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Buffon's needle problem. The a needle lies across a line, while the b needle does not. In probability theory, Buffon's needle problem is a question first posed in the 18th century by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon: [1] Suppose we have a floor made of parallel strips of wood, each the same width, and we drop a needle onto the floor.
Social degeneration was a widely influential concept at the interface of the social and biological sciences in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 18th century, scientific thinkers including Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, and Immanuel Kant argued that humans shared a common origin but had degenerated over time due to differences in climate.
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon ( French: [ʒɔʁʒ lwi ləklɛʁ kɔ̃t də byfɔ̃]; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist, mathematician, and cosmologist. He held the position of intendant (director) at the Jardin du Roi, now called the Jardin des plantes . Buffon's works influenced the next two generations of ...
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that the human species can be subdivided into biologically distinct taxa called "races", [1] [2] [3] and that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism ( racial discrimination ), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.
Buffon believed there was a single species creation event, and that different regions of the world were homes for varying species, which is an alternate view than that of Linnaeus. Buffon's law eventually became a principle of biogeography by explaining how similar environments were habitats for comparable types of organisms.
Polygenism. Polygenism is a theory of human origins which posits the view that the human races are of different origins ( polygenesis ). This view is opposite to the idea of monogenism, which posits a single origin of humanity. Modern scientific views find little merit in any polygenic model due to an increased understanding of speciation in a ...
Pangenesis. Charles Darwin 's pangenesis theory postulated that every part of the body emits tiny particles called gemmules which migrate to the gonads and are transferred to offspring. Gemmules were thought to develop into their associated body parts as offspring matures. The theory implied that changes to the body during an organism's life ...
The history of scientific thought about the formation and evolution of the Solar System began with the Copernican Revolution. The first recorded use of the term "Solar System" dates from 1704. [1] [2] Since the seventeenth century, philosophers and scientists have been forming hypotheses concerning the origins of our Solar System and the Moon ...