Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley ( born May 4, 1825 Ealing, Middlesex; † 29 June 1895 in Eastbourne ) was a British biologist, education organizer and chief representative of agnosticism, whose term he coined and prevailed. As an influential supporter of the empiricism of David Hume and the theory of evolution Charles Darwin (which led to his nickname Darwin's Bulldog) he had in addition to his own extensive research, textbooks and essays very great influence on the development of science in the 19th century.
Life
Family
Thomas Henry Huxley was born on May 4, 1825 son of a teacher in later to London belonging Ealing. His parents George Huxley and Rachel Withers were married in 1810. Thomas Henry was her seventh child, while the youngest surviving of eight. Huxley 's grandfather three known brothers: the biologist and UNESCO Secretary-General Julian Huxley, the writer Aldous Huxley ( Brave New World, 1932 ) and the human physician Andrew Fielding Huxley.
Professional career
Huxley joined in 1841 as an assistant in the practice of a brother in law, physician James Godwin Scott, in London and attended parallel lectures at Sydenham College. On October 1, 1842 at Charing Cross Hospital, he took up the study of medicine, which he in 1845 with the degree of a Bacc. MD, University of London graduating. He then hired himself in the Royal Navy. Following a brief period at the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar in him by his boss there John Richardson mediated participation in an expedition of HMS Rattlesnake for the Torres Strait in the years 1846-1850 as a ship's doctor, who gave him extensive, widely acclaimed zoological research. In 1854 he was appointed by the London Royal School of Mines, a forerunner of the Imperial College, Professor of Natural History.
Services
On June 30, 1860, came at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science for the so-called " Huxley - Wilberforce debate" about Charles Darwin's writing The Origin of Species, in which Huxley a later wide rezipiertes war of words with Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, delivered.
His most famous and most controversial essay then book Evidence as to Man 's Place in Nature (1863 ) was the starting point of the popular social dispute whether man is descended from apes or not. He founded in 1869 together with other supporters of Darwin 's theory which is still highly esteemed scientific journal Nature.
In 1868, he coined the term the Wallace Line, the biogeographical division between Asian and Australian flora and fauna. In the same year he described the substance Bathybius, which he regarded as a primordial creatures, which later, however, turned out to be a mistake.
His essays earned him the reputation of being one of the greatest stylists of the English language. His imaginative ventures, to popularize Darwin's thoughts were, among other things, wrap them in dialogue - stories that also used a simple human understandable language. He and his colleagues sat in British society, the new basic orientation by, instead of fixing on spiritual authority, classics and patronage a more modern understanding of empirically grounded science and professionalism set.
Honors
At the age of 25, he was elected as a member of the Royal Society on June 5, 1851, the Royal Medal in 1852, 1888 and 1894 Copleymedaille the Darwin Medal awarded him. From 1883 to 1885 he was president of the Royal Society. 1857 convened the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina Huxley to their member. In 1880 he was awarded the Clarke Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales, 1890 Linnean Medal of the Linnean Society. Since 1878 he was a foreign member of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome. He also was a member of the X - Club.
According to him the Huxley - line was named the biogeographical division between Asian and Philippine flora and fauna.
The lunar crater Huxley was named after him in 1973. Frederick Daniel Dyster named in his honor in 1858, which belongs to the bryozoan genus Huxleya.
Writings
- The Oceanic Hydrozoa. London 1859; online
- Evidence as to Man 's Place in Nature. London 1863; online transl. by J. Victor Carus: Testimonies for the position of man in nature. Braunschweig, 1863, Gutenberg eText
- Volume 1: Method and Results. full text
- Volume 2: Darwiniana. full text
- Volume 3: Science and Education. full text
- Volume 4: Science and Hebrew tradition. full text
- Volume 5: Science and Christian tradition. full text
- Volume 6: Hume, with Helps to the Study of Berkeley. full text
- Volume 7: Man's Place in Nature. full text
- Volume 8: Discourses, Biological and Geological. full text
- Volume 9: Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays. full text
- Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews. London 1870; online
- Critiques and Addresses. London 1873; online
- American Addresses. London 1877; online
- Science and Culture. London 1882; online
- Social Diseases and Worse Remedies. London 1891
- Essays upon Some controverted Questions. London 1892; online