Research Seminar 09.11.2026: Noa Sophie Kohler - Rudolf Virchow, Racial Hierarchy, and the Discussion on Evolution

Research Seminar

Monday, 09.11.2026, 16:15, Gilman 281

Noa Sophie Kohler, Jacques Loeb Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Rudolf Virchow, Racial Hierarchy, and the Discussion on Evolution

Rudolf Virchow was world-renowned pathologist, physician, social health expert, liberal politician, and anthropologist in 19th century Germany (Prussia). Given his expertise in anatomy, it may seem surprising that he rejected the interpretation of the Neanderthal fossil as evidence of an archaic human, instead attributing its unusual skeletal features to disease and injury. He was also highly skeptical about evolutionary theory.  Based on text passages from his essays on the question of a common ancestor of animals and humans, I intend to show that his position was shaped by an implicit ideological undercurrent: his opposition to the animalization of human beings. The theory of descent, which would later prove to be a fruitful scientific approach, was so closely associated with the hierarchical biological order of "human races" that Virchow found it impossible to negate one without the other.

Gathering for coffee and refreshments at 16:00

Chair: Ehud Lamm

The public is invited