Science

William Whiston's New Theory of the Earth of 1696 combined scripture with Newtonian physics to propose that the original chaos was the atmosphere of a comet with the days of creation each taking a year, and the Genesis flood had resulted from a second comet. His explanation of how the flood caused mountains and the fossil sequence was similar to Woodward's.

The book is organized as follows:

• Introduction, discussing the text of Creation according to Genesis

• Book I: Lematta, discussing the premises and assumptions on which his argument is based;

• Book II: Hypotheses, discussing his model for the origin of the Earth;

• Book III: Phaenomena, discussing evidence predicted by his model;

• Book IV: Solutions, discussing how his model explains the evidence;

• Appendix: An abstract of his theory drawn from various sources.

In the introduction, Whiston discusses the Mosaic account of creation. He argues for a literal interpretation of Genesis, writing:

"We must never forsake the plain, obvious, easy and natural sense, unless where the nature of the thing itself, parallel places, or evident reason, afford a solid and sufficient reason for so doing."

In so doing, he challenges allegorical and mythological interpretations of Genesis, concluding that:

"The Mosaic Creation is not a nice and philosophical account of the origin of all things; but a historical and true representation of the formation of our single Earth out of a confused Chaos, and of the successive and visible changes thereof each Day, till it became the habitation of mankind." (p.3)

He interprets the Genesis account of creation as being only of the preparation of the Earth for mankind, and not as an account of creation from nothing. He draws this from the text, as the account speaks of the waters that existed before God's first creative act on the first day, implying that the Earth predates Genesis chapter one.

He interprets the account of "placing the heavenly bodies in the firmament" as simply being a consequence of the terrestrial frame of reference, for the heavenly bodies do in fact revolve about the Earth from the perspective of a man standing on the Earth.

He describes his Arianism, or the view that Jesus is subordinate to God but first in creation, a view considered heretical within much of Christianity. He also asserts that it is very reasonable to believe that man may well be simply one of many intelligent beings, and certainly not the highest before God. He wrote that humanity was fallen, and currently in a miserable state akin to probation.

He concludes the introduction with his three Postulata:

1. "The obvious or literal sense of scripture is the true and real one, where no evidence reason can be given to the contrary.

2. That which is clearly accountable in a natural way, is not, without reason to be ascribed to a miraculous power.

3. What ancient tradition asserts of the constitution of nature, or of the origin and primitive states of the world, is to be allowed for true, where ‘tis fully agreeable to scripture, reason, and philosophy."

Meanwhile, orthodox Christianity was saved from

the embarrassing inadequacies of the Diluvial Theory

by the French geologist, naturalist, and member of

the Académie des Sciences, Baron Georges Cuvier

(1769-1832). To explain the progressive sequences of

fossils found in rock sediments, Cuvier proposed

a series of catastrophes, each of which had totally wiped

out animal and plant populations (thus producing the

fossils), followed by a period of calm during which

God restocked the earth with new (and improved)

species, The Noachian Flood was just one of these.

The Catastrophe Theory was a great balm to many

troubled minds. Adam Sedgwick, a geologist at

Cambridge University and a teacher of Charles Darwin, 

expounded the theory thus: 'At succeeding periods

new tribes of beings were called into existence,

not merely as progeny of those that had appeared

before them, but as new and living proof of creative

interference; and though formed on the same plan,

and bearing the same marks of wise contrivance, of-

tentimes unlike those creatures which preceded them,

as if they had been matured in a different portion of the

universe and cast upon the earth by the collision of

another planet.'

In formulating the Catastrophe Theory, Cuvier rou-

tinely took for granted an extreme rapidity of changes

in times past as compared with the present, but con-

ceded that perhaps a little more than six thousand

years was required. So, following the example of his

countryman, Comte Georges de Buffon (1707-1778),

he added eighty thousand years on to the age of the

earth. According to calculations of members of the

Académie, made after Cuvier's death, there had been

twenty-seven successive acts of creation, the products

of each but the last being obliterated in subsequent

catastrophes, thus providing a geological 'clock'. An

Englishman, William Smith (1769-1839), raised the

number of strata to thirty-two.

Opposite: This fossil

crocodile, illustrated in

Cuvier's book, The

Animal Kingdom (1830),

is obviously related to

present-day species

and it was such finds

that posed a problem to

the proponents of the

Diluvial Theory.

Baron Georges Leopold

Cuvier, the French

comparative anatomist,

explained away the

progressive sequences

of fossils found in strata

by proposing a series of

catastrophes, the Flood

being just one of these.

In one of the great statements in the history of science, Sedgwick, who was Buckland's close colleague in both science and theology, publicly abandoned flood geology and upheld empirical science—in his presidential address to the Geological Society of London in 1831.

Having been myself a believer, and, to the best of my power, a propagator of what I now regard as a philosophic heresy, and having more than once been quoted for opinions I do not now maintain, I think it right, as one of my last acts before I quit this Chair, thus publicly to read my recantation...

There is, I think, one great negative conclusion now incontestably established—that the vast masses of diluvial gravel, scattered almost over the surface of the earth, do not belong to one violent and transitory period...

We ought, indeed, to have paused before we first adopted the diluvian theory, and referred all our old superficial gravel to the action of the Mosaic flood... In classing together distant unknown formations under one name; in giving them a simultaneous origin, and in determining their date, not by the organic remains we had discovered, but by those we expected hypothetically hereafter to discover, in them; we have given one more example of the passion with which the mind fastens upon general conclusions, and of the readiness with which it leaves the consideration of unconnected truths.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/09/genesis-vs-geology/306198/?single_page=true

If free from prejudice, and willing to acknowledge the truth of that which is manifest, the cases we have just cited ought to satisfy any candid enquirer that obesity may be entirely overcome without prejudicially affecting the general health. At first sight, this would appear undeniable; yet medical writers, who have hitherto insisted that a meat diet is conducive to the development of fat, and that vegetables have an opposite tendency, will not frankly acknowledge their error.

Physicians who have derived their knowledge from books, and from the lectures of their teachers, must find it difficult to change their opinions in reference to obesity. With the public, when any one is told that the imbibition of large quantities of water is productive of fat, and that feeding upon animal food induces leanness, a similar degree of doubt is excited as when Galileo asserted that the sun did not revolve around the earth. On the publication of the first edition of my treatise upon Obesity, I experienced a degree of impatience, and even irritation, in view of the systematic opposition which a self-evident truth received at the hands of the medical profession. At the present time, however, I calmly recognize that the same happened in the case of every attempted innovation. I call to mind how Galileo endangered his very existence. Vesalius, the founder of anatomy, was saved from the stake only by the interference of his sovereign. Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation, was compelled to seek royal protection from the attacks of the medical men of his day. Peysonnel, a physician of Marseilles, and a great naturalist, devoted himself to the study of corals and madrepores. In 1727, he laid before the Academy of Science a monogram, proving to demonstration that corals and madrepores are structures due to animal life; that what Dioscorides, Pliny, Linnæus, Lamarck, Tournefort, &c. &c. had thought to be flowers, are in truth animals; and that these living creatures constructed and augmented their abodes; the Academy, like most learned bodies, admitted as truth only that which it taught, and consequently paid no attention to this memoir, which, nevertheless, was destined to produce an entire change in a large department of natural history. When, long afterwards, Trembley published his discoveries on fresh-water polypes, the studies of Dr. Peysonnel in this direction were remembered, and naturalists were forced to admit that the physician of Marseilles was right in maintaining that what had been taken for flowers are in reality animals. His claim as the discoverer of a fact which was destined to effect an important revolution in an extensive department of natural history, has since then not been disputed, nor could it be. All men, and men of science especially, require time before yielding to evidence, when that evidence is in opposition to preconceived views, and interferes with personal interest.

The system I have introduced progresses, and, as some might say, works wonders, and effects cures in France, in England, in Belgium, in Austria, in Russia, in Turkey, in Africa; and in almost every instance, my patients are persons occupying prominent positions—magistrates, state authorities, general officers, or men of wealth, who have enjoyed the advantages of a good education, and are able to judge of and appreciate the merits of my mode of treatment. The judgment of such a tribunal should convince the incredulous. This is no matter of faith. I lay claim to the possession of no revelation, which is not to be explained, or which is to rest solely upon my assertion. I do not say that my discovery is a mystery, and that it is your part to believe in it. Under such circumstances, disbelief would not astonish me, notwithstanding all the cases of cure brought forward; but when the nutrition of the body is explained in accordance with the laws of nature, when it is shewn to be in conformity with the well understood laws of chemistry, and that facts are cited, in reference both to man and the lower animals, in support of these phenomena, I confess that opposition to this system excites my astonishment. Physicians cannot by any possibility advance sufficient reasons against a system which, when once explained, must appear self-evident to every one.

Another fact in support of this system must be submitted to my readers. What would a medical man say if I should venture the following piece of advice: You have a horse you wish to dispose of. He is a good beast, and travels well, but he is thin. If he were fatter, he would look better, and you could sell him to greater advantage. Make him fat; and if, in order to do this, I advised him to give his horse a double allowance of oats, he would only laugh at me. He would say; why, everybody knows that if you wish to fatten a horse, the best way is to give him, in addition to an abundance of hay, bran, mixed with plenty of water, or in other words, bran mashes; or the horse may be sent to pasture, to live upon grass, which is composed principally of water and a small proportion of ligneous matter. Under such circumstances, the horse will make fat, and his form will become more round and plump; but if, when he was thin, he was able to travel thirty miles without sweating and without fatigue, now that he is fat he will scarcely be able to go five without being covered with sweat, and without shewing manifest signs of fatigue. When thin, he was a good horse; but being fat, he has lost his best qualities, which can be restored only by feeding him again upon less bulky food, with a due allowance of oats, and a small proportion of water.

I have been informed that the gentleman in charge of the stud of King Charles X. availed himself of the knowledge of this fact, and allowed only half the usual quantity of water to the horses under his charge, and that this plan was attended with the most satisfactory results, the horses being thereby able to endure a greater amount of fatigue than under a full allowance of water.

"A major outbreak of cholera reached the district of Soho, London, in August 1854. This was the third cholera outbreak in London, having previously occurred in 1832 and 1849. In the mid-19th century, Soho had a serious problem with filth due to the large influx of people and a lack of proper sanitary services: the London sewer system had not reached Soho at this point and drainage was poor throughout London. It was common at the time to have a cesspit under most homes.

By talking to local residents (with the help of the Reverend Henry Whitehead), Snow identified the source of the outbreak as the contaminated public water pump on Broad Street (nowBroadwick Street). He did this by mapping the deaths from cholera, and noted that they were mostly people whose nearest access to water was the Broad Street pump (see map below from On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, 2nd ed.). His studies of the pattern of the disease were convincing enough to persuade the local council to disable the well pump by removing its handle. This action has been credited with contributing significantly to the containment of the disease in the area. It was later discovered that the water for the pump was polluted by sewage contaminated with cholera from a nearby cesspit."

However, Snow’s theory was not new in 1854. He had argued earlier that it was not an airborne disease in his published essay, On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, in 1849. The germ theory was not developed at this point, so Snow was unaware of the mechanism by which the disease was transmitted, but evidence led him to deduce in 1854 that it was not due to breathing in foul air. In 1855 a second edition was published, incorporating the results of his investigation of the Soho epidemic of 1854.

Hand pumps like that on Broad Street were not the only source of Londoners’ water, or Snow’s only object of study during the 1854 cholera outbreak. The Lambeth Water Company and the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company were both supplying mechanically-pumped water to residents of South London (see map below from Tracts 376). Snow recorded cholera attacks in this area, alongside information about the water supply to the houses affected. He showed that the Southwark and Vauxhall Waterworks Company was taking water from sewage-polluted sections of the Thames and delivering the water to homes, leading to an increased incidence of cholera.