The Royal Society is the UK's national institute of science, founded in 1660 by the earliest modern scientists. Each summer it hosts interactive exhibitions presented by scientists working on the latest advances in their fields.

Our exhibition forms part of displays by the Royal Society's Library & Information Services, celebrating Darwin's bicentenary, and the achievements of other Victorian scientists. We focus on the work of Sir Richard Owen FRS (1804 -1892), a brilliant comparative anatomist & palaeontologist. Owen invented the word 'dinosaur', and, at the time, was second in fame only to Darwin himself.

Discussions about Owen's Animals
at the Royal Society Exhibition

History has treated Owen harshly, partly because he argued that Darwin did not have enough evidence that natural selection was the only possible mechanism for evolution (Owen was not a creationist, as is often misrepresented); and partly because of unfortunate personality flaws. Yet, millions have benefited from Owen's life-time achievement: the creation of the Natural History Museum.

Interest in Owen's work has been revived in recent years with the emergence of the field of evolutionary developmental biology, and with the realisation that the pattern of life is an interrupted one, rather than the smooth branching envisaged by Darwin. - Perhaps Owen's place in history is beginning to be restored!

Our hands-on exhibition examines Owen's biological concepts in the light of recent science, and includes the chance to handle bones and a footprint from Iguanodon, one of the dinosaurs worked on by Owen in competition with Gideon Mantell.

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