The fascinating story behind a new book reveals how two competing 18th-century biologists shaped our understanding of nature in dramatically different ways, with consequences that still resonate today. Author's research uncovers how Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus and French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon developed opposing worldviews that would influence science for centuries.
The Vineyard Approach to Writing History
The author describes his creative process as a vineyard approach, where he works on multiple ideas simultaneously until one ripens sufficiently. The genesis of this particular book dates back to 2008, beginning as what he thought would be a straightforward biography of Carl Linnaeus, the famous Swedish scientist known for creating the biological classification system.
However, his research revealed surprising contradictions. Linnaeus didn't believe in evolution or extinction, holding instead to religious views that all life was a static creation by God. This discovery prompted the author to expand his scope, transforming the project into a dual biography that explores why Buffon, once more famous than Linnaeus, has been largely forgotten.
Clashing Worldviews: Nature as Noun vs Verb
The fundamental difference between these two scientific giants becomes clear in how they perceived nature. For Linnaeus, nature was a noun - something to be categorized and fixed. For Buffon, nature was a verb - dynamic, changing, and evolving. This philosophical divide shaped their entire approach to science.
Linnaeus sent his students on dangerous scientific expeditions across the globe, with more than half never returning due to shipwrecks, pirates, disease, and deprivation. These young researchers were poorly equipped for their journeys, reflecting Linnaeus's limited understanding of the practical challenges involved in global specimen collection.
Meanwhile, Buffon's more progressive ideas about evolution and extinction faced strong opposition from the Catholic Church, which forced him to disavow his findings. Both scientists struggled against religious dogma, but responded differently - Linnaeus accommodated it, while Buffon attempted to negotiate around it.
The Suppression of Evolutionary Thought
Perhaps the most startling revelation concerns Charles Darwin's initial unfamiliarity with Buffon's work. When Darwin shared his evolution theory with colleague T.H. Huxley, Huxley noted its remarkable similarity to Buffon's earlier ideas. Darwin admitted he had never read Buffon because in England, Buffon had been systematically suppressed while Linnaeus was glorified.
After reading Buffon's work, Darwin acknowledged the similarity in his Origin of Species, adding an addendum crediting Buffon as the first person to treat evolutionary ideas systematically. This raises profound questions about how scientific progress might have accelerated if Buffon's contributions had been properly recognized a century earlier.
The Birth of Scientific Racism
Linnaeus's classification system extended to humanity, where he created four racial categories: red Homo sapiens, white Homo sapiens, black Homo sapiens, and yellow Homo sapiens. He ascribed specific characteristics to each, claiming white Europeans were governed by laws while Africans were governed by superstition.
Buffon strongly opposed this reductionist approach, arguing that there was more ethnic variation in just North Africa than in all of Linnaeus's racial framework. Unfortunately, Linnaeus's classifications provided pseudoscientific justification for racism that would persist for centuries.
The debate over racial categories continued long after both men died, with scientists questioning whether Italians qualified as white and originally including people from North India in the Caucasian category. Buffon correctly identified North Africa through the Asian subcontinent as humanity's likely origin point - a theory supported by recent fossil evidence showing the oldest Homo sapiens remains precisely in that region.
Relevance to Modern Artificial Intelligence
The author draws parallels between 18th-century scientific debates and contemporary concerns about artificial intelligence. He warns that AI risks reflecting back our existing expectations rather than revealing new truths about nature.
Buffon's emphasis on patience, wonder, and perpetual discovery offers an alternative approach - one that acknowledges nature's complexity rather than forcing it into predetermined categories. This worldview of continuous exploration and humility before nature's mysteries represents the enduring legacy the author ultimately embraces.
The story of these duelling biologists serves as a powerful reminder that scientific progress often depends not just on discoveries, but on which ideas survive and which get suppressed in the ongoing battle for acceptance.
