The Seashell on the Mountaintop

This book on the beginnings of modern Geology centers around Niels Stenson (A.K.A. Nicolas Stenonis, or Steno for short), a Danish scientist who uncovered for the first time the phenomenon of stratification.  The book covers his life and in doing so showcases a who's who of other scientists and philosophers of Steno's time, many of whom he had personal dealings with.

Seashells had been found on mountaintops for as long as people could remember and the explanations ranged from spontaneous generation to the aftermath of Noah's flood.  Steno used the phenomenon and his sharp scientific mind to uncover truths about natural processes when many of the other scientists around him were asserting preposterous claims not backed up by anything.  In fact, so much of science was subjective and affected by religious scripture back in Steno's time (late 17th Century) that it can hardly be compared to science of today. 

An interesting insight laid out in the book is that science and scientists were actually promoted and supported by the church!  This seems impossible with all the conflict between the two in subsequent centuries, but the Church was out to combat the threat of "Atheists."  An atheist at that time wasn't just someone who didn't believe in God, but rather someone that thought that the universe was random.  That there were no real laws (moral OR natural) and so people could really do whatever they wanted to.  The Church was out to help science prove that there were natural laws and that the universe had order and pattern.  However, there was still an adherence to scripture, and especially with the protestant religion to a very literal interpretation of scripture.  So scientists were constantly compelled to shape their theories in order to back up biblical passages about genesis, the flood, and anything else.  So while this burgeoning idea of experimentation and observation was distilling to the surface, at the same time the conclusions made were often leaps.

This is what made Steno such a special and ironic character.  His demeanor and his objectivity as a scientist were unquestionable, even if these did not equate with scripture.  Yet he was in the midst throughout much of his life of his own spiritual dilemma.  He eventually converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism and then became a priest, renouncing science and devoting the rest of his life to religion.  Despite this he never renounced his earlier discoveries that seemed to contradict much of the current orthodoxy.

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