33 Facts About George Romanes

George John Romanes was a Canadian-Scots evolutionary biologist and physiologist who laid the foundation of what he called comparative psychology, postulating a similarity of cognitive processes and mechanisms between humans and other animals.

George Romanes was the youngest of Charles Darwin's academic friends, and his views on evolution are historically important.

George Romanes popularized the term neo-Darwinism, which in the late 19th century was considered as a theory of evolution that focuses on natural selection as the main evolutionary force.

George Romanes was born in Kingston, Canada West, in 1848, the youngest of three children, all boys, in a well-to-do and intellectually cultivated family.

George Romanes's father was Rev George Romanes, a Scottish Presbyterian minister.

George Romanes developed an early love for poetry and music, at which he excelled.

However, his true passion resided elsewhere, and the young George Romanes decided to study science, abandoning a prior ambition to become a clergyman like his father.

George Romanes entered university half-educated and with little knowledge of the ways of the world.

George Romanes studied medicine and physiology, graduating from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge with the degree of BA in 1871, and is commemorated there by a stained glass window in the chapel.

In 1879, at 31, George Romanes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on the basis of his work on the nervous systems of medusae.

George Romanes founded a series of free public lectures, the George Romanes Lectures, which continue to this day.

George Romanes was a friend of Thomas Henry Huxley, who gave the second Romanes lecture.

The association George Romanes had with Darwin was essential in Darwin's later works.

Therefore, Darwin confided volumes of unpublished work which George Romanes later used to publish papers.

The majority of George Romanes's work attempted to make a connection between animal consciousness and human consciousness.

George Romanes believed that the further along an organism was on an evolutionary standpoint, the more likely that organism would be to possess a higher level of functioning.

George Romanes's father, Reverend George Romanes, was a professor at Queens College in Kingston, Canada and taught Greek at the local university until the family moved back to England.

George Romanes was said to be an "ideal father" to their six children.

George Romanes was baptised Anglican and was heavily involved with the Anglican teachings during his youth, despite the fact his parents were not heavily involved with any religion.

When George Romanes attended Gonville and Caius College Cambridge, he entered into an essay contest on the topic of "Christian Prayer considered in relation to the belief that Almighty governs the world by general laws".

George Romanes did not have much hope in winning, but much to his surprise he took first place in this contest and received the Burney prize.

Therefore, George Romanes went into great detail about religion and how all aspects of the mind need to be involved to be faithfully committed to religion in his book Thoughts on Religion.

George Romanes believed that one had to have an extremely high level of will to be dedicated to God or Christ.

George Romanes had earlier published a book on the subject in general called A Candid Examination of Theism, where he concluded that God's existence was not supported by the evidence, but stated his unhappiness with the fact.

George Romanes's idea was that variation in reproductive ability, caused mainly by the prevention of inter-crossing with parental forms, was the primary driving force in the production of new species.

George Romanes came into a dispute with Wallace over the definition of Darwinism.

When Charles Darwin died, George Romanes defended Darwin's theories by attempting to rebut criticisms and attacks levied by other psychologists against the Darwinian school of thought.

George Romanes expanded on Darwin's theories of evolution and natural selection by advancing a theory of behaviour based on comparative psychology.

In Mental Evolution in Animals, George Romanes illustrated the evolution of the cognitive and physical functions associated with animal life.

George Romanes believed that animal intelligence evolves through behavioural conditioning, or positive reinforcement.

George Romanes then published Mental Evolution in Man, which focused on the evolution of human cognitive and physical functions.

In 1890, George Romanes published Darwin, and After Darwin, where he attempted to explain the relationship between science and religion.

The Life and Letters of George Romanes offers a semi-autobiographical account of Romanes's life.