Editing Rudolf Virchow (section)

===Anthropology and prehistory biology===
[[File:Rudolf Virchow by Hugo Vogel, 1861.JPG|thumb|upright|Portrait of Rudolf Virchow by [[Hugo Vogel (painter)|Hugo Vogel]], 1861]]

Virchow developed an interest in anthropology in 1865, when he discovered pile dwellings in northern Germany. In 1869, he co-founded the German Anthropological Association. In 1870 he founded the [[Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte|Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistory]] (''Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte'') which was very influential in coordinating and intensifying German archaeological research. Until his death, Virchow was several times (at least fifteen times) its president, often taking turns with his former student [[Adolf Bastian]].<ref name="Buikstra" /> As president, Virchow frequently contributed to and co-edited the society's main journal ''Zeitschrift für Ethnologie'' (''Journal of Ethnology''), which Adolf Bastian, together with another student of Virchow, [[Robert Hartmann (naturalist)|Robert Hartman]], had founded in 1869.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.jstor.org/journal/zeitethn?item_view=journal_info|title=Zeitschrift für Ethnologie: Journal Info|website=JSTOR|access-date=16 July 2019|archive-date=27 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190927113745/https://www.jstor.org/journal/zeitethn?item_view=journal_info|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|date=1870|title=Front Matter|journal=Zeitschrift für Ethnologie|volume=2|pages=front cover|jstor=23025919}}</ref>

In 1870, he led a major excavation of the hill forts in Pomerania. He also excavated wall mounds in [[Wöllstein]] in 1875 with [[Robert Koch]], whose paper he edited on the subject.<ref name="weisenberg" /> For his contributions in German archaeology, the [[Rudolf Virchow lecture]] is held annually in his honour. He made field trips to [[Asia Minor]], the Caucasus, Egypt, Nubia, and other places, sometimes in the company of [[Heinrich Schliemann]]. His 1879 journey to the site of [[Troy]] is described in ''Beiträge zur Landeskunde in Troas'' ("Contributions to the knowledge of the landscape in Troy", 1879) and ''Alttrojanische Gräber und Schädel'' ("Old Trojan graves and skulls", 1882).<ref name="americana" /><ref>{{Cite Collier's|wstitle=Virchow, Rudolf}}</ref>

==== Anti-Darwinism ====
Virchow was an opponent of [[Natural selection|Darwin's theory of evolution]],<ref>Hodgson, Geoffrey Martin (2006). ''Economics in the Shadows of Darwin and Marx''. Edward Elgar Publishing., p. 14 {{ISBN|978-1-78100-756-3}}</ref><ref>Vucinich, Alexanderm (1988), ''Darwin in Russian Thought''. University of California Press. p. 4 {{ISBN|978-0-520-06283-2}}</ref> and particularly skeptical of the emergent thesis of [[human evolution]].<ref>Robert Bernasconi (2003). ''Race and Anthropology: De la pluralité des races humaines''. Thoemmes. p. xii</ref><ref>Ian Tattersall (1995). ''The Fossil Trail''. Oxford paperbacks. Oxford University Press, p. 22 {{ISBN|978-0-19-510981-8}}</ref> He did not reject evolutionary theory as a whole, and viewed the theory of natural selection as "an immeasurable advance" but that still has no "actual proof".<ref name="Boak-1921">{{Cite journal|last=Boak|first=Arthur E. R.|date=1921|title=Rudolf Virchow–Anthropologist and Archeologist|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/6581|journal=The Scientific Monthly|volume=13|issue=1|pages=40–45|jstor=6581|bibcode=1921SciMo..13...40B|access-date=13 October 2021|archive-date=30 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211030045210/https://www.jstor.org/stable/6581|url-status=live}}</ref> On 22 September 1877, he delivered a public address entitled ''"The Freedom of Science in the Modern State"'' before the Congress of German Naturalists and Physicians in Munich. There he spoke against the teaching of the theory of evolution in schools, arguing that it was as yet an unproven hypothesis that lacked empirical foundations and that, therefore, its teaching would negatively affect scientific studies.<ref>Kelly, Alfred (1981). ''Descent of Darwin: The Popularization of Darwinism in Germany, 1860–1914''. UNC Press Books. See: Chapter 4: "Darwinism and the schools". {{ISBN|978-1-4696-1013-9}}</ref><ref>Kuklick, Henrika (2009). ''New History of Anthropology''. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 86–87</ref> [[Ernst Haeckel]], who had been Virchow's student, later reported that his former professor said that "it is quite certain that man did not descend from the apes...not caring in the least that now almost all experts of good judgment hold the opposite conviction."<ref>[[Smithsonian Institution]] (1899). ''Board of Regents Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution''. Board of Regents. p. 472</ref>

Virchow became one of the leading opponents on the debate over the authenticity of [[Neanderthal]], discovered in 1856, as distinct species and ancestral to modern humans. He himself examined the [[Neanderthal 1|original fossil]] in 1872, and presented his observations before the Berliner Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte.<ref name=Buikstra/> He stated that the Neanderthal had not been a primitive form of human, but an abnormal human being, who, judging by the shape of his skull, had been injured and deformed, and considering the unusual shape of his bones, had been arthritic, rickety, and feeble.<ref>Wendt, H. 1960. ''Tras la huellas de Adán'', 3ª edición. Editorial Noguer, Barcelona-México, 566 pp.</ref><ref>Adam Kupler (1996). ''The Chosen Primate''. Harvard University Press. p. 38 {{ISBN|978-0-674-12826-2}}</ref><ref>De Paolo, 'Charles (2002); ''Human Prehistory in Fiction''. McFarland. p. 49 {{ISBN|978-0-7864-8329-7}}</ref> With such an authority, the fossil was rejected as new species. With this reasoning, Virchow "judged Darwin an ignoramus and Haeckel a fool and was loud and frequent in the publication of these judgments,"<ref>American Society of Medical History (1927). ''Medical Life, Volume 34''. Historico-Medico Press. p. 492</ref> and declared that "it is quite certain that man did not descend from the apes."<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Walter|first1=Edward|last2=Scott|first2=Mike|date=2017|title=The life and work of Rudolf Virchow 1821–1902: "Cell theory, thrombosis and the sausage duel"|journal=Journal of the Intensive Care Society|volume=18|issue=3|pages=234–235|doi=10.1177/1751143716663967|pmc=5665122|pmid=29118836}}</ref> The Neanderthals were later accepted as distinct species of humans, ''Homo neanderthalensis''.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=White|first1=Suzanna|last2=Gowlett|first2=John A.J.|last3=Grove|first3=Matt|date=2014|title=The place of the Neanderthals in hominin phylogeny|url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0278416514000221|journal=Journal of Anthropological Archaeology|language=en|volume=35|pages=32–50|doi=10.1016/j.jaa.2014.04.004|access-date=13 October 2021|archive-date=5 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230105114949/https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0278416514000221|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Rogers|first1=Alan R.|last2=Harris|first2=Nathan S.|last3=Achenbach|first3=Alan A.|date=2020|title=Neanderthal-Denisovan ancestors interbred with a distantly related hominin|journal=Science Advances|volume=6|issue=8|pages=eaay5483|doi=10.1126/sciadv.aay5483|pmc=7032934|pmid=32128408|bibcode=2020SciA....6.5483R }}</ref>

On 22 September 1877, at the Fiftieth Conference of the German Association of Naturalists and Physician held in Munich, Haeckel pleaded for introducing evolution in the public school curricula, and tried to dissociate Darwinism from social Darwinism.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Weiss|first1=Sheila Faith|title=Race Hygiene and National Efficiency: The Eugenics of Wilhelm Schallmayer |year=1987|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley|isbn=978-0-520-05823-1|pages=[https://archive.org/details/racehygienenatio0000weis/page/67 67], 179|url=https://archive.org/details/racehygienenatio0000weis|url-access=registration}}</ref> His campaign was because of Herman Müller, a school teacher who was banned because of his teaching a year earlier on the inanimate origin of life from carbon. This resulted in prolonged public debate with Virchow. A few days later Virchow responded that Darwinism was only a hypothesis, and morally dangerous to students. This severe criticism of Darwinism was immediately taken up by the London ''[[The Times|Times]]'', from which further debates erupted among English scholars. Haeckel wrote his arguments in the October issue of ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' titled "The Present Position of Evolution Theory", to which Virchow responded in the next issue with an article "The Liberty of Science in the Modern State".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Porter |first1=Theodore M. |title=Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age |year=2006 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton |isbn=978-1-400-83570-6 |page=36 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YFwckVLO-9UC |access-date=11 September 2017 |archive-date=25 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125235307/https://books.google.com/books?id=YFwckVLO-9UC |url-status=live }}</ref> Virchow stated that teaching of evolution was "contrary to the conscience of the natural scientists, who reckons only with facts."<ref name="Boak-1921" /> The debate led Haeckel to write a full book ''Freedom in Science and Teaching'' in 1879. That year the issue was discussed in the [[Prussian House of Representatives]] and the verdict was in favour of Virchow. In 1882 the Prussian education policy officially excluded natural history in schools.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Weindling |first1=Paul |title=Health, Race, and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870–1945 |year=1993 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-521-42397-7 |page=43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9SlB2qcb0NIC}}</ref>

Years later, the noted German physician [[Carl Ludwig Schleich]] would recall a conversation he held with Virchow, who was a close friend of his: "...On to the subject of [[Darwinism]]. 'I don't believe in all this,' Virchow told me. 'if I lie on my sofa and blow the possibilities away from me, as another man may blow the smoke of his cigar, I can, of course, sympathize with such dreams. But they don't stand the test of knowledge. Haeckel is a fool. That will be apparent one day. As far as that goes, if anything like transmutation did occur it could only happen in the course of pathological degeneration!'"<ref>Schleich, Carl Ludwig (1936). ''Those were good days'', p. 159. (Note: this conversation was taken from Schleich's memoirs ''Besonnte Vergangenheit'' (1922), and translated into English by [[Bernard Miall]])</ref>

Virchow's ultimate opinion about evolution was reported a year before he died; in his own words:
{{Blockquote|The intermediate form is unimaginable save in a dream... We cannot teach or consent that it is an achievement that man descended from the ape or other animal.|''Homiletic Review'', January, (1901)<ref>Ronald L. Numbers (1995). ''Antievolutionism Before World War I'': Volume 1 of Garland Reference Library of the Humanities. Taylor & Francis. p. 101.  {{ISBN|978-0-8153-1802-6}}</ref><ref>Patterson, Alexander (1903). ''The Other Side of Evolution'', Winona Publishing Company, p. 79</ref>}}

Virchow's anti-evolutionism, like that of [[Albert von Kölliker]] and [[Thomas Brown (philosopher)|Thomas Brown]], did not come from religion, since he was not a believer.<ref name=glick/>

====Anti-racism====

Virchow believed that Haeckel's monist propagation of [[social Darwinism]] was in its nature politically dangerous and anti-democratic, and he also criticized it because he saw it as related to the emergent nationalist movement in Germany, ideas about cultural superiority,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hodge|first1=Jonathan|last2=Radick|first2=Gregory|title=The Cambridge Companion to Darwin|year=2009|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-71184-5|page=238|edition=2nd}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Hawkins|first1=Mike|title=Social Darwinism in European and American thought, 1860–1945 : Nature as Model and Nature as Threat|year=1998|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|isbn=978-0-521-57434-1|page=138|edition=Reprinted}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Moore|first1=Randy|last2=Decker|first2=Mark|last3=Cotner|first3=Sehoya|title=Chronology of the Evolution–creationism Controversy|date=2010|publisher=Greenwood Press/ABC-CLIO|location=Santa Barbara, Calif.|isbn=978-0-313-36287-3|pages=[https://archive.org/details/chronologyofevol0000moor/page/121 121–122]|url=https://archive.org/details/chronologyofevol0000moor/page/121}}</ref> and militarism.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Regal|first1=Brian|title=Human Evolution : A Guide to Debates|date=2004|publisher=ABC-Clio|location=Santa Barbara, Calif|isbn=978-1-85109-418-9}}</ref> In 1885, he launched a study of [[craniometry]], which gave results contradictory to contemporary [[scientific racism|scientific racist]] theories on the "Aryan race", leading him to denounce the "[[Nordic race|Nordic]] mysticism" at the 1885 Anthropology Congress in [[Karlsruhe]]. Josef Kollmann, a collaborator of Virchow, stated at the same congress that the people of Europe, be they German, Italian, English or French, belonged to a "mixture of various races", further declaring that the "results of craniology" led to a "struggle against any theory concerning the superiority of this or that European race" over others.<ref>Andrea Orsucci, [http://www.cromohs.unifi.it/eng/index.html "Ariani, indogermani, stirpi mediterranee: aspetti del dibattito sulle razze europee (1870–1914)"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071105074520/http://www.cromohs.unifi.it/eng/index.html |date=5 November 2007 }}, ''Cromohs'', 1998 {{in lang|it}}</ref> He analysed the hair, skin, and eye colour of 6,758,827 schoolchildren to identify the Jews and Aryans. His findings, published in 1886 and concluding that there could be neither a Jewish nor a German race, were regarded as a blow to [[anti-Semitism]] and the existence of an "Aryan race".<ref name=silberstein/><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Zimmerman|first1=Andrew|s2cid=53987293|title=Anti-Semitism as Skill: Rudolf Virchow's Schulstatistik and the Racial Composition of Germany|journal=Central European History|date=2008|volume=32|issue=4|pages=409–429|doi=10.1017/S0008938900021762|jstor=4546903}}</ref>