Cuvier Disagreed With The Evolutionist Idea

One of some interesting facts about Georges Cuvier is that he opposed the theory of evolution. Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire were the first to think of evolution before the infamous Charles Darwin put forth his theory of it. Georges Cuvier, however, disagreed with their idea of evolution. Cuvier, however, was against the theory of organic development. Being an essentialist, he believed that all plants and animals remained unchanged throughout their whole lives since they were designed for their specific functions and locations in the environment. A fascinating fact about Georges Cuvier is that he said that the data offered to support such a hypothesis was insufficient because it could only demonstrate cyclical creation and global extinction.

A contentious scientific dispute over whether morphology or function was responsible for the makeup of animal structure was initiated by the difference between these two proponents. Georges Cuvier favored the former, that animal structure is solely dependent on function, whereas Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck felt that it was the latter—evolutionary morphology.