Richard Swann Lull (November 6, 1867 – April 22, 1957) was an American paleontologist and Sterling Professor at Yale University who is largely remembered for championing a non-Darwinian view of evolution, whereby mutation(s) could unlock presumed "genetic drives" that, over time, would lead populations to increasingly extreme phenotypes (and perhaps, ultimately, to extinction).

In 1902 he again joined an American Museum team in Montana, then studied under Columbia University professor Henry Fairfield Osborn.

In 1933, Lull was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.

[2] One famous example he used to support his non-Darwinian evolution theory concerned the enormous antlers of the Irish elk: he argued that these could not possibly be the result of natural selection, and instead reflected one of his "unlocked genetic drives" toward ever-increasing antler size.

The poor elk, coping in each generation with ever-bigger antlers were eventually driven extinct.