Diagnosing deep similarity in nature

摘要

On the night of 9 February 1849, Richard Owen, the pre-eminent Victorian anatomist who later founded London's Natural History Museum, delivered a public lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain. In a strident discourse that set the stage for Charles Darwin's account of evolution, Owen revealed similarities in biological forms from species to species that suggested some underlying ideal plan or archetype. He sought to debunk the prevailing view that anatomical pattern could be explained as a consequence of biological function.