A topic in Learners' conceptions and thinking
There are many ideas that have been mooted in the history of science (and, before science was formally recognised, 'natural philosophy') that are no longer used in scientific discourse today (phlogiston, caloric, the luminiferous ether….)
Some of the alternative conceptions listed below might be seen as lay ideas (folk notions) but were seriously considered by scientists / natural philosophers.
Read about historical scientific conceptions
Some historical examples of notions about the natural world (that would now be considered alternative conceptions)
* refers to the use of the idea as a referent
alchemy
- alchemy was was not clearly delineated from natural magic
- spirit of wine nourishes the stone
- symbols of the serpent wriggled and twisted over chemical writing
(see also 'transformation of materials')
anatomy and physiology
- animal spirits pass through the nerves to bring about sensation and motion
- blood moves away from the heart in all the blood vessels
animals
anthropology
read about racialism and anthropometry
atoms
caloric
- caloric is involved in combustion
- heat is a material substance
- heat is made up of caloric particles
- theory that heat is a substance led to mistaken opinions
cold
(Cold being considered as an entity in its own right, distinct from heat)
- atoms of cold are tetrahedral
- cold will force its way through gaps
- Francis Bacon promised a study of cold
- ice continues to be a source of cold till melted
- leaves go to sleep in order to escape the effect of radiation
- light expels cold
- matter can be attacked by cold
- we are but limited in the art of increasing the cold of bodies
comets and meteors
- comets are coals fired by blazing clouds
- comets are stones drawn up from our earth by the aether
- earthquakes are associated with meteors
cosmology
- continuous creation of matter maintains the universe in a steady state
- heavenly bodies naturally revolve because they are spherical
- heavenly bodies only move with circular motion
- masters of astronomy should have imitated musicians who tune their strings
- only godlike circular movements allow heavenly bodies to orbit with regular periodicity
- planet participates in the motion of the sphere to whose surface it was attached
- planets move around the earth embedded in concentric spheres
- the heavens are not liable to change and decay
- thirty-four circles explain the ballet of the planets
- Venus sits on a sphere which rotates independently as it moves with a sphere that rotates around the earth
read about Heavenly circular motion
development
ecology
elements
- animals unlike minerals and vegetables contain all four elements
- elements aspire to reach their proper spheres
- expanded air would become fire
- flame will be happy and contented when it reaches its own region of the world
- means of prophesying by manipulating the elements
- substances get heavier when burned because fire particles attach to the burned matter
- worldly matter is composed of four elements
ether (æther or luminiferous ether)
- atoms are vortexes in the ether
- cathode rays were due to peculiar undulations of the ether
- Clerk Maxwell considered the ether to be a reality
- comets are stones drawn up from our earth by the aether
- comets stir up the aether
- Earth turns around in the aether
- earth's true velocity is in relation to the ether
- electron in uniform motion produces a wake in the ether
- electrons in incandescent gases communicate energy to the ether
- ether prevents the Moon falling into the Earth
- gravity is a tendency to move to where the ether is rarer
- heavenly bodies and celestial spheres are made from a special ethereal substance
- heavenly spheres are formed of a very subtle ethereal substance
- heavens are made of aether and do not follow the rules of earthly matter
- light travels as impulses between particles in the ether
- light was imagined as a wave in the ether analogous to waves on the sea
- many great physicists studied the mechanical properties of the luminiferous ether
- perturbation of the ether accounts for refraction, dispersion, double refraction, absorption and the emission of light
- phlogiston weakened the repulsion between substance particles and ether
- physicists disagreed on whether the ether gets displaced or just vibrates
- planets are formed of a fifth element
- planets are made from ether
- self-induction is an actual inertia of the ether
- some men endeavour to pull all the stars around in the ether as though they had put chains upon them
- souls are made of a fifth element related to aether
- stars and planets are eternal
- universal aether may be densest nearest the Sun
- very subtle aether pervades and fills all things
- world picture of physics contains ether waves
- X-rays originate in undulations in the ether when cathode rays are stopped
read about the luminiferous aether
geology
great chain of being (scala naturae)
- High Middle Ages and Renaissance embraced the scala naturae
- ladder of nature ascends from minerals through plants and brute animals to humans
- planets have intelligence
- stars and planets are living beings like humans
infectious diseases
- bad air contains septic poisons
- infectious vapors arising from certain marshes and marshy soils cause fevers
- typhoid fevers were due to miasmas formed from rotting vegetation
levity
(levity seen as a discrete force/effect from relative gravity)
- comet tails contain levitating material
- fire and air have levity and tend to rise
- levity as a natural force
- phlogiston may sometimes possess the power of levity
- phlogiston might have negative weight
- there are particles with the property of levity
magnetism
medicine
- asthma is cured by drinking from the araguato monkey's hyoid bone
- feverwort to treat fever and liverwort to cure liver disease
motion
- falling body accelerates as it gets near home (followers of Aristotle)
- heavenly bodies only move with circular motion
- impetus of a projectile gradually fades away like the reverberations in a bell long after it has been struck (Galileo)
- projectile will abruptly fall to earth in a sheer vertical drop (Aristotle)
natural magic
phlogiston
- fire is a chemical element released in combustion
- hydrogen is water deprived of its phlogiston,
- inflammable air might be phlogiston
- oxygen is phlogisticated water
- phlogiston had weight
- phlogiston instantly revives dead metals-restoring them to life
- phlogiston may sometimes possess the power of levity
- phlogiston might have negative weight
- phlogiston refuses aqueous solution
- phlogiston was a chemical substance with colour and odour and weight
- phlogiston weakened the repulsion between substance particles and ether
- simple sulphureous substances contain phlogiston
phrenology
- from what I see of your head you are the man (George Stephenson)
- phrenology is like the astronomy of Copernicus
preformationism
solar system
- comets are ejected from celestial bodies and move in straight lines
- comets are formed out of exhalations from the earth
- comet may be directed by magnetism as well as being attracted to the Sun
- crystal spheres had enjoyed the happiness of circular motion
- fixed stars are intended to allow us to detect the motions of the planets
- planets are carried by epicycles eccentrics or other circles
- planets are set at different distances from the sun according to their densities
- the planets were formed after a comet knocked material out from the sun
- solar heat derives from burning coal
- there is no doubt that the planet Mercury is denser than this earth
spontaneous generation of living things
- animals and plants generate from seeds released by decaying bodies
- bees hornets beetles and wasps are beget out of carcasses and dung
- creature creeps from the corrupted muck
- shellfish and some plants arise by spontaneous generation
- sometimes scientific discoveries occur as if by spontaneous generation *
- young crayfish can be generated by distilling adults
stars
transformation of materials
- all metals are in the process of becoming gold
- any metal could be generated from mercury
- extraterrestrial vapours are transformed into salts, clay and stones
- lead and other metals would be gold if they had time
- pearls are congealed dew
vitalism
- animal electricity is responsible for life
- animal magnetism flows within the human body
- plant and animal bodies contain a steady invisible flame
