• myGriffith
    • Staff portal
    • Contact Us⌄
      • Future student enquiries 1800 677 728
      • Current student enquiries 1800 154 055
      • International enquiries +61 7 3735 6425
      • General enquiries 07 3735 7111
      • Online enquiries
      • Staff phonebook
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • Griffith Research Online
    • Journal articles
    • View Item
    • Home
    • Griffith Research Online
    • Journal articles
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

  • All of Griffith Research Online
    • Communities & Collections
    • Authors
    • By Issue Date
    • Titles
  • This Collection
    • Authors
    • By Issue Date
    • Titles
  • Statistics

  • Most Popular Items
  • Statistics by Country
  • Most Popular Authors
  • Support

  • Contact us
  • FAQs
  • Admin login

  • Login
  • The Sacred Ibis debate: The first test of evolution

    Thumbnail
    View/Open
    Curtis169997.pdf (471.3Kb)
    Author(s)
    Curtis, Caitlin
    Millar, Craig D
    Lambert, David M
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Lambert, David M.
    Curtis, Caitlin
    Year published
    2018
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte’s army invaded Egypt, returning with many treasures including large numbers of Sacred Ibis mummies. The ancient Egyptians revered the ibis and mummified literally millions of them. The French naturalist Georges Cuvier used these mummies to challenge an emerging idea of the time, namely Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s theory of evolution. Cuvier detected no measurable differences between mummified Sacred Ibis and contemporary specimens of the same species. Consequently, he argued that this was evidence for the “fixity of species.” The “Sacred Ibis debate” predates the so-called “Great Debate” between Cuvier ...
    View more >
    In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte’s army invaded Egypt, returning with many treasures including large numbers of Sacred Ibis mummies. The ancient Egyptians revered the ibis and mummified literally millions of them. The French naturalist Georges Cuvier used these mummies to challenge an emerging idea of the time, namely Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s theory of evolution. Cuvier detected no measurable differences between mummified Sacred Ibis and contemporary specimens of the same species. Consequently, he argued that this was evidence for the “fixity of species.” The “Sacred Ibis debate” predates the so-called “Great Debate” between Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species five decades later. Cuvier’s views and his study had a profound influence on the scientific and public perception of evolution, setting back the acceptance of evolutionary theory in Europe for decades.
    View less >
    Journal Title
    PLoS Biology
    Volume
    16
    Issue
    9
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2005558
    Copyright Statement
    © 2018 Curtis et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
    Subject
    Biological Sciences
    Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences
    Medical and Health Sciences
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/383424
    Collection
    • Journal articles

    Footer

    Disclaimer

    • Privacy policy
    • Copyright matters
    • CRICOS Provider - 00233E

    Tagline

    • Gold Coast
    • Logan
    • Brisbane - Queensland, Australia
    First Peoples of Australia
    • Aboriginal
    • Torres Strait Islander