Heinrich Karl heirs

Heinrich Karl Erben (born May 19, 1921 in Prague , † July 15, 1997 in Bonn ) was a German paleontologist . He became known to a wider audience through his non-fiction books on evolution and his findings on the extinction of dinosaurs .

Life

Erben came from a German-Bohemian family and was enthusiastic about the fossils of his homeland even as a schoolboy . From 1945 he studied geosciences, biology and chemistry in Berlin and Tübingen . In 1949 he received his doctorate in Tübingen under Otto Heinrich Schindewolf , the old master of palaeontology, on "new fauna of the Hercynian and Thuringian types in the Lower Harz". After his habilitation in 1951 he took on teaching positions in Tübingen and Würzburg and was professor of stratigraphy in Mexico City from 1953 to 1956 , where he received the XX. Prepared for the international geological congress. Erben was a professor in Bonn from 1956 until his retirement in 1986. From 1963 he held the first chair for paleontology, which was newly established in Germany after the war, in Bonn, where he was also the founder and director of the newly built Institute for Paleontology. In 1973/74 he was dean of the mathematics and natural sciences faculty at the University of Bonn . He also took on functions in numerous national and international scientific bodies. The German Commission for UNESCO , he belonged (until May 1988 June 1986) as a member and later even as its president. Heirs to North and South America, the Near East, Russia, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia and Japan took part in research and lecture tours. Erben initiated the cooperation between the University of Bonn and the University of Kabul and founded the Geological-Paleontological Institute there, which was closed during the rule of the Taliban .

The grave of Heinrich Karl Erben, decorated with an ammonite, in the Poppelsdorf cemetery in Bonn

Erben's old age in Wachtberg - Adendorf near Bonn was overshadowed by a serious eye disease which he had contracted abroad and which quickly led to his almost complete blindness. But thanks to the care of his wife Dr. Ursula Erben take part in scientific life until the end and publish important results. Erben, who was an enthusiastic academic teacher, was honored, among other things, with the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class, and in 1973 with admission to the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina . In 1990 he became an honorary member of the Paleontological Society .

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Erben's path as a researcher went from the particular to the general, from analysis to synthesis. Initially he dealt with the trilobites , ammonites and cephalopods of the Silurian and Devonian . So he judged z. B. 1961 in Bonn the second international workshop on the Silurian - Devonian border. It was also Erben who was the first to use the scanning electron microscope to clarify fossil ultrastructures in the 1960s .

He later turned to more general subjects such as paleobiology and evolutionary studies . In doing so, he wrote important presentations about the course of evolution . He also endeavored to bring the knowledge of evolutionary biology closer to a broad audience through generally understandable representations, such as in his book "Intelligences in the Cosmos" (see writings). In addition, the well-read heir, who described himself as a “modest religious agnostic ”, was also interested in philosophical questions such as the fate and death of the individual. In total, Erben has published over 100 scientific papers (see below: Writings (selection) ).

Erben caused a worldwide sensation with his research into the extinction of dinosaurs . Erben found that the eggshells in dinosaur clutches on the border from the Cretaceous to the Tertiary were often degenerate; H. either very thick (so that the dinosaurs might asphyxiate or not hatch in the eggs) or very thin (so that the eggs might break or the dinosaurs dried up inside). Erben attributed this finding to increased stress, which could have been caused by the cooling of the climate 65 million years ago and which could have disrupted the hormonal balance of the dinosaurs. With his eggshell theory, Erben had presented one of the few explanations for the numerous hypotheses on dinosaur extinction that was based on verifiable facts. Subsequent scientists have, however, the pathological character of such eggshells z. This was partly disputed and the rarity of extremely thickened eggs (ovum in ovo) especially near the Cretaceous-Tertiary border was highlighted.

Fonts (selection)

• The development of living beings - rules of evolution . 3. revised Edition. Piper, Munich, 1988, ISBN 3-492-10860-1 .
• Evolution - an overview seven decades after E. Haeckel . Enke, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-432-98331-X .
• Intelligences in the cosmos? The answer of evolutionary biology. Piper, Munich 1984. ISBN 3-548-34331-7 .
• Life means dying - the death of the individual and the extinction of species. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-455-08818-X .
• Ultrastructures and thickness of the wall of pathological eggshells. In: Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz. Abhandlungen der Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Klasse , No. 6, 1972, pp. 193-216.
• Singular turning points in geo-evolution and fossil ecological catastrophes? In: Nova Acta Leopoldina , NF 62, 270/1989, pp. 115-127.
• A holo-evolutionistic conception of fossil and contemporaneous man. In: Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz. Treatises of the mathematical and natural science class , 1980, 1. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1980.

literature

• Claus-Dieter Clausen: Heinrich Karl Erben † [obituary]. In: Geological State Office North Rhine-Westphalia, Hausnachrichten , 139 / Oct. 1997, p. 13f.
• Winfried Haas : Prof. Dr. Heinrich Karl Erben died. In: News of the German Geological Society , issue 65 / II. Quarter 1998, p. 40f.
• Friedrich Strauch : Obituary for Heinrich Karl Erben. In: 1997 yearbook of the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz, Stuttgart 1998, pp. 114–117.

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinrich Karl Erben in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Directory of the presidents and vice-presidents of the German Commission for UNESCO
2. ↑ Hartmut Haubold: The dinosaurs. System, evolution, paleobiology. 3rd edition Wittenberg 1989, p. 175 f.
3. ↑ Hoimar von Ditfurth : Man - the only thinking being in space? In: Der Spiegel . No. 27 , 1984 ( online review).