The French aristocrat who understood evolution 100 years before Darwin – and even worried about climate change

In Histoire Naturelle, a ­36-volume book Buffon worked on for 50 years, he also put forward the idea that animals were becoming extinct at a time when most natural historians believed that “God would never allow any species to ever disappear or arise over time”, according to Roberts. “The concept of species change and extinction was very controversial.”

The amount of shit that people have got wrong because of god…

Even without this key insight, Buffon postulated that new species must have come into existence and changed over time, while some species must have gone extinct. “That was a very, very radical idea at the time, and Buffon was censured for it by the Sorbonne: he had to write a statement publicly renouncing everything he had written,” said Roberts. Buffon was later formally accused of heresy for implying that Earth was older than the biblical record.

The number of people that have been wrongly persecuted because of god…

Religion is the most horrible invention in human history. It justifies mistreating others. It's used to control people. It causes people to believe fiction over fact. It's the one thing holding us back more than any other.

Even Darwin in his own book points out people who had these ideas before him. But that's not enough, you can't just go "ha here's an idea" and leave it at that. You have to work to prove it, and that's what Darwin did. The idea itself wasn't so revolutionary but everyone else's was just slightly wrong. Some for example believed evolution worked on all beings except humans, because we were work of god, and similar. Darwin came up with a correct one by using theirs as a base and then made his own, tested it and saw it worked. The amount of work Darwin invested in this theory alone was staggering. In fact the book itself "The Origin of Species" was something he was forced to write because people got afraid his work will go undocumented and he'll die soon. So he wrote that book as a summary with more books to come later in expanded and detailed form, which never came.

Only a hundred years ahead and didn't nail survival of the fittest? Pshh, amateur.

Here's Lucretius in 50 BCE:

In the beginning, there were many freaks. Earth undertook Experiments - bizarrely put together, weird of look Hermaphrodites, partaking of both sexes, but neither; some Bereft of feet, or orphaned of their hands, and others dumb, Being devoid of mouth; and others yet, with no eyes, blind. Some had their limbs stuck to the body, tightly in a bind, And couldn't do anything, or move, and so could not evade Harm, or forage for bare necessities. And the Earth made Other kinds of monsters too, but in vain, since with each, Nature frowned upon their growth; they were not able to reach The flowering of adulthood, nor find food on which to feed, Nor be joined in the act of Venus.

For all creatures need Many different things, we realize, to multiply And to forge out the links of generations: a supply Of food, first, and a means for the engendering seed to flow Throughout the body and out of the lax limbs; and also so The female and the male can mate, a means they can employ In order to impart and to receive their mutual joy.

Then, many kinds of creatures must have vanished with no trace Because they could not reproduce or hammer out their race. For any beast you look upon that drinks life-giving air, Has either wits, or bravery, or fleetness of foot to spare, Ensuring its survival from its genesis to now."

• De Rerum Natura book 5 lines 837-859

Bonus round, nearly nailed Mendelian trait inheritance too:

Sometimes children take after their grandparents instead, Or great-grandparents, bringing back the features of the dead. This is since parents carry elemental seeds inside – Many and various, mingled many ways – their bodies hide Seeds that are handed, parent to child, all down the family tree. Venus draws features from these out of her shifting lottery – Bringing back an ancestor’s look or voice or hair. Indeed These characteristics are just as much the result of certain seed As are our faces, limbs and bodies. Females can arise From the paternal seed, just as the male offspring, likewise, Can be created from the mother’s flesh. For to comprise A child requires a doubled seed – from father and from mother. And if the child resembles one more closely than the other, That parent gave the greater share – which you can plainly see Whichever gender – male or female – that the child may be.

• De Rerum Natura book 4 lines 1217-1232

Nice and interesting read, thank you for posting.

What a fascinating guy! He really was ahead of the curve. A pity his contemporaries repressed him so much.

What is that animal?