Steno, the religious scientist - A father of Science (part 2 of 2)

This is the second part of: Steno, the religious scientist - A father of Science (part 1 of 2). Be sure to read it before you continue!

Portrait of Steno as bishop - Wikimedia Commons

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Steno was not convinced by these explanations. He was an anatomist, convinced that every organ, every part of a body had a purpose. Neither teeth or seashells could exist "just because". He published his research and conclusions in his De solido intra solidum naturaliter contento dissertationis prodromus, better known as "The prodromus" or "Nicolaus Steno's dissertation concerning a solid body enclosed by process of nature within a solid" (they LOVED long titles back then, it made things look classy). It was, perhaps, the true first of its kind about geology in history.

In it, Steno describes the differences between the development of solids: inorganic , like crystals and; the organics, like seashells and bones. He also identified fossils as bones and shells that became rocky as they were buried in soft sediments. Only by saying this we can see an unprecedented leap of knowledge; but, he even went further and applied this reasoning line to a generic scale and how it could be used to interpret Earth's strata.

He introduced the concept of sedimentary rocks and claimed that they were layers that were deposited eventually burying organisms. He suggested that the Earth's crust displaced pushing those layers. As fossils were in those sedimentary rocks that started as silt in the bottom of rivers, lakes or oceans, then the deeper layers had to be older than the surface ones. But those layers did not form everywhere since water was not always present to form sediments. If a layer is formed by the same kind of rock and with the same kind of fossils, showing at two different places; then, it is reasonable to believe that both have the same age.

The previously stated is today known as "law of superposition". Besides that, since it happened under water he also proposed the called "Principle of original horizontality". Later, he proposed the "Principle of lateral continuity". As you can see, we owe a lot of wikipedia entries to this man!

Looking at it retrospectively, everything seems "so simple", but nobody even suggested it before!

From his observations at Tuscany, he deducted that water covered that area at least two times and that, at least once, the strata tilted and displaced.

He was considering to publish a second part of his book, but he faced a personal crisis in 1667 and after years of spiritual stress he renounced to his Lutheran faith and converted to Catholicism. He left geology to embrace faith, just as he left Anatomy to follow Geology. In 1675 he became a priest and two years later he was assigned as Munster's bishop.

The Pope John Paul II beatified him, making him the only canonized scientist in history! Around that time, he met Leibniz, that was very interested in that new branch of science, but Steno refused to talk about Science. Leibniz disaprooved that decision of changing science for religion: changing "...from a great scientist to a mediocre theologist".

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