Jean Albert Gaudry (16 September 1827 – 27 November 1908) was a French geologist and

palaeontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

. He was born at St Germain-en-Laye, and was educated at the Catholic

Collège Stanislas de Paris The Collège Stanislas de Paris (), colloquially known as Stan, is a private Catholic school in Paris, situated on " Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs" in the 6th arrondissement. It has more than 3,000 students, from preschool to '' classes préparatoir ...

. He was a notable proponent of

theistic evolution Theistic evolution (also known as theistic evolutionism or God-guided evolution), alternatively called evolutionary creationism, is a view that God acts and creates through laws of nature. Here, God is taken as the primary cause while natural cau ...

.Buffetaut, Éric. (1987). ''A Short History of Vertebrate Palaeontology''. Croom Helm. p. 117

Career

At the age of twenty-five he made explorations in

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

and

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

, residing in the latter country from 1855 to 1860. He then investigated the rich deposit of

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

vertebrata Vertebrates () are animals with a vertebral column (backbone or spine), and a cranium, or skull. The vertebral column surrounds and protects the spinal cord, while the cranium protects the brain. The vertebrates make up the subphylum Verte ...

Pikermi Pikermi () is a suburb of Athens and a former community of East Attica regional unit, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Rafina-Pikermi, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of ...

and brought to light a remarkable

mammal A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

ian fauna,

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

in age, and intermediate in its forms between European, Asiatic and African types. He also published an account of the geology of the island of Cyprus (''Mém. Soc. Géol. de France'', 1862). In 1853, while still in Cyprus, he was appointed assistant to A d'Orbigny, who was the first to hold the chair of palaeontology in the museum of natural history at Paris. In 1872 he succeeded to this important post; in 1882 he was elected member of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

. In 1885

Philippe Thomas Philippe Thomas (4 May 1843 – 12 February 1910) was a French veterinarian and amateur geologist who discovered large deposits of phosphates in Tunisia. Despite the huge economic importance of his discovery, he received little recognition during ...

was assigned to the Tunisian Scientific Exploration Mission at Gaudry's recommendation. Later Gaudry helped Thomas write the ''Essai d'une description géologique de la Tunisie'', which reported the results of the Tunisian research. In 1895 Gaudry was elected a foreign member of the

Royal Society of London The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...

. In 1900 he presided over the meetings of the eighth International Congress of Geology then held in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. He was elected a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...

in 1900. He is distinguished for his researches on fossil mammalia, and for the support which his studies have rendered to the theory of evolution. He has also occasionally studied other topics. Among others, he described

Early Permian 01 or 01 may refer to: * The year 2001, or any year ending with 01 * The month of January * 1 (number) Music * '01 (Richard Müller album), ''01'' (Richard Müller album), 2001 * 01 (Urban Zakapa album), ''01'' (Urban Zakapa album), 2011 * ''01011 ...

Haptodus baylei ''Haptodus'' is an extinct genus of basal sphenacodonts, a member of the clade that includes therapsids and hence, mammals. It was at least in length. It lived in present-day France during the Early Permian. It was a medium-sized predator, fe ...

'', whose affinities he could not determine at the time, but which is now known to be a

synapsid Synapsida is a diverse group of tetrapod vertebrates that includes all mammals and their extinct relatives. It is one of the two major clades of the group Amniota, the other being the more diverse group Sauropsida (which includes all extant rept ...

closely related to

therapsids Therapsida is a clade comprising a major group of eupelycosaurian synapsids that includes mammals and their ancestors and close relatives. Many of the traits today seen as unique to mammals had their origin within early therapsids, including li ...

Evolution

Gaudry was one of the first scientists to invent a

phylogenetic tree A phylogenetic tree or phylogeny is a graphical representation which shows the evolutionary history between a set of species or taxa during a specific time.Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA. In ...

for fossil forms in 1866. Gaudry was an advocate of

. In his book ''Essai de paléontologie philosophique'' (1896) he considered evolution to be a divine plan guided by God.

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

cited Gaudry's palaeontological research from his excavations at Pikermi in the second edition of '' On Origin of Species'', 1872 and ''The Descent of Man'', 1871. His research was also positively cited by

Alfred Russel Wallace Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was an English naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator. He independently conceived the theory of evolution through natural selection; his 1858 pap ...

. Gaudry discovered and reconstructed several new mammal species that he considered were intermediates, he believed these were evidence for evolution but differed from Darwin in believing they were the result of a plan by God. Because of his spiritual beliefs, he rejected the idea of

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation ...

and

struggle for existence The concept of the struggle for existence (or struggle for life) concerns the competition or battle for resources needed to live. It can refer to human society, or to organisms in nature. The concept is ancient, and the term ''struggle for existe ...

.Tort, Patrick. ''The Interminable Decline of Lamarckism in France''. In Eve-Marie Engels, Thomas F. Glick. (2008). ''The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe''. Continuum. p. 335. "Albert Gaudry (1827–1908), a creator of evolutionary palaeontology, was both a transformist and an admirer of Darwin, but his spiritualist beliefs and his vision of a cosmic order led him to reject the theory of the struggle for existence, which he considered to be a mere hypothesis." Paleontologist Éric Buffetaut has written that "Gaudry's strong religious feelings made it difficult for him to accept Darwin's mechanistic vision of an evolution based on chance and natural selection. Evolution was acceptable to him because it revealed a unity in the organic world which was the mark of divine works."

Publications

*''Animaux fossiles et géologie de l'Attique'' (2 vols., 1862–1867)
''Considérations Générales sur les Animaux Fossiles de Pikermi''
(1866) *''Cours de paléontologie'' (1873) *''Animaux fossiles du Mont Lebéron'' (1873) *''Les Enchaînements du monde animal dans les temps géologiques'' (''Mammifères tertiaires'', 1878 ; ''Fossiles primaires'', 1883; ''Fossiles secondaires'', 1890) *''Essai de paléontologie philosophique'' (1896) Brief memoir with portrait in ''Geol. Mag.'' (1903), p. 49. Source:

Quotes

If we recognise that organised beings have little by little been transformed, we shall regard them as plastic substances which an artist has been pleased to knead during the immense course of ages, lengthening here, broadening or diminishing there, as the sculptor, with a piece of clay, produces a thousand forms, following the impulse of his genius. But we shall not doubt that the artist was the Creator himself, for each transformation has borne a reflection of his infinite beauty.

Notes

References