After getting his education in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Zurich, Heidelberg, Munich, Erlangen, and in Paris under Humboldt (ever heard of the Humboldt Current in the ocean?) and Georges Cuvier, he received doctoral degrees in Philosophy and Medicine and branched out into the studies of geology, zoology, and ichthyology (the study of fishes). This was one very, very smart very, very busy dude!
In 1837, Agassiz was the first to scientifically propose that the Earth had been subject to a past ice age. He was so intrigued with this concept that he had a hut built on one of the Swiss glaciers, and he lived there just so he could study the glacier and glacial ice movement. (Hmmm. Glaciers don't move very fast. I wonder how long he lived there?!) By 1840 he had published a "Study on Glaciers," discussing their movements (learned in part, I'm sure, by investigating what the glaciers had left behind at the end of the last ice age.) From his studies he concluded - for the first time - that in the geographically-recent past Switzerland had been just like Greenland - one huge, solid sheet of ice, as thick in some places as the Jura mountains were tall! He was a tremendously well-respected scientist.
When Agassiz was invited to the Lowell Institute in Boston in 1846, the King of Prussia granted him the finances to accomplish the journey. (How cool is that? That a King would pay your way!) He was to deliver a dozen lectures on "The Plan of Creation as shown in the Animal Kingdom." While in America he also wanted to investigate its natural history and geology.
But, let's go back to the "Plan of Creation..." thing. Here is a guy that one could arguably say was the preeminent authority on all things living - including the earth! And he wants to lecture on the Plan of CREATION. Alrighty!!
According to Wikipedia: "Agassiz was a creationist who believed nature had order because God has created it directly, and Agassiz viewed his career in science as a search for ideas in the mind of the Creator expressed in creation. Agassiz denied that migration and adaptation could account for the geographical age or any of the past. Adaptation takes time; in an example, Agassiz questioned how plants or animals could migrate through regions they were not equipped to handle. According to Agassiz the conditions in which particular creatures live “are the conditions necessary to their maintenance, and what, among organized beings, is essential to their temporal existence must be at least one of the conditions under which they were created”.
Controversial then and probably even more so now, Agassiz thought that God did not just create one man. He believed that, just as God had created many different kinds of animals depending on the climate they might live in, God created the "species" of mankind, but put several "adaptations" of man around the globe. Remember now, he was a scientist, not a racist, so put on your scientific thinking cap on for a few minutes. That's a pretty intriguing concept, eh? It's called the Theory (because there's no proof) of Polygenism. According to Agassiz’s theory of polygenism all species are fixed, including all the races of humans, and species do not evolve into other species.
Even though Agassiz was a believer in polygenism he rejected racism and supported the notion of a spiritualized human unity. He claimed human polygenism did not undermine the spiritual commonality of all people, even though each race was physically diverse. Agassiz believed God had made all men equal. He said:
Those intellectual and moral qualities which are so eminently developed in civilized society, but which equally exist in the natural dispositions of all human races, constitute the higher unity among men, making them all equal before God.According to Agassiz, species, in their natures and geographical distribution, were direct expressions of the intelligence and will of God, not the results of blind chance. Agassiz believed evolution was an insult to the wisdom and will of God. WOW!
The Scopes Trial, bringing the evolutionist's theory to all the world, didn't happen until 1925. Interestingly enough, it TOO is just a theory. Hello!! T-h-e-o-r-y.
Well, there's lots more to this. I just thought it was pretty unique. I had never heard the theory before.
Agassiz ultimately made America his home and left a long lineage of wonderful American descendants.
But back to the Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge. It, (and a gazillion other places world wide) I'm guessin' was named to honor Agassiz's work in all things animal and mineral. And now you know the Theory of Polygenism!
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