Thomas Jefferson

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“He Also Quickly Found Himself In The Midst Of A Scientific Battle That To His Mind Was Of The Greatest Political And National Interest”

March 7, 2016 in Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech | Permalink

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Thomas Jefferson was never a soldier, but he fought for Americans in numerous ways. After the new nation won its independence, the Founding Father squared off in France against those who believed the United States’ plants and animals inferior to Europe’s, which of course was wholly ignorant, but unenlightenment shapes the world if it has enough believers.

Jefferson’s efforts involved, among other things, a giant moose skeleton. From Andrea Wulf in the Atlantic:

In Paris, in between negotiations of commercial treaties, arranging loans and composing diplomatic dispatches, Jefferson purchased the latest scientific books, visited famous gardens and met the greatest thinkers and scientists of the age. He also quickly found himself in the midst of a scientific battle that to his mind was of the greatest political and national interest. His weapons were native North American trees, weights of mammals, a panther pelt, and the bones and skin of a moose.

For years, Jefferson had been furious about a theory that the French called the “degeneracy of America.” Since the mid-eighteenth century several French thinkers had insisted that flora and fauna degenerated when “transplanted” from the Old to the New World. They noted how European fruits, vegetables and grains often failed to mature in America and how imported animals refused to thrive. They also insisted that American native species were inferior to European plants and animals. One of the offending scientists was Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, the most famous naturalist in the world and the author of the 36–volume magisterial Histoire Naturelle. In the 1760s and 1770s Buffon had written that in America all things “shrink and diminish under a niggardly sky and unprolific land.”

As Buffon’s theories spread, the natural world of America became a symbol for its political and cultural significance—or insignificance, depending on the point of view. Hoping to restore America’s honor, and elevate his country above those in Europe, Jefferson set out to prove that everything was in fact larger and superior in the New World.•

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Was The Birth Of America An Immaculate Conception?

February 13, 2010 in Politics | Permalink

From Shorto's article: "Jefferson said it was not the place of the President to involve himself in religion."

The author and New York Times Magazine writer Russell Shorto is one of those blessed media people who quietly and consistently does excellent work. His 2005 New York history, The Island at the Center of the World is a brilliant book.

Shorto has an insightful piece, How Christian Were the Founders?, in this week’ Sunday Times Magazine. It looks at how Christian Conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education have used the purchasing power of a $22 billion education fund to pressure publishing companies into altering the language and ideas of the nation’s textbooks. Shorto also takes a balanced look at whether our Founding Fathers did indeed intend America as a Christian nation. An excerpt from the piece about one instance where the Board prevailed in changing textbook language:

“To give an illustration simultaneously of the power of ideology and Texas’ influence, [textbook publishing veteran] Tom Barber told me that when he led the social-studies division at Prentice Hall, one conservative member of the board told him that the 12th-grade book, ‘Magruder’s American Government,’ would not be approved because it repeatedly referred to the U.S. Constitution as a ‘living’ document. ‘That book is probably the most famous textbook in American history,’ Barber says. ‘It’s been around since World War I, is updated every year and it had invented the term ‘living Constitution,’ which has been there since the 1950s. But the social conservatives didn’t like its sense of flexibility. They insisted at the last minute that the wording change to ‘enduring.’ Prentice Hall agreed to the change, and ever since the book–which Barber estimates controlled 60 or 65 percent of the market nationally–calls it the ‘enduring Constitution.'”

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