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The importance of the “Gegenbaur school” for German morphology

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Summary

The school Carl Gegenbaur cultivated at Heidelberg (1873–1901) was critical to the history of German morphology in multiple ways. During and after his lifetime, the school carried out detailed comparative anatomical and embryological investigations in an evolutionary framework, thereby contributing substantially to the project of vertebrate evolutionary morphology. Its members also defended their mentor when his ideas came under attack. After his death, they labored to perpetuate his program and his memory in the increasingly unwelcoming environment of medical education and research. While the senior members of the school did this largely through institutional means-seeking to place Gegenbaur sympathizers in academic and editorial positions-its junior members absorbed some of the criticisms of the school to develop a modified, more functional approach to evolutionary morphology. The school thus kept the Gegenbaur program alive and active in the German-speaking lands for over fifty years.

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Correspondence to Lynn K. Nyhart.

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This paper is drawn largely from Nyhart (1995), esp. chapter 7 (supported by NSF award no. 8910873). Information not otherwise documented derives from this book.

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Nyhart, L.K. The importance of the “Gegenbaur school” for German morphology. Theory Biosci. 122, 162–173 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-003-0051-x

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