What is buffon's theory?

Answer 1

- Proposed that species could change over time and that these changes could lead to a new organism - Suggested that similar organisms may have a common ancestor - As a student made significant contributions to the 19th-century debate on evolution - He was a naturalist, cosmologist and mathematician - As a mathematician, worked with calculus and the probability theory - 35 volumes of his histoire naturelle were published during his life and nine were published after his death - Suggested humans and apes were related - Buffon discussed the origins of the solar system, speculating that the planets had been created by comet collisions with the sun - He also suggested that the earth originated much earlier than the 4004 BC date proclaimed by Archbishop. Based on the cooling rate of iron, he calculated that the age of the earth was 75,000 years. - Buffon observed that some animals retain parts that are vestigial and no longer useful, suggesting that they have evolved rather than having been spontaneously generated. - He made the suggestion that species may have both "improved" and "degenerated" after dispersing from a center of creation - He also asserted that climate change might have facilitated the worldwide spread of species from their centers of origin.

Answer 2

Buffon's Theory proposed that the Earth was much older than the 6,000 years estimated by Biblical scholars at the time. Buffon suggested that the Earth was around 75,000 years old based on his observations of cooling rates of iron spheres. This theory was an early attempt to use scientific observation to estimate the age of the Earth.

Answer 3

The story of evolutionary theory truly begins with the Comte de Buffon (1701-1788). Eiseley (1958) outlines several patterns that Buffon was able to isolate; patterns integral to a syntheses that presupposes the existence of biological evolution, whether by natural selection, the inheritance of acquired characteristics, or another solution. The patterns are 1) life is generated in greater profusion that can be supported over time (what Darwin and Wallace drew from Malthus's work) 2) life is produced in great variety, variety inheritable by an organism's descendants. 3) there is relationship between similar structures in different species. 4) dramatically increased time is a variable offering solutions to the anomalies unexplainable by the 6,000 year old history suggested by The Bible. 5) species have become extinct. 6) relationships between species might be able to be discerned by conducting breeding experiments. Buffon's ideas come across like the melodies and riffs an orchestra might generate in the space of time before the conductor raises his or her baton. An order had not yet been established, but the patterns were in play. Evolution as a theory was now a consideration. It was being discussed, in the late 18th century, among those familiar with the patterns that Buffon and others had observed. What would later develop into the fields of evolutionary Biology, embryology (Haeckel, 1897) and geology (Eisley, 1958) were, in the 18th and early 19th century, the observation of different levels of experience noted to have patterns in common, specifically patterns that supported the suggestion of the passing of a great deal of time. Buffon put forth a specific definition of species which, once established, made it easier to conceptualize the relationship between one species and another. "We should regard two animals as belonging to the same species if, by means of copulation, they can perpetuate themselves and preserve the likeness of the species; and we should regard them as belonging to different species if they are incapable of producing progeny by the same means. Thus the fox will be known to be a different species from the dog, if it proves to be the fact that from the mating of a male and a female of these two kinds of animals no offspring is born; and even if there should result a hybrid offspring, a sort of mule, this would suffice to prove that fox and dog are not the same species -- inasmuch as this mule would be sterile." (Boorstin, 1983) By applying the tools of Descarte to the earth, its history, biology, geology, and the relationship between these different areas, Buffon would invent explanations based upon processes evidently operating in present time. Relying upon the information brought to him through his own senses, Buffon could imagine how these same events could effect the unfolding of the earth and its inhabitants over time. Buffon helped invent geological time. He estimated that the earth may have been exposed to the natural forces for anywhere between 78,000 and 3 million years. He considered that a single species might evolutionarily diverge into a number of species (Bowler, 1984). But his primary conjectures focussed on spontaneous generation and a fixity of species. With Buffon begins an attention to the environment as having an influence on species over time, responsible in some way for evolution. Other theorists, such as Maupertuis publishing the Venus physique in 1745, suggested that species were not fixed, and that the environment may, in some way, be compelling species to change over time (Bowler, 1984). But it was Lamarck who devised a theory that, he believed, explained the origin of species. For more information:http://www.serpentfd.org/historyevolutionchapter2.html

Answer 4

In a certain moment in the history of the universe, a catastrophe occurred. A comet (with star characteristics at the time) would have bumped into the Sun and from this shock was emitted a wave of solar material, condensing and forming planets.

Answer 5

Buffon's theory, formulated by the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–1788), proposed that the Earth was much older than commonly believed at the time and that it had formed through natural processes. Buffon suggested that the Earth had originated as a hot molten mass that gradually cooled over a very long period, and he estimated the age of the Earth to be around 75,000 years.

His theory challenged the prevailing view of a young Earth based on religious beliefs, and his ideas contributed to the development of modern geological thought. While Buffon's estimates of the Earth's age were not accurate, his emphasis on natural processes and the concept of deep time laid the groundwork for later scientific understanding of Earth's history and formation.