Talk:Rudolf Virchow

message: Just sharing an amusing random article with the forum."VIRCHOW ON SOUPS AND BROTH" 08-Apr-1882, Scientific American, pp208-209. https://books.google.com/books?id=zoE9AQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=rosenberger&f=falseSloppyTots (talk) 21:25, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Soup/Broth 

message: This is a seriously problematic statement in the present lead, which I just now flagged as dubious (at least as written). 
As an anti-evolutionist, he called Charles Darwin an "ignoramus" and his own student Ernst Haeckel a "fool". He described the original specimen of Neanderthal man as nothing but that of a deformed human.
The main citation here which affirms that Virchow called Darwin an ignoramus is Medical Life, Volume 34 from 1927, which I'm unable to access. And I don't doubt the word was cast in Darwin's direction a time or two. 
But we need to be careful with that modifying phrase "as an anti-evolutionist" because it makes it appear that Virchow regarded Darwin as an ignoramus for proposing the whole of his theory in the first place (a common stance among the religious, but Virchow did not suffer from that adverse preconception). From what I was able to find fairly readily, Virchow was rather sophisticated in assessing Darwin's proposal as effectively having too many gaping holes with respect to available evidence. This was not an entirely unreasonable objection. Nor did it necessitate a demeaning opinion of Darwin's intellect or education. 
One document I skimmed was 
* The German Reception of Darwin's Theory, 1860-1945 
which appears to be a chapter from a book by Robert J. Richards. This does paint a picture of reflexive name-calling. 
And also this pointedly non-smoking gun: 
* Why Were the First Anthropologists Creationists? — 2010
The reasons for their rejection of evolution remain unclear. Virchow's objections in his 1877 address were specifically about the political implications of evolution (leading apparently to socialism) and its unproven nature. These, however, can hardly be taken at face value, especially in light of Virchow's denial of any "wish to disparage the great services rendered by Mr. Darwin to the advancement of biological science, of which no one has expressed more admiration than [I have]."
Unfortunately, the citation to (16) https://www.nature.com/articles/017111a0.pdf does not support this, and I did not managed to decipher the inline notation 16:vi. There's no page vi in the front matter of this journal, so I'm stumped (if a common academic convention, it's not one I'm aware of). 
Nevertheless, what appears to be far more correct is this: As a paleo-anthropologist, Virchow called Darwin an ignoramus, in connection with the interpretation of Neanderthal fossils. 
Virchow was a man of some stature, and there is much written about Virchow all over the intertubes, and much of this loves the soundbite that Virchow was a mud-slinging name-caller of thin subtlety. Really? This serves to reposition Virchow closer to Creationist rhetoric that would certain deserves this depiction. There's so much Virchow echo chamber that it was hard to search "Virchow Darwin ignoramus" due to the blizzard of context-free regurgitation. 
I think it's important that the lead identify and fully contextualize precisely what part of Darwin's thinking that Virchow was slapping down, because Virchow does not in any way fit my mold as being a buffoon who paints with a broad brush. 
I usually sign off by confessing that I'm a tumble-weed editor, who comments on the way through, always on route to the next article, and I've left here was what I was able in the time available. — MaxEnt 00:32, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Virchow calling Darwin an ignoramus