Gavin de Beer
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{{Infobox Scientist
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|box_width = 280px
|image = DeBeer45-backcover.jpg
|image_size = 150px
|caption = Portrait and short biography of Gavin de Beer from the back cover of his 1945 book ''Escape to Switzerland''
|birth_date = [[1 November]], [[1899]]
|birth_place = [[New Malden|Malden]], [[Surrey]]
|death_date = [[21 June]], [[1972]]
|death_place =
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|nationality = [[United Kingdom]]
|ethnicity =
|field =[[embryology|embryologist]]
|work_institutions = [[British Museum (Natural History)]]
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|known_for = [[evolution]]
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|influences =
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|prizes = [[Darwin Medal]]
|religion =
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}}'''Sir Gavin Rylands de Beer''' [[Fellow of the Royal Society|FRS]] (1899–1972) was a [[United Kingdom|British]] [[evolution]]ary [[embryology|embryologist]]. He was Director of the [[British Museum (Natural History)]], President of the [[Linnean Society of London|Linnean Society]], and received the Royal Society's [[Darwin Medal]] for his studies on evolution.
==Biography==
Born on November 1, 1899 in [[New Malden|Malden]], [[Surrey]] (now part of [[London]]), de Beer spent most of his childhood in [[France]], where he was educated at the [[Paris]]ian École Pascal. During this time, he also visited [[Switzerland]], a country with which he remained fascinated for the rest of his life. His education continued at [[Harrow School|Harrow]] and [[Magdalen College, Oxford|Magdalen College]], [[University of Oxford|Oxford]], where he graduated with a degree in [[zoology]] in 1921, after a pause to serve in the [[World War I|First World War]] in the [[Grenadier Guards]] and the [[Army Education Corps]]. He soon became a Fellow of [[Merton College, Oxford|Merton College]] and began to teach at the university's zoology department. In 1938, he was made [[Reader (academic rank)|Reader]] in Embryology at [[University College London|University College, London]]. During the [[World War II|Second World War]] De Beer again served with the [[Grenadier Guards]] reaching the rank of temporary [[lieutenant colonel]].<ref>[http://www.gazettes-online.co.uk/ViewPDF.aspx?pdf=37521&geotype=London&gpn=1690&type=ArchivedSupplementPage&all=G&exact=de beer&atleast=&similar= London Gazette 1946]</ref> He worked in [[Military intelligence|intelligence]], [[propaganda]] and [[psychological warfare]]. Also during the war, in 1940, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society <ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/page.asp?id=1727|title=Lists of Royal Society Fellows 1660-2004|accessdate=April 3|accessyear=2006}}</ref>.
In 1945, de Beer became [[Professor]] of Zoology and was, from 1946 to 1949, President of the [[Linnean Society of London|Linnean Society]]. Then he was Director of the British Museum (Natural History) (now the [[Natural History Museum]]), from 1950 until his retirement in 1960. He was [[knight]]ed in 1954, and awarded the [[Darwin Medal]] of the [[Royal Society]] in 1957.
After his retirement, de Beer moved to Switzerland and worked on several publications on [[Charles Darwin]] <ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/iss/library/speccoll/host/debeer.html|title=The History of Science and Technology 1801-1914|accessdate=April 3|accessyear=2006}}</ref> and his own seminal ''Atlas of Evolution''. He also wrote a series of books about Switzerland and the [[Alps]].
de Beer returned to England in 1971 and died at [[Alfriston]], [[Sussex]] on June 21, 1972.
==Work==
De Beer's early work at Oxford was influenced by [[J.B.S. Haldane]] and by [[Julian Huxley]] and [[Edwin Stephen Goodrich|E.S. Goodrich]] (two of his teachers). His early work was in experimental [[embryology]]; some of it was done in collaboration with [[Julian Huxley]], who would go on to be one of the leading figures of the [[Modern evolutionary synthesis|modern synthesis]]. The ''Elements of experimental embryology'', written with Huxley, was the best summary of the field at that time (1934).
In ''Embryos and evolution'' (1930) de Beer stressed the importance of [[heterochrony]] <ref>Brigandt, I. (2006) [http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/112467522/ABSTRACT Homology and heterochrony: the evolutionary embryologist Gavin Rylands de Beer (1899-1972)]. ''Journal of Experimental Zoology (Molecular and Developmental Evolution)'' '''306B''':317-328. [[http://www.ualberta.ca/~brigandt/de_Beer.pdf preprint]]</ref>, and especially [[paedomorphosis]] in evolution. According to his theories, paedomorphosis (the retention of juvenile features in the adult form) is more important in evolution that gerontomorphosis, since juvenile tissues are relatively undifferentiated and capable of further evolution, whereas highly specialised tissues are less able to change. He also conceived the idea of ''clandestine evolution'', which helped to explain the sudden changes in the [[fossil record]] which were apparently at odds with Darwin's [[Phyletic gradualism|gradualist]] theory of evolution. If a novelty were to evolve gradually in an animal's juvenile form, then its development would not appear in the fossil record at all, but if the species were then to undergo [[neoteny]] (a form of paedomorphosis in which [[sexual maturity]] is reached while in an otherwise juvenile form), then the feature would appear suddenly in the fossil record, despite having evolved gradually.
De Beer worked on [[paleornithology]] and general evolutionary theory, and was largely responsible for elucidating the concept of [[mosaic evolution]], as illustrated by his review of ''[[Archaeopteryx]]'' in 1954. De Beer's also reviewed [[Haeckel]]'s concept of heterochrony, with particular emphasis on its role in avian evolution, especially that of the [[ratite]]s, in 1956 <ref>{{cite web|url=http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Gavin_de_Beer|title=Evowiki: Gavin de Beer|accessdate=April 3|accessyear=2006}}</ref>. Dedicated to the [[popular science|popularisation of science]], he received the [[Kalinga Prize]] from [[UNESCO]].
==== de Beer and [[Modern evolutionary synthesis|evolutionary synthesis]] ====
The conventional view had been that developmental biology ([[evo-devo]]) had little influence on the [[evolutionary synthesis]], but the following interesting assessment suggests otherwise, at least as far as de Beer is concerned:
:"In a series of remarkable books that established the synthetic theory of evolution, Gavin de Beer's ''Embryology and evolution'' was the first and the shortest (1930; expanded and retitled ''Embryos and ancestors'', 1940; 3rd ed 1958). In 116 pages de Beer brought embryology into the developing orthodoxy... for more than forty years, this book has dominated English thought on the relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny." Stephen Gould <ref>Gould S.J. 1977. ''[[Ontogeny and Phylogeny (book)|Ontogeny and phylogeny]]''. Harvard. p221-2</ref>
==Books by Gavin de Beer==
*''Growth'' — 1924
*''An introduction to experimental embryology'' — 1926
*''The comparative anatomy, histology and development of the pituitary body — 1926
*''Vertebrate zoology'' — 1928
*''Early travellers in the Alps'' — 1930
*''Embryology and evolution'' — 1930 (later editions bore the title ''Embryos and ancestors'')
*''Alps and men'' — 1933
*''The elements of experimental embryology'' — 1934 (co-written with [[Julian Huxley]])
*''The development of the vertebrate skull'' — 1937
*Gavin de Beer (editor:) ''Evolution: Essays on aspects of evolutionary biology''. Oxford 1938.
*''Escape to Switzerland'' — 1945
*''Archaeopteryx lithographica'' – 1954
*''Alps and elephants. Hannibal's march'' — 1955
*''The first ascent of Mont Blanc'' — 1957
*''Darwin's journal: Darwin's notebooks on the transmutaion of species'' — 1959
*''The sciences were never at war'' — 1960
*''Reflections of a Darwinian'' — 1962
*''Charles Darwin: evolution by natural selection'' — 1963
*''Atlas of evolution'' — 1964
*''Charles Scott Sherrington: an appreciation'' — 1966
*''Early travellers in the Alps'' — 1967
*''Edward Gibbon and his world'' — 1968
*''Hannibal: the struggle for power in the Mediterranean'' — 1969
*''Homology, an unsolved problem'' — 1971
*''Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his world'' — 1972
==Quote==
{{Quote|Each ontogeny is a fresh creation to which the ancestors contribute only the internal factors by means of heredity|{{PAGENAME}}}}
==References==
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Beer, Gavin de}}
[[Category:1899 births]]
[[Category:1972 deaths]]
[[Category:Evolutionary biologists]]
[[Category:English zoologists]]
[[Category:Developmental biologists]]
[[Category:Employees of the Natural History Museum]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Old Harrovians]]
[[Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Members of the Linnean Society of London]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:Kalinga Prize recipients]]
[[Category:British science writers]]
[[Category:Grenadier Guards officers]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War II]]
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