sexta-feira, 1 de janeiro de 2010

ANCESTRIES OF THE MAN IN THE POSTAL STAMPS - BIOLOGY - SCIENTISTS


SCIENTISTS
Founder of Biology

Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (1776-1837)

German naturalist

(February 4, 1776 - February 16, 1837) was a German naturalist.

The term “biology” is coined by that German naturalist

He was a proponent of the theory of the transmutation of species, a theory of evolution held by some biologists prior to the work of Charles Darwin. He put forward this belief in the first volume of his Biologie; oder die Philosophie der lebenden Natur, published in 1802, the same year similar opinions were expressed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.

Introduced the word biology, from the Greek bios, life, and logos, study, on his book "Biologie oder Philosophie de Lebended Natur (1802-1822)".

Treviranus was born in Bremen and studied medicine at Göttingen, where he took his doctor's degree in 1796. In 1797 he was appointed professor of medicine and mathematics at the Bremen lyceum.

Jacques Boucher de Perthes (1788-1868)

Founder of Prehistoria

FRANCE

1988

Abbeville - 5.10.1988



Jacques Boucher de Perthes has been a great researcher, and founder of archaeology, i.e., like said then, " the history of the man through the history of the earth and its revolutions ".

Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, the Knight of Lamarck

FRANCE

1979

Albert - 27.5.1979


Another important name in the history of biology is of the Frenchman the Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, the knight of Lamarck. Considered in 1809, the hypothesis of that the beings livings creature have the capacity to move and to evolve in elapsing of the time.

Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

PALAW

Carl Sagan, astronomer, astrophysicist, author and director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell University, died of pneumonia on December 20, 1996 at the age of 62.

Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (1807 - 1873)

SWISS

1959

Mi. nº. 678

Swiss-American biologist (1807–1873)

Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (1807-1873), a Swiss-American naturalist, was an outstanding comparative anatomist. He promulgated the glacial theory and opposed Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

Paleontology was just beginning to emerge as a science during Agassiz's time; speculations about the distribution of species and their relationships to each other were becoming a major preoccupation of naturalists, and science was taking on an increasingly important place in the curricula of educational institutions. Agassiz played an important role in all these developments, both in Europe and in America.

COMOROS

2009

Generally considered the foremost naturalist of 19th-century America, Agassiz was born in Motier-en-Vuly, Switzerland. He was educated at the universities of Zurich, Heidelberg, and Munich, where he studied under the embryologist Ignaz Döllinger. At the instigation of Georges Cuvier, he cataloged and described the fishes brought back from Brazil by C. F. P. von Martius and J. B. von Spix (Fishes of Brazil, 1929), following this with his History of the Freshwater Fishes of Central Europe (1839-42) and an extensive pioneering work on fossil fishes, which eventually ran to five volumes: "Recherches sur les poissons fossiles" (1833–43; (Researches on Fossil Fishes).

These works, completed while Agassiz was professor of natural history at Neuchâtel (1832–46), established his reputation as the greatest ichthyologist of his day. Agassiz's best-known discovery, however, was that of the Ice Ages. Extensive field studies in the Swiss Alps, and later in America and Britain, led him to postulate glacier movements and the former advance and retreat of ice sheets; his findings were published in Etudes sur les glaciers (1840; Studies on Glaciers).

A successful series of lectures given at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1846 led to his permanent settlement in America. In 1847 he was appointed professor of zoology and geology at Harvard, where he also established the Museum of Comparative Zoology (1859).

Agassiz's subsequent teachings introduced a departure from established practice in emphasizing the importance of first-hand investigation of natural phenomena, thus helping to transform academic study in America.

His embryological studies led to a recognition of the similarity between the developing stages of living animals and complete but more primitive species in the fossil record. Agassiz did not, however, share Darwin's view of a gradual evolution of species, but, like Cuvier, considered that there had been repeated separate creations and extinctions of species – thus explaining changes and the appearance of new forms. Unfortunately, one of Agassiz's most influential pronouncements was that there were several species, as distinct from races, of man: an argument used by slavers to justify their subjugation of the negroes as an inferior species. His ambitious Contributions to the Natural History of the United States (4 vols. 1857–62) remained uncompleted at his death.

Gregor Antipa (18671944)


ROMANIA

1959

Scott: 1939/1944

Michel: 2607/2612

Yvert: 2317/2322


1992

2008


FDC - (26.MAY.2008)


CENTENARY OF GRIGORE ANTIPA NATIONAL NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

Grigore Antipa was a Romanian Darwinist biologist who studied the fauna of the Danube Delta and the Black Sea.

Antipa was a specialist in zoology, ichthyology, ecology and oceanography, and was a university professor.

COVER STATIONERY:


Jules Barbey d´Aurevilly (1808–1889)

poet & antropolog

FRANCE

1974

Mi nº. 1896
(16.11.1974)

Fossil theory.

Joachim BARRANDE (1799 - 1883)

CZECH REPUBLIC

1999

FDC - 23. 6. 1999


The publication in 1839 of Murchison's Silurian System incited Barrande to carry on systematic researches on the equivalent strata in Bohemia.

For ten years (1840—1850) he made a detailed study of these rocks, engaging workmen specially to collect fossils, and in this way he obtained upwards of 3500 species of graptolites, brachiopoda, mollusca, trilobites and fishes.

The first volume of his great work, Système silurien du centre de la Bohême (dealing with trilobites, several genera, including Deiphon, which he personally described), appeared in 1852; and from that date until 1881, he issued twenty-one quarto volumes of text and plates. Two other volumes were issued after his death in 1887 and 1894.

It is estimated that he spent nearly £10,000 on these works. In addition he published a large number of separate papers. In recognition of his important researches the Geological Society of London in 1857 awarded to him the Wollaston medal.

He was a fervent advocate of the theory of the catastrophes (as taught by Georges Cuvier), thus opposing Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. He also wrote a five-volume book on the defense of his theory of so-called "colonies", presuming that the cause of the presence of fossils typical for one layer surrounded by those typical for another is atectonical. He tended to name those colonies with names of his scientific adversaries.

Barrande died at Frohsdorf on October 5, 1883.

Georg Bauer [Agricola, Georgius]

(1494 - 1555)


GERMANY

DDR

1955

Mi. nº. 497

CZECH REPUBLIC

2009


Yvert nº.


Georg Bauer, better known by the Latin version of his name Georgius Agricola, is considered the founder of geology as a discipline.


His work paved the way for further systematic study of the Earth and of its rocks, minerals, and fossils.


He made fundamental contributions to mining geology and metallurgy, mineralogy, structural geology, and paleontology.


Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil (1877 - 1961)

FRANCE

1977

Mi. nº. 2050


Father of Prehistory

Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil (1877-1961), often referred to as Abbé Breuil, was a French archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist. He is noted for his studies of cave art in the Somme and Dordogne valleys as well as in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, China with Teilhard de Chardin, Ethiopia, Somaliland and especially Southern Africa.

Robert BROOM (DR.) (1866-1951)

SOUTH AFRICA

1991

SG. nº. 738

Dr. Robert Broom & Australopithecus africanus


COMOROS

2009

Mi nº. 1962

FDC - (7.01.2009)

His interest in archaeology developed after the discovery of the infant australopithecine, Taung child, by Professor Raymond Dart, Taung North West Province. In 1934, Broom joined the staff of the Transvaal museum in Pretoria. In 1936, he discovered the skull of an Austrolophitecine, which he initially classified as plesianthropus meaning almost human.

In 1937, he discovered his most famous find, the Australopithecus robustus.

As a result, together with Raymond Dart, he was able to support the claim that early human evolution developed in Africa. he continued to make other fossil discoveries including a homo erectus.

Broom died in 1951 shortly after completing his monograph about Australopithecine.

Jacques Boucher de Crèvecoeur de Perthes

(1788 - 1868)


FRANCE

1988

ABBEVILLE 8-10-1988


De Perth's contribution to archaeology is expressed in his devotion to the theories espoused by Darwin about antediluvian humans.

Archaeology was enjoyed by De Perth's only as a hobby. His focus and primary enthusiasm was always for his position as a customs official.

However, in what spare time he made for himself, he developed his archaeological skills at the gravel pits in the Somme Valley.

It was in these pits that he discovered numerous archaeological tools and arrived at some remarkable conclusions.

The Proposition of Primitive Man

He discovered complete hand axes, flint objects, and many fragments of items that De Perthes claimed were also tools shaped by human endeavor.

Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de BUFFON

(1707 - 1788)

FRANCE

1949

Mi. nº.874

1988

Buffon's Histoire naturelle; (200th anniv. death)

Yvert nº. 2123/2126

2009

Michel nr. 2468/2468A

He envisioned the nature of science and understood the roles of paleontology, zoological geography, and animal psychology.

He realized both the necessity of transformism and its difficulties.

Although his cosmogony was inadequate and his theory of animal reproduction was weak, and although he did not understand the problem of classification, he did establish the intellectual framework within which most naturalists up to Darwin worked.

Buffon is considered the founder of evolutionary theory. ’George Buffon set forth his general views on species classification in the first volume of his "Histoire Naturelle".

Buffon objected to the so-called "artificial" classifications of Andrea Cesalpino and Carolus linnaeus, stating that in nature the chain of life has small gradations from one type to another and that the discontinuous categories are all artificially constructed by mankind.

Joseph von CZERSKY, (1845-1892)

POLAND

2002

Issue date: 22.nd of February.2002

Scott: 3621

Stanley Gibbons: 3974


Polish geologist and palaeontologist


Researcher of Siberia, geologist, paleontologist; was on the origin of Litvin, was born on May 3, 1845 in the prosperous nobiliary family, in the ancestral estate Svolna.

At the end 1871, Chersky obtained permission to be moved into Irkutsk and almost from the day of arrival he began to work with the Eastern Siberian division of emperor Russian in the geographical society.

Here in face of two comrades from the misfortune, Dybovskogo and Chekanovskogo, the outstanding naturalists, found to himself a new support.

In Irkutsk, the life of the real toiler of science, and, in spite of scant material situation and to a deficiency in scientific equipments, he, because of his diligence, energy, conquered to himself honorable name of one of the best osteologists.

Its literary activity begins with the passage into Irkutsk; by this time relates a number of its articles of the zoological, paleontological and geological content, material for which it drew in the begun at the same time scientific excursions.

He began geological activity with the study of the environments of Omsk city, produced in 1871. ; in summer 1873 g. it already worked in East Siberia, accomplishing difficult journey through the Tunkinskim and Chinese Alps; the assembled collections burnt during the fire of mountains.

In 1875, passed from Irkutsk through the so-called Moscow circuit to Biryusy
(*) river, with a route study of way, then returned, and upstream Uhde to lower-fishes to the caves, where, with the support to the Academy of Sciences, he produced the excavations, which gave very interesting material on the tertiary fauna of mammals.

In 1877. Chersky began one of the most important works - study coast strip of Baikal lake, which continued five years.

The results of the studies, which saving the modest means of division, conducted, floating on his own boat, and rowing himself, they were placed in the yearly very detailed preliminary reports and in the first part of the complete report, which composes of XII Toms.


(*) Birds of Central Siberia



Johann Karl Fuhlrott (1803 - 1877)

GERMANY

DDR

1984

Finsterwald 1 - 07.06.1984


2006


Wuppertal 10.08.2006

German science professor

He is famous for the discovery of the Neanderthal, a Neanderthal specimen found during an archaeology dig in August 1856

Elberfeld, given Neanderthal remains by workers; presented paper on fossilized man at the Natural History Society of Rheinland & Westphalia in 1859.

Studying mathematics and natural sciences at the University of Bonn, Fuhlrott became a teacher at the Gymnasium in Elberfeld. In 1856, workers in a lime quarry in the nearby canyon called Gesteins or Neanderthal (Neanderthal southwest of Mettmann) showed him bones they had found in a cave and thought to belong to a bear.

Fuhlrott identified them as human and thought them to be very old.

Today, Fuhlrott and Schaaffhausen are considered to be the founders of paleoanthropology, and the genus they discovered is referred to as Homo neanderthalensis in honor of the site where it was first identified.

Zygmunt Gloger (1845–1910)

POLAND

2006

Mi nº. 4231

FDC - (20.02.2006)


1985

Tykocin (3.11.1985)


Polish historian, archeologist, geographer and ethnographer


Founder of Towarzystwo Krajoznawcze (precursor of modern PTTK (*)), in his will he gave his impressive collection to that organization, as well as to Towarzystwo Ethnograficzne, Towarzystwo Bibliotek Publicznych w Warszawie and Museum of Industry and Agriculture.


(*) Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society


Aleš HRDLIKA (1869–1943)


CZECHOSLOVAKIA


1969

Mi. 1882

FDC - 17.JUN.1969


American anthropologist


In 1881, Aleš Hrdlička (1869-1943) immigrated with his family to the United States from Humpolec, Bohemia (presently located in the southern part of the Czech republic). After receiving his medical degree in New York in 1892, his interests gradually shifted from the biological basis of abnormal behavior to normal human variation and evolution. In 1903, he joined the staff of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. and conducted research in physical anthropology there until his retirement in 1942 and death in 1943.

Hrdlička is widely recognized as an early pioneer in the development of American physical anthropology.

His work can be traced to much of the current academic activity in physical anthropology at the Smithsonian and elsewhere.


Thomas Henry HUXLEY (1825–1895)

GERMANY (DDR)



Biologist, Zoolog, Paleontolog, Filozof & Fiziolog


English biologist, physiologist, anatomist, anthropologist, agnostic, educator, and ... Darwin's bulldog.


Huxley was a big defender of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. He received the nickname "Darwin’s bulldog." After reading Darwin’s Origin of Species, Huxley reaction was: "How stupid of me not to have thought of that."


was a self-educated intellectual giant of the 19th century, a pioneering genius whose influence was felt throughout the science, education, and politics of Victorian England. His brilliant career ranged from surgeon's apprentice to England's Privy Council, service on 10 royal commissions, and president of the Royal Society from 1881 to 1885. His many awards included the Royal, Copley, and Darwin medals.

A man of astonishing energy and prodigious talent, Huxley had a sharp wit and a brilliant, questioning mind (traits no doubt passed on to his grandsons, including novelist Aldous Huxley [Brave New World, etc.]).

He invented the term “agnostic” to describe his own religious view, and the term’s widespread, immediate acceptance freed intellectual discourse from the “belief”-versus-“disbelief” straightjacket, in and out of theistic contexts.

And yet while he was never one to sacrifice principle for propriety, he vigorously defended his ideas but always treated his opponents with respect and sometimes-astonishing courtesy.

Always a popularizer of science, he at once subscribed to Charles Darwin’s theories and proved to be their most indefatigable advocate.

The role earned him the title “Darwin's bulldog,” and he is best remembered today for his prominent role in defending evolution against attacks from scientists, theists, and philosophers — somewhat ironic, for Huxley's biological writings show less explicit support for natural selection than for evolution itself.