Editing Rudolf Virchow (section)

==== 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/>