Concept
Louis Agassiz
Overview
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( AG-ə-see; French: [aɡasi]; May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history.
Spending his early life in Switzerland, he received a PhD at the University of Erlangen and a medical degree at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. After studying with Georges Cuvier and Alexander von Humboldt in Paris, Agassiz was appointed professor of natural history at the University of Neuchâtel. He emigrated to the United States in 1847 after visiting Harvard University. He went on to become professor of zoology and geology at Harvard, to head its Lawrence Scientific School, and to found its Museum of Comparative Zoology.
Agassiz is known for observational data gathering and analysis. He made institutional and scientific contributions to zoology, geology, and related areas, including multivolume research books running to thousands of pages. He is particularly known for his contributions to ichthyological classification, including of extinct species such as megalodon, and to the study of historical geology, including the founding of glaciology.
His theories on human, animal and plant polygenism have been criticised as implicitly supporting scientific racism.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
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At Neuchatel (where between the ages of twenty-five and thirty he enjoyed a stipend that varied from four hundred to six hundred dollars) he organized a regular academy of natural history, with its museum, managing by one expedient or another to employ artists, secretaries, and assistants, and to keep a lithographic and printing establishment of his own employed with the work that he put forth. Fishes, fossil and…
William James, Memories and Studies
The chapter “LOUIS AGASSIZ[1]” is titled for Louis Agassiz; the author is tied to Louis Agassiz in the knowledge graph.
It should not be forgotten, that at the present day, with perfect specimens for examination, two forms can seldom be connected by intermediate varieties and thus proved to be the same species, until many specimens have been collected from many places; and in the case of fossil species this could rarely be effected by palæontologists. We shall, perhaps, best perceive the improbability of our being enabled to connect…
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection
States what Louis Agassiz is.
Little else is recognized in Germany as a man's title to academic advancement than his ability thus to show himself an efficient instrument of research.
William James, Talks To Teachers On Psychology
The author is tied to Louis Agassiz in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Louis Agassiz
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Place in the tradition
Part of Essentialism.