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Why Were the First Anthropologists Creationists? Evolutionary Anthropology 19:222–226 (2010) ISSUES Why Were the First Anthropologists Creationists? JONATHAN MARKS Anthropologists in every generation have been tarred as creationists by radical ing evolution: ‘‘It is not that I think Darwinians. In only the very first generation of scholarly anthropology, however, the evidence of that doctrine insuffi- does the charge really stick; that is, in the founding tradition of liberal German cient, but that I doubt whether it is humanistic anthropology from about 1860–1890. This paper explores the ideas the business of a teacher to plunge that may have motivated their rejection of evolution. the young mind into difficult prob- lems concerning the origin of the existing condition of things. I am dis- Rudolf Virchow was arguably the Liberal party, a political reformer4 posed to think that the brief period of preeminent life scientist in nine- and pacifist,5 who was personally school-life would be better spent in teenth-century Germany. Although challenged to a duel by no less than obtaining an acquaintance with na- 6,7 he made fundamental contributions Otto von Bismarck. He pioneered ture, as it is; in fact, in laying a firm to the development of cell biology, the study of the social conditions foundation for the further knowledge anthropometry, human adaptability, that cause disease. He argued on which is needed for the critical exami- and epidemiology, his memory in behalf of the rights of Jews in an nation of the dogmas, whether scien- physical anthropology is generally increasingly anti-Semitic social envi- tific or anti-scientific, which are pre- 8,9 reduced to a single act: rejecting the ronment. When he understood the sented to the adult mind.’’17 earliest fossil evidence of human evo- fossils as being, to some extent, path- Indeed, Virchow gave the second lution, in the forms of ‘‘Neanderthal ological specimens, he was speaking Huxley Lecture in 1898, and his con- Man’’ and ‘‘Java Man.’’1–3 as a founder of that medical spe- 10,11 tempt for Haeckel was matched only In a dualistic framework that pits cialty. Moreover, his pioneering by his enthusiasm for Huxley. Far evolutionism against creationism – measurements of German schoolchil- from repudiating Huxley, Virchow abstracted from time, culture, and dren began quantitatively to disen- observed that Man’s Place in Nature nuance – one is tempted to see tangle the concepts of ‘‘nation,’’ 12–14 ‘‘stepped boldly across the border- Virchow as a closed-minded repre- ‘‘race,’’ and ‘‘type.’’ Indeed, for line which tradition and dogma had sentative of the old ways, an intel- ‘‘modern physical anthropology’’ drawn between man and beast.’’18 (according to his obituary in Sci- lectual conservative refusing to ‘‘Whatever opinion one may hold as ence) ‘‘no one has done more to accept the truths of Darwinism de- to the origin of mankind,’’ he added, shape, guide and foster it than spite their obvious validity. In short, ‘‘the conviction as to the fundamen- Rudolf Virchow.’’15 Yet, in 1877, he as an old fool, precisely as he was tal correspondence of human organi- had declared in a scientific meeting portrayed by Ernst Haeckel, the zation with that of animals is at in Munich: ‘‘We cannot teach, we can- leading spokesman for German Dar- present universally accepted.’’18 not designate it as a revelation of sci- winism. To judge Virchow as a hard- ence, that man descends from the ape And yet Virchow was neither a headed, backward-looking creation- or from any other animal. We can but conservative nor a dummy. He was a ist, then, seems more than a bit designate this as a problem, may it prominent and activist leader of the seem ever so probable, and may it lie harsh. Surely there was more to his ever so near.’’16 rejection of the fossil evidence of What an odd position to take! Evo- human ancestry than stupidity, intel- Jonathan Marks is Professor of Anthro- lution is apparently so dangerous that lectual conservatism, or religiosity. pology at the University of North Caro- lina at Charlotte, and the author of Why I we need to shield our children from Am Not a Scientist (University of Califor- it, regardless of its empirical validity? nia Press, 2009) and The Alternative ADOLF BASTIAN Introduction to Biological Anthropology: Virchow’s comments were intended, Where Anthropology Meets Biology and understood, as a direct challenge Virchow was not alone in his rejec- (Oxford University Press, in press). to the leading German evolutionist, tion of human evolution. He was Ernst Haeckel. Even Thomas Huxley joined most prominently by Adolf walked a fine line here, seeming, in Bastian, with whom he was a co- VC 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. his preface to an English translation founder of the Berlin Society for DOI 10.1002/evan.20280 Published online in Wiley Online Library of Haeckel’s response, to agree with Anthropology, Ethnology, and Pre- (wileyonlinelibrary.com). Virchow’s ambivalence toward teach- history in the decade following The ISSUES Why Were the First Anthropologists Creationists? 223 Origin of Species.19 Bastian’s opposi- winism and was bigger than Darwin- like one another than like any other tion to evolution was widely ism: How was the human species kind of animal. Obviously we do not known,20,21 but also hard to explain. constituted and, consequently, how wish to project modern values on (In this early period of anthropologi- was the scholarly, scientific study of these premodern thinkers, but there cal thought, the relationships human diversity to proceed? is a basic point at the heart of the between historical and biological The answer seemed to lie with a matter. Can there be a rigorous processes were only beginning to be methodological principle of Adolf study of the human species or is the formalized. Bastian had a different Bastian’s, ‘‘the psychic unity of man- human species itself an illusion? dispute with the geographer Frie- kind.’’ This is where the literature in More specifically, a bleeding-heart drich Ratzel over the nature of cul- English pretty much dries up, but it illusion, since the Ethnological Soci- tural ‘‘evolution.’’) is basically a foundational moment ety, with Thomas Huxley as its last Andre Gingrich frames it in terms for anthropology.27 president, had begun a generation of political abstractions: ‘‘It seems Adolf Bastian was concerned with earlier as an anti-slavery and aborigi- that the reasons for the antievolu- founding a science of ethnology, the nal protection society with strong tionist orientation of German anthro- comparative study of human social roots in the religious and moral pology, so closely connected to state behavior.28 He traveled widely, estab- dimension of human diversity. Their and crown, were distributed among lished diverse and extensive collec- opponents, the ‘‘anthropologicals,’’ three factors: Protestant pietism tions, and was the highly respected commonly prided themselves on tended to reject an anticreationist director of the Ethnological Mu- their polygenist irreligiosity, but also theory of the origin of species and of seum, as well as a notoriously turgid adopted the morally unpopular posi- humanity; Prussian nationalism dis- and opaque writer29,30 whose works tion on slavery. (England had out- played deep skepticism toward a new were never translated into English, lawed slavery while Darwin was on theory from rival Britain; and impe- apparently mercifully.31 Fundamen- the Beagle.) A significant implication rial hegemony provoked profound tal to his program, however, was the of the new evolutionary theory for distrust of a theory that largely unity of the human species.32 Victorian England was that it gave inspired Marx and Engels, the lead- Thomas Huxley was similarly com- the morally respectable and theologi- ing thinkers of the German labor mitted to the proposition of the unity cally conservative position of mono- movement....’’22 Presumably, how- of the human species. This was one genism (unity of humanity, back to ever, those same social forces would of the tenets of the Ethnological So- Adam) a firmer footing in the science have influenced the many admirers ciety of London, founded in England that had previously been the strong of Ernst Haeckel as well. in the 1840s; its opposite was point of polygenism (an ancient Andrew Zimmerman suggests a adopted by the Anthropological Soci- earth, possibly populated by pre-Ada- more formal philosophical basis, ety of London when it splintered off mites). The human species would rooted in the contemporary assump- in 1863. Huxley, as President of the remain a single natural unit; how- tion that historical reconstruction is Ethnological Society in 1870, over- ever, the common ancestor was no invariably inferential, and that the saw the reconciliation of the two longer Biblical Adam, but rather a domain of the scientific ought to be rival scientific associations, under sort of chimpanzee.36,37 reserved for synchronic, experimen- the name of ‘‘Anthropological,’’ but tal studies.23 Even Franz Boas tried holding the formal views of the older THE MISSING LINK to understand at least Virchow’s Ethnological Society.33,34 Like Hux- anti-Darwinism by ascribing to ley, the Darwinians generally aligned In Germany, of course, the politics Virchow a belief in the ontological themselves with the monogenist ‘‘eth- were somewhat different. The chief primacy of cells over organisms, and nologicals’’ as opposed to the poly- spokesman for Darwinism in Ger- a consequent reluctance to accept genist ‘‘anthropologicals,’’ who many was Ernst Haeckel. His popu- the mutability of species until the tended to oppose Darwinism with lar works sold well in English trans- mutability of cells had been fully the same vehemence with which they lation. In any language, however, the worked out.15 opposed the unity of the human spe- Darwinians, in trying to link their The rejection of evolution by the cies.35 European readers to the apes genea- first generation of anthropologists Adolf Bastian’s principle of the logically, faced a formidable prob- may have a simpler explanation, ‘‘psychic unity of mankind’’ is essen- lem: the absence of a fossil record however.
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