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Reef Madness opens up the world of nineteenth-century science and philosophy at a moment when the nature of scientific thought was changing, when what we call “science” (the word did not even exist) was spoken of as “natural philosophy” and was a part of theology, the study of “God’s natural works.”
This is how what is now called science, until then based on the presence and hence the authority of God, moved toward reliance on observable phenomena as evidence of truth. At the book’s center, two of that century’s most bitter debates: one about the theory of natural selection, the other about the origin of coral.
Caught in the grip of these controversies were two men considered to be the gods of the nineteenth-century scientific world: Charles Darwin, the most controversial and ultimately the most influential; and the Swiss-born zoologist Louis Agassiz, almost forgotten today but at the time even more lionized than Darwin.
Agassiz was a paleontologist, the first to classify the fossil fish of the planet, and the first to conceive the idea of the ice age that altered our view of the Earth. He taught at Harvard, founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology, was one of the founders of the Smithsonian and of the National Academy of Sciences, and was considered the greatest lecturer of his time—eloquent, charming, spellbinding. Among his admirers: Emerson, Theodore Roosevelt, William James, and Thoreau. Agassiz believed that nature was so vast, complicated, and elegantly ordered that it could only be the work of God.
We see how this central principle of Agassiz’s was threatened by Darwin’s most central theory—that species change through natural causes, that we exist not because we’re meant to but because we happen to. Agassiz, forced either to disprove Darwin’s principle or give up his own, went to war full tilt against the theory of natural selection. It was a war that, beyond its own drama, had a second important effect on the new world of science.
David Dobbs tells how Agassiz’s son, Alexander, one of the most respected naturalists of his time, who witnessed his father’s rise and tragic defeat yet supported the theory of natural selection over his father’s objections, himself became locked in combat with Darwin.
The subject of contention was the “coral reef problem.” As a young man of twenty-six, Darwin, with only a small amount of data, put forth a theory about the formation of these huge beautiful forms composed of the skeletons of tiny animals that survive in shallow water. It explained how the reefs could rise on foundations that emerged from the Pacific’s greatest depths. This became the subject of Darwin’s first long paper, and it propelled him to the highest circles of British science.
The obsessed younger Agassiz spent the next thirty years in a vain effort to disprove Darwin’s coral theory, traveling 300,000 miles of ocean and looking at every coral mass. In so doing, he laid the groundwork for oceanography, through which, in 1950, the question of the origin of coral was finally resolved.
In Reef Madness, Dobbs looks at the nature of scientific theory. He shows how Darwin was crucially influenced by his encounters with the Agassiz father and son, and how the coral problem prefigured the fierce battle about evolution.
Original, illuminating, and fascinating, Reef Madness uses these large human struggles, which devastated two lives and shaped the thinking of another, to make real the Victorian world of science and to show how it affected the century that followed and continues to this day to affect our own.
- Sales Rank: #1532755 in Books
- Published on: 2005-01-04
- Released on: 2005-01-04
- Format: Deckle Edge
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.25" h x 1.10" w x 5.86" l, 1.24 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 320 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Few questions in 19th-century science aroused more controversy than the origin of coral reefs. Charles Darwin posited that the corals grew upon sinking land forms, a theory widely accepted despite its lack of empirical evidence. Enter Alexander Agassiz (1835–1910), son of the renowned naturalist Louis, whose earlier dispute with Darwin over evolution tarnished his reputation as a scientist. A meticulous researcher, Alexander disapproved of Darwin's "intuitive leaps"; he believed that proper science must work "through eyes-on observation and the tireless accumulation of reliable information." To this end, he spent the last 25 years of his life visiting every major reef formation on the planet. But though he gathered a wealth of evidence that seemed to refute Darwin, he never published his findings. By the 1950s, when technology enabled researchers to drill for deep coral samples, data proved that Darwin had guessed right after all. Dobbs (The Great Gulf, etc.) clearly sides with Agassiz in this story of clashing intellects and egos, arguing that Alexander's aversion to confrontation and his emphasis on methodology sprang from the embarrassment caused by his father's stubborn creationism, as well as from annoyance at Darwin's stoking of his own reputation. That Alexander's failure shows Darwin's theory to be all the more brilliant may be an unintended irony of this engrossing chapter in the history of modern science.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Charles Darwin's first scientific splash, a theory on the formation of coral atolls, is now accepted; but it had a rival in a theory advanced by naturalist Alexander Agassiz. Dobbs approaches this chapter in scientific history from a number of perspectives, including Alexander's personality as formed in the shadow of his father, Louis, one of the most famous naturalists of the Victorian era. On a more abstract level, Dobbs discusses the balance between induction and deduction in scientific reasoning. The biography is inherently more interesting, and Dobbs highlights the contrast between Alexander's introspection and his father's charisma and self-centeredness. By the 1870s, Louis Agassiz rigidly resisted Darwinism; Alexander accepted evolution but not, when he learned of data collected on the seminal expedition of the Challenger, Darwin's idea about atolls. Darwin contended they formed around subsiding mountains; Alexander maintained the coral accreted upward. Describing Agassiz's voyages to atolls, Dobbs skillfully relates a story that, if lacking a triumphant ending, yet depicts Agassiz's quiet drama in constructing a theory, wrong though it was. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“Brilliantly written, sometimes almost unbearably poignant, Reef Madness provides an enthralling picture of three grand scientific minds: the stormy relationship of Louis and Alexander Agassiz and their fateful enmeshment with Charles Darwin. The coral reef story becomes a microcosm of the conflicts—between idealism and empiricism, God and evolution—which were to split science and culture in the nineteenth century and which still split them today.”
—Oliver Sacks, author of Uncle Tungsten
“Reef Madness eloquently demonstrates the importance of ideas. David Dobbs gives life to a debate that should simply have given insights into our past. But, surprisingly, the debate has remained very much with us, giving this book enormous contemporary relevance.”
—Mark Kurlansky, author of Salt: A World History
“Engaging, tantalizing, and well written. The best kind of intellectual history. Like Louis Menand’s The Metaphysical Club, Reef Madness brilliantly sets a small group of passionate thinkers into a living context, deftly illuminating the people, their place and time, and their vigorous, world changing arguments.”
—Andrea Barrett, author of The Voyage of the Narwhal
“A wonderful book! A masterful and thrilling account of the origin of coral reefs and the men who debated those origins. David Dobbs tells the complex tale of how brilliant scientists, such as Alexander Agassiz and Charles Darwin, often bitterly disagree in the search for truth and the remarkable power of scientific inquiry as it unfolds over time.”
—Howard Markel, author of When Germs Travel
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
The Mystery of Reef Formation
By Charles Bradley
"Reef Madness" is multiple biographies packaged with a mystery
and a description of how science is done and scientific societies
and institutions are run. I recommend it highly. There are
important lessons for those who have made up their mind, pro or
con, about an analogous current controversy, the impact of CO2
on climate.
I have only two minor complaints. As a mystery, the clue to the
solution is not available to the reader until the solution is
revealed. As a biography, there are frequent incidents of the
mind reading sin.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Atoll times
By Charles Miller
This book is fascinating on many fronts. First, it is a quite readable and informative biography of Louis Agassiz and his son Alexander. Second, it is an account of one of the longest-running controversies in the history of science. And, finally, it gives great insights to the current debate in the US over the teaching of "intelligent design."
Louis Agassiz was considered one of the world's greatest scientists (or natural philosophers as they were called at the time), and, after his migration to the United States from his native Switzerland, was viewed as America's greatest naturalist. He was a shrewd self-promoter who parlayed his explanation of glaciation and ice ages, and his encyclopedic knowledge of animal taxonomy, into a position of power and influence. However, he was a follower of Cuvier, and believed that species were created immutably by God. The fossil record was explained by a series of catastrophic annihilations (floods, ice ages) followed by divine creation of completely new species. Needless to say, he did not accept the theory of the origin of species by natural selection as propounded by Darwin. He and Darwin's followers engaged in heated, personal exchanges and attacks. In the end, however, Agassiz was nearly destroyed by the ensuing controversy, and his reputation and influence suffered severely.
Alexander, on the other hand was more mild-mannered and consciously avoided being drawn into his father's fights. He was a widely respected naturalist and an expert on marine zoology, and privately accepted the truth of evolution. He had his own disagreement with Darwin, however, over Darwin's widely-accepted theory of the formation of coral reefs. While not nearly as destructive as his father's evolution dispute, the disagreement involved much publishing, many attacks, and the accumulation of reams of data supporting each side. The fact that this controversy was not settled authoritatively until core samples were taken on Eniwetok atoll before the nuclear tests of the 1950's, long after the protagonists were dead and buried, makes for an almost mystery novel-like tale.
At times, the book reads like today's newspaper accounts of groups trying promote the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in our children's classrooms. Even though this debate was seemingly settled nearly 150 years ago, some ideas die hard.
This is quite an enjoyable read.
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Historical Science at its Best...
By John D. Wagner
This is a superb work of historical science, a gripping story, well-told. And it has everything... Father-son dynamics, the history of science, and the rise of Darwinism, as the story is played out through a profile of Alexander Agassiz and his dad, Louis, one of the last Lamarckians. The main reason I liked the book was the quality, drive, and consistent voice of the insightful prose. The writing is simply lyric! If you liked books like Dava Sobel's book "Longitude" or Mark Kurlansky's "Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World" -- you'll LOVE this book.
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