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& , , Inc. or its affiliatesRocky Road: Sir Richard Owen
Sir Richard Owen
From Fossils: Evidence of Vanished Worlds by Yvette Gayrard-Valy
Sir Richard Owen's boyhood tutor once described him as "lazy and impudent" and predicted he would "come to a bad end." If the accusation of laziness was at any point a fair one, Owen obviously outgrew the defect, but the accusation of impudence was likely correct. According to some accounts, when his contemporaries described him as the English Cuvier, Owen was n he considered himself superior to the French anatomist.
Owen combined exceptional brilliance with an exceptionally difficult temperament. On one occasion he suggested & partly because the institution was headed by an intellectual adversary & that the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew undertake experiments in "turning urban sewage into fodder."
He studied at London's Royal College of Surgeons, and impressed his anatomy teacher enough to be offered a position at the Hunterian Museum. Once Owen began teaching at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1836, he delivered three lectures a week without ever repeating a single lecture in 20 years. He continued publishing until the age of 85, writing a mind-boggling total of more than 600 scientific papers. Owen's expertise in vertebrate paleontology knew no peers (except Cuvier himself). He was the person to see for interpretations of puzzling fossils. By examining a single femur fragment of a New Zealand moa, for instance, Owen deduced that it belonged to a giant flightless bird, and later discoveries proved him right. Within a few years, he received enough bone fragments to identify several species of extinct moa. (He was, however, stingy in acknowledging the individual who brought him the bone fragment, and who suggested its avian nature, while Owen himself was initially skeptical.)
His insistence on physical evidence emboldened Owen to reject commonly accepted evidence of cryptozoological creatures (such evidence being the testimony of reputable people), and his exceptional ability at examining physical remains enabled him to expose the occasional fraud, such as Albert Koch's "sea monster" really pieced together from fossil whales. Yet he had his own blunders. In 1868, evolutionist Thomas Henry Huxley pointed out a series of embarrassing errors Owen had made in his description of Archaeopteryx, and used Owen's mistakes to overthrow his interpretation that the fossil belong to a bird, not a transitional form between birds and reptiles.
Owen's best known contribution to science, however, was likely his combination of two Greek words: deinos ("terrible") and sauros ("lizard") in the early 1840s. Politically, it was a brilliant move. For the previous two decades, the name associated with the great reptiles had been Gideon Mantell's. Now the name was Owen's, even though he had not really discovered anything new.
Owen's statue at the Natural History Museum. Photo by Michon Scott.
Owen's vision of dinosaur articulation. Photo by Michon Scott.
Mantell, the original discoverer of the Iguanodon dinosaur, was a long-suffering target of Owen's. Though his own work with Iguanodon was based on Mantell's, Owen refused to acknowledge as much, instead implying in his publications on the fossil that Mantell was incompetent. Owen did the same thing with another fossil find. In the early 19th century Mantell purchased some delicate fossil bones from quarry workers and described the bones as avian. Owen initially supported the interpretation, then later identified them & accurately but very publicly & as pterodactylian, without any advance warning to Mantell. After Mantell's death & when a portion of Mantell's badly injured spine was in Owen's museum to exhibit "the severest degree of deformity" & local geologists universally attributed an anonymous obituary deriding Mantell to Owen.
Owen cared no more for evolutionists than he did for Mantell. Impressed by how well-designed organisms were for their environments, Owen believed that they changed over time, but did not believe in the evolutionary theories of his day & Lamarck's transmutation or Darwin's natural selection. Ironically, Owen and Charles Darwin had been friends while young, and in examining South American fossils at the Hunterian Museum, Darwin accumulated evidence for his theory of natural selection. Likewise, Owen developed a hypotheses of archetypes, or homologies, in which animals were all variations on an Ideal Type. (In finding these similarities, he unwittingly found evidence for evolution, which he did not accept. In fact, Owen's homology has been compared to the "analogue" proposed by the early-19th-century evolutionist Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.) Owen skillfully maneuvered Darwin into proper position for an attack. After reviewing advance proofs of Origin of Species, Owen (1) criticized Darwin's statements beginning with "I believe" and "I am convinced" as unscientific, (2) insisted that Darwin not remove such statements as that would "spoil the charm" of the book, and (3) after publication, noisily criticized every instance of "I believe" and "I am convinced" as unscientific.
Darwin exacted sweet revenge for this. In later editions of Origin of Species, he included a historical sketch in which he acknowledged scientists who had in some way preceded him in understanding natural selection. He included Owen. In fact, Darwin went on and on about Owen and natural selection, devoting more than a page of text to his frenemy.
Insisting evolution couldn't be true, Owen maintained to the end of his days that the dominant life forms in Earth's history had arisen through special creation, without ancestors. When overseeing depictions of dominant life forms of the Mesozoic, he used distinctly mammalian articulations, to demonstrate their closer affinity with the dominant life forms of the Age of Mammals rather than the lowly reptiles of today. Evidence of Owen's beliefs about the Mesozoic can still be seen in the dinosaur sculptures at Crystal Palace, a park in south London. They look like eerie crosses between crocodiles and rhinos. (The mammalian articulation was eventually overthrown by both Mantell and Louis Dollo, who found more extensive Iguanodon fossils.)
From Darwin's Universe: Evolution from A to Z by Richard Milner
By general consent, Owen was no nice guy, although a so-called lost sketchbook of his reveals a side of his personality that was surprisingly funny. Needless to say, his humor was dark. One series of sketches showed "The Primitive Age," "The Invention of Weapons" and "Of Deadly Nature."
A friend of the British royal family (when it was more powerful than it is today), Owen got to pass his final days in a lodge given to him by Queen Victoria, and party in the belly of a reconstructed Iguanodon. By lobbying the royal family, he played a crucial role in the establishment of the British Museum (Natural History) & now known as the Natural History Museum of London & in South Kensington.
Owen has left his mark throughout London's Natural History Museum, from the museum's overall design that evokes a cathedral to the terra cotta decorations depicting extinct animals to the plant illustrations on the ceiling panels. (Always more interested in animals than plants, Owen considered letting the herbarium sheets originally compiled by Hans Sloane go to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Once that became a distinct possibility, Owen suddenly found himself torn between a general lack of interest in plants and a desire to have control over everything. The de the herbarium sheets are still at the museum.) Today the museum acknowledges Owen's sustained efforts to establish a "cathedral to nature" through numerous mentions in guide books and through a statue. But Owen's statue & looking almost clerical in long academic robes & has been relegated to a dark corridor at the back. The landing of the museum's central staircase now holds a statue of Charles Darwin.
Owen outlived most of his colleagues, including his nemesis Darwin. But longevi Owen also outlived his wife by almost 20 years and his only son, who committed suicide. And his final years saw growing acceptance of Darwin's theory. Sir William Flower, who succeeded Owen as director of the Natural History Museum, was an Charles Darwin was commemorated with a statue in the museum 11 years before Owen received a similar honor. After his death, an Oxford professor described Owen in terms even less flattering than his boyhood tutor, namely as "a damned liar. He lied for God and for malice."
The Lying Stones of Marrakech by Stephen Jay Gould
The Dragon Seekers by Christopher McGowan
Terrible Lizard by Deborah Cadbury
Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs by Dennis R. Dean
Taking Wing by Pat Shipman
Nature's Treasurehouse by John Thackray and Bob Press
The Meaning of Fossils by Martin J.S. Rudwick
The Reign of the Dinosaurs by Jean-Guy Michard
Fossils: Evidence of Vanished Worlds by Yvette Gayrard-Valy
The Dinosaur Papers edited by Weishampel and White
Charles Darwin: Voyaging and Charles Darwin: The Power of Place by Janet Browne
To See the Fellows Fight by John Thackray
Moa by Richard Wolfe
Dry Store Room No. 1 by Richard Fortey
Hunting Dinosaurs by Louie Psihoyos
Scenes from Deep Time by Martin J.S. Rudwick
Nature's Government by Richard Drayton
"Of Moas and Men: Richard Owen's Dinosaur Dinner" by Patricia Fara in Endeavour
"A Brief, but Imperfect, Historical Sketch of a 'Considerable Revolution'" by Barbara Continenza in Endeavour
"Richard Owen and the Sea-Serpent" by Brian Regal in Endeavour
Souvenir Guide from the Natural History Museum, London
The Gilded Canopy by Sandra Knapp and Bob Press
Monsters of the Sea by Richard Ellis
The Great Naturalists edited by Robert Huxley
Rare Treasures edited by Judith Magee
Darwin's Universe: Evolution from A to Z by Richard Milner
The Pterosaurs from Deep Time by David Unwin
From Private to Public edited by Marco Beretta
Charles Darwin, Geologist by Sandra Herbert
Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin
Great Feuds in Science by Hal Hellman
Evolution by Linda Gamlin
Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea by Carl Zimmer当前位置: >>>>
VOA慢速英语2011--Jesse Owens, : He Was Once the
(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
People in America - Jesse Owens, : He Was Once the Fastest Runner in the World
GWEN OUTEN: This is Gwen Outen.
STEVE EMBER: And this is Steve Ember with People in America in VOA Special English. Every week we tell about a person who was important in the history of the United States. Today we tell the story of athlete Jesse Owens. He once was the fastest runner in the world.
GWEN OUTEN: In the summer of nineteen thirty-six, people all over the world heard the name of Jesse Owens. That summer, Owens joined the best athletes from fifty nations to compete in the Olympic games. They met in Berlin, Germany. There was special interest in the Olympic games that year.
Adolf Hitler was the leader of Germany. Hitler and his
party believed that white people -- especially German people & were the best race of people on Earth. They believed that other races of people -- especially those with dark skin -- were almost less than human.
In the summer of nineteen thirty-six, Hitler wanted to prove his beliefs to the world. He wanted to show that German athletes could win every important competition. After all, only a few weeks before the Olympics, German
Max Schmeling had defeated the great American heavyweight Joe Louis, a black man.
STEVE EMBER: Jesse Owens was black, too. Until nineteen thirty-six, very few black athletes had competed in the Olympics for the United States. Owens was proud to be on the team. He was very sure of his ability.
JESSE OWENS: &I think that this week is very
for the boys on the United States Olympic team for the simple reason because we have been through a series of
events in our country. And the training here that we are getting here is just a little tune-up for the Olympic games. Our hard training is really over. And the rain here is something that is going to help our team quite a bit because some of the boys has a tendency to work a little bit too hard. And I think that the rain is doing a good to
up the training a bit.&
(1936 interview with Jesse Owens for German radio, from archive.org)
STEVE EMBER: Owens spent one week competing in four different Olympic track and field events in Berlin. During that time, he did not think much about the color of his skin, or about Adolf Hitler.
Owens said later: &I was looking only at the finish line. I thought of all the years of practice and competition, and of all who believed in me.&
GWEN OUTEN: We do not know what Hitler thought of Jesse Owens. No one recorded what he said about this black man who ran faster and jumped
than any man of any color at the Olympic games. But we can still see Jesse Owens as Hitler saw him. For at Hitler's request,
pictures were made of the Berlin Olympic games.
The films show Jesse Owens as a thin, but powerfully-built young man with smooth brown skin and short hair. When he ran, he seemed to move without effort. When he jumped, as one
said, he seemed to jump clear out of Germany.
Jesse Owens won the highest award -- the Gold Medal -- in all four of the Olympic competitions he entered. In the one-hundred meter run, he equaled the fastest time ever run in that Olympic event. In the long jump and the two-hundred meter run, he set new Olympic records. And as part of a four-man team, he helped set a new world record for the four-hundred meter
race. He was the first American in the history of Olympic track and field events to win four Gold Medals in a single Olympics.
STEVE EMBER: Owens's Olympic victories made him a hero. He returned home to parades in New York City and Columbus, Ohio, where he attended the state university. Businessmen paid him for the right to use his name on their stores. No one, however, offered him a permanent job.
For many years after the nineteen thirty-six Olympic games, Jesse Owens survived as best he could. He worked at small jobs. He even used his
abilities, but in a sad way. He earned money by running races against people, motorcycles and horses. He and his wife and three daughters saw both good times and bad times.
GWEN OUTEN: Poverty was not new to James Cleveland Owens. He was born in nineteen thirteen on a farm in the southern state of Alabama. He was the youngest of thirteen children. His parents did not own the farm, and earned little money. Jesse remembered that there was rarely enough food to eat. And there was not enough fuel to heat the house in winter.
Some of Jesse&s brothers and sisters died while still young. Jesse was a sickly child. Partly because of this, and partly because of the racial
they saw around them, Jesse&s parents
to leave the South. They moved north, to Cleveland, Ohio, when Jesse was eight years old. The large family lived in a few small rooms in a part of the city that was neither friendly nor pleasant to look at.
Jesse&s father was no longer young or strong. He was unable to find a good job. Most of the time, no one would give him any work at all. But Jesse&s older brothers were able to get jobs in factories. So life was a little better than it had been in the South.
STEVE EMBER: Jesse, especially, was lucky. He entered a school where one white teacher, Charles Riley, took a special interest in him. Jesse looked thin and unhealthy, and Riley wanted to make him stronger. Through the years that Jesse was in school, Riley brought him food in the morning. Riley often invited the boy to eat with his family in the evening. And every day before school, he taught Owens how to run like an athlete.
At first, the idea was only to make the boy stronger. But soon Riley saw that Jesse was a champion. By the time Jesse had completed high school, his name was known across the nation. Ohio State University wanted him to attend college there. While at Ohio State, he set new world records in several track and field events. And he was accepted as a member of the United States Olympic team.
GWEN OUTEN: Owens always remembered the white man who helped change his life. Charles Riley did not seem to care what color a person's skin was. Owens
to think the same way.
Later in life, Owens put all his energy into working with young people. He wanted to tell them some of the things he had learned about life, work and success: That it is important to choose a goal and always work
it. That there are good people in the world who will help you to reach your goal. That if you try again and again, you will succeed.
People who heard Owens's speeches said he
almost as well as he ran. Owens received awards for his work with boys and girls. The United States government sent him around the world as a kind of sports . The International Olympic Committee asked for his advice.
STEVE EMBER: In about nineteen seventy, Jesse Owens wrote a book in which he told about his life. It was called &Blackthink.& In the book, Owens
young black
who blamed society for their troubles. He said young black people had the same chance to succeed in the United States as white people. Many black civil rights
reacted angrily to these statements. They said what Owens had written was not true for everyone.
Owens later admitted that he had been wrong. He saw that not all blacks were given the same chances and help that he had been given. In a second book, Owens tried to explain what he had meant in his first book. He called it &I Have Changed.& Owens said that, in his earlier book, he did not write about life as it was for everyone, but about life as it was for him.
He said he truly wanted to believe that if you think you can succeed--- and you really try -- then you have a chance. If you do not think you have a chance, then you probably will fail. He said these beliefs had worked for him. And he wanted all young people to believe them, too.
GWEN OUTEN: These were the same beliefs he tried to express when he spoke around the world about being an Olympic athlete. &The road to the Olympics,& he said, &leads to no city, no country. It goes far beyond New York or Moscow, ancient Greece or Nazi Germany. The road to the Olympics leads -- in the end -- to the best within us.&
In nineteen seventy-six, President Gerald
awarded Jesse Owens the Medal of Freedom. This is the highest
an American
can receive. Jesse Owens died of cancer in nineteen eighty. His family members operate the Jesse Owens . It provides financial aid and support for young people to help them reach their goals in life.
STEVE EMBER: This program was written by Barbara Dash. It was produced by Lawan Davis. This is Steve Ember.
GWEN OUTEN: And this is Gwen Outen. Listen again next week for People in America in VOA Special English.
点击收听单词发音&&
n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的
参考例句：
They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻，并出面求和。
Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。
n.制箱者，拳击手
参考例句：
The boxer gave his opponent a punch on the nose.这个拳击手朝他对手的鼻子上猛击一拳。
He moved lightly on his toes like a boxer.他像拳击手一样踮着脚轻盈移动。
adj.enough充足的，充分的
参考例句：
His income is sufficient for his needs.他的收入能满足他的需要。
Have you had sufficient?你吃饱了没有？
n.初步行动，准备，初步措施；adj.初步的，开始的，预备的
参考例句：
They are taking preliminary steps in preparation for a possible war.他们正在为应付一场可能的战争做初步的准备。
A physical examination is a preliminary to joining the army.体格检查是参军的初步。
adj.松弛的，萧条的，懈怠的；vt.使松弛
参考例句：
Slack off those ropes there,there's a storm coming!把那里的绳索放松，暴风雨就要来了！
Some are hard at work and some are slack in work.有的勤奋工作，有的则消极怠工。
adj.更远的，进一步的；adv.更远的，此外；far的比较级
参考例句：
I can throw the ball farther than you can.这个球我能比你扔得远。
The farther hill is five kilometres away.那座更远的小山在五公里以外。
n.打手势，示意，移动，动作，提议，大便；v.运动，向...打手势，示意
参考例句：
She could feel the rolling motion of the ship under her feet.她能感觉到脚下船在晃动。
Don't open the door while the train is in motion.列车运行时，请勿打开车门。
n.观察家，观察的人，观察员
参考例句：
I can see you're a careful reader as well as a careful observer.我能看出你既是一位细心的读者，又是一位观察者。
I want to attend the conference only as an observer.本人只作为观察员身份参加会议。
n.接力赛，中继转播（设备）；vt.转述，转播
参考例句：
They will relay your message.他们会转达你的口信。
This metal tower is used to relay television signals to distant villages.这个金属塔是用于向遥远的村子转播电视讯号的。
adj.擅长运动的，强健的；活跃的，体格健壮的
参考例句：
This area has been marked off for athletic practice.这块地方被划出来供体育训练之用。
He is an athletic star.他是一个运动明星。
n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨
参考例句：
He looked at me with hatred in his eyes.他以憎恨的眼光望着我。
The old man was seized with burning hatred for the fascists.老人对法西斯主义者充满了仇恨。
adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的
参考例句：
This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
adj.有学问的，博学的；learn的过去式和过去分词
参考例句：
He went into a rage when he learned about it.他听到这事后勃然大怒。
In this little village,he passed for a learned man.在这个小村子里，他被视为有学问的人。
prep.对于，关于，接近，将近，向，朝
参考例句：
Suddenly I saw a tall figure approaching toward the policeman.突然间我看到一个高大的身影朝警察靠近。
Upon seeing her,I smiled and ran toward her. 看到她我笑了，并跑了过去。
n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说
参考例句：
They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
n.大使，特使，（派驻国际组织的）代表
参考例句：
He took up office as an ambassador for ten years continuously.他连任十年大使。
The new ambassador is more mature than his predecessor.新大使比他的前任更成熟一些。
公开指责( denounce的过去式和过去分词 )； 揭发； 告发； 通知废止
参考例句：
She publicly denounced the government's handling of the crisis. 她公开谴责政府处理这场危机的方式。
He was denounced as a foreign spy. 有人告发他是外国间谍。
激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )
参考例句：
The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。
n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )
参考例句：
His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》
n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过
参考例句：
They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。
n.光荣；敬意；荣幸；vt.给…以荣誉；尊敬
参考例句：
I take your visit as a great honor.您的来访是我莫大的光荣。
It is a great honor to receive that prize.能拿到那个奖是无上的光荣。
adj.平民的，民用的，民众的
参考例句：
There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。
n.[pl.]地基；基础；基金会；建立，创办
参考例句：
The foundation of the university took place 600 years ago.这所大学是600年前创办的。
The Foundation gives money to help artists.那家基金会捐款帮助艺术家。
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