Leonardo Di Vinci
...of the first paleontologists with his observations on fossil shells. I believe that Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest scientific minds of his time, he did these observations because the information that was given to him about how these fossils came about didn’t make sense to him. He knew there was another answer, so like any other scientific mind; he went in search for more believable answers. As to those who say that shells existed for a long time and were born at a distance from the sea, from the nature of the place and of the cycles, which can influence a place to produce such creatures — to them it may be answered: such an influence could not place the animals all on one line, except those of the same sort and age; and not the old with the young, nor some with an operculum and others without their operculum, nor some broken and others whole, nor some filled with sea-sand and large and small fragments of other shells inside the whole shells which remained open; no...