"To claim that O. C. Marsh's contributions to evolutionary theory were enormous is an understatement. While Darwin and Huxley were the originator and propagator of the teachings, it was Marsh more than anyone who bolstered their ideas with physical evidence. Marsh's work with mammals provided the backbone for the dogma that proved unbreakable. It was his deductions of the dinosaur-avian relationship and his prediction of Africa as the key to human evolution, however, that illustrate his genius."
`Mark J. McCarren, The Scientific Contributions of Othniel Charles Marsh: Birds, Bones, and Brontotheres, page 52. Emphasis added, obviously.
Ok, as the book points out earlier (on page 40), the dinosaur-avian relationship was deduced by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1868, 2 and 4 years before Marsh described Hesperornis and Icthyornis. So Marsh did not deduce that.
As far as Africa? McCarren claims that Marsh showed "remarkable foresight" saying that the missing links between human and ape would be found in Africa in 1877. Which I guess meant that following statement:
"It is therefore probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee; and as these two species are now man's nearest allies, it is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African Continent than elsewhere."
Was not said by Charles Darwin in 1871 in a slightly popular book called The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.
So... if a Marsh biographer tries to use two ideas that Marsh didn't come up with as proof that Marsh was a genius, does this mean that Marsh was not a genius? I am confused.
Special thanks to:
McCarren, M. J. 1993. The Scientific Contributions of Othniel Charles Marsh: Birds, Bones, and Brontotheres. Peabody Museum of Natural History Special Publication 15. Peabody Museum of Natural History: New Haven.
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