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Claude Allègre

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Claude Allègre
Claude Allègre in 2009
Minister of National Education
In office
4 June 1997 – 28 March 2000
PresidentJacques Chirac
Prime MinisterLionel Jospin
Preceded byFrançois Bayrou
Succeeded byJack Lang
Personal details
Born
Claude Jean Allègre

(1937-03-31)31 March 1937
Paris, France
Died4 January 2025(2025-01-04) (aged 87)
Paris, France
Political partyPS (1973–2008)
EducationLycée Charlemagne

Claude Allègre (French pronunciation: [klod aˈlɛɡʁ]; 31 March 1937 – 4 January 2025) was a French politician and scientist. His work in the field of isotope geochemistry was recognised with the award of many senior medals, including the Crafoord Prize for geosciences in 1986 and the William Bowie Medal of the American Geophysical Union in 1995. His political service included a three-year term as Minister of Education in France, from 1997 to 2000.

Early life

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Allègre was born in Paris in 1937, and was the eldest of four children. His father was a professor of natural sciences, and his mother was a school headteacher. Allègre's family was from the Herault region of France.[1]

Background and scientific work

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Allègre's main area of research was in geochemistry.[2] He started work in this field for his doctoral research, where he focussed on ways of dating rocks using isotope geochemistry; specifically radiometric dating.[3] After realising that there was no laboratory in France where he could make measurements with the accuracy he was seeking, Allègre received a NATO grant and spent the summer of 1965 working at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. Here, Allègre began working with Jerry Wasserburg, and learned the techniques required for rubidium-strontium dating of rocks by mass spectrometry. Allègre returned to France, and over the next three years built a laboratory and began making isotopic measurements. In 1968, he took up a position at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), where he then spent most of his scientific career.[3]

Over the next thirty years, Allègre and his research students, post-doctoral researchers and collaborators developed techniques that meant they were able to measure isotope abundances in rocks and minerals by mass spectrometry that set new standards of sensitivity and precision. This allowed Allègre and his team to develop new ideas about the age and chemical evolution of the outer parts of the Earth, and also provide new information and insight into the early history of the solar system, by dating meteorites.[4] Allègre defined the new field of 'chemical geodynamics'. This combined data from isotope geochemistry with constraints from geophysics to develop ideas about the long-term chemical evolution of the planet, from core-formation to crustal growth.[5]

Allègre's work had a substantial impact on the field of geochemistry, for which he received a number of awards and elections to national academies, including the US National Academy of Sciences in 1985,[6] and the Royal Society in 2002.[7] He was also awarded senior medals for his work, from the Geochemical Society (V.M. Goldschmidt award, 1986) and the American Geophysical Union (Bowie medal, in 1995).[8] In 1986, he was jointly awarded the Crafoord Prize with Wasserburg, in recognition of their 'pioneering work in isotope geology'.[9]

Scientific administration

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Allègre made many contributions to the organisation of the geological and geochemical sciences in France and Europe throughout his career. In 1981, he became the first president of the European Union of Geosciences (EUG), which was established to coordinate a biennial scientific congress for geoscientists across Europe.[10] The EUG later merged with the European Geophysical Union, to become the European Geosciences Union (EGU), in 2004. In 1988, Allègre created the European Association of Geochemistry and presided over an inaugural international conference on geochemistry in Paris. This led to the establishment of the annual 'Goldschmidt Conferences' of the international geochemistry community, in cooperation with the Geochemical Society which are held in alternate years in Europe, and in the United States.[11] In 2004, Allègre was presented with the distinguished service award of the Geochemical Society for his 'enormous' service to the geochemical profession. In his citation, Al Hofmann commented that Allègre's 'actions have not always been popular ... but they have always been guided by far-sighted strategic thinking and planning, and usually by deep insight.' He also characterised Allègre's approach to service as one that involved 'hatching a far-flung idea ... hand picking a few people ... and then letting them do the work.'[11]

Scientific works

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Over the course of his career, Allègre published many scientific papers. He also authored a number of scientific monographs and textbooks, including:

  • Introduction to geochemistry (1974).[12]
  • Trace elements in igneous petrology : a volume in memory of Paul W. Gast (1978)[13]
  • From stone to star : a view of modern geology (1992)[14]
  • Isotope geology (2008) [15]

Allègre also wrote a number of popular science texts, on topics such as the history of the Earth and the plate tectonic revolution. His 1988 book, The behaviour of the Earth, gained praise from reviewers for presenting a perspective on the French scientific contributions to the history of plate tectonics.[16] Historian of geology, David Leveson, cautioned that the narrative promoted a 'Whiggish' telling of the story of plate tectonics as one of progress, from the viewpoint of an insider.[17] While Allègre's account of the new global geology of plate tectonics was 'lyrical' and 'rhapsodic', Leveson argued that Allègre's focus on progress meant that he was was not able to successfully place 'mobilist geology in it's "proper" sociological context' in this book.[17]

Scientific controversies

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In 1976, Allègre and volcanologist Haroun Tazieff became involved in an intense and public quarrel about whether inhabitants should evacuate the areas surrounding the la Soufrière volcano on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, which had begun to show signs of unrest, including steam explosions.[18] Allègre held that inhabitants should be evacuated, while Tazieff held that the Soufrière was harmless because all analyses pointed to a purely phreatic eruption with no sign of fresh magma. In part out of caution, the authorities decided to follow Allègre's advice and evacuate. The eruptive crisis did not result in any damage. Allègre, as the director of Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, subsequently expelled Tazieff from that institute. The controversy dragged on for many years after the end of the eruption, and ended up in court.[19]

Political career

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A one time member of the French Socialist Party, Allègre is better known to the general public for his political responsibilities, which included serving as Minister of Education of France in the Jospin cabinet from 4 June 1997 to March 2000, when he was replaced by Jack Lang. His outpourings of critiques against teaching personnel, as well as his reforms, made him increasingly unpopular in the teaching world.[20][21] In 1996, Allegre published La Défaite de Platon, ("The defeat of Plato"), described by mathematician Pierre Schapira in the Spring 1997 edition of Mathematical Intelligencer as "one of the most savage broadsides against conceptual thought."[22]

In the run-up to the 2007 French presidential election, he endorsed Lionel Jospin, then Dominique Strauss-Kahn, for the Socialist nomination, and finally sided with the ex-Socialist Jean-Pierre Chevènement, against Ségolène Royal. When Chevènement decided not to run, he publicly declined to support Royal's bid for the presidency, citing differences over nuclear energy, GMOs and stem-cell research. He later became close to conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy.[23]

Views on global warming

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In an article in 2006 entitled "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" in L'Express, a French weekly, Allègre cited evidence that Antarctica's gaining ice and that Mount Kilimanjaro's retreating snow caps, among other global-warming concerns, might be due to natural causes. He said that "[t]he cause of this climate change is unknown".[24] This represented` a change of mind, since Allègre wrote in 1987 that "By burning fossil fuels, man increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which, for example, has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century".[25]

Allègre accused those agreeing with the mainstream scientific view of global warming of being motivated by money, saying that "the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!"[26]

In 2009, when it was suggested that Claude Allègre might be offered a position as minister in President Nicolas Sarkozy's government, TV presenter and environmental activist Nicolas Hulot stated:

"He doesn't think the same as the 2,500 scientists of the IPCC, who are warning the world about a disaster; that's his right. But if he were to be recruited in government, it would become policy, and it would be a bras d'honneur to those scientists. [...] [It] would be a tragic signal, six months before the Copenhagen Conference, and something incomprehensible coming from France, which has been a leading country for years in the fight against climate change!"[27]

In a 2010 petition, more than 500 French researchers asked Science Minister Valérie Pécresse to dismiss Allègre's book L'imposture climatique, claiming the book was "full of factual mistakes, distortions of data, and plain lies".[28][29] Allègre described the petition as "useless and stupid".[30]

Later life and death

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Allègre suffered a heart attack while at a scientific conference in Chile in 2013. He was hospitalised, but recovered.[31] He died in Paris on 4 January 2025, at the age of 87.[32]

Awards and honors

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ Bris, Isabelle (4 January 2025). "Disparition : Claude Allègre, héraultais et ancien ministre de l'Éducation nationale, est mort à 87 ans" – via franceinfo.
  2. ^ "Geochemical Fellows". Geochemical Society. 2015. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  3. ^ a b Allègre, Claude (1987). "Acceptance speech for the V. M. Goldschmidt award". Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 51: 1773–1774. doi:10.1016/0016-7037(87)90356-5.
  4. ^ a b "Professor Claude Allegre ForMemRS" – via Royal Society.
  5. ^ a b Tilton, G.R. (1987). "Introduction of Claude Allègre for the V. M. Goldschmidt Award 1986". Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 51: 1771–1772. doi:10.1016/0016-7037(87)90355-3.
  6. ^ a b "Claude J. Allègre". nasonline.org – via National Academy of Sciences.
  7. ^ Curtis, Polly (May 13, 2002). "Society defends its scientific decision" – via The Guardian.
  8. ^ a b Anderson, Don L. (1995). "Allegre receives the William Bowie Medal". EOS Transactions, American Geophysical Union. 72: 535.
  9. ^ a b "The Crafoord Prize 1986". 1 June 1986 – via The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
  10. ^ Schlich, Roland (1 October 2003). "Historical highlights of the European Union of Geosciences (EUG)". Retrieved 6 January 2024.
  11. ^ a b Hofmann, Albrecht W (2006). "Citation for presentation of the 2004 distinguished service award to Claude J. Allègre". Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 70 (18): S19.
  12. ^ Allègre, C.J.; Michard, G. (December 1974). Introduction to Geochemistry. Springer Netherlands. ISBN 9789027704986.
  13. ^ Allègre, C.J.; Hart, S.R. (1985). Trace elements in igneous petrology : a volume in memory of Paul W. Gast. Developments in petrology. Vol. 5. Elsevier. pp. 1–272. ISBN 0444416587.
  14. ^ Allègre, C.J. (1992). From stone to star : a view of modern geology. Translated by Deborah Kurmes van Dam. Harvard University Press. p. 287. ISBN 0674838661.
  15. ^ Allègre, C.J. (2008). Isotope Geology. Translated by Christopher Sutcliffe. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780511809323.
  16. ^ Wyllie, Peter J. (1988). "Earth Science and History: The Behavior of the Earth. Continental and Seafloor Mobility. Claude Allègre. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1988. Translated from the French by Deborah Kurmes van Dam". Science. 242: 1451–1452.
  17. ^ a b Leveson, David J. (1991). "Whiggism and its sources in Allègre's The Behaviour of the Earth". Earth Sciences History. 10: 29–37.
  18. ^ "La Recherche, France: La Soufriére's first victim". Nature. 264: 500. 1976.
  19. ^ Beauducel, F. (August 2006). "À propos de la polémique" [About the Controversy]. Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (in French). Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  20. ^ Lisa K. Menéndez Weidman (2001). "Policy Trends and Structural Divergence in Educational Governance: The Case of the French National Ministry and US Department of Education". Oxford Review of Education. 27 (1): 75–84. JSTOR 1050994.
  21. ^ Guiney, M. Martin (2012). "The Literature Problem in the 'Lycée: French Education Debates Today". The French Review. 85 (4): 642–655. JSTOR 23214720.
  22. ^ Schapira, P (1997). "Defense of the conceptual". The Mathematical Intelligencer. 19: 7–8.
  23. ^ Inter, La rédaction numérique de France (January 4, 2025). "Claude Allègre, ancien ministre de l'Éducation nationale, est mort à l'âge de 87 ans". France Inter.
  24. ^ Neiges du Kilimandjaro – La cause de la modification climatique reste inconnue. Donc, prudence Archived 2008-04-22 at the Wayback Machine, L'Express, 2006
  25. ^ C. Allègre : 12 Clés pour la géologie, Belin/France Culture, 1987. Original quote in French : En brûlant des combustibles fossiles, l’homme a augmenté le taux de gaz carbonique dans l’atmosphère, ce qui fait, par exemple, que depuis un siècle la température moyenne du globe a augmenté d’un demi-degré.; also quoted in (in French) Le Monde, October, 3 2006.
  26. ^ "US Senate Environmental & Public Works Committee". Archived from the original on November 14, 2006. Retrieved November 14, 2006.
  27. ^ "Pour Nicolas Hulot, Claude Allègre au gouvernement 'serait un signal tragique". AFP. May 24, 2009. Archived from the original on May 29, 2009.
  28. ^ "Claude Allègre accusé de falsification par Håkan Grudd". sciences.blogs.liberation.fr.
  29. ^ "Plus de 400 climatologues en appellent à la ministre". Le Monde.fr (in French). Retrieved 2016-11-10.
  30. ^ Enserink, Martin (9 April 2010). "Scientists Ask Minister to Disavow Predecessor's Book". Science. 328 (5975). Paris: 151. doi:10.1126/science.328.5975.151. PMID 20378780. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
  31. ^ "Claude Allègre hospitalisé au Chili après un infarctus". January 19, 2013 – via Le Monde.
  32. ^ "Claude Allègre, ancien ministre de l'Éducation nationale, est décédé". Le Figaro (in French). Retrieved 4 January 2025.
  33. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter A" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 15 April 2011.
  34. ^ "Wollaston Medal" – via The Geological Society.
  35. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2022-04-01.
  36. ^ "Médailles d'or". Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (in French). Archived from the original on 2011-01-20. Retrieved 15 April 2011.
  37. ^ "Claude Allègre" – via Académie des Sciences.
  38. ^ "MEDALLISTS". European Union of Geosciences. Retrieved 30 April 2020.

Sources

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Political offices
Preceded by Minister of Education
1997–2000
Succeeded by