1807-1873

Swiss-American Naturalist, Paleontologist and Glaciologist

Jean Louis Agassiz was one of the foremost natural scientists of his time. He was particularly well-known for his work with fossil fishes and for his advocacy of the idea of global ice ages. Although he accepted the idea that species could become extinct, he resisted the theory of evolution, believing instead in the divine creation of species.

Louis Agassiz, the son of a Swiss minister, was born in French Switzerland in 1807. Like many of his contemporaries, he attended university in both Switzerland and Germany, graduating with a degree in medicine in 1830. After graduation he traveled to Paris to study comparative anatomy under Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), a versatile French scientist. Cuvier was impressed with Agassiz's work on fossil fish, and this approval helped to set the course of much of Agassiz's future work. Although Couvier died...