Probably the most controversial individual in the ice age picture is Luois Agassiz. A personal friend of Charles Lyell, Agassiz appears to have had his own unique ideas on origins.
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The greatest obstacles in the way of investigating the laws of the distribution of organized beings over the surface of our globe, are to be traced to the views generally entertained about their origin. There is a prevailing opinion, which ascribes to all living beings upon earth one common centre of origin, from which it is supposed they, in the course of time, spread over wider and wider areas, till they finally came into their present state of distribution. And what gives this view a higher recommendation in the opinion of most men is the circumstance, that such a method of distribution is considered as revealed in our sacred writings. We hope, however, to be able to show that there is no such statement in the book of Genesis; that this doctrine of a unique centre of origin and successive distribution of all animals is of very modern invention, and that it can be traced back for scarcely more than a century in the records of our science.
Later in life, he opposed both Darwin and Häckel. I mean opposed, now.

Nevertheless, he was a major player in the ice age game. His origin myth seems to have involved a global ice age extinction event. Anyhow this ice age stuff is where we find even more Agassiz controversy.
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THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE GLACIAL THEORY.

Fxrrv years have now elapsed since the glacial theory was first formulated
and piomulgated. This brilliant scientific conception is commonly supposed to
have originated with the Swiss savant, Louis A~assiz; but Dr. Otto Volger, in a
recent paper published in the Ailgemeine Zeitung, of Munich (February 17th and
18th), affirms and clearly proves that Agassiz borrowed this idea from Karl
Schimper, and that he was not only fully conscious of this indebtedness, but also
most carefully concealed it. In the interests of truth and justice, and as a matter
of scientific history, it certainly seems desirable that the facts in the case should
be presented to the English-reading public.

Louis had quite a knack for finding people to help him with financial & other support. He eventually made his way to North America.
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wiki says:
The financial and scientific advantages presented to him in the United States induced him to settle there, where he remained to the end of his life. He was appointed professor of zoology and geology at Harvard University in 1847 where he founded the Museum of Comparative Zoology in 1859 and served as the museum's first director until his death in 1873. During his tenure at Harvard, he was, among many other things, an early student of the effect of the last Ice Age on North America.

The wiki on Agassiz isn't bad. I also found an online biography by some woman who seems to have been quite a fan.

I haven't found much on Karl Schimper. http://www.questia.com/library/encyclopedia/schimper-karl-friedric.jsp
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Schimper say about as much as seems to be out there. Nothing much on his motives & philosophies, so that's disappointing.


Dark Matter + Dark Energy = Dark Truth

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