Marshall Islands 2012 "Great Scientists of the World"


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Issue Date 23.04.2012
ID Michel: 2924-2943; Scott: 1032a-t; Stanley Gibbons: 2795-2814, MH 2795a; Yvert et Tellier: 2842-2861; Category: Co
Design Artwork: Ivan Akimovich Sushchenko
Stamps in set 20
Values US$ .45 - Charles Darwin
US$ .45 - William Harvey
US$ .45 - Robert Boyle
US$ .45 - Johannes Kepler
US$ .45 - Thomas Edison
US$ .45 - Andre-Marie Ampere
US$ .45 - Michael Faraday
US$ .45 - Jons Jacob Berzelius
US$ .45 - James Watt
US$ .45 - Galileo Galilei
US$ .45 - Andreas Vesalius
US$ .45 - Antoine Lavoisier
US$ .45 - Dmitry Mendeleyev
US$ .45 - Carl Gauss
US$ .45 - Isaac Newton
US$ .45 - Gregor Mendel
US$ .45 - John Dalton
US$ .45 - Carl Linnaeus
US$ .45 - Robert Fulton
US$ .45 - William Thomson, Baron Kelvin
Size (width x height) stamps: 40mm x 31mm
Sheet: 224 mm x 154mm
Layout Sheet of 20 stamps
Products FDC x4
Paper unwatermarked gummed paper
Perforation 13.50 x 13.50
Print Technique Black, cyan, magenta, yellow by offset lithography
Printed by Pioneer Printing, Cheyenne, Wyoming, U.S.A.
Quantity
Issuing Authority Marshall Islands Postal Service Authority
Charles Darwin and Calr Linnaeus among other great scientists on stamps of Marshall Islands 2012

On April 23, 2012, the Marshall Islands Postal Service issued the set of 20 stamps featuring great scientists of history. History has seen many great scientists who have made priceless contributions to the advancement of mankind, and in 2012 the Republic of the Marshall Islands issued these stamps to honour 20 of the greatest scientists with Charles Darwin and Carl Linnaeus among them.

Darwin, for instance, is famous for his theory of evolution through natural selection, while Edison is best known for inventing the incandescent light bulb. Newton is remembered for postulating his theory of gravity, and Linnaeus is renowned for developing a system to classify living things.

Among these great personalities, Charles Darwin and Carl Linnaeus can be considered as contributors to Paleontological Science.

Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire in 12 February 1809, to a wealthy and well-connected family. He had initially planned to study medicine at Edinburgh University but later switched to Divinity at Cambridge encouraged a passion for natural science.
Charles Darwin on stamp of Marshall Islands 2012
Charles Darwin on stamp of Marshall Islands 2012, MiNr.: 2924, Scott: 1032a.
His five-year voyage on HMS Beagle established him as an eminent geologist whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell's uniformitarian ideas, and publication of his journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author. Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin investigated the transmutation of species and conceived his theory of natural selection in 1838. Although Darwin discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research and his geological work had priority. Charles Darwin was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay which described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication of both of their theories.
Darwin 1859 book "On the Origin of Species" established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature. He examined human evolution and sexual selection in "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex", followed by "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals". Charles Darwin research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, he examined earthworms and their effect on soil.
Carl Linnaeu on stamp of Marshall Islands 2012
Carl Linnaeus on stamp of Marshall Islands 2012, MiNr.: 2941, Scott: 1032r.
The fact that evolution occurs became accepted by the scientific community and much of the general public in his lifetime, while his theory of natural selection came to be widely seen as the primary explanation of the process of evolution in the 1930s, and now forms the basis of modern evolutionary theory. In modified form, Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, providing logical explanation for the diversity of life.
In recognition of Darwin's pre-eminence, he was one of only five 19th-century UK non-royal personages to be honoured by a state funeral, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to John Herschel and Isaac Newton.
Darwin's work had far-reaching impacts on the development of Paleontology, Anthropology and many other Biology and Physiology related sciences.

Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as about this sound Carl von Linne, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature uses in all biology related sciences (including Paleontology). He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology.




Products and associated philatelic items

FDC
Charles Darwin and Carl Linnaeus among other great scientists on FDC of Marshall Islands 2012



References

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Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Dr. Peter Voice, PhD Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Western Michigan University, USA, for reviewing of a draft of this article.

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