Dr. Florence Raulin-Cerceau Grande Galerie De 1'Evolution Museum National D'histoire Naturelle 36 - Rue Geoffroy Saint Hilaire 75005 - Paris - France

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Dr. Florence Raulin-Cerceau Grande Galerie De 1'Evolution Museum National D'histoire Naturelle 36 - Rue Geoffroy Saint Hilaire 75005 - Paris - France Dr. Florence Raulin-Cerceau Grande Galerie de 1'Evolution Museum national d'Histoire naturelle 36 - rue Geoffroy Saint Hilaire 75005 - Paris - France "La Grande Galerie de 1"Evolution" of Paris: The only Museum in the world entirely devoted to biological evolution. The new building called "Grande Galerie de 1'Evolution" of the national Museum of natural History, in Paris-France, is the first museum in the world exclusively devoted to biological evolution. Inaugured in June 1994, this building was the result of a huge national project of renovation concerning few large french science museums. From a scientific popularization point of view, showing to public, in a museum, the processes and results of biological evolution was a sort of challenge. Our choice fell on few major topics: diversity of life, consequences of interaction between man and nature, and the main processes of biological evolution along the story of life. These topics are developed with the help of the presentation of many animal (or plant) specimens belonging to the Museum collections. The Museum is divided in 3 parts (named "Acts") : - The aim of Act 1 is to sensibilize the visitor to the results of 4 billions years of biological evolution. This act shows some examples of biological diversity through few terrestrial and marine environments (deserts, tropical forests, polar habitats, abyssal zones ...). - Act 2 is the principal part of the Museum explaining the main processes of evolution. This part shows also the story of life from the first living cells to man. - Act 3, the last part offers to visitors a vision of the interactions between man and nature, and of their consequences along millions of years. A special Gallery is :entirely devoted to vanished and threatened species, as a nefast consequence of human interaction on biological diversity particularly since the beginning of this century. 15.
Recommended publications
  • “The Infinite Universe of the New Cosmology, Infinite in Duration As Well As Exten- Sion, in Which Eternal Matter in Accordanc
    “The infinite Universe of the New Cosmology, infinite in Duration as well as Exten- sion, in which eternal matter in accordance with eternal and necessary laws moves endlessly and aimlessly in eternal space, inherited all the ontological attributes of Divinity. Yet only those — all the others the departed God took with him... The Divine Artifex had therefore less and less to do in the world. He did not even have to con- serve it, as the world, more and more, became able to dispense with this service...” ALEXANDRE KOYRE, “From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe”, 1957 into the big world -26- “La raison pour laquelle la relocalisation du global est devenue si importante est que le Terre elle-même pourrait bien ne pas être un globe après tout (...). Même la fameuse vision de la “planète bleue” pour- rait se révéler comme une image composite, c’est à dire une image composée de l’ancienne forme donnée au Dieu chrétien et du réseau complexe d’acquisitions de données de la NASA, à son tour projeté à l’intérieur du panorama diffracté des médias. Voilà peut-être la source de la fascination que l’image de la sphère a exercé depuis: la forme sphérique arrondit la con- naissance en un volume continu, complet, transparent, omniprésent qui masque la tâche extraordinairement difficile d’assembler les points de données venant de tous les instruments et de toutes les disciplines. Une sphère n’a pas d’histoire, pas de commencement, pas de fin, pas de trou, pas de discontinuité d’aucune sorte.” BRUNO LATOUR, “l’Anthropocène et la Destruction de l’Image
    [Show full text]
  • Open Phd Position Muséum National D'histoire Naturelle, Paris, France
    Open PhD Position Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France Area of research: Palaeontology and Molecular systematics of Cenozoic and Recent molluscs, Gastropoda PhD Title: Timing of diversification of the Bursidae (Gastropoda: Tonnoidea) Supervisors: Dr. Didier MERLE, Dr. Michel LAURIN & Dr. Nicolas PUILLANDRE E-mails: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Host laboratory: CR2P CNRS-MNHN-UPMC, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France. Associated Research units: 1°) CR2P, CNRS-MNHN-UPMC, Centre de recherche sur la Paléobiodiversité et les Paléoenvironnements – Equipes 1 « Paléoécosystèmes : analyse, compréhension, évolution » and 2 « Diversification des Métazoaires » 2°) ISyEB Institute CNRS MNHN UPMC EPHE (Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité), UMR 7205, Equipe 3E « Exploration, Espèce, Evolution » Subject: State of the art: Time-calibrated phylogenetic trees are increasingly used in biology, in particular to highlight evolutionary radiations or biological crises, to establish a correlation between speciation and extinction rates and environmental changes or to compare diversification rates between clades. Also, modern comparative methods for establishing correlations between characters generally require trees with estimated branch lengths. For a long time, the dating of the tree of the life was based solely on the fossil record. During the last decades, the fast progress in molecular phylogenetics allowed inference of divergence times, but paleontological data have been under-exploited for this purpose, with few (mostly minimal) paleontological are constraints used in each study.. Both communities (paleontologists and molecularists) gain to work together on this theme, because fossils are not available for each node of the tree and because molecular phylogenetics still relies mostly on fossils to calibrate their trees.
    [Show full text]
  • Race and Genealogy
    Race and Genealogy. Buffon and the Formation of the Concept of “ Race ” Claude-Olivier Doron To cite this version: Claude-Olivier Doron. Race and Genealogy. Buffon and the Formation of the Concept of “Race”. Humana.Mente: Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2012, 22, pp.75 - 109. halshs-01508913 HAL Id: halshs-01508913 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01508913 Submitted on 14 Apr 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Race and Genealogy: Buffon and the Formation of the Concept of “Race” Claude-Olivier Doron * [email protected] ABSTRACT This article analyses the conditions of formation of the concept of “race” in natural history in the middle of the eighteenth century. Relying on the method of historical epistemology to avoid some of the aporias raised by the traditional historiography of “racism”, it focuses on the peculiarities of the concept of “race” in contrast to other similar concepts such as “variety”, “species” and tries to answer the following questions: to what extent the concept of “race” was integrated in natural history’s discourses before the middle of the eighteenth century? To which kind of concepts and problems was it linked and to which style of reasoning did it pertain? To which conditions could it enter natural history and develop in it? The article argues that “race” pertained to a genealogical style of reasoning which was largely extraneous to natural history before the middle of the eighteenth century.
    [Show full text]
  • Specimen Transport in the Eighteenth-Century French and British Atlantics
    Ecosystems under Sail Specimen Transport in the Eighteenth-Century French and British Atlantics CHRISTOPHER M. PARSONS McNeil Center for Early American Studies and KATHLEEN S. MURPHY California Polytechnic State University abstract The ocean was frequently as hostile an environment for plants and animals as it was for humankind in the eighteenth century. Existing methods of preserving the plants, fish, birds, and land animals that provided the raw materials for European science increasingly proved insufficient for the often long voyages that brought them from colonial and indigenous collectors; specimens arrived dead when they were needed alive, rotten and damaged when they were needed whole, and they fre- quently suffered as they encountered negligent and uninterested sailors, and rats and other shipboard pests that showed too much interest. This paper examines strategies of specimen transport adopted by French and British naturalists in the Atlantic world during the first half of the eigh- teenth century, arguing for the importance of maritime spaces that have often been overlooked in histories of the expanding reach of European science. Atlantic networks of specimen transport were simultaneously dis- tinctly national and endlessly entangled. Efforts to discipline maritime social environments diverged along distinctly national lines, influenced by larger patterns of scientific sociability in both Britain and France. At the same time, however, naturalists drew on a cadre of common practices when they packed and preserved specimens for transport. The study of specimen transport demonstrates the geographic expanse of the centripetal and centrifugal tendencies at work more generally in eighteenth-century science; these forces simultaneously strengthened national scientific cul- tures and supported a cosmopolitan network of naturalists who communi- cated specimens and the methods for making them throughout Europe and the wider world.
    [Show full text]
  • Evidence for Evolution
    Developing a Theory to Explain Change Scientific evidence to support the Theory of Evolution QuestionsQuestions toto Ponder?Ponder? Can you compare different explanations for changes in populations over time? Can you describe the evidence to support the theory of evolution? Can you explain how scientific knowledge is accumulated and organized to develop theories? Can you analyze data to determine relatedness among organisms? ¾ Plato (427-347 B.C.E.) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) believed that all life existed in a perfected and unchanging form ¾ Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle ¾George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon challenged this idea. In 1749, he published a 44-volume Histoire Naturelle. ¾In this publication, he noted similarities between humans and apes. Speculated that we may have a common ancestor ¾Also said that earth was older than 6000 years (at the time that was considered the age of earth) ¾ Cuvier’s Fossils: ¾ George Cuvier is credited for developing the science of Paleontology ¾ Examined rocks and noticed that each stratum (layer of rock) was characterized by a unique group of fossil species ¾ He noticed that species would be in one strata and then disappear in the next- ¾ Proposed idea of extinction- organisms alive after the catastrophe would populate the world (Revolutions) ¾ Time and Nature act to destroy species – not create them! ¾ Lyell’s Principles of Geology ¾ Didn’t like idea of revolutions ¾ Reasoned that geological changes are slow and continuous ¾ If Earth is changing, could slow, subtle changes also occur in populations? ¾ Lamarck: Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics ¾Proposed that species evolve by acquiring characteristics of their parents and thus increased in complexity over time until they were perfect (for their niche) ¾ Lamarck: Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics ¾The Environment is the key factor in evolution (True) but the rest of the theory is wrong! ¾1.
    [Show full text]
  • PLINY the ELDER's NATURAL HISTORY: ENCYCLOPEDIA for CAROLINGIAN ASTRONOMY and COSMOLOGY Already Important to Bede (673–735)
    CHAPTER THREE PLINY THE ELDER’S NATURAL HISTORY: ENCYCLOPEDIA FOR CAROLINGIAN ASTRONOMY AND COSMOLOGY Already important to Bede (673–735) while circulating in excerpts and partial copies during the early eighth century, Pliny’s Natural History (NH) was appreciated by Alcuin, Charlemagne, and their contempo- raries for supplying a tremendous increase in astronomical information. Analogously, of the earlier astronomical-cosmological works entitled De natura rerum (DNR) by Isidore of Seville (ca. 613) and Bede (ca. 701), it was Bede’s, which made more extensive and more explicit use of Pliny, that was clearly preferred in the Carolingian world. Pliny’s compendium of knowledge was a touchstone for authority in astronomy at the time of Charlemagne and afterwards and was used selectively, not slavishly, when its offerings provided what the moment required.1 While speci c, practical questions in astronomy often arose in the correspondence of Alcuin and others, the answers to those questions were sought less to build a body of technical knowledge than to con rm and recon rm the view that God’s cosmos displayed an order perceptible to human reason. Among the more effective ways developed by the Carolingians to af\ rm this view was the invention of diagrams that incorporated limited quantitative information but gave primary emphasis to qualita- tive patterns in an imagery of cosmic order. Plinian texts received such treatment early in the ninth century. 1 An introduction to Pliny’s astronomy appears in two essays in French and Greenaway, eds., Science in the Early Roman Empire; see Pedersen, “Some Astronomical Topics in Pliny,” pp.
    [Show full text]
  • History of a Natural History: Max Ernst's Histoire Naturelle
    HISTORY OF A NATURAL HISTORY: MAX ERNST'S HISTOIRE NATURELLE, FROTTAGE, AND SURREALIST AUTOMATISM by TOBIAS PERCIVAL ZUR LOYE A THESIS Presented to the Department of Art History and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts June 2010 --------------_._--- 11 "History of a Natural History: Max Ernst's Histoire Naturelle, Frottage, and Surrealist Automatism," a thesis prepared by Tobias Percival zur Loye in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in the Department of Art History. This thesis has been approved and accepted by: Date Committee in Charge: Dr. Sherwin Simmons, Chair Dr. Joyce Cheng .Dr. Charles Lachman Accepted by: Dean of the Graduate School III An Abstract of the Thesis of Tobias Percival zur Loye for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Art History to be taken June 2010 Title: HISTORY OF A NATURAL HISTORY: MAX ERNST'S HISTOIRE NATURELLE, FROTTAGE, AND SURREALIST AUTOMATISM Approved: When Andre BreJon released his Manifesto ofSurrealism in 1924, he established the pursuit of psychic automatism as Surrealism's principle objective, and a debate concerning the legitimacy or possibility of Surrealist visual art ensued. In response to this skepticism, Max Ernst embraced automatism and developed a new technique, which he called frottage , in an attempt to satisfy Breton's call for automatic activity, and in 1926, a collection of thirty-four frottages was published under the title Histoire Naturelle. This thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of Histoire Naturelle by situating it in the theoretical context of Surrealist automatism and addresses the means by which Ernst incorporated found objects from the natural world into the semi-automatic production of his frottages.
    [Show full text]
  • Lamarck: the Birth of Biology Author(S): Frans A
    Lamarck: The Birth of Biology Author(s): Frans A. Stafleu Reviewed work(s): Source: Taxon, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Aug., 1971), pp. 397-442 Published by: International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1218244 . Accessed: 24/12/2012 16:29 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Taxon. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded on Mon, 24 Dec 2012 16:29:36 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions TAXON 20(4): 397-442. AUGUST 1971 LAMARCK:THE BIRTH OF BIOLOGY Frans A. Stafleu "A long blind patience, such was his genius of the Universe" (Sainte Beuve) Summary A review of the development of Lamarck'sideas on biological systematibswith special reference to the origin and development of his concept of organic evolution. Lamarck's development towards biological systematics is traced through his early botanical and geological writings and related to the gradual change in his scientific outlook from a static and essentialist view of nature towards a dynamic and positivist concept of the life sciences as a special discipline.
    [Show full text]
  • Changing Science for the Time
    _NA_~____ vo_L_.3~12~~~~NO~~~_ER __ l9M_______________________ AUTUMNBCXJKS-----------------------------------------z_zt emerges as a cosmopolitan liberal, scarcely contemporary political events. Science, for Changing science for religious, a friend of erstwhile Jacobins all the propaganda, did not (indeed does (who attended his wedding) and champion not) inhabit a world of supralunary purity. the time of working-class education - aspects at In Lamarck, L.J. Jordanova presents a Adrian Desmond odds with the prevailing caricature. In a corroborative view. Lamarck's debt to the scintillating discussion of Cuvier's "cata­ anti-authoritarian ideologues, disliked by Georges Cuvier: Vocation, Science and strophist" Discours (1812), Outram asserts Napoleon, counted against him during the Authority in Post-Revolutionary France. that - far from Scriptural kow-towing - Empire, when the re-establishment of order became imperative. Jordanova has By Dorinda Outram. Cuvier's abandonment of theological brought together the latest research on Manchester University Press: 1984. Pp. dogma led him to de-emphasize "causes" Lamarck, shaping it into the Oxford Past 299. £25, $32.50. and endorse a historical descriptive Masters format. She depicts the late Lamarck. approach. He demanded the "epistemo­ By L.J. Jordanova. logical autonomy" of geology, staked its Oxford University Press: 1984. Pp. 118. claim to the ''new worlds of time'' and, in Hbk £7.95; pbk £1.95. an effort to conquer Lamarck's rival empire of conchology, founded the speciality of palaeontology, modelled after CUVIER'S aggrandisements have become a the new historical criticism. Outram's historiographic byword. The creator of method is beguiling, and her imperial stratigraphic palaeontology was also metaphors capture an expansionist era.
    [Show full text]
  • Catalogue Natural History Books (July 2021)
    Hermann L. Strack Livres Anciens - Antiquarian Bookdealer - Antiquariaat Histoire Naturelle - Sciences - Médecine - Voyages Sciences - Natural History - Medicine - Travel Wetenschappen - Natuurlijke Historie - Medisch - Reizen Porzh Hervé - 22780 Loguivy Plougras - Bretagne - France Tel.: +33-(0)679439230 - email: [email protected] site: www.strackbooks.nl Dear friends and customers, I am pleased to present my new catalogue. Most of my book stock contains many rare and seldom offered items. I hope you will find something of interest in this catalogue, otherwise I am in the position to search any book you find difficult to obtain. Please send me your want list. I am always interested in buying books, journals or even whole libraries on all fields of science (zoology, botany, geology, medicine, archaeology, physics etc.). Please offer me your duplicates. Terms of sale and delivery: We accept orders by mail, telephone or e-mail. All items are offered subject to prior sale. Please do not forget to mention the unique item number when ordering books. Prices are in Euro. Postage, handling and bank costs are charged extra. Books are sent by surface mail (unless we are instructed otherwise) upon receipt of payment. Confirmed orders are reserved for 30 days. If payment is not received within that period, we are in liberty to sell those items to other customers. Return policy: Books may be returned within 14 days, provided we are notified in advance and that the books are well packed and still in good condition. Catalogue Natural History Books (July 2021) Africa TA01096 ANONYMOUS, 1939. € 20,00 Ruwenzori Expedition 1934-5. Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Conrad Gessner's Paratexts
    Conrad Gessner's Paratexts The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Blair, Ann. 2016. "Conrad Gessner's Paratexts." Gesnerus 73, no. 1: 73. Published Version http://www.gesnerus.ch/fileadmin/media/ pdf/2016_1/073-122_Blair.pdf Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:34334606 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Open Access Policy Articles, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#OAP Ann Blair, Dept of History, Harvard University Abstract: Throughout his prolific publishing career Conrad Gessner composed abundant paratexts which offer valuable insight into his methods of working. Gessner wrote many dedications, only a minority of which were addressed to major patrons of his day. Instead he used them to thank dozens of physicians and scholars for sending him information, images, and manuscripts for his ongoing projects. Gessner acknowledged new arrivals in successive publications and invited further contributions explicitly. In "to the readers" and other passages Gessner called attention to his future publication plans and his skill in working with printers and in editing manuscripts of recently deceased scholars, thereby also encouraging new commissions. Gessner was also a master indexer and innovated especially in drawing up the first index of authors cited for his edition of Stobaeus in 1543 and a new all-purpose index in his Stobaeus of 1559. Many other aspects of Gessner's paratexts warrant further study.
    [Show full text]
  • “Their Wonderful Mechanism” Looking at Bugs in the Age of Enlightenment
    “Their Wonderful Mechanism” Looking at Bugs in the Age of Enlightenment an exhibition by troy sherman But as mankind became more enlightened, the great wonders of nature in these small animals began to be observed . carolus linnaeus, Fundamenta Entomologiae, 1772 Cover art from robert hooke, Micrographia, 1665 “Their Wonderful Mechanism” Looking at Bugs in the Age of Enlightenment HEN ROBERT HOOKE peered Williams College and organized in three through his microscope into the sections corresponding to the body segments of Weyes of a dronefly, he didn’t simply catch an insect, demonstrates how scientific discourse the bug peering back: concerning bugs he saw his world converged with and reflected in its gaze. helped shape empirical Within each pane of methodologies and the insect’s compound technologies, colonial eyes, wrote Hooke in expansion, and 1666, “I have been able political thought to discover a Land- during western scape of those things Europe’s age of which lay before my Enlightenment. window.” In Hooke’s Hooke’s observa- study, the dronefly’s tion dramatizes the play eyes not only served as between knowledge and experimental material culture at an important to demonstrate the stage in the history of observational capacity entomology: in the 17th of his microscope, and 18th centuries, as but also provided a robert hooke, Micrographia, 1665 European natural philosophers visually captivating turned unprecedented amounts of their metaphor for the new technology. Hooke’s attention towards insect life, bugs in turn experiment indexes a shift of empirical contributed to shaping the new ways that interest towards the study of bugs rooted in these scientists were describing their world.
    [Show full text]