D. M. S. Watson
Prof David Meredith Seares Watson
Biography
Early life
Watson was born in the
He was educated at
After his MSc, Watson continued to develop his wide interest in fossils and studied intensively at the British Museum of Natural History in London, and on extended visits to South Africa, Australia, and the United States. In 1912 he was appointed as a lecturer in Vertebrate Palaeontology, at University College London by Professor James Peter Hill.
His academic work was eventually interrupted in 1916 by
Marriage and children
In 1917 Watson married Katharine Margarite Parker, and had two daughters: Katharine Mary and
Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy
After World War I, Watson returned to academic study and in 1921 he succeeded Hill as the Jodrell Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy and the curator of what is now the
He was appointed to the British government's
After the war he continued to teach and to travel widely. He received many awards and academic honours including the
He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the
He retired from his chair in 1951, but continued to study and publish at UCL until his full retirement in 1965. He was awarded the
His scientific research, besides his early original work on
He died on 23 July 1973 in Midhurst, Surrey.
Two
DMS Watson Library
The Science library, known as the DMS Watson library, of University College London is named in his honour. It is UCL's second largest library and is in Malet Place adjacent to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology.
Famous quotes
the Theory of Evolution itself, a theory universally accepted, not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible.
This quotation of Watson is often used in Creationist writings in an attempt to show that Watson, and thus by extension promoters of evolution in general, dismiss creationism due to antitheistic bias. A slightly different version of the quotation, derived accurately from a secondhand source,[5] is sometimes used (e.g., by C. S. Lewis[6]):
'Evolution itself is accepted by zoologists not because it has been observed to occur or . . . can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible ' (Report of the 97th meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1929, pp. 88, 95).
Watson's original statement first appeared in a 1929 article, "Adaptation," in the journal Nature:[7] The second version of the quotation, given above, is formed by combining the introduction and conclusion of a passage in Watson's paper, one from the first line and one from the last line. The first passage reads:
[1] "Evolution itself is accepted by zoologists not because it has been observed to occur or is supported by logically coherent arguments, but because it does fit all the facts of Taxonomy, of Palaeontology, and of Geographical Distribution, and because no alternative explanation is credible. But whilst the fact of evolution is accepted by every biologist the mode in which it has occurred and the mechanism by which it has been brought about are still disputable. The only two ' theories of Evolution ' which have gained any general currency, those of Lamark and of Darwin, rest on a most insecure basis;the validity of the assumptions on which they rest has seldom been seriously examined, and they do not interest most of the younger zoologists..."[8]
The concluding passage reads:
[2] "The extraordinary lack of evidence to show that the incidence of death under natural conditions is controlled by small differences of the kind which separate species from one another or, what is the same thing from an observational point of view, by physiological differences correlated with such structural features, renders it difficult to appeal to natural selection as the main or indeed an important factor in bringing about the evolutionary changes which we know to have occurred.
It may be important, it may indeed be the principle which overrides all others ; but at present its real existence as a phenomenon rests on an extremely slender basis. The extreme difficulty of obtaining the necessary data for any quantitative estimation of the efficiency of natural selection makes it seem probable that this theory will be re-established, if it be so, by the collapse of alternative explanations which are more easily attacked by observation and experiment.
If so, it will present a parallel to the Theory of Evolution itself, a theory universally accepted, not because it can be proved by logically coherent evidence to be true, but because the only alternative, Special Creation [the doctrine that the universe and all life in it originated by divine decree], is clearly incredible."
Published works
- "Palaeontology and the Evolution of Man", Romanes Lecture, Oxford, 1928
- The Animal Bones from Skara Brae (1931)
- "Science and Government", the Earl Grey Memorial Lecture, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1942
- "Paleontology and Modern Biology", the Silliman Memorial Lecture, Yale University, 1951
- Many papers on vertebrate palaeontology and connected subjects in Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, Journal of Anatomy, and elsewhere.
See also
References
- .
- ISBN 978-0-902198-84-5. Archived from the original(PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 28 March 2019.
- ^ "Mary Clark Thompson Medal". National Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on 29 December 2010. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
- ISBN 978-0-902198-84-5. Archived from the original(PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 28 March 2019.
- ^ "Science and the B.B.C.," The Nineteenth Century and After, April 1943.
- ^ C. S. Lewis, "Is Theology Poetry?", in Hooper, Walter (ed.), Screwtape Proposes a Toast (William Collins Sons & Co Ltd, Glasgow, 1978), p. 56; also in C. S. Lewis, "The Funeral of a Great Myth," in Hooper, Walter (ed.), Christian Reflections (Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, 1971), p. 85.)
- ^ D.M.S. Watson, "Adaptation," Nature, Vol. 124, 10 August 1929, 233. The article also appears in the Report of the Ninety-Seventh Meeting British Association for the Advancement of Science (Office of the British Association: London, 1929), 88-99 and can be accessed at https://archive.org/details/reportofbritisha30adva . The quote discussed here is on page 95.
- ^ D.M.S. Watson, "Adaptation," Nature, Vol. 124, 10 August 1929, p. 231
- ^ D.M.S. Watson, "Adaptation," Nature, Vol. 124, 10 August 1929, p. 233.
External links
- UCL Library Archive biographical notes Archived 22 February 2016 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved November 2005.