When an unknown sea creature was washed ashore on the Orkney Islands in September 1808, the Edinburgh anatomist John Barclay declared that this was the first solid scientific evidence for the existence of the ‘great sea snake’. The testimony of witnesses along with some of its preserved body parts were examined by both the Wernerian Natural History Society in Edinburgh and the surgeon and anatomist Everard Home in London. Contradicting Barclay's opinion, Home identified the creature as a decomposing basking shark. While Barclay took the testimony of the local witnesses largely on trust and accepted their interpretation of the Beast, Home discounted it and instead asserted his own expert authority to correctly interpret the evidence. Both made use of the preserved physical remains of parts of the creature in strikingly different ways: Barclay to support the accounts of the witnesses, Home to undermine them. The debate between the two anatomists has much to tell us about the uses of evidence and testimony in early nineteenth-century natural history, but also has broader resonances for the roles of evidence and authority in science that still remain relevant today.

1808 年 9 月，当一个未知的海洋生物在奥克尼群岛被冲上岸时，爱丁堡解剖学家约翰·巴克莱宣布这是“大海蛇”存在的第一个可靠的科学证据。爱丁堡的维尔纳自然历史学会和伦敦的外科医生兼解剖学家埃弗拉德·霍姆对目击者的证词及其一些保存完好的身体部位进行了检查。与巴克莱的观点相矛盾的是，霍姆认为这个生物是一只正在腐烂的姥鲨。虽然巴克莱在很大程度上信任当地证人的证词并接受了他们对野兽的解释，但霍姆却不以为然，而是坚持自己的专家权威来正确解释证据。两者都以截然不同的方式利用了该生物部分保存下来的身体残骸：巴克莱支持证人的说法，家庭破坏他们。两位解剖学家之间的辩论告诉了我们很多关于证据和证词在 19 世纪早期自然历史中的使用，但也对证据和权威在科学中的作用产生了更广泛的共鸣，这些作用在今天仍然很重要。