Note: Presenting via Zoom as part of the Smithsonian Associates program.

What started out in the Revolutionary War era as an international dispute over natural history quickly took on important political overtones. The story revolves around Thomas Jefferson, naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, the comte de Buffon, and a very large dead moose. Buffon claimed that all life in America was "degenerate," weak, and feeble. Jefferson wanted to refute Buffon’s theory and decided that shipping the large dead moose to France would help demonstrate that a young America was every bit the equal of a well-established Europe. Despite Jefferson's passionate refutation, the theory of degeneracy continued to have scientific, economic, and political implications for 100 years. It also began to work its way into the literature of the day, with folks like Benjamin Franklin, Henry David Thoreau, Washington Irving, Immanuel Kant, John Keats, and Lord Byron entering the fray. Eventually the degeneracy argument died, but it did not die an easy death.

Evolutionary biologist Lee Alan Dugatkin highlights this tale of both natural history and American history.