The first scientific works of Georges Cuvier were devoted to entomology. In Paris, studying the rich collections of the museum, Cuvier gradually became convinced that the Linnaean system adopted in science did not strictly correspond to reality. Carl Linnaeus divided the animal world into 6 classes: mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, insects and worms. Cuvier proposed a different system. He believed that in the animal world there are four types of body structure, completely dissimilar to each other. Animals of one type are dressed in a hard shell, and their body consists of many segments; such are crayfish, insects, centipedes, some worms. Cuvier called such animals "segmented".

In another type, the soft body of the animal is enclosed in a hard shell and they have no signs of articulation: snails, octopuses, oysters - Georges Cuvier called these animals "soft-bodied". Animals of the third type have a dissected internal bone skeleton - "vertebrate" animals. Animals of the fourth type are built in the same way as a starfish, that is, the parts of their body are located along radii diverging from one center. Cuvier called these animals "radiant".

Within each type, J. Cuvier identified classes; some of them coincide with the Linnaean classes. So, for example, the type of vertebrates was divided into classes of mammals, birds, reptiles and fish. Cuvier's system was much better at expressing the actual relationships between groups of animals than Linnaeus's. It soon came into general use among zoologists. Georges Cuvier put his system in the basis of the capital three-volume work "The Animal Kingdom", where the anatomical structure of animals was described in detail.

Deep knowledge of animal anatomy allowed Georges Cuvier to restore the appearance of extinct creatures from their preserved bones. Cuvier became convinced that all the organs of an animal are closely connected with each other, that each organ is necessary for the life of the whole organism. Each animal is adapted to the environment in which it lives, finds food, hides from enemies, takes care of its offspring.

“An organism,” said J. Cuvier, “is a coherent whole. Parts of it cannot be changed without causing others to change. Cuvier called this constant connection of organs among themselves "the ratio of the parts of the body."

By studying fossils, Georges Cuvier restored the appearance of many extinct animals that lived millions of years ago. He proved that once on the site of Europe there was a warm sea, on which huge predators swam - ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, etc. Cuvier proved that in those days reptiles dominated the air, but there were no birds yet. Having studied other fossils, Georges Cuvier became convinced that in the past there was an era with a peculiar animal world in which not a single modern animal existed. All the animals that lived then died out. This fossil fauna of land animals, mainly mammals, was discovered near Paris in gypsum quarries and in layers of limestone rock - marl.

Georges Cuvier discovered and described about forty extinct breeds of large mammals - pachyderms and ruminants. Some of them remotely resembled modern rhinos, tapirs, wild boars, others were quite peculiar. But among them there were no ruminants living in our time - no bulls, no camels, no deer, no giraffes.

Continuing his research, Cuvier discovered that fossil faunas are found in the layers of the earth's crust in a certain order. Older layers contain remains marine fish and reptiles, in the later deposits of the Cretaceous - other reptiles and the first small and rare mammals with a very primitive structure of the skull. In even later ones - the fauna of ancient mammals and birds. Finally, in the deposits preceding modern ones, Cuvier discovered the remains of a mammoth, a cave bear, and a woolly rhinoceros. Thus, the relative sequence and antiquity of the strata can be determined from fossil remains, and the relative antiquity of extinct faunas can be determined from strata. This discovery formed the basis of historical geology and stratigraphy - the study of the sequence of strata that make up the earth's crust.

Where did the faunas that we now find in the form of fossils disappear to, and where did the new ones come from to replace them? modern science explains this by the evolutionary development of the animal world. The facts discovered by Georges Cuvier formed the basis of such an explanation. But Cuvier himself did not see the enormous significance of his discoveries. He stood firm on the old point of view of the permanence of species. Cuvier believed that among the fossils there are no transitional forms of animal organisms. He pointed to the sudden disappearance of faunas and the lack of communication between them. To explain the successive change of fossil animals, Cuvier came up with a special theory of "coups" or "catastrophes" in the history of the Earth Samin D.K. 100 great scientists. - M.: Veche, 2000.

The theory of catastrophes is the doctrine of the periodic death of the organic world as a result of catastrophic events on a planetary scale, during which the geology of the Earth is restructured, as a result, new unchanging species and genera of living organisms appear that are not associated with dead forms; was proposed by J. Cuvier in the 18th century. and lost its significance by the end of the 19th century. Russian encyclopedic Dictionary: In 2 books. -- / Ch. editor: A.M. Prokhorov - M.: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 2001

By catastrophism, Georges Cuvier understood a chain of grandiose catastrophes in the past that caused the death of the whole animal and flora. Later, the theory of catastrophes was borrowed by sociology and other social and political sciences, along with some other natural science theories, which were used in a modified form to explain various processes occurring in society. It should be said that philosophical thought has accumulated enough prerequisites for the emergence of the ideology of catastrophism. As an example, one can cite, for example, Plato's Atlantis or the ideas of some nineteenth-century economists. about the growth of the world's population and development Agriculture in geometric and arithmetic progressions, respectively.

Cuvier explained these catastrophes as follows: the sea was advancing on land and swallowing up all life, then the sea receded, the seabed became land, which was populated by new animals. Where did they come from? Cuvier did not give a clear answer to this. He said that new animals could have migrated from distant places where they lived before.

Cuvier supported his reasoning with examples. If the sea flooded modern Australia, he said, then the whole variety of marsupials and monotremes would be buried under sediments and all species of these animals would be completely extinct. If a new catastrophe would connect the lands of Australia and Asia, then animals from Asia could move to Australia. Finally, if a new catastrophe were to destroy Asia, the homeland of the animals that migrated to Australia, then it would be difficult to establish by studying the animals of Australia where they came from. Thus, Cuvier, relying only on the facts that European geology and paleontology gave him, was forced to recognize the existence of catastrophes in the history of the Earth, however, according to his ideas, they did not destroy the entire organic world at the same time Naidysh V.M.. Concepts of modern natural science. M., 1999.

The foundations of the theory of catastrophes were laid down by Cuvier in his famous work Discourse on Revolutions on the Surface of the Globe and on the Changes They Made in the Animal Kingdom.

Based on the paleontological and geological material available to him, Cuvier based the theory of catastrophes on the following theses:

Species in nature are constant and unchanging.

· Extinct species, fossils and remains of which we find in the fossil record, became extinct as a result of global natural disasters that periodically shake the Earth.

· Causes of global natural disasters are unknown.

· Global natural disasters that led to the extinction of many species of animals and plants are not analogous to those natural processes that we observe in the historical period. They were fundamentally different.

· Sea and land changed places more than once, moreover, this process did not occur gradually, but suddenly Smorodin I. Strategy. M. 2009.

Cuvier believed that the last catastrophe occurred 5-6 thousand years ago, the bottom of the ocean rose and became the mainland, and the land sank and went under water. The scientist identified four periods in the development of living organisms:

1) the age of lizards;

2) the age of terrestrial tetrapods (extinct mammals);

3) age of mammoths, mastodons (ancestors of modern elephants), megatheri (large animal-toothed);

Introduction

Yonn Miller and Eugenia Scott from the United States and Shini Okamoto from Japan presented a report in the journal Science in which they presented the results of an analysis of data accumulated over the past 20 years of population surveys. different countries, which studied the attitude of people to the theory of evolution. It is known that this is one of the issues on which opinions are divided especially sharply.

Analysis of the data provided a stunning picture. The USA is the most advanced country in the world. Many of the most important scientific discoveries of our time are made there, including in the fields of genetics and biology. However, over the past 20 years, the number of Americans who accept the thesis that man descended from apes has fallen from 45 to 40%, although the number of those who deny the theory of evolution has also decreased - from 48 to 39%. After 20 years of bitter public debate, the proportion of Americans who agree with the theory of evolution turned out to be less than the proportion of such people in all European countries and in Japan. For example, in Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and France, 80% of respondents agree with the theory of evolution. In fairly religious Spain, Germany, Portugal, Austria and Slovakia, the proportion of evolutionists is still above 60%.

What's the matter?

Evolution theory

Formation of the idea of ​​development in biology

The development of evolutionary ideas in biology has a fairly long history. It has passed the way of becoming from a scientific idea to a scientific theory. The beginning of the consideration of the evolution of the organic world was laid back in ancient philosophy and lasted more than 2 thousand years. The main content of this period is the collection of information about the organic world, as well as the formation of two points of view that explain the diversity of species in wildlife.

The first of them arose on the basis of ancient dialectics, which affirmed the idea of ​​development and change in the surrounding world. The second appeared along with the Christian worldview based on the ideas of creationism.

For initial stage In the development of the evolutionary idea, there was a constant struggle between these two points of view, and the creationist version had a serious advantage.

During the initial period, a number of valuable ideas were expressed that were necessary to establish the evolutionary approach. The idea of ​​gradual change in organisms can be found in Plato(427 - 347 BC). Special meaning have conclusions Aristotle(384 - 322 BC) in the work "On the Parts of Animals". First of all, his idea of ​​the “ladder of living beings” is of value, showing the existence of organisms of varying degrees of complexity.

Theories of J.B. Lamarck and J. Cuvier

In the 18th century, ideas appeared related not only to the recognition of gradation, but also to the constant complication of organic forms. The Swiss naturalist C. Bonnet was the first to use the concept of evolution as a process of long-term, gradual change leading to the emergence of new species.

In a single theory, the ideas of gradation and the ideas of evolution merged in the 19th century in evolutionary theory J. B. Lamarck(1744-1829) in the scientific work "Philosophy of Zoology". Lamarck believed that the first self-generated organisms gave rise to the whole variety of living forms that currently exist. Lamarck considered the reason for evolution to be the inherent desire of the Creator to complicate and improve its organization, inherent in living nature, by “exercising” the organs. The second factor in the evolution and unlimited variability of species, he called the influence external environment: while it does not change, the species are constant, as soon as it becomes different, the species also begin to change.

The merit of Lamarck is that he was the first to propose a genealogical classification of animals, built on the principles of relatedness of organisms, and not their similarity.

From the point of view of modern science, Lamarck's evidence for the causes of species variability was not convincing enough. Therefore, Lamarck's theory did not receive recognition from his contemporaries. But it has not been refuted.

He made a great contribution to the development of evolutionary theory J. Cuvier(1769-1832), who himself proceeded from the idea of ​​the constancy of the species. Cuvier systematically compared the structure of the same organ or organ system in different animals. He established that all organs of any living organism are parts of a single integral system. Therefore, the structure of each organ naturally correlates with the structure of the rest. Cuvier called this correspondence the principle of correlations . The undoubted merit of Cuvier was the application of this principle in paleontology, which made it possible to restore the appearance of animals that had long disappeared from the Earth.

It was very popular in the early 19th century catastrophe theory , also formulated by Cuvier, based on his study of the history of the Earth, terrestrial animals and plants. As a result, Cuvier came to the conclusion that cataclysms periodically occurred on Earth, destroying entire continents, and with them their inhabitants. Later, new organisms appeared in their place. The followers of Cuvier claimed that the catastrophes covered the entire globe. Each catastrophe was followed by an act of divine creation. They counted 27 such catastrophes and acts of creation.

The position of the theory of catastrophes was shaken only in the middle of the 19th century. Played a significant role in this principle of actualism Ch. Lyell(1797-1875). He proceeded from the fact that in order to know the past of the Earth, it is necessary to study its present. Lyell came to the conclusion that slow, tiny changes on the Earth can lead to amazing results if they go in one direction for a long time. Thus, another step was taken towards evolutionary theory, the creator of which was C. R. Darwin (1809 - 1882).

In the first quarter of the XIX century. Great strides have been made in such areas of biological science as comparative anatomy and paleontology. The main achievements in the development of these areas of biology belong to the French scientist Georges Leopold Cuvier, who became famous, first of all, for his research on comparative anatomy.

Investigating the structure of the organs of vertebrates, he found that all the organs of an animal are parts of a single integral system. As a result, the structure of each organ naturally correlates with the structure of all others. No part of the body can change without a corresponding change in other parts. This means that each part of the body reflects the principles of the structure of the whole organism.

In the course of his research, Cuvier became interested in the history of the Earth, terrestrial animals and plants. He spent many years studying it, making many valuable discoveries in the process. As a result of his great work, he came to three unconditional conclusions:

The earth has changed its appearance throughout its history;

Simultaneously with the change of the Earth, its population also changed;

Changes in the earth's crust occurred even before the appearance of living beings.

Quite indisputable for Cuvier was the belief in the impossibility of the emergence of new forms of life. However, numerous paleontological data irrefutably testified to the change in the forms of animals on Earth.

When different degrees of antiquity of extinct animals were established. Cuvier put forward the theory of catastrophes. According to this theory, the cause of extinction was periodically occurring major geological disasters that destroyed animals and vegetation over large areas. Then the territories were populated by species penetrating from neighboring regions. The followers and students of Cuvier, developing his teaching, went even further, arguing that catastrophes covered the entire globe. Each catastrophe was followed by a new act of creation. They numbered 27 such catastrophes and, consequently, acts of creation.

The theory of catastrophes has become widespread. However, a number of scientists expressed their critical attitude towards it. The stormy disputes between adherents of the immutability of species and supporters of spontaneous evolutionism were put to an end by the deeply thought-out and fundamentally substantiated theory of the formation of species, created by Charles Darwin and A. Wallace.

Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) - French zoologist, one of the reformers of comparative anatomy, paleontology and taxonomy of animals, foreign honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1802). Introduced the concept of type in zoology. He established the principle of "correlation of organs", on the basis of which he reconstructed the structure of many extinct animals. He did not recognize the variability of species, explaining the change of fossil faunas by the so-called catastrophe theory.

Rice. Georges Leopold Cuvier. Portrait by Francois-André Vincent

Georges Leopold Christian Dagobert Cuvier was born on August 23, 1769 in the small Alsatian town of Montbéliard. He hit early mental development. At the age of four, he was already reading, his mother taught him to draw, and Cuvier thoroughly mastered this art. Subsequently, many of the drawings made by him were published in his books and reprinted many times in the books of other authors. At school, Georges studied brilliantly, but was far from being the most well-behaved student. Cuvier was “punished” for joking with the director of the gymnasium: he did not get into the theological school that trained priests.

At the age of fifteen, Georges Cuvier entered the Karolinska Academy in Stuttgart, where he chose the Faculty of Cameral Sciences, where he studied law, finance, hygiene and agriculture. He was still most attracted to the study of animals and plants. In 1788, Georges Cuvier went to Normandy to the castle of Count Erisi. The estate of Count Erisi was located on the seashore, and Georges Cuvier first saw real sea animals, familiar to him only from drawings. He dissected these animals and studied the internal structure of fish, soft-bodied crabs, starfish, worms. He found with amazement that in the so-called lower forms, in which the scientists of his time assumed a simple structure of the body, there is an intestine with glands, and a heart with vessels, and nerve ganglions with nerve trunks extending from them. Cuvier penetrated with his scalpel into a new world in which no one had yet made accurate and careful observations. He described the results of the research in detail in the journal Zoological Bulletin.

In the spring of 1795, Georges Cuvier arrived in Paris. He advanced very quickly and in the same year took the chair of animal anatomy at the Sorbonne University in Paris. In 1796, Cuvier was appointed a member of the national institute, in 1800 he took the chair natural history at College de France. In 1802 he took the chair of comparative anatomy at the Sorbonne. Deep knowledge of animal anatomy allowed Georges Cuvier to restore the appearance of extinct creatures from their preserved bones. To explain the succession of fossil animals, Cuvier came up with a special theory of "revolutions" or "catastrophes" in the history of the Earth. He explained these catastrophes as follows: the sea was advancing on land and absorbing all life, then the sea receded, the seabed became dry land, which was populated by new animals.

Scientific works of Georges Cuvier and his theory of catastrophes

The first scientific works of Georges Cuvier were devoted to entomology. In Paris, studying the rich collections of the museum, Cuvier gradually became convinced that the Linnaean system adopted in science did not strictly correspond to reality. Carl Linnaeus divided the animal world into 6 classes: mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, insects and worms. Cuvier proposed a different system. He believed that in the animal world there are four types of body structure, completely dissimilar to each other. Animals of one type are dressed in a hard shell, and their body consists of many segments; such are crayfish, insects, centipedes, some worms. Cuvier called such animals "segmented".

In another type, the soft body of the animal is enclosed in a hard shell and they have no signs of articulation: snails, octopuses, oysters - Georges Cuvier called these animals “soft-bodied”. Animals of the third type have a dissected internal bone skeleton - "vertebrate" animals. Animals of the fourth type are built in the same way as a starfish, that is, the parts of their body are located along radii diverging from one center. Cuvier called these animals "radiant".

Within each type, J. Cuvier identified classes; some of them coincide with the Linnaean classes. So, for example, the type of vertebrates was divided into classes of mammals, birds, reptiles and fish. Cuvier's system was much better at expressing the actual relationships between groups of animals than Linnaeus's. It soon came into general use among zoologists. Georges Cuvier put his system in the basis of the capital three-volume work "The Animal Kingdom", where the anatomical structure of animals was described in detail.

Deep knowledge of animal anatomy allowed Georges Cuvier to restore the appearance of extinct creatures from their preserved bones. Cuvier became convinced that all the organs of an animal are closely connected with each other, that each organ is necessary for the life of the whole organism. Each animal is adapted to the environment in which it lives, finds food, hides from enemies, takes care of its offspring.

“The body,” said J. Cuvier, “is a coherent whole. Parts of it cannot be changed without causing others to change. Cuvier called this constant connection of organs among themselves "the ratio of the parts of the body."

By studying fossils, Georges Cuvier restored the appearance of many extinct animals that lived millions of years ago. He proved that once on the site of Europe there was a warm sea, on which huge predators swam - ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, etc. Cuvier proved that in those days reptiles dominated the air, but there were no birds yet. Having studied other fossils, Georges Cuvier became convinced that in the past there was an era with a peculiar animal world in which not a single modern animal existed. All the animals that lived then died out. This fossil fauna of land animals, mainly mammals, was discovered near Paris in gypsum quarries and in layers of limestone rock - marl.

Georges Cuvier discovered and described about forty extinct breeds of large mammals - pachyderms and ruminants. Some of them remotely resembled modern rhinos, tapirs, wild boars, others were quite peculiar. But among them there were no ruminants living in our time - no bulls, no camels, no deer, no giraffes. Continuing his research, Cuvier discovered that fossil faunas are found in the layers of the earth's crust in a certain order. The older strata contain the remains of marine fish and reptiles, the later deposits of the Cretaceous contain other reptiles and the first small and rare mammals with a very primitive skull structure. In even later ones - the fauna of ancient mammals and birds. Finally, in the deposits preceding modern ones, Cuvier discovered the remains of a mammoth, a cave bear, and a woolly rhinoceros. Thus, the relative sequence and antiquity of the strata can be determined from the fossil remains, and the relative antiquity of extinct faunas can be determined from the strata. This discovery formed the basis of historical geology and stratigraphy - the study of the sequence of strata that make up the earth's crust.

Where did the faunas that we now find in the form of fossils disappear to, and where did the new ones come from to replace them? Modern science explains this by the evolutionary development of the animal world. The facts discovered by Georges Cuvier formed the basis of such an explanation. But Cuvier himself did not see the enormous significance of his discoveries. He stood firm on the old point of view of the permanence of species. Cuvier believed that among the fossils there are no transitional forms of animal organisms. He pointed to the sudden disappearance of faunas and the lack of communication between them. To explain the succession of fossil animals, Cuvier came up with a special theory of "revolutions" or "catastrophes" in the history of the Earth.

The theory of catastrophes is the doctrine of the periodic death of the organic world due to catastrophic events on a planetary scale, during which the geology of the Earth is restructured, as a result, new unchanging species and genera of living organisms appear that are not associated with dead forms; was proposed by J. Cuvier in the 18th century. and lost its significance by the end of the 19th century.

By catastrophism, Georges Cuvier understood a chain of grandiose catastrophes in the past that caused the death of the entire animal and plant world. Later, the theory of catastrophes was borrowed by sociology and other social and political sciences, along with some other natural science theories, which were used in a modified form to explain various processes occurring in society. It should be said that philosophical thought has accumulated enough prerequisites for the emergence of the ideology of catastrophism. As an example, one can cite, for example, Plato's Atlantis or the ideas of some nineteenth-century economists. about the growth of the Earth's population and the development of agriculture, respectively, in geometric and arithmetic progressions.

Cuvier explained these catastrophes as follows: the sea was advancing on land and swallowing up all life, then the sea receded, the seabed became land, which was populated by new animals. Where did they come from? Cuvier did not give a clear answer to this. He said that new animals could have migrated from distant places where they lived before.

Cuvier supported his reasoning with examples. If the sea flooded modern Australia, he said, then the whole variety of marsupials and monotremes would be buried under sediments and all species of these animals would be completely extinct. If a new catastrophe would connect the lands of Australia and Asia, then animals from Asia could move to Australia. Finally, if a new catastrophe were to destroy Asia, the homeland of the animals that migrated to Australia, then it would be difficult to establish by studying the animals of Australia where they came from. Thus, Cuvier, relying only on the facts that European geology and paleontology gave him, was forced to recognize the existence of catastrophes in the history of the Earth, however, according to his ideas, they did not destroy the entire organic world at the same time.

The foundations of the theory of catastrophes were laid down by Cuvier in his famous work Discourse on Revolutions on the Surface of the Globe and on the Changes They Made in the Animal Kingdom. Based on the paleontological and geological material available to him, Cuvier based the theory of catastrophes on the following theses:

Species in nature are constant and unchanging.

· Extinct species, fossils and remains of which we find in the fossil record, became extinct as a result of global natural disasters that periodically shake the Earth.

· Causes of global natural disasters are unknown.

· Global natural disasters that led to the extinction of many species of animals and plants are not analogous to those natural processes that we observe in the historical period. They were fundamentally different.

· Sea and land changed places more than once, moreover, this process did not occur gradually, but suddenly.

Cuvier believed that the last catastrophe occurred 5-6 thousand years ago, the bottom of the ocean rose and became the mainland, and the land sank and went under water. The scientist identified four periods in the development of living organisms:

1) the age of lizards;

2) the age of terrestrial tetrapods (extinct mammals);

3) age of mammoths, mastodons (ancestors of modern elephants), megatheri (large animal-toothed);

4) the age of people.

Followers of Georges Cuvier

The followers of Cuvier were: the largest American paleontologist L. Agassiz and the French geologist A. D "Orbigny. They overdeveloped just the “catastrophic” part of the ideas of their great predecessor and actually created the theory of catastrophes, with its inevitable multiple acts of creation. These ideas dominated in paleontology of the first half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of paleontologists of the old school did not accept Darwin's theory. In fact, given the state of paleontological science in which it was immediately before the beginning of the activities of V. O. Kovalevsky, it was difficult to expect a different attitude to evolutionary ideas "Palaeontology developed mainly as a descriptive discipline, serving the needs of a rapidly developing geology. The vast majority of paleontologists did not study the fossil material in depth, limiting themselves to describing new forms. And far from complete sections of geological strata in Europe rather gave an idea of ​​the discontinuity in the development of fossil forms and sharp the limitations of their host formations.

The timid attempts of a few paleontologists to embark on the path of transformism did not change the general picture of the situation in paleontology. The publication of Ch. Darwin's famous book "The Origin of Species" caused a number of objections and criticisms of the theory of evolution from many prominent paleontologists. Thus, one of the most ardent supporters of the theory of catastrophes, L. Agassiz, simultaneously with the publication of The Origin of Species, published his book A Study on Classification. In it, he argued that all systematic units of animals and plants, from species to types, have a real justification in nature, since they are created by the divine mind. In 1869, ten years after the publication of Darwin's theory, L. Agassiz published his book in France, supplementing it with a special chapter in which he criticized Darwinism. He described the doctrine of evolution as "contrary to the true methods of natural history and dangerous, even fatal to the development of this science."

The famous paleontologist and comparative anatomist Richard Owen also criticized Darwin's theory. Although Owen himself, even before the publication of The Origin of Species, expressed an opinion about the possibility of continuity in the development of living nature, his judgments were very vague and inconsistent. IN last book of his capital work "Anatomy of Vertebrates" R. Owen tried to substantiate a special law of "secondary cause", which produced different kinds in strict sequence and complication. As an example, the famous paleontologist considered a number of ancestors of the horse, starting from the Eocene paleotherium, through the hipparion to modern horses. Based on fragmentary geological data, Owen denied the possibility of explaining the successive appearance of forms from ancestor to descendant from the standpoint of Darwin's theory. In his opinion, the data of geology showed that the changes were sudden and significant, independent of external conditions and not subject to natural selection factors. Owen preached the existence of some internal tendency in organisms to deviate from the parental type, which he called the "law of secondary cause." In this regard, R. Owen approached the views of Lamarck, who put forward internal principle improvements to explain evolution.

Reflection of the ideology of catastrophism in modern life

Ideology as a whole is understood as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, including such structural elements as connection with the worldview system of the era; program settings formulated on the basis of certain provisions of this system; strategy for the implementation of program installations.

All of the above features inherent in the ideology of catastrophism are reflected in various concepts and theories based on different ideas of their authors about the nature and consequences of future cataclysms, which may be fraught with danger both for human civilization as a whole and for a particular society functioning in each individual state. Among the main factors that can lead civilization to a catastrophe are the ecological crisis, the danger of various epidemics, primarily AIDS, although it has faded into the background, but still a probable scenario of thermonuclear war (the planet currently has a nuclear potential capable of destroying 4000 times our planet, and this even despite the signing of a number of important treaties in the field of reduction and limitation of nuclear weapons.

The point of view of J. Habernas, based on the fact that technically complex tools of labor, starting from a certain sufficiently high stage of development, can get out of human control and become autonomous creators of their own history, is also not unfounded. As for the theory of social catastrophes, in relation to the development of each particular society, the methodology of catastrophe theory makes it possible to divide socio-economic variables that fundamentally transform the processes taking place in society into two classes: external variables - guiding parameters that can be directly measured and internal variables - variables characterizing "some not quite known process" by their state.

The former include: the density of the working-age population, the level of consumption, the productivity of social labor, and others. And the second should primarily include personal independence and economic freedom, which, although it cannot be measured by something, we all know perfectly well what its absence is. The experience of forecasting and a retrospective analysis of evolutionary processes in society makes it possible to refine the parameters of models, as well as to identify the functional mechanism and causal relationships responsible for the observed transformations in the system.

The variables conventionally allocated to the first class are affected by a number of factors determined by such an important property of society as its self-regulation, i.e. the ability to self-regulate, to maintain one's own homeostasis or stable functioning through material and energy exchange with the environment. The openness of social systems has received sufficient attention both in works on mathematical modeling and in historical research. So N. Machiavelli rightly believed that the factor of excess population is one of the main driving forces of history and the countdown in his chronicle begins with the migration processes that set the Germanic tribes in motion. Among the factors under consideration, one should also single out changes in technology, because such an open self-regulating system as society has the ability and strive to technologically complicate and expand the occupied territory.

And before Georges Cuvier, people paid attention to rare finds of fossil animals. Most scientists considered them curiosities, "play of nature" bones of fabulous giants or ancient saints. Cuvier not only collected a large number of such finds, but also brought them into a system and described them. Cuvier developed a scientific method that made it possible to study fossil animals with the same precision with which living animals are studied today. He is rightfully considered the founder of paleontology - the science of the fossil remains of organisms that lived on Earth in past eras and have long since died out.

Georges Cuvier paved new paths of research in biology and created new areas of knowledge - paleontology and comparative anatomy of animals. Thus the triumph of the evolutionary doctrine was prepared. It appeared in science after Cuvier's death and contrary to his worldview.

Georges Cuvier's catastrophe theory was essentially a reactionary theory that attempted to reconcile scientific discoveries with the religious doctrine of the immutability and permanence of species. The theory of "catastrophes" dominated science for a long time, and only the evolutionary teachings of Charles Robert Darwin refuted it.

The theory of catastrophes in a slightly different interpretation can be projected onto the modern life of mankind. There are several factors that can lead civilization to disaster: the ecological crisis, the danger of various epidemics (AIDS), although faded into the background, but still a probable scenario of a thermonuclear war, and all these factors - without a doubt - the fruits of human activity. The same applies to the theory of social catastrophes: today there are many examples of social problems of citizens in the world.

Cuvier, like everyone else, made mistakes. But it would hardly be fair because of mistakes to forget about his greatest merits. If the works of Georges Cuvier are to be assessed impartially, then their enormous scientific significance should be recognized: he advanced several vast areas of the science of life far ahead. The merits of the scientist were noted at home: he was elected a member of the French Academy, under Louis-Philippe he became a peer of France.

In the first quarter XIX century, great advances were made in such areas of biological science as comparative anatomy and paleontology. The main achievements in the development of these areas of biology belong to the French scientist Georges Leopold Cuvier, who became famous primarily for his research on comparative anatomy. He systematically compared the structure and functions of the same organ or an entire system of organs through all sections of the animal kingdom. Investigating the structure of the organs of vertebrates, he found that all the organs of an animal are parts of a single integral system. As a result, the structure of each organ naturally correlates with the structure of all others. No part of the body can change without a corresponding change in other parts. This means that each part of the body reflects the principles of the structure of the whole organism. So, if an animal has hooves, its entire organization reflects a herbivore lifestyle: the teeth are adapted to grinding coarse plant foods, the jaws have a certain shape, the stomach is multi-chambered, the intestines are very long, etc. Cuvier called the correspondence of the structure of animal organs to each other the principle of correlations (correlativity). Guided by the principle of correlations, Cuvier successfully applied his knowledge to paleontology. He was able to restore the integral appearance of a long-vanished organism from individual fragments that have survived to this day.

In the course of his research, Cuvier became interested in the history of the Earth, terrestrial animals and plants. He spent many years studying it, making many valuable discoveries in the process. As a result of his great work, he came to three unconditional conclusions:

The earth has changed its appearance throughout its history;

Simultaneously with the change of the Earth, its population also changed;

Changes in the earth's crust occurred even before the appearance of living beings.

Quite indisputable for Cuvier was the belief in the impossibility of the emergence of new forms of life. He proved that the species of living organisms modern to us have not changed, at least since the time of the pharaohs. The resulting estimate of the age of the Earth seemed at that time unimaginably huge. But Cuvier considered the most significant objection to the theory of evolution to be the apparent absence of transitional forms between modern animals and those whose remains he found during excavations.

However, numerous paleontological data irrefutably testified to the change in the forms of animals on Earth. The real facts came into conflict with the biblical legend. Initially, supporters of the immutability of living nature explained this contradiction very simply:

those animals that Noah did not take into his ark during the Flood died out. But the unscientific nature of references to the biblical flood became apparent when the varying degrees of antiquity of extinct animals were established. Then Cuvier put forward the theory of catastrophes. According to this theory, the cause of extinction was periodically occurring major geological disasters that destroyed animals and vegetation over large areas. Then the territories were populated by species penetrating from neighboring regions. The followers and students of Cuvier, developing his teaching, went even further, arguing that catastrophes covered the entire globe. After each catastrophe, a new act of divine creation followed. They numbered 27 such catastrophes and, consequently, acts of creation.

The theory of catastrophes has become widespread. However, a number of scientists expressed their critical attitude towards it. The stormy disputes between adherents of the immutability of species and supporters of spontaneous evolutionism were put to an end by the deeply thought-out and fundamentally substantiated theory of the formation of species, created by Charles Darwin and A. Wallace.

The rapid development of natural science and breeding work, expansion and deepening of research in various industries biology, intensive accumulation of new scientific facts in the XIX century. created favorable conditions for new generalizations in the theory of the evolution of living nature. One of the attempts of such generalizations was the catastrophe theory of the French zoologist J.L. Cuvier.

The methodological basic theory of catastrophes has seen great advances in such areas of biological science as comparative anatomy and paleontology. Cuvier systematically compared the structure and functions of the same organ or an entire organ system in the most different types animals. Investigating the structure of the organs of vertebrates, he found that all the organs of any living organism are parts of a single integral system. As a result, the structure of each organ naturally correlates with the structure of all others. No part of the body can change without a corresponding change in other parts. This means that each part of the body reflects the principles of the structure of the whole organism.

Thus, herbivorous animals that eat low-nutrient plant foods must necessarily have a large stomach capable of digesting this food in large quantities. The size of the stomach determines the size of other internal organs: spine, chest. The massive body must be kept on powerful legs, equipped with hard hooves, and the length of the legs determines the length of the neck, which makes it possible to freely pluck the grass. Predators have more nutritious food, so they have a smaller stomach. In addition, they need soft paws with movable clawed fingers to sneak up on prey unnoticed and grab it, so predators must have a short neck, sharp teeth, etc.

This correspondence of animal organs to each other Cuvier called the principle of correlations(relativity). Guided by the principle of correlations, Cuvier successfully applied the acquired knowledge,

being able to restore the appearance of an animal from a single tooth, because, according to Cuvier, in any fragment of the body, as in a mirror, the whole animal was reflected.

The undoubted merit of Cuvier was the application of the principle of correlations in paleontology, which made it possible to restore the appearance of animals that had long disappeared from the face of the Earth. Thanks to the work of Cuvier, today we imagine what dinosaurs, mammoths and mastodons looked like - the whole world of fossil animals. Thus, Cuvier, who himself proceeded from the idea of ​​the constancy of species, not seeing transitional forms between modern animals and animals that lived earlier, made a great contribution to the development of the evolutionary theory that appeared half a century later.

In the course of his research, Cuvier became interested in the history of the Earth, terrestrial animals and plants. He spent many years studying it, making many valuable discoveries in the process. In particular, he found that the remains of some species are confined to the same geological strata, while in neighboring strata there are completely different organisms. On this basis, he concluded that the animals that inhabited our planet died almost instantly from unknown causes, and then completely different species appeared in their place. In addition, he found that many modern land areas used to be the seabed, and the change of sea and land occurred repeatedly.

As a result of his research, Cuvier came to the conclusion that gigantic cataclysms periodically occurred on Earth, destroying entire continents, and with them their inhabitants. Later, new organisms appeared in their place. This is how the famous catastrophe theory, very popular in the 19th century.

The followers and students of Cuvier, developing his teaching, went even further, arguing that catastrophes covered the entire globe. After each catastrophe, a new act of divine creation followed. They numbered twenty-seven such catastrophes and, consequently, acts of creation.

The position of the theory of catastrophes was shaken only in the middle of the 19th century. A significant role in this was played by a new approach to the study of geological phenomena by C. Lyell - the principle of actualism. He proceeded from the fact that in order to know the past of the Earth, it is necessary to study its present. Thus, Lyell came to the conclusion that slow, insignificant changes on the Earth, if they go in one direction for a long time, can lead to amazing results. Thus, another step was taken towards the evolutionary theory, the creators of which were Charles Darwin and A. Wallace.