Mixed Race Studies

Retrospection: Agassiz’s Expeditions in Brazil

The Harvard Crimson
2016-04-21

Michelle Y. Raji

Louis Rodolphe Agassiz

But for Agassiz, the trip to Brazil was about more than science. Not only was evolution—a process not immediately observable to the human eye—deeply antithetical to Agassiz’s staunch empiricism, evolution was profoundly at odds with his perceived world order.

Three decades after the then-obscure scientist Charles Darwin quietly sketched his now-famous finches aboard the HMS Beagle in the Galapagos, influential Harvard professor Louis Rodolphe Agassiz set out with much greater fanfare on a lesser-known expedition. In 1865, Agassiz and his wife, accompanied by a small group of Harvard scientists and students, set sail from New York to Rio de Janeiro on The Colorado.

In a lecture en route to Brazil, Agassiz challenged Darwin’s revolutionary theory of evolution on the grounds that the theory relied too much on argument and too little on fact. Agassiz posited that evolution was not plausible according to the geologic record. The trip to Brazil was an attempt to disprove Darwin once and for all. Agassiz saw in the unique biodiversity of Brazil a perfect laboratory to test his counter-theories of phylogenetic embryology and glacial catastrophe in the tropics.

But for Agassiz, the trip to Brazil was about more than science. Not only was evolution—a process not immediately observable to the human eye—deeply antithetical to Agassiz’s staunch empiricism, evolution was profoundly at odds with his perceived world order. Though only moderately religious, Agassiz believed in the existence of a creator in all his work. Fortunately for Agassiz, this belief fit well with comparative zoology, which at the time focused heavily on hierarchal classification…

Read the entire article here.

Our Problems with Race: Addressing Biological Versus Social Definitions

Appalachian State University
Blue Ridge Ballroom PSU
Wednesday, 2009-10-28 19:00 EDT (Local Time)                                   

Joseph L. Graves, Jr, Dean of University Studies and Professor of Biological Sciences
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

What does evolution tell us about race and what are we taught to believe about race? What are the implications for how we view, group, and value others?  Using his research background in evolutionary biology, Dr. Joseph L. Graves, Jr. explains how most Americans still believe that there is some biological legitimacy to our socially constructed racial categories despite the modern scientific evidence that discredits all of our social stereotypes. Dr. Graves has written two books that address the myths and theories of race in American society. He has published over 50 papers and book chapters and has appeared in six documentary films and numerous television interviews on these general topics.