Show Me the Bone : Reconstructing Prehistoric Monsters in Nineteenth-Century Britain and America / Gowan Dawson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dawson, Gowan, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Paleontology--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Paleontology--United States--History--19th century.

Paleontologists--Biography.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (485 p.)

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2016]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Nineteenth-century paleontologists boasted that, shown a single bone, they could identify or even reconstruct the extinct creature it came from with infallible certainty-"Show me the bone, and I will describe the animal!" Paleontologists such as Georges Cuvier and Richard Owen were heralded as scientific virtuosos, sometimes even veritable wizards, capable of resurrecting the denizens of an ancient past from a mere glance at a fragmentary bone. Such extraordinary feats of predictive reasoning relied on the law of correlation, which proposed that each element of an animal corresponds mutually with each of the others, so that a carnivorous tooth must be accompanied by a certain kind of jawbone, neck, stomach, limbs, and feet. Show Me the Bone tells the story of the rise and fall of this famous claim, tracing its fortunes from Europe to America and showing how it persisted in popular science and literature and shaped the practices of paleontologists long after the method on which it was based had been refuted. In so doing, Gowan Dawson reveals how decisively the practices of the scientific elite were-and still are-shaped by their interactions with the general public.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction: Cuvier's Law of Correlation

1 Correlation Crosses the Channel

2 Fragments of Design

3 Discovering the Dinornis

4 Paleontology in Parts

5 Correlation at the Crystal Palace

6 Correlation under Siege

7 The Problems of Popularization

8 Unfortunate Allies

9 Evolutionary Modifi cations

10 Prophecies of the Past

Epilogue: Ghosts of Correlation

Acknowledgments

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780226332871

022633287X

OCLC:

945663130