Georges Cuvier
Born: August 23, 1769 in Montbeliard, France
Died: May 13, 1832 in Paris, France
Nationality: French
Occupation: Zoologist
Georges Cuvier was France's leading naturalist and the father of paleontology and comparative anatomy. Born in the Jura mountain region of France on August 23, 1769, Cuvier attended the Carolinian Academy in Stuttgart, Germany. He argued that the individual parts of an organism operated as a single unit, with each unit playing an integral part in the whole. No part could alter its function without adversely affecting the entire organism. This idea of biological integration convinced Cuvier that evolution--or transmutation as it was then known--was a fallacy because if one part of the organism changed through evolution, it would throw the entire organism out of alignment.

Antoine Lavoisier
Born: August 13, 1743 in Paris, France
Died: May 08, 1794 in Paris, France
Nationality: French
Occupation: Chemist
Antoine Lavoisier is regarded as the founder of modern chemistry. Although he made few discoveries of new substances or processes, his work in chemical theory provided a synthesis of the discoveries of his contemporaries and a framework upon which subsequent work could be based. He is perhaps best known for his discovery of the role that oxygen plays in combustion, his statement of the conservation of matter in chemical reactions, his clarification of the difference between elements and compounds (molecules), and his part in the development of the modern system of chemical nomenclature.

18th Century Scientists