- Gavin de Beer
Infobox Scientist
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caption = Portrait and short biography of Gavin de Beer from the back cover of his 1945 book "Escape to Switzerland"
birth_date =1 November ,1899
birth_place = Malden,Surrey
death_date =21 June ,1972
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nationality =United Kingdom
ethnicity =
field =embryologist
work_institutions =British Museum (Natural History)
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known_for =evolution
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prizes =Darwin Medal
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footnotes =Sir Gavin Rylands de Beer FRS (1899–1972) was a British
evolution ary embryologist. He was Director of theBritish Museum (Natural History) , President of the Linnean Society, and received the Royal Society'sDarwin Medal for his studies on evolution.Biography
Born on November 1, 1899 in Malden,
Surrey (now part ofLondon ), de Beer spent most of his childhood inFrance , where he was educated at theParis ian École Pascal. During this time, he also visitedSwitzerland , a country with which he remained fascinated for the rest of his life. His education continued at Harrow and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with a degree inzoology in 1921, after a pause to serve in the First World War in theGrenadier Guards and theArmy Education Corps . He soon became a Fellow of Merton College and began to teach at the university's zoology department. In 1938, he was made Reader in Embryology at University College, London. During the Second World War De Beer again served with theGrenadier Guards reaching the rank of temporarylieutenant colonel . [ [http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/ViewPDF.aspx?pdf=37521&geotype=London&gpn=1690&type=ArchivedSupplementPage&all=G&exact=de beer&atleast=&similar= London Gazette 1946] ] He worked in intelligence,propaganda andpsychological warfare . Also during the war, in 1940, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society [cite web|url=http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=1727|title=Lists of Royal Society Fellows 1660-2004|accessdate=April 3|accessyear=2006] .In 1945, de Beer became
Professor of Zoology and was, from 1946 to 1949, President of the Linnean Society. Then he was Director of the British Museum (Natural History) (now theNatural History Museum ), from 1950 until his retirement in 1960. He wasknight ed in 1954, and awarded theDarwin Medal of theRoyal Society in 1957.After his retirement, de Beer moved to Switzerland and worked on several publications on
Charles Darwin [Cite web|url=http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/iss/library/speccoll/host/debeer.html|title=The History of Science and Technology 1801-1914|accessdate=April 3|accessyear=2006] and his own seminal "Atlas of Evolution". He also wrote a series of books about Switzerland and theAlps .de Beer returned to England in 1971 and died atAlfriston ,Sussex on June 21, 1972.Work
De Beer's early work at Oxford was influenced by
J.B.S. Haldane and byJulian Huxley and E.S. Goodrich (two of his teachers). His early work was in experimentalembryology ; some of it was done in collaboration withJulian Huxley , who would go on to be one of the leading figures of the modern synthesis. The "Elements of experimental embryology", written with Huxley, was the best summary of the field at that time (1934).In "Embryos and evolution" (1930) de Beer stressed the importance of
heterochrony [Brigandt, I. (2006) [http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/112467522/ABSTRACT Homology and heterochrony: the evolutionary embryologist Gavin Rylands de Beer (1899-1972)] . "Journal of Experimental Zoology (Molecular and Developmental Evolution)" 306B:317-328. [http://www.ualberta.ca/~brigandt/de_Beer.pdf preprint] ] , and especiallypaedomorphosis in evolution. According to his theories, paedomorphosis (the retention of juvenile features in the adult form) is more important in evolution that gerontomorphosis, since juvenile tissues are relatively undifferentiated and capable of further evolution, whereas highly specialised tissues are less able to change. He also conceived the idea of "clandestine evolution", which helped to explain the sudden changes in thefossil record which were apparently at odds with Darwin's gradualist theory of evolution. If a novelty were to evolve gradually in an animal's juvenile form, then its development would not appear in the fossil record at all, but if the species were then to undergoneoteny (a form of paedomorphosis in whichsexual maturity is reached while in an otherwise juvenile form), then the feature would appear suddenly in the fossil record, despite having evolved gradually.De Beer worked on
paleornithology and general evolutionary theory, and was largely responsible for elucidating the concept ofmosaic evolution , as illustrated by his review of "Archaeopteryx " in 1954. De Beer's also reviewedHaeckel 's concept of heterochrony, with particular emphasis on its role in avian evolution, especially that of theratite s, in 1956 [cite web|url=http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Gavin_de_Beer|title=Evowiki: Gavin de Beer|accessdate=April 3|accessyear=2006] . Dedicated to the popularisation of science, he received theKalinga Prize fromUNESCO .
= de Beer and evolutionary synthesis =The conventional view had been that developmental biology (
evo-devo ) had little influence on theevolutionary synthesis , but the following interesting assessment suggests otherwise, at least as far as de Beer is concerned::"In a series of remarkable books that established the synthetic theory of evolution, Gavin de Beer's "Embryology and evolution" was the first and the shortest (1930; expanded and retitled "Embryos and ancestors", 1940; 3rd ed 1958). In 116 pages de Beer brought embryology into the developing orthodoxy... for more than forty years, this book has dominated English thought on the relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny." Stephen Gould [Gould S.J. 1977. "Ontogeny and phylogeny". Harvard. p221-2]
Books by Gavin de Beer
*"Growth" — 1924
*"An introduction to experimental embryology" — 1926
*"The comparative anatomy, histology and development of the pituitary body — 1926
*"Vertebrate zoology" — 1928
*"Early travellers in the Alps" — 1930
*"Embryology and evolution" — 1930 (later editions bore the title "Embryos and ancestors")
*"Alps and men" — 1933
*"The elements of experimental embryology" — 1934 (co-written withJulian Huxley )
*"The development of the vertebrate skull" — 1937
*Gavin de Beer (editor:) "Evolution: Essays on aspects of evolutionary biology". Oxford 1938.
*"Escape to Switzerland" — 1945
*"Archaeopteryx lithographica" – 1954
*"Alps and elephants. Hannibal's march" — 1955
*"The first ascent of Mont Blanc" — 1957
*"Darwin's journal: Darwin's notebooks on the transmutaion of species" — 1959
*"The sciences were never at war" — 1960
*"Reflections of a Darwinian" — 1962
*"Charles Darwin: evolution by natural selection" — 1963
*"Atlas of evolution" — 1964
*"Charles Scott Sherrington: an appreciation" — 1966
*"Early travellers in the Alps" — 1967
*"Edward Gibbon and his world" — 1968
*"Hannibal: the struggle for power in the Mediterranean" — 1969
*"Homology, an unsolved problem" — 1971
*"Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his world" — 1972Quote
References
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