Phlogiston Research Articles

The Chemical Revolution and its Chymical Antecedents

In 1989, the late Frederic L. Holmes published an important cor rective to the history of eighteenth-century chemistry. In the bril liantly succinct 144 pages of his Eighteenth-Century Chemistry as an Investigative Enterprise, Holmes argued that historians have tradi tionally placed far too much emphasis on Antoine-Laurent Lavoi sier's resounding defeat of the phlogiston theory and indeed on the chemistry of airs more generally. Such radically discontinuist pic tures of Lavoisier's contribution had given the impression that his immediate predecessors contributed little but error to the history of chemistry. Holmes advocated a much more balanced treatment of chemistry in the era of the Enlightenment, a new approach that would give due consideration to the quotidian developments of ordi nary chemists before and during the Chemical Revolution. In this way it would be possible not only to arrive at a truer picture of the goals common to eighteenth-century chemists, but to chart the

Sex, Lies, and Phlogiston

Sex, Lies, and Phlogiston

Climate Science and the Phlogiston Theory

On 2 February 2007 the Intergovernmental Governmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) released a “Summary for Policymakers” which is a precis – written by its representatives, not all of whom were scientists – of its longer report, due for release in May. Drafts of the as-yet unpublished main report have been widely circulated and prompted much comment but views which differ from that of the IPCC and the main authors have been largely neglected. In response to the SPM ten scientists presented an alternative report based on the IPCC's draft document and this Independent Summary for Policymakers (ISPM) was released in London on February 5. The ISPM notes the limited level of knowledge of climate sciences and comments on hypotheses neglected by the IPCC SPM, and not surprisingly its conclusions contradict those of the IPCC. The rather alarmist IPCC SPM claims that it is between 90% and 95% probable that the observed climate change since 1950 has mainly been caused by mankind and in particular by the emission of CO2 produced by the burning of fossil fuel. In contrast the ISPM states that the extent to which humans are contributing to climate change is uncertain and will remain uncertain for some time. The ISPM also points out that that the observed climate changes are still within the limits of natural variability and can be explained by natural events, and suggests that some warming might be beneficial. This paper considers this controversy from the perspective of the history of science and shows precendents for questioning science orthodoxy.

Unification achieved: William Cullen's theory of heat and phlogiston as an example of his philosophical chemistry

William Cullen, lecturer in chemistry at Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities, spent many years formulating his own theory of heat and combustion, the most developed version of which appears in a little-known set of lecture notes of 1765. Cullen's theory is of particular interest to historians of chemistry as an example of his ideal of ‘philosophical chemistry’, an autonomous branch of natural philosophy distinct from the mechanical philosophy, with its own general laws and explanations of phenomena justified by observation. The theory assimilated Joseph Black's recent discovery of fixed air as well as Cullen's investigations of the generation of heat in chemical operations. It was formulated just one year before British chemists' sudden identification of new ‘airs’ was dramatically to change the field of phlogiston theory. The theory differs in important ways from any version yet discussed. It successfully brought both heat and elective attraction within its explanatory domain. It set out a causal hierarchy which reversed the usual pattern evinced in earlier sets of lecture notes, subordinating the mechanical to the chemical in the form of Cullen's theory of elective attraction. The paper argues that Cullen was attempting to bring the study of heat as well as combustion within the bounds of his ‘philosophical chemistry’ by means of his single unifying theory.

The “System of Chymists” and the “Newtonian dream” in Greek-speaking Communities in the 17th–18th Centuries

The acceptance of new chemical ideas, before the Chemical Revolution of Lavoisier, in Greek-speaking communities in the 17th and 18th centuries did not create a discourse of chemical philosophy, as it did in Europe, but rather a “philosophy” of chemistry as it was formed through the evolution of didactic traditions of Chemistry. This “philosophical” chemistry was not based on the existence of any academic institutions, it was focused on the ontology of principles and forces governing the analysis/synthesis of matter and formulated two didactic traditions. The one, named “the system of chymists”, close to the Boylean/Cartesian tradition, accepted, contrary to Aristotelianism, the five “chymical” principles and also the analytical ideal, but the “chymical” principles were not under a conceptual and experimental investigation, as they were in Europe. Also, a crucial issue for this tradition remained the “mechanical” principles which were under the influence of the metaphysical nature of the Aristotelian principles. The other, close to the Boylean/Newtonian tradition, was the integrated presentation of the Newtonian “dream”, which maintained a discursive attitude with reference to the “chemical attractions”–“chemical affinities” and actualised the mathematical atomism of Boscovich, according to which the elementary texture of matter could be causally explained within this complex architecture of mathematical “punkta”. In this tradition also coexisted, in a discursive synthesis, the “chemical element” of Lavoisier and the arguments of the new theory and its opposition to the phlogiston theory, but the “chemical affinities” were under the realm of the “physical element” as “metaphysical point”.

Phlogiston, fluid intelligence, and the Lynn–Flynn effect

Blair's assertion that fluid intelligence (gF) is distinct from general intelligence (g) is contradictory to cumulative evidence from intelligence research, including extant and novel evidence about generational IQ gains (Lynn–Flynn effect). Because of the near unity of gF and g, his hypothetical concept of gF' (gF “purged” of g variance) may well be a phlogiston theory.

The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War (review)

Reviewed by: The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War Robert H. Holden The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War. By Greg Grandin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Pp. xviii, 311. Illustrations. Appendix. Glossary. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $22.00 paper. The Guatemalan civil war that began in the early 1960s and ended with a peace treaty in 1996 became a one-sided affair. The armed forces and their paramilitary allies won, not just by killing guerrillas but almost anyone suspected of supporting them. Tens of thousands of civilians, including many Mayan Indians, were the victims of an unpardonable crime that is often classified as genocide. "This book," Grandin writes, "documents the nearly century-long intermittent mobilization leading up to the Panzós massacre [of some 35 Mayan demonstrators in 1978], focusing on the lives of a number of Q'eqchi' Mayans, mostly members of the Communist Party but not exclusively so" (pp. 3-4). In a fragmentary narrative that shifts back and forth from the late-nineteenth to the late-twentieth century, Grandin fastens on a few courageous individuals in the Alta Verapaz region who sought to challenge the worst effects of the coffee plantation system: the landlessness of the native inhabitants, the gradual erosion of their political autonomy and economic security, and the brutality with which the planters typically exploited their labor. Grandin artfully weaves these personal stories into the larger dramas of the country's growing dependence on coffee and banana production, and its experiences with dictatorship, democracy, military rule, land reform, communism, rural class conflict, insurgency and counterinsurgency. Compelling portraits of the interactions of political activists, plantation owners and the semi-proletarianized Indian labor force emerge from interviews and archival sources. Two arguments, one prominent and consistent, the other muted and confused, control the text. The first claims that Guatemalan violence from the 1950s to the 1990s was driven by a specifically Cold War redefinition of democracy. The United States and allies such as Guatemala's governments after 1954 undertook a "savage crusade" to convert democracy from what the Latin American left correctly understood it to be (economic equality, economic security and "social solidarity") into the [End Page 143] individualistic, free-market abomination known today as "neoliberalism." Since the Cold War was a terrorist crusade and the crusaders won, it follows that what passes for democracy today in Latin America is both a defeat for real democracy and an illegitimate "product of terror" (p. xv). Latin America is the Alta Verapaz. The second argument addresses the ever-delicate problem of violence and its undeniable prominence in the history of the Alta Verapaz. Grandin ridicules the "dubious armchair anthropology" (p. 101) that would identify a habitual and customary resort to violence as the typical way to resolve conflicts in Latin American politics generally or in Mayan culture. Yet Grandin himself repeatedly calls attention to just such patterns of violence in Guatemala, observing "a common pattern of community violence" (p. 114) in Indian towns and reporting that "Domestic and neighborly violence according to court records was a constituent element of daily life," so much so that planters themselves "systematically took advantage" (p. 149) of it to preserve their authority. Political violence drew on "ideological hardening and polarization" that led to "accelerating rhythms of frustration, fear, and extremism" (p. 173). He concludes his book about Guatemalan violence by rejecting as "myth" any interpretation of Latin American history that would spotlight violence, owing to "the danger of portraying Latin Americans as children of Cain" (p. 172). But to equate violence understood as a component of political culture with violence wrongly understood as a race marker is to confuse two different arguments. Racialist interpretations of history are rightly as discredited as the phlogiston theory of combustion. Both the exaggerated character of the first argument and the incoherence of the second stem from Grandin's failure to discipline his oft-expressed passion for socialism and his scorn for its enemies. Confronting the sins of the Left, Grandin exudes generosity and forgiveness: "The fact that the left, to use the term in the broadest sense possible, often repressed or silenced democratic ideals… does not make those beliefs and...

Scientific realism bit by bit: part I. Kitcher on reference

In this paper, I consider Kitcher’s (1993) account of reference for the expressions of past science. Kitcher’s case study is of Joseph Priestley and his expression ‘dephlogisticated air’. There is a strong intuitive case that ‘dephlogisticated air’ referred to oxygen, but it was underpinned by very mistaken phlogiston theory, so concluding either that dephlogisticated air referred straightforwardly or that it failed to refer both have unpalatable consequences. Kitcher argues that the reference of such terms is best considered relative to each token—some tokens refer, and others do not. His account thus relies crucially on how this distinction between tokens can be made good—a puzzle I call the discrimination problem. I argue that the discrimination problem cannot be solved. On any reading of Kitcher’s defence of the distinction, the grounds provided are either insufficient or illegitimate. On the first reading, Kitcher violates the principle of humanity by making Priestley’s referential success a matter of the mental contents of modern speakers. The second reading sidesteps the problem of beliefs by appealing to mind-independent facts, but I argue that these are insufficient to achieve reference because of the indeterminacy introduced by the qua problem. On the third and final reading, Priestley’s success is given by what he would say in counterfactual circumstances. I argue that even if there are facts about what Priestley would say, and there is reason for doubt, there is no motivation to think that such facts determine how Priestley referred in the actual world.

The discovery and rediscovery of oxygen

The therapeutic use of oxygen was pioneered in the early 20 th century by the respiratory physiologist John Scott Haldane. His work followed Claude Bernard’s description of the toxic effects of carbon monoxide. Haldane, having also observed the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning, became aware of the therapeutic benefits of oxygen in this condition. He was also an advocate of oxygen as a therapeutic agent in other respiratory illness, and made efforts to define how the gas could best be administered. The history of identification of oxygen as a chemical element is convoluted. In the 17 th century, the controversial John Mayow suggested that only a portion of air was necessary for sustaining life. Mayow’s work was largely overlooked during his lifetime, and his insight was subsequently eclipsed by the phlogiston theory, an erroneous concept widely believed for nearly a century after his death. This theory was ultimately disproved by Joseph Priestley in 1774. Although the point of primacy is somewhat contentious, Priestley shares the distinction of discovering elemental oxygen with Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, the French chemist, and Carl Wilhelm Scheele, the Swedish apothecary.

Resuscitation Great. The contributions of Lavoisier, Scheele and Priestley to the early understanding of respiratory physiology in the Eighteenth Century.

The mid Eighteenth Century was a time of great scientific experimentation and observation during which some of the basic aspects of respiratory physiology and metabolism began to be elucidated. This was the time when the fundamental elements of earth, air, fire and water proposed by Aristotle began to be reappraised. The Phlogiston theory was finally exploded and a basic understanding of elements, respiratory gases and metabolism began to emerge. It was also a time of radical social movements with political and religious unrest and revolution taking place. This scientific and social upheaval can be seen in the lives of three great chemists of that era: Scheele, Lavoisier and Priestley, all of whom added significantly to the pieces of the physiological jigsaw puzzle that was being put together at this time.

How to treat tremor.

This paper presents an example of 18(th) century medical thinking. The author, Dr Georg Ernst Stahl (1659-1734) was the founder of the phlogiston theory in the field of chemistry, a medical professor, and a court physician in Saxony and Prussia. His description includes a definition of tremor, the internal and external causes of tremor, the types of tremor, the diagnostic and prognostic signs, and the treatment. From a present (contemporary) point of view, some compounds that were then used in treatment may have had a limited therapeutic effect on some kinds of tremor. Protopin has an anticholinergic and GABA-ergic effect, and rhoeadin (tetrahydrobenzazepin) may have had an effect similar to that of neuroleptics. Nevertheless, it is not clear whether the recommended quantity of these compounds was sufficient for a clinical effect. Most of the prescribed drugs could only have had a placebo effect.

Richard Kirwan's Phlogiston Theory: Its Success and Fate

First proposed in the early 1780s, Richard Kirwan's phlogiston theory was the most successful enunciation of the English pneumatic approach to phlogiston. Phlogiston was identified with a material substance, inflammable air. In this paper, I explore the nature of Kirwan's theory, its success in the mid-1780s, the unprecedented collective attack on Kirwan's Essay on Phlogiston by Lavoisier and his colleagues, and Kinvan's ultimate abandonment of phlogistic explanation.

Richard Kirwan's Phlogiston Theory: Its Success and Fate

Richard Kirwan's Phlogiston Theory: Its Success and Fate

Intelligent Design Tangles Science and Religion

Singham Replies: Ted Lawry argues that the predictive power of theories is indicative of their truth. But dominant scientific theories have always made successful predictions; that is how they gained their ascendancy in the first place. The geocentric model of the Solar System, for example, had enormous predictive power. So did the phlogiston theory of combustion. But that did not prevent those theories from being supplanted by other theories that, in key respects, directly contradicted their predecessors.One way to sustain the position that, if a scientific theory works well and is predictive, it must be true is to add the supposition that we are currently living at the end of science, that is, that our current scientific theories are the final word. That position is more or less the one taken by science writer John Horgan. 1 1. J. Horgan, The End of Science, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass. (1996). But if we follow historical precedent and allow for the fallibility of even current highly successful theories, as David C. Nobes argues, then we are faced with the problem of how we would ever know when we have achieved “truth.”REFERENCESSection:ChooseTop of pageREFERENCES <<1. J. Horgan, The End of Science, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass. (1996). Google Scholar© 2002 American Institute of Physics.

Surprises and revelations in biochemistry: 1950–2000

Surprises and revelations in biochemistry: 1950–2000

Quantum Mechanics and Molecular Design in the Twenty First Century

It is argued that the conventional descriptions of chemical bonds as covalent, ionic, metallic, and Van der Waals are compromising the usefulness of quantum mechanics in the synthesis and design of new molecules and materials. Parallels are drawn between the state of chemistry now and when the idea that phlogiston was an element impeded the development of chemistry. Overcoming the current obstacles will require new methods to describe molecular structure and bonding, just as new concepts were needed before the phlogiston theory could be set aside.

The "Revolution in chemistry and physics." Overthrow of a reigning paradigm or competition between contemporary research programs?

Recent revisionist interpretations of the chemical revolution have left intact the core of the traditional view that its central feature was the overthow of the phlogiston theory by the oxygen theory of combustion of Antoine Lavoisier. The central confrontation has been seen as that between the adherents of the chemical system that Lavoisier built around his theory and the form of the phlogiston theory defended by Joseph Priestley. This essay contends that Priestley's use of phlogiston was so loosely connected with the older phlogiston theories descended from that of Georg Ernst Stahl that the events at the heart of the chemical revolution should be viewed more as a competition between two rival new research programs than as the replacement of a reigning paradigm.

The Kuhn-loss Thesis and the Case of Phlogiston Theory

The Kuhn-loss Thesis and the Case of Phlogiston Theory

Lavoisier in European Context: Negotiating a New Language for Chemistry ed. by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Ferdinando Abbri

508 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Dr. Harper is professor of sociology and chair of the Department of Sociology at Duquesne University. He is founding editor of the journal Visual Sociology and has published ethnographies on railroad tramps and rural artisans. His current research concerns the impact of technology on small farm culture. Lavoisier in European Context: Negotiating a New Languagefor Chemistry. Edited by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Ferdinando Abbri. Canton, Mass.: Science History Publications (Watson), 1995. Pp. vii+303; figures, tables, notes, bibliography, index. $45.95 (cloth). At the end of the 1780s, two volumes were published in Paris that were to bring about the total transformation of chemistry. One sug­ gested a new form of nomenclature, based on a mode of taxonomy proposed by the individuals whose names appeared in the title: Méth­ ode de nomenclature chimique, proposée par MM. de Morveau, Lavoisier, Bertholet, & deFourcroy . . . Hassenfratz & Adet (1787). The other vol­ ume was Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier’s Traité élémentaire de chimie (1789). The impact of the latter was such that the year 1789 has since been taken as the birthdate of modern chemistry. That this is still commonly accepted is reflected in the scope of the European Science Foundation (ESF) Scientific Program dealing with the “Evo­ lution of Chemistry in Europe, 1789-1939.” Thus it was entirely ap­ propriate that in 1994, during the Lavoisier Bicentennial and under the aegis ofthe ESF program, a dozen historians gathered to explore the historiography of the acceptance of these two publications, and especially the former, in different European countries. Lavoisier in European Context represents the outcome of their deliberations. What becomes apparent is that the response to the new French chemistrywas far from uniform, despite the fact that Lavoisier’s anti­ phlogiston theory was widely, and rapidly, accepted, in some circles at least. In countries previously wracked by war or the Inquisition, namely Poland and Portugal, respectively, the new chemistry satis­ fied new needs for scientific discourse, as described by Roman Mierzecki and A. M. Amorim da Costa. This was especially true ofPoland, which had a strong affinity with French culture. Yet, as Brigitte van Tiggelen shows, closer to France, in Belgium—where an active scien­ tific community existed—the response was cooler. Sometimes, as among the Spanish dyeing and metallurgical communities and French pharmacists, utility played an important role in adoption, as explained by contributors Patricia Aceves, Augusti Nieto-Galan, and Anne Claire Déré, respectively. In Holland, according to Lissa Rob­ erts, the fascination with instruments meant that Lavoisier’s experi­ ments could be readily demonstrated, which did much to bring about acceptance. Elsewhere, patriotism was a contributing, and blinding, factor. John G. McEvoy describes how in England Joseph Priestley fought TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 509 relentlessly against the adoption of alien ideas that had originated across the Silver Streak. He found allies in Scotland, where James Hutton remained faithful to phlogiston andJohn Robison abhored everything associated with the French Revolution, which included the metric system and the new chemical nomenclature. The main problem, as Arthur Donovan explains, was the essential tension be­ tween Lavoisier’s approach, which was embedded in mainstream French culture, and the Scottish (and English) tradition that favored a more cautious and individualistic response to the new chemistry and its associated language. This, as elsewhere, had much to do with different styles of thought. David Knight shows how Humphrey Davy promoted a mid­ dle line, while at the same time battling with his leading professional opponent in Paris, Gay-Lussac. In other cases, such as that examined by Anders Lundgren, the records of little-known chemists, such as the Swedish Anders Gustaf Ekeberg, provide important clues to the wider influence of Lavoisier. Lavoisier’s contact with Vincenzo Dandolo in northern Italy overcame early skepticism. Acceptance was aided by the fact that, as Marco Beretta points out, Dandolo was not only Lavoisier’s main translator in Italy but also an influential politician. Ferdinando Abbri moves the story to Tuscany, where Fe­ lice Fontan repeated Lavoisier’s experiments and confirmed their veracity but remained committed to phlogiston; while Giovanni Fabbroni contributed to the linguistic debate by proposing some names that were less appreciated by...

Out of the flames of phlogiston

In the Shadow of Lavoisier: The Annales de Chimie and the Establishment of a New Science. By Maurice Crosland. British Society for the History of Science, 31 High Street, Stanford in the Vale, Farringdon, Oxfordshire SN7 8LH, UK: 1994. Pp. 333. £9, $17 (pbk).