Richard Owen

Sir Richard Owen (July 20, 1804 – December 18, 1892) was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist. Despite being a controversial figure, Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils. Owen produced a vast array of scientific work, but is probably best remembered today for coining the word Dinosauria (meaning "Terrible Reptile" or "Fearfully Great Reptile"). An outspoken critic of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Owen agreed with Darwin that evolution occurred, but thought it was more complex than outlined in Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

Manifold subsequent experience has led to a truer appreciation and a more moderate estimate of the importance of the dependence of one living being upon another.

Owen was the first president of the Microscopical Society of London in 1839 and edited many issues of its journal – then known as The Microscopic Journal. Owen also campaigned for the natural specimens in the British Museum to be given a new home. This resulted in the establishment, in 1881, of the now world-famous Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London.

Quotes

• Manifold subsequent experience has led to a truer appreciation and a more moderate estimate of the importance of the dependence of one living being upon another.
  • as stated in "The Edinburgh Review" on page 494 by Sydney Smith, Francis Je frey Jeffrey, William Empson, Macvey Napier, George Cornewall Lewis, Henry Reeve, Arthur Ralph Douglas Elliot, and Harold Cox, publication in 1860.

• The powers, aspirations, and mission of man are such as to raise the study of his origin and nature, inevitably and by the very necessity of the case, from the mere physiological to the psychological stage of scientific operations.
  • as stated in "The Edinburgh Review" on page 521 by Sydney Smith, Francis Jeffrey Jeffrey, William Empson, Macvey Napier, George Cornewall Lewis, Henry Reeve, Arthur Ralph Douglas Elliot, and Harold Cox, publication in 1860.

• No naturalist has devoted more painstaking attention to the structure of the barnacles than Mr. Darwin.
  • as stated in "Darwin on the Origin of Species", "Edinburgh Review", 3, 1860, pages 487-532.