George Romanes
A 19th century naturalist, George John Romanes (1848 - 1894), coined the term, and laid the foundation of, comparative psychology, and postulated a similarity of cognitive processes and mechanisms between humans and animals.
Romanes's support of his claims by anecdotal evidence, rather than empirical tests, prompted C. Lloyd Morgan's warning against Romanes's methods, Morgan's Canon of Interpretation.
Romanes was born in Canada but moved, with his parents, to England at the age of two, and spent the rest of his life there. Like many English naturalists, he nearly studied divinity, but instead opted to study medicine and physiology at Cambridge University. He matriculated from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge with a Batchelor of Arts in 1870. It was at Cambridge that he came first to the attention of Charles Darwin; the two remained friends for life.
Publications
- Candid Examination of Theism (pseudonymously published as "Physicus"), (1878)
- Animal Intelligence, (1881)
- Mental Evolution in Animals, (1883)
- Physiological Selection: An Additional Suggestion on the Origin of Species, (1886)
- Mental Evolution in Man, (1888)
- Darwin and After Darwin, (1892)
Referenced By
Animal behavior | Animal behaviour | Animal cognition | Animal intelligence | Behaviorism | Behaviorist | Behaviorists | Behaviourism | Behaviourist | Behaviourists | Comparative psychology | Educational behaviorism | Ethology | Lloyd Morgan's Canon | Morgan's Canon | Morgan's Canon of Interpretation
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