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Overview
Alexander von Humboldt and others sparked a centuries-long debate about natural history and geological destiny by discussing what today we call the environment. Some now believe the earth cannot safely accommodate its growing burdens; other say longer life spans and more people are signs of progress. Are humans destroying the earth or building a better world? Will the future bring despair and destruction, or hope and improvement?
The Science and Discovery Series recreates history's four-thousand-year journey of scientific progress. Science has often challenged and upset conventional wisdom. This is a story of vested interests and independent thinkers, experiments and theories, change and progress.
Synopsis
Among the greatest natural historians was Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), who influenced Goethe, Darwin, and America's leading naturalists. Humboldt's Cosmos, published in five volumes from 1845 to 1860, stressed the unity of nature and discussed nature's vast details and unifying principles. He financed and led a scientific expedition to South America at the beginning of the 19th century, contributing profoundly to scientific knowledge of botany, geology, and zoology. Humboldt's careful measurements and descriptions also supported his speculations about more universal patterns in nature.
Despite all that has been learned about the earth, we are assured that vast discoveries remain, The earth's ten-mile-thin crust is only the outer shell of a radius that is nearly 4,000 miles, and the deepest human exploration has been only five miles into a petroleum well.