# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/richard-owen
# Generated: 2026-08-31T19:36:26.662Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/richard-owen"
name: "Richard Owen"
slug: "richard-owen"
description: "He gave dinosaurs their name, fought Darwin on natural selection, and built London's Natural History Museum — then spent decades fending off accusations that he stole other scientists' ideas."
tagline: "English biologist and paleontologist (1804–1892)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Richard-owen2.jpg"
gender: "male"
country:
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category:
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profileType:
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  slug: "scientist"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1804-07-20"
deathDate: "1892-12-18"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
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  momentum:             0
  historical:           23.68472933333334
  currentAttention:     5.500000000000001
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  trendDirection:       "FALLING"
ranks:
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  category: null
tags:
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# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Richard Owen was born on 20 July 1804 in England and became a comparative anatomist with what peers called a remarkable gift for reading fossils. In 1839 he served as the first president of the Microscopical Society of London, editing its journal and producing a vast body of scientific work. He coined the word "Dinosauria" — "Terrible Reptile" — giving the ancient giants their enduring label. Owen agreed evolution happened but rejected Darwin's mechanism of natural selection, calling it too simple; his approach anticipated questions that evolutionary developmental biology would later raise. He campaigned for decades to move the British Museum's natural specimens into a dedicated building, and in 1881 the Natural History Museum opened in South Kensington, transforming public expectations of what museums could be. He died 18 December 1892, remembered as much for controversy — disputes over Darwin, accusations he claimed others' discoveries — as for the institution and the word that outlasted him.