Louis Marius Vialleton (December 22, 1859 - December 18, 1929) was a French zoologist and writer, best known for his advocation of non-Darwinian evolution.
Career
Vialleton was born in Vienne, Isère. He was the first professor of histology in the faculty of medicine at the University of Montpellier.Lavabre-Bertrand T. (2015). Louis Vialleton (1859-1929) was the first Professor of Histology in the Faculty of medicine of Montpellier. Rev Hist Pharm (Paris) 62 (385): 109-123. Vialleton rejected any form of continuous evolution and favoured saltationism.Bowler, Peter J. (2001). Reconciling Science and Religion: The Debate in Early-Twentieth-Century Britain. University of Chicago Press. p. 396
Vialleton attempted to refute gradual transformism from a morphological perspective in his work Morphologie générale Membres et ceintures des vertébrés tétrapodes: Critique morphotogique du transformisme (1924).Engels, Eve-Marie; Glick, Thomas F. (2008). The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe, Volume 1. Continuum. pp. 341-242. Zoologist Étienne Rabaud responded with a critical article.Rabaud, Étienne. (1924) 'Transformisme et morphologie', Bulletin biologique de la France et de la Belgique 58: 321-329.
He contributed the chapter Morphologie et transformisme to the book Le Transformisme (1927). Vialleton's views were often misrepresented by creationists as anti-evolutionary. His writings were influential to creationists such as Douglas Dewar.Numbers, Ronald L. (2006). The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design. Harvard University Press. p. 146. However, he did not reject evolution.Lustig, Abigail; Richards, Robert J.; Ruse, Michael. (2004). Darwinian Heresies. Cambridge University Press. p. 85. He was also incorrectly described as a critic of evolution by A. Morley Davies.Davies, Morley A. (1937). Evolution And Its Modern Critics. London: Thomas Murby & Co.
Vialleton was a vitalist.Normandin, Sebastian; Wolfe, Charles T. (2013). Vitalism and the Scientific Image in Post-Enlightenment Life Science, 1800-2010. p. 247. Springer.
Publications
Un monstre double humain du genre Ectopage (1892) Un Problème de l'Évolution: La Théorie de la Récapitulation des Formes Ancestrales au Cours du Développement Embryonnaire (Loi Biogénétique Fondamentale de Haeckel) (1908)Minot, Charles S. (1908). Un Problème de l'Évolution. Science 28: 122-123. Éléments de Morphologie des Vertébrés Anatomie et Embryologie Comparées, Paléontologie et Classification (1911) Membres et ceintures des Vertébrés Tétrapodes: Critique morphologique du transformisme (1924) Morphologie générale Membres et ceintures des vertébrés tétrapodes: Critique morphotogique du transformisme (1924)L. Guinet. (1924). Morphologie generale; Membres et ceintures des vertebres tetrapodes; Critique morphologique du transformisme. Vialleton, Louis. Isis 6 (3): 435-437. Le Transformisme (1927) [with Élie Gagnebin, Lucien Cuénot, William Robin Thompson, Roland Dalbiez] L'origine Des Etres Vivants, L'illusion Transformiste (1929)
See also
The eclipse of Darwinism
References