It May Be Truth, but It Is Not Evidence

Paul du Chaillu and the Legitimation of Evidence in the Field Sciences

Bibliographic Data

ID3924442
AuthorsStuart Mccook (0000-0002-4489-1728, corresponding author)
Year1996
Volume11
Pages177-197
Publication date1996-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueOsiris (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0369-7827 • E-ISSN: 1933-8287
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/368759
OpenAlexW1984092788
LanguageEN
Citations received26

1861, gorillas had captivated the public imagination in England.The recent publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species had fueled the ongoing debate about the place of humans in nature.A key piece of evidence in the debate was the recently discovered gorilla.In the pages of learned journals and in the more popular Athenaeum, Richard Owen and Thomas Henry Huxley debated the significance of gorilla skeletons recently brought to England.They based their arguments about the uniqueness of man on the physiology of the gorilla, which was anatomically closer to man than was any other animal.Owen argued that the human brain had a lobe, the hippocampus minor, that distinguished it from all other living organisms.Huxley countered by arguing that the hippocampus minor was not peculiar to the human brain.The gorilla skulls over which Huxley and Owen debated had been brought to England with great fanfare by a little-known explorer named Paul du Chaillu (see Fig. 1).' From 1856 to 1859, Du Chaillu had traveled through western equatorial Africa, studying the lands and people and collecting flora and fauna.He brought a choice selection of his collections to England early in 1861, where he was quickly made a celebrity.He described his adventures to packed halls at the Royal Geographical Society and at the Royal Institution in London, with a row of stuffed gorillas on the stage and gorilla skulls on hand beside the lectern.2The evening after du Chaillu

Archaeology · Context (archaeology · Epistemology · History of science · Legitimation · Library science · Objectivity (philosophy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropology · German Social Sciences and History · History · History of Science and Natural History · Law · Philosophy

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access