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On a sunny January morning in 1833, through one of the Southern Channels of Tierra del Fuego, a British vessel sails alongside a smaller boat. The natives of the area, through screams and smoke, quickly communicate with each other the novelty, and dozens of canoes with hundreds of natives emerge to observe the peculiar event. Curious and friendly for the most part, somewhat aggressive at times, they observe the smallest boat approaching the shore with three Fuegians (two men and one woman) returning to their homeland after almost a year in London. To the surprise of their compatriots, who receive them almost naked, these three Fuegians dressed in European clothes, with short hair, speak English and they bring with them porcelain tea sets, bed linens, hats and dresses. This unique scene is only a small part of a larger story that was headed to oblivion at that hostile Southern tip of South America, except for the fact that it was part of extensive passages in the journey diaries of the two British protagonists of the same story: the expedition captain Robert Fitz Roy and the naturalist on board, and eventually one of the most influential scientists in the modern world, Charles Darwin. But in addition to those direct testimonies, a more or less standard version has been installed, restated time after time for almost two centuries; with a series of assumptions and errors that deserve to be reviewed and reassessed. The aim of this book is to reconstruct this story and, above all, review it from a critical perspective.

HÉCTOR A. PALMA is a Philosophy Professor (University of Buenos Aires), Master of Science, Technology and Society (University of Quilmes) and PhD in Social Sciences and Humanities (University of Quilmes). He is currently a Professor-Researcher at the University of San Martín and University of Hurlingham. His most significant books are Gobernar es seleccionar: historia y reflexiones sobre el mejoramiento genético en seres humanos (2005), Filosofía de las ciencias: temas y problemas (2008), Infidelidad genética y hormigas corruptas: una crítica al periodismo científico (2012), Ciencia y metáforas: crítica de una razón incestuosa (2016), Huellas de Darwin en la Argentina (2016) and Mejoramiento genético en humanos: de la eugenesia al transhumanismo (2019). He edited the books Epistemología de las ciencias sociales (2012) and Conexiones y fronteras: desafíos filosóficos de las ciencias sociales en el siglo XXI (2017).