Charles Hartt, Louis Agassiz, and the Controversy over Pleistocene Glaciation in Brazil

Brice, William R.; Figueirôa, Sílvia Fernanda de Mendonça

doi:10.1177/007327530103900202

Cited by 8 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Furthermore, natural science was already working with the scientific method: inferring theories by observation, then refining theories by comparing them to the emerging evidence, without being hindered by what prominent scientists had claimed. For example, Charles Hartt, a geologist who worked extensively in Brazil and served for a time as the Commissioner of Geology of Brazil, eventually critiqued the pre-conceived creationist theories of Louis Agassiz, his famous Harvard mentor, about the role of the Ice Age in Amazonian geology, because of what he observed in the stratigraphy and sedimentology in his repeated visits there in the second half of the 19th century (BRICE and FIGUEIROA, 2001). Interestingly, for Agassiz the theory of worldwide glaciations was crucial for proving his racist notion of polygenesis: the separate and unequal divine creation of the human races that contradicted Darwin's ideas of evolution by natural selection on a sucession of related species.…”

Section: The Theory Of Environmental Limitation In Amazoniamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sequence of Amazon Prehistory: A Methodology for Ethical Science

Roosevelt¹

2022

tessituras

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This article is about my research on the prehistory of the mainstream lower Amazon in Brazil and problems in research ethics there. The "New Archaeology", my dissertation in the Orinoco, Venezuela, and my museum job led me rethink the human occupation of the tropical forest. I was influenced by 19th century naturalists' research on Amazon archaeology. They recognized an occupation that began thousands of years ago with hunters who made projectile points and monumental rock art and early fishing villagers with pottery and culminated by the time of the European conquest in populous civilizations with mounds and elaborately decorated pottery vessels and figures. But in the mid-twentieth-century, "scientific" archaeologists decided that the sequence had been short and derivative, impeded by the hot, humid tropical forest. They ignored the early cultures and attributed Amazonian cultures to intrusions from the Andes. When radiometric dating contradicted their chronology, they suppressed the problematic dates and when other North Americans came to do research they tried to prevent their excavation permits and criticized them with false statements about their own teams' results. Thus, they involved Brazilian proteges in unethical practices and prevented their rediscovery of the sequence of the 19th century naturalists.

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Section: The Theory Of Environmental Limitation In Amazoniamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sequence of Amazon Prehistory: A Methodology for Ethical Science

Roosevelt¹

2022

tessituras

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FAMOUS GEOLOGISTS | Agassiz

Oldroyd

2005

Encyclopedia of Geology

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Fossil illustrations in three dimensions: Ward’s models at Cornell University

Brice

2022

The Evolution of Paleontological Art

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Some fossil examples are rare, but the educational value of such samples is undeniable. One way around this dilemma, and one that was popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s, was to have students study 3-D models; this solution was used by many universities, among them Cornell University. One of the main, but not the only, suppliers of such models was Ward’s Natural Science Establishment of Rochester, New York, USA, which was founded in 1862 by Henry Augustus Ward (1834–1906). Even today the use of virtual, computer-generated 3-D models in classroom laboratories indicates how important 3-D visualization continues to be. But a computer image cannot be held in one’s hands, so the use of 3-D printer technology allows students to create their own physical models. However, none of these technologies can totally replace seeing and working with actual specimens or life-sized reproductions. Thus, museum displays are still an important aspect of educational activity for both students and the general public. This chapter explores how Cornell University made use of the models purchased from Ward’s in the late 1800s and the fate of some of these replicas.

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Charles Hartt, Louis Agassiz, and the Controversy over Pleistocene Glaciation in Brazil

Cited by 8 publications

References 10 publications

The Sequence of Amazon Prehistory: A Methodology for Ethical Science

The Sequence of Amazon Prehistory: A Methodology for Ethical Science

FAMOUS GEOLOGISTS | Agassiz

Fossil illustrations in three dimensions: Ward’s models at Cornell University

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