Henry Fairfield Osborn | |
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| Born | (1857-08-08)August 8, 1857 Fairfield, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Died | November 6, 1935(1935-11-06) (aged 78) Garrison, New York, U.S. |
| Education | Princeton University (BA,PhD) |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 5 |
| Awards | |
| Scientific career | |
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| Institutions | American Museum of Natural History |
| Doctoral students | William King Gregory |
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Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sr.FRS[1] (August 8, 1857 – November 6, 1935)[2] was an Americanpaleontologist, geologist andeugenics advocate. He was professor of anatomy atColumbia University, president of theAmerican Museum of Natural History for 25 years and a cofounder of theAmerican Eugenics Society.
Among his significant contributions include naming the dinosaursTyrannosaurus andVelociraptor, his widely used system of names for dentalcusps of mammalian teeth,[3] as well as his research on fossilproboscideans (elephants and their extinct relatives).[4]
Osborn was one of the most well known scientists in the United States during his own lifetime, “second only toAlbert Einstein", and was a prominent public advocate for the existence ofevolution. Active duringthe eclipse of Darwinism, Osborn was a prominent opponent ofnatural selection as a mechanism of evolution, favouring the now discreditedorthogenesis theory of which he was one of the most prominent advocates.[5]
In addition to being an advocate ofeugenics, he was aNordicist, viewing the white race as superior, and supported immigration controls. Osborn's political connections allowed him to gain significant funding for the American Museum of Natural History, using this to redesign and expand the museums exhibits, which he used to reflect his own views on "racialism, eugenics, and immigration".[5]
Henry Fairfield Osborn was born inFairfield, Connecticut on August 8, 1857, in a family of distinction. He was the eldest son of shipping magnate and railroad tycoonWilliam Henry Osborn and Virginia Reed (née Sturges) Osborn.[6]
His maternal grandparents wereJonathan Sturges, a prominent New York businessman and arts patron who was a direct descendant ofJonathan Sturges, aU.S. Representative from Connecticut, and Mary Pemberton Cady, a direct descendant of prominent educatorEbenezer Pemberton.[7] His maternal aunt, Amelia Sturges, was the first wife ofJ. P. Morgan, but died oftuberculosis soon after their wedding.[8]
His younger brother wasWilliam Church Osborn,[9] who served as president of theMetropolitan Museum of Art,[10] and married philanthropist and social reformer Alice Clinton Hoadley Dodge, a daughter ofWilliam E. Dodge Jr.[11]
From 1873 to 1877, Osborn studied atPrinceton University, obtaining aB.A. in geology and archaeology, where he was mentored by paleontologistEdward Drinker Cope. Two years later, Osborn took a special course of study in anatomy in the College of Physicians and Surgeons and Bellevue Medical School of New York under Dr.William H. Welch, and subsequently studiedembryology andcomparative anatomy underThomas Huxley at London, as well asFrancis Maitland Balfour atCambridge University, England.[12][13]
In 1880, Osborn obtained a doctorate inpaleontology from Princeton, becoming a lecturer in biology and professor ofcomparative anatomy from the same university between 1883 and 1890.
In 1891, Osborn was hired byColumbia University as a professor ofzoology; simultaneously, he accepted a position at theAmerican Museum of Natural History, New York, where he served as the curator of a newly formed Department ofVertebrate Paleontology.
As a curator, he assembled a remarkable team of fossil hunters and preparators, includingWilliam King Gregory,Roy Chapman Andrews,Barnum Brown, andCharles R. Knight.Long a member of theUS Geological Survey, Osborn became its senior vertebrate paleontologist in 1924. He led many fossil-hunting expeditions into theAmerican Southwest, starting with his first toColorado andWyoming in 1877. Osborn conducted research onTyrannosaurus brains by cutting open fossilized braincases with a diamond saw.[14] (Modern researchers use computed tomography scans and 3D reconstruction software to visualize the interior of dinosaur endocrania without damaging valuable specimens.)[15]
On November 23, 1897, he was elected member of theBoone and Crockett Club, a wildlife conservation organization founded byTheodore Roosevelt andGeorge Bird Grinnell.[16] Thanks to his considerable family wealth and personal connections, he succeededMorris K. Jesup as the president of the AMNH's Board of Trustees in 1908, serving until 1933, during which time he accumulated one of the finestfossil collections in the world.[17]
Additionally, Osborn served as president of theNew York Zoological Society from 1909 to 1925.
He was elected as a member to theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1886.[18] He accumulated a number of prizes for his work in paleontology. In 1901, Osborn was elected a Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.[19] He described and namedOrnitholestes in 1903,Tyrannosaurus rex andAlbertosaurus in 1905,Pentaceratops in 1923, andVelociraptor in 1924.
In 1929 Osborn was awarded theDaniel Giraud Elliot Medal from theNational Academy of Sciences.[20]
His legacy at the American Museum has proved more enduring than his scientific reputation.Edward J. Larson described Osborn as "a first-rate science administrator and a third-rate scientist."[21] Indeed, Osborn's greatest contributions to science ultimately lay in his efforts to popularize it through visual means. At his urging, staff members at theAmerican Museum of Natural History invested new energy in display, and the museum became one of the pre-eminent sites for exhibition in the early twentieth century as a result. The murals, habitat dioramas, and dinosaur mounts executed during his tenure at the museum attracted millions of visitors, and inspired other museums to imitate his innovations.[22] But his decision to invest heavily in exhibition also alienated certain members of the scientific community and angered curators hoping to spend more time on their own research.[23] Additionally, his efforts to imbue the museum's exhibits and educational programs with his own racist and eugenist beliefs disturbed many of his contemporaries and have marred his legacy.[24]
Osborn was a supporter of the "tritubercular (or tri-tubercular) theory" of the evolution of mammalian teeth, originally proposed by Edward Drinker Cope based on fossil tooth morphology, and a rival to the "concrescence theory" proposed by German dentist and physician Carl Röse based on analysis of the development of modern mammal teeth. The tritubercular theory held that the multicusped molar teeth of mammals evolved from single cusped teeth like those found in reptiles, and that a three-cusped (tritubercular) pattern is the ancestral organisation of mammalian molars. The tritubercular theory was criticised by Röse and other contemporary scholars for being incogruent with knowledge obtained from analysis of modern tooth development, and was corrected to fix some issues by later scholars.[25][26] Osborn's system of naming for thecusps and other elements of mammalian teeth has been widely adopted by later scholars.[3]
In 1922, Osborn namedHesperopithecus (also known as "Nebraska Man"), a supposed genus of North American ape from Nebraska, based on an isolated tooth. It later turned out to be a junior synonym ofProsthennops, apeccary (a group closely related to and resembling pigs), to Osborn's considerable embarrassment.[27]
Osborn's research onproboscideans, the group containingelephants and their extinct relatives has been described as a "modern stimulus and driving force for research" on the group. In particular, his posthumousmonograph on the group, published in two volumes in 1936 and 1942, has been called a "landmark of evolution and natural history of the Proboscidea".[4] While the monograph has been regarded as being a monumental and significant work, later researchers have criticised Osborn for overestimating the number of proboscidean species.[28] His work on North American mammoth taxonomy has been described as introducing considerable taxonomic confusion for arbitrarily naming aneotype specimen for theColumbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) without adequate justification, as well as introducing several mammoth species that are now regarded as synonymous with the Columbian mammoth. Osborn largely failed to take into account the effect of tooth wear on the shape of mammoth teeth, which was a partial cause of the confusion.[29]
Osborn was involved in organsing the American Museum of Natural History's "Central Asiatic Expeditions" to Central/Eastern Asia in the 1920s headed byRoy Chapman Andrews, with a major goal being to find proof for the "Out of Asia" theory of mankind's origins that Osborn advocated.[30] Osborn described a number of species based on remains found during the expeditions, such asAndrewsarchus (named after Andrews)[31] as well as several now invalid species ofParaceratherium.[32]
Osborn was one of the most well known scientists in the United States during his own lifetime, “second only toAlbert Einstein",[5] and was the author of a number of books aimed at popular audiences. During the 1920s, Osborn became an outspoken public advocate of evolution against religious critics.[33] During the 1925Scopes Monkey Trial regarding the teaching of human evolution, Osborn wrote a bookThe Earth Speaks to Bryan responding to the lawyerWilliam Jennings Bryan, a critic of evolution and prosecutor on the case (who Osborn had debated in writing for several years prior to the trial), a compilation of speeches defending evolution and suggesting that evolution and religion were compatible.[34][33]
Osborn developed his own evolutionary theory of human origins called the "Dawn Man Theory". His theory was founded on the discovery ofPiltdown Man (Eoanthropus) which was dated to the Late (Upper)Pliocene. Writing before Piltdown was exposed as a hoax, theEoanthropus or "Dawn Man" Osborn maintained sprang from a common ancestor with theape during theOligocene period which he believed developed entirely separately during the Miocene (16 million years ago). Therefore, Osborn argued thatall apes (Simia, following the pre-Darwinian classification ofLinnaeus) had evolved entirely parallel to the ancestors of man (Homo).[35][36][37][38] Osborn himself wrote:
We have all borne with the ape and monkey and ape hypothesis long enough are we are glad to welcome this new idea of the aristocracy of man back to a even more remote period than the beginning of the stone age.[39]
While believing in common ancestry between man and ape, Osborn denied that this ancestor was ape-like. The common ancestor between man and ape Osborn always maintained was more human than ape. Writing to Arthur Keith in 1927, he remarked "when our Oligocene ancestor is found it will not be an ape, but it will be surprisingly pro-human".[40] His studentWilliam K. Gregory called Osborn's idiosyncratic view on man's origins as a form of "Parallel Evolution", but manycreationists misinterpreted Osborn, greatly frustrating him, and believed he was asserting humankind had never evolved from a lower life form.[41]
Osborn was originally a supporter ofEdward Drinker Cope's neo-Lamarckism, however he later abandoned this view. Osborn became a proponent of organic selection, also known as theBaldwin effect.[42]
Osborn was a believer inorthogenesis; he coined the termaristogenesis for his theory. His aristogenesis was based on a "physicochemical approach" to evolution.[42] He believed that aristogenes operate as biomechanisms in the geneplasm of the organism. He also held the view thatmutations andnatural selection play no creative role in evolution and that aristogenesis was the origin of new novelty.[43] Osborn equated this struggle for evolutionary advancement with the striving for spiritual salvation, thereby combining his biological and spiritual viewpoints.[44]
Osborn, who cofounded theAmerican Eugenics Society in 1922,[45] advocated that heredity is superior to influences from the environment.[citation needed] As an extension of this, he accepted that distinctraces existed with fixed hereditary traits, and was aNordicist, regarding, theNordic orAnglo-Saxon "race" to be highest.[citation needed] Osborn therefore supportedeugenics to preserve "good" racial stock.[citation needed] Due to this, he endorsedMadison Grant'sThe Passing of the Great Race, writing both the second and fourth prefaces of the book, which argued for such views.[46] The book was praised byAdolf Hitler who called the book 'his bible' for it advocated a rigid system of selection through the elimination of those who, according to the writer's opinion, are to be seen as 'weak' or 'unfit'.[47] Osborn also advocated for immigration controls.[48]
In June 1881, Osborn was married to writer Lucretia Thatcher Perry (1858–1930) at the military chapel onGovernors Island.[49] She was the daughter ofBrigadier General Alexander James Perry and Josephine (Adams) Perry, and a descendant of JusticeChristopher Raymond Perry).[50] Lucretia's sister, Josephine Adams Perry, was the wife of bankerJunius Spencer Morgan II.[51] Thatcher Perry had five children with Osborn, includingHenry Fairfield Osborn Jr., the naturalist and conservationist.[52][53][54]
After his father's death in 1894,[6] Osborn inherited hisRhenish style home,Castle Rock, inGarrison, New York in theHudson Highlands, which his father had purchased in 1859, and where he concentrated on his philanthropy after his 1882 retirement.[55] After his mother's death in 1902, the remainder of his parents' estate was equally divided between Henry and his brotherWilliam.[56]
Following an "illness of nearly a year", his wife died at their country home in August 1930.[49] Osborn died suddenly on November 6, 1935, in his study at Castle Rock, overlooking the Hudson River.[2]
The dinosaurSaurolophus osborni was named after Osborn byBarnum Brown in 1912.
An African dwarf crocodile,Osteolaemus osborni, was named in his honor byKarl Patterson Schmidt in 1919.[57]
Also named in his honor is the earlycanid genusOsbornodon.[58]
