From Man to Ape: Darwinism in Argentina, 1870–1920

Abstract

This book argues that greater study of peripheral science — in this case, the Latin American reception of Darwinism in Argentina — illuminates “the ways in which the interactions between scientific analogies and culture shape the scientific enterprise” (p. 1). Adriana Novoa and Alex Levine particularly focus on Nancy Leys Stepan’s notion that certain analogies actually constitute the sciences they seek to articulate, that the very sciences do not exist without them. They argue that “science-constitutive analogies, like Kuhnian paradigms, set the parameters of scientific research programs in ways that both constrain and enable” (p. 7). Darwin’s analogies, such as natural selection correlating to human-directed domestic or artificial selection, transform in peripheral cultural environments along surprising paths, interacting among science, public policy, and popular culture.Anchored in the half-century beginning in 1870, this work traces Darwinian influences on Argentina from Europe. The first section explores the reception of Darwinian evolution in Argentina, considering evolutionary thought prior to Darwin, then moving to the triumph of Darwinism in that nation. The second section traces broad social impacts of Darwin’s notions of extinction and sexual selection and how evolutionary psychology developed from these roots by the turn of the century. Novoa, a historian of modern Latin America, and Levine, a philosopher of science, draw on an impressive breadth of primary and secondary sources with rich contemporaneous representation of Argentine monographs and periodicals, as well as diverse European works on evolutionary science. The extensive notes are quite useful, as are the index and bibliography.Prior to publication of The Origin of Species in 1859, Argentina already stood prepared to receive Darwin’s theory. The nation viewed itself as privileged that the British scientist’s explorations of Patagonia and the Pampas had helped place him on the trajectory to conceive natural selection, with President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento “nation-alizing evolution” (p. 86) as he claimed “an Argentinean provenance for Darwinism” (p. 37). Earlier encouraged by Darwin, the physician Francisco Javier Muñiz hoped to establish a national museum of natural history and provided a magnificent fossil collection to strongman Governor-General Juan Manuel de Rosas for this purpose. Given to the regional naval commander, the specimens instead went to Paris. Rosas possibly sought to foster international alliances, leveraging the imperial scramble between England and France for monster fossils. The 1852 ouster of Rosas by liberal forces paved the way for a nation-building consciousness. Soon the new journal El Plata cientifico y literario featured contributors such as Humboldt’s colleague Aimé Bonpland and Darwin correspondent Muñiz, revealing a commitment to science “as the thread that bound civilized societies together” (p. 46).Most elites of the Generation of 1837 who had defeated Rosas expressed interest in Darwin’s work. Reflecting German influence, in 1861 Sarmiento and Bartolomé Mitre recruited Alexander von Humboldt’s protégé Hermann Burmeister to invigorate the new Museo Público in Buenos Aires. Another German, the pro-Darwinist Ernst Haeckel, eventually eclipsed Burmeister’s influence in Argentina. Haeckel’s metaphysical correction of Darwin toward a unified nature appealed to Argentine intellectuals as a reconciliation of old and new ideas. Novoa and Levine argue that an intellectual would blend positivist and neo-Lamarckian notions with ideas from Darwin, Haeckel, and Herbert Spencer because “the political consequences of his analogies contrasted far too sharply with the faith in progress he felt was essential to the idea of civilization and the successful organization of the nation” (p. 76). That is, the nonteleological instability of Darwin’s principles created a tension against Argentine intellectuals’ hopes of “continuous perfectibility for the nation” (p. 105).The Argentine synthetic imperative sought to reconcile Darwinian natural law with the positivist faith in rational law. Constitutive analogies received the Origin as conveying threats of extinction rather than evolutionary promise. Uncivilized races, such as Indians, would yield to civilized races as a biological process. The Descent of Man, however, presented in sexual selection a means to direct evolution toward perfection. The beauty of Argentine women would lure immigrant European men who would infuse desirable traits, creating the new Argentine race. Evolutionary psychology would further broaden biological mechanisms to include “psychological and social manifestations” (p. 224).This monograph is a masterful synthesis of an extensive literature on the reception of Darwinism in Argentina, expertly tying local intellectual thought to the European historiography of Darwinian evolution. The authors might have explained the title From Man to Ape, but they leave it to the reader to realize that this entails notions of degeneracy and atavism; additionally, the phrase “Generation of 1837” is never really defined, lacking a reference to the Literary Hall founded that year. Those are insignificant criticisms, though, of this well-argued, important contribution to the history of science as related to Latin America.