Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology

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84 Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, Vol. 10 (2005) Peter McLaughlin ing explicit the logical consequences of materialism and affirming them. Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon published the table below (Table 1) in 1775 in the second supplement volume of his Histoire naturelle. The title of the table reads “Beginning, end, and duration of the existence of organized nature on each planet.” On the left all the known planets and their moons are listed. Then each row gives four numbers for each planet. Column 1 indicates the dates for the beginning of life on each planet – counting from the year in which the planets were formed. Column 2 gives the dates at which life ceases on each planet. Columns 3 and 4 give the durations of life in the past and the future (that is: before and after 1775). Take the second row for instance: on the Moon the first life forms arose 7,890 years after the formation of the Moon, they all died out 72,514 years after the formation of the Moon, so that life lasted a total of 64,624 years, and there is now no more life on the Moon. This is certainly an interesting, if somewhat wild, speculation. But how does Buffon think he knows all this? He is not merely maintaining, as does Kant, that there is probably life on other planets. He gives exact figures where and when; and (though this cannot be seen from the table) he is not speaking merely of the origin of some life form or other, but of the origin of particular species of organisms, which he can name. (The first organisms are huge aquatic animal, i.e. sea monsters.) The table stands at the end of two full volumes of reported experiments, observations, and calculations which are supposed to prove the conclusions drawn in the table. Buffon’s empirical base for these assertions consists almost entirely of a series of experiments performed in his iron foundry, in which he had metal and stone balls of various sizes and compositions heated up as high as the ovens would go: He then measured the cooling rates of these spheres and extrapolated the results to the larger spheres of the planets. From this data he concludes, for instance, that in 13,576 B.C. sea monsters arose on Jupiter’s third moon. The question that needs to be asked is: under what assumptions, philosophical, physical, historical, etc. is it reasonable or perhaps even compelling to believe this. I shall present some assumptions necessary to make the argument plausible that can be found explicated elsewhere in various other writings of Buffon. Assumption 1: All planets were thrown out of the sun at the same time. Plausible implications 1) All planets have basically the same physical composition and have been cooling down for the same amount of time. 2) The surface temperature on different planets is thus a function of the size of the planet, with minor adjustments for differences in the distance from the Sun and from other large planets. 3) Empirically based inferences about the material composition of the planet Earth, its age, and the date at which its surface temperature fell below the boiling point of water can be generalized to the other planets.
Spontaneous versus equivocal generation in early modern science Time elapsed since the Formation of the Planets .... 74,832 years BEGINNING,END &DURATION of the Existence of ORGANIZED NATURE on each Planet BEGINNING OF LIFE END OF LIFE ABSOLUTE number of years after the formation of the planets 5th satellite of Jupiter 5,161 THE MOON 7,890 MARS 13,685 4th satellite of Saturn 18,399 4th satellite of Jupiter 23,730 MERCURY 26,053 THE EARTH 35,983 3rd satellite of Saturn 37,672 2nd satellite of Saturn 40,373 1st satellite of Saturn 42,021 VENUS 44,067 Ring of Saturn 56,396 3rd satellite of Jupiter 59,483 SATURN 62,906 2nd satellite of Jupiter 64,496 1st satellite of Jupiter 74,724 number of years after the formation of the planets 47,550 a 72,514 70,326 b 76,525 98,696 187,765 168,123 156,658 167,928 174,784 228,540 177,568 247,401 262,020 271,098 311,973 DURATION OF LIFE 42,389 yrs. 64,624 56,641 58,126 74,966 161,712 132,140 118,986 127,555 c 132,763 184,473 121,172 187,918 199,114 206,602 237,249 JUPITER 115,623 483,121 367,498 Table 1 (Buffon 1775, 514) a in the original: 47,558 b in the original: 60,326 c in the original: 127,655 Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology, Vol. 10 (2005) 85 DURATION OF LIFE FROM T ODAY ONWARD 0 yrs. 0 0 1,693yrs. 23,864 112,933 93,291 81,826 93,096 99,952 153,708 102,736 172,569 187,188 196,266 237,141
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Deutsche Gesellschaft für Geschich
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Annals of the History and Philosoph
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Bibliografische Information der Deu
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Preface A new yearbook for history
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Zur Argumentations- und Vermittlung
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