The book in question reads as an overly generous portrayal of a deeply flawed individual, David Starr Jordan, whose actions and beliefs hardly warrant the sympathetic lens through which he is presented. While the author does acknowledge the problematic aspects of her subject towards the book’s conclusion, phrases like, “That’s how his story ends. David Starr Jordan was allowed to emerge unscathed, unpunished for his sins, because this is the world in which we live. An uncaring world with no sense of cosmic justice encoded anywhere in its itchy, meaningless fabric,” and “The category “fish” doesn’t exist. That category of creature so precious to David, the one that he turned to in times of trouble, that he dedicated his life to seeing clearly, was never there at all” feel like insufficient afterthoughts. These acknowledgments, intended to highlight a form of ‘cosmic justice,’ arrive too late and carry too little weight to counterbalance the preceding narrative.
Although the book is presented as a personal memoir, charting the author’s struggle to overcome her initial idealization of David Starr Jordan, this approach ultimately undermines the gravity of the story being told. This is particularly evident when examining the book’s treatment of critical issues such as Jordan’s role in covering up a sex scandal and his fervent involvement in the eugenics movement.
One glaring example of this problematic generosity is how the book addresses Jordan’s involvement in a scandal that was, at best, a sex scandal and, at worst, a case of potential sexual assault. The narrative offers this paragraph: “It had been Charley Gilbert’s fault. Good old Charley Gilbert. His student turned traveling companion turned chair of Stanford’s zoology department. Charley, long-healed from his hiking accident, long-married, had begun an affair with a young Stanford woman. He and the woman were discovered one day by a librarian, who came to David demanding that Charley be fired for such impropriety. But David did not want to lose Charley from his ranks—that “brilliant” taxonomic mind!—so David, thinking on his feet, threatened the librarian with “ incarceration in the insane asylum for sexual perversity” (often code for homosexuality) if he breathed a word of it to anyone else. That succeeded in shutting the librarian up—he quit Stanford, left town.”
The paragraph is riddled with issues. Firstly, it attempts to absolve Jordan of responsibility with the phrase “It had been Charley Gilbert’s fault,” immediately shifting blame. Secondly, it completely downplays Jordan’s egregious misuse of power. Instead of confronting Jordan’s actions directly, the narrative deflects and minimizes, failing to hold him accountable for silencing the librarian and protecting Gilbert at the expense of ethical conduct. This episode reveals a pattern of prioritizing institutional reputation and personal loyalty over justice and morality, a pattern that becomes even more disturbing when considering Jordan’s involvement with eugenics.
The book’s handling of Jordan’s commitment to eugenics is equally troubling. Early in the narrative, Jordan’s affinity for eugenic ideology is hinted at through the introduction of Louis Agassiz: “Louis Agassiz, of course. The statue had actually been the Stanfords’ idea—they had long admired Agassiz’s teaching philosophies—but David was overjoyed. It didn’t seem to bother him that by the time the statue was commissioned, Agassiz’s image was anything but pure. Not only had Agassiz failed to accept the theory of evolution (the mark of a scientific fool by that point), but his faith in a natural hierarchy had empowered him to advance one of the most hateful and destructive fallacies in scientific history. Till his dying day, Agassiz was one of the country’s loudest proponents of the idea of polygenism—the belief that races are different species, and that black people, in particular, were subhuman. He lectured widely and forcefully on the topic. When consulted by the Lincoln administration during the Civil War, for example, he had given his opinion that blacks, if freed, should be segregated from whites, because they would never be able to live peacefully among them. Citing bunk measures and imaginary ranks, Agassiz asserted that black people were biologically “unfit” for civilization. It wasn’t their fault, he said, it was simply a matter of science: they were too “childlike” and “sensuous” and “playful” by nature. Too low on that immutable ladder of life.”
However, when Agassiz’s statue is later toppled by an earthquake, the author’s reaction is not one of acknowledging any poetic justice, but rather, “To me, there is no clearer message: Chaos reigns,” and “It is now that I would have given up. My prophet desecrated, my dream shattered, decades of persistence proved futile, I would have headed for the basement to give in, at long last, to the great temptation.” This reaction seems to prioritize the author’s personal disappointment over the symbolic significance of the statue’s fall, especially given Agassiz’s reprehensible views.
It is only much later, after three-quarters of the book, that a chapter is finally dedicated to explicitly labeling eugenics as wrong. By this point, however, the acknowledgment feels hollow and insufficient. This sense is further compounded in the subsequent chapter with passages like: “Looking at the full spread of David’s emotional anatomy, the most obvious culprit seems to be that thick “shield of optimism” he was so proud to possess. He had “ a terrifying capacity for convincing himself that what he wanted was right,” writes scholar Luther Spoehr, who was struck by how David’s certainty in himself, his self-delusion and hardheadedness, only seemed to intensify over the years.” and “Perhaps that group of psychologists had been right, the ones who warned that positive illusions can ferment into a vicious thing if left unchecked, capable of striking out against anything that stands in our way. But could that have explained all of it? How hard David was able to push his eugenics agenda, how far? Overconfidence, grit, and pride make a dangerous cocktail, surely, but they didn’t seem to fully account for how rabidly he devoted himself to the cause of genetic cleansing.”
These paragraphs attempt to rationalize Jordan’s fervent eugenics advocacy as a consequence of unchecked optimism and self-delusion, rather than confronting it as a manifestation of deeply ingrained prejudices amplified by institutional power. The book seems to struggle to reconcile its sympathetic portrayal of Jordan with the undeniable harm of his actions and beliefs. This struggle is reflected in the author’s seemingly late and somewhat muted critique, making the eventual acknowledgment that “the category ‘fish’ doesn’t exist” feel more like a biographical footnote than a central, illuminating insight into Jordan’s flawed legacy. Ultimately, the book’s generosity towards David Starr Jordan overshadows a necessary critical examination of his profoundly problematic impact, leaving the reader questioning whether such generosity is truly deserved.
