaging" and later commented that "The Londoners say he is mad with envy because my book is so talked about. It is painful to be hated in the intense degree with which Owen hates me."

When Huxley joined the Zoological Society Council, in 1861, Owen left and, in the following year, Huxley moved to stop Owen from being elected to the Royal Society Council, accusing him "of wilful & deliberate falsehood". (See also Thomas Henry Huxley.)

In January 1863, Owen bought the Archaeopteryx fossil for the British Museum. It fulfilled Darwin's prediction that a proto-bird with unfused wing fingers would be found, although Owen described it unequivocally as a bird.

The feuding between Owen and Darwin's supporters continued. In 1871, Owen was found to be involved in a threat to end government funding of Joseph Dalton Hooker's botanical collection, at Kew, possibly trying to bring it under his British Museum. Darwin commented that "I used to be ashamed of hating him so much, but now I will carefully cherish my hatred & contempt to the last days of my life".

Legacy
Owen's detailed memoirs and descriptions require laborious attention in reading, on account of their complex terminology and ambiguous modes of expression. The fact that very little of his terminology has found universal favour causes them to be more generally neglected than they otherwise would be. At the same time, it must be remembered that he was a pioneer in concise anatomical nomenclature and, so far at least as the vertebrate skeleton is concerned, his terms were based on a carefully reasoned philosophical scheme, which first clearly distinguished between the now-familiar phenomena of analogy and homology. Owen's theory of the Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton (1848), subsequently illustrated also by his little work On the Nature of Limbs (1849), regarded the vertebrate frame as consisting of a series of fundamentally identical segments, each modified according to its position and functions. Much of it was fanciful and failed when tested by the facts of embryology, which Owen systematically ignored, throughout his work. However, though an imperfect and distorted view of certain great truths, it possessed a distinct value at the time of its conception.

To the discussion of the deeper problems of biological philosophy, he made scarcely any direct and definite contributions. His generalities rarely extended beyond strict comparative anatomy, the phenomena of adaptation to function and the facts of geographical or geological distribution. His lecture on virgin reproduction or parthenogenesis, however, published in 1849, contained the essence of the germ plasm theory, elaborated later by August Weismann and he made several vague statements concerning the geological succession of genera and species of animals and their possible derivation one from another. He referred, especially, to the changes exhibited by the successive forerunners of the crocodiles (1884) and horses (1868) but it has never become clear how much of the modern doctrines of organic evolution he admitted. He contented himself with the bare remark that "the inductive demonstration of the nature and mode of operation of the laws governing life would henceforth be the great aim of the philosophical naturalist."

Conflicts with his peers
When Mantell suffered an accident that left him permanently crippled, Owen exploited the opportunity by renaming several dinosaurs which had already been named by Mantell, and claimed credit for their discovery himself. When Mantell finally died in 1852, an obituary carrying no byline derided Mantell as little more than a mediocre scientist, who brought forth few notable contributions. The obituary's authorship was universally attributed to Owen by every geologist. The president of the Geological Society claimed that it "bespeaks of the lamentable coldness of the heart of the writer". Owen was subsequently denied the presidency of the society for his repeated and pointed antagonism towards Gideon Mantell.

Owen also ignored the genuine scientific content of Mantell's work. For example, despite the paucity of finds Mantell had worked out that some dinosaurs were bipedal, including Iguanodon. This remarkable insight was totally ignored by Owen, whose instructions for the Crystal Palace models by Waterhouse Hawkins portrayed Iguanodon as grossly overweight and quadrupedal. Mantell did not live to witness the discovery in 1878 of articulated skeletons in a Belgium coal-mine that showed Iguanodon was mostly bipedal (and in that stance could use its thumb for defence). Owen made no comment or retraction; he never did on any errors he made. Moreover, since the earliest known dinosaurs were bipedal, Mantell's idea was indeed insightful.

Despite originally starting out on good terms with Darwin, Owen was highly critical of the Origin in large part because Darwin did not refer much to the previous scientific theories of evolution that had been proposed by people like Chambers and himself, and instead compared the theory of evolution by natural selection with the unscientific theory in the Bible.