SCIENTIFIC FOLLY by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 12, 1877

SCIENTIFIC FOLLY.

By Uriah Smith

If Paul was living to-day, we think he would have more occasion than ever to reiterate what he said to the Romans: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” Read the following which a correspondent from Illinois says is going the rounds of the papers in his section:—

“It is asserted by scientific writers that the number of persons who have existed on our globe since the beginning of time amounts to 66,627,843,237,075,256. These figures, when divided by 3,095,000, the number of square leagues on the globe, leaves 11,320,689,732 square miles of land, which being divided as before, gives 1,414,626,075 persons to each square mile. If we reduce these square miles to square rods, the number will be 1,853,174,600,000, which divided in a like manner will give 1,373 inhabitants to each square rod, and these being reduced to feet will give about five persons to each square foot of terra firma. It will thus be perceived that our earth is a vast cemetery. On each square rood of it 1,283 human beings lie buried, each rood being scarcely sufficient for ten graves, with each grave containing 128 persons. The whole surface of the globe, therefore, has been dug over 128 times to bury its dead.”

We could scarcely believe that such nonsense had ever been published, had it not been sent to us in print.

First look at some of its figures. The first figures are to be divided by the second, and the writer says it leaves the number expressed by the third array of figures. What does he mean by leaves? It cannot be the remainder, for the sum given is more than three thousand times as large as the divisor. He probably means the quotient. But let the reader divide the first by the second, and get the result for himself. He will not find a single figure correct. The quotient is nearly double what is there stated.

But what is most marvellous in the matter is this: The first figures represent human beings; the second square leagues of land; and the third, resulting from the division of the first by the second, represents square miles. How it is that dividing the number of inhabitants, by the number of square leagues on the globe, will give the number of square miles, is a sort of arithmetical jugglery, we are not acquainted with. It is the same as it would be to say, Divide the number of horses in N. Y. city by the number of stables in said city, and it will give you the number of hen-coops in Boston!

This astute calculator continues, “Which being divided as before.” Divided how? Divide the inhabitants again? What will this give us? If dividing inhabitants by leagues gives, first, square miles, dividing them again by the miles will probably give us square rods!

Dividing by the square miles as he gives them, he says gives 1,414,626,075 persons to the square mile. Let the reader try this calculation, and he will find only 5,885,493 inhabitants to the sq. mile, over fourteen hundred millions less than this mathematician says!

Again he says, “If we reduce these sq. miles to sq. rods the number will be 1,853,174,600,000.” Test this computation, and the reader will find 1,159,238,628,556,800 sq. rods, being 1,157,385,453,956,800 more than he has given us. He then proposes to divide the inhabitants by the number of sq. rods, and says it gives 1,373 inhabitants to each sq. rod; but taking the numbers he gives us as a basis, we can get no such result; we find instead, 30,557. So far he has not a single figure correct.

Again, after stating that there have been 1,373 inhabitants buried upon every sq. rod, a little further on he says, “On each sq. rood . . . 1,283 human beings lie buried.” In one rood there are forty sq. rods, but the number he here gives for a rood, is 90 less than he had just claimed for each sq. rod!

He goes on, “Each rood being scarcely sufficient for ten graves.” There being forty sq. rods in each rood, this would give us four square rods, or a space 16½ ft. wide by 66 ft. long for each grave! Surely he was making calculations for men in comparison with whom Goliath was a mere grasshopper.

But if, as he says, there are 1,283 human beings in every rood, this would not give as he asserts 128 persons in every grave, but it would give every person 8½ feet for his own individual use.

So much for the ridiculous absurdities of this piece of science which depend on the simple rules of multiplication and division. But what about the assumption with which this calculation starts out? How does this writer know that the number of persons who have lived since the beginning of time amounts to the quadrillions he names? Oh! scientific (?) writers assert it, and there are some folks, who, if you will only label it “science,” will swallow a chestnut burr and call it a cherry!

Let us then look at this matter a little further. There are according to the most careful estimates, about thirteen hundred millions (1,300,000,000) of human beings on the earth to-day. We will suppose that the race started with this number, instead of a single pair as the Bible asserts, and that a generation has passed away, according to the present short-lived standard, every thirty-three years. How many human beings will this calculation give us to the present time?

Make what concessions we will to the pretensions of geology, it cannot be claimed that any traces of human beings are found farther back than 6,000 years ago, the length of time given us in the Mosaic record. On our calculation of a generation for every thirty-three years, or three generations for each 100 years, this would give us 180 generations of 1,300,000,000 each, amounting to two hundred and thirty-four thousand millions (234,000,000,000) of human beings to the present time. This is certainly a very liberal estimate, much more than the reality demands; but for the sake of satisfying the most extravagant claims, we are willing to go upon this basis.

Now how much land would it take to give this company decent and uncrowded burial room. A space 2 ft. wide and 6 ft. long, 12 sq. feet, for each one, considering the many children who die, would be an abundant average. This would call for 2,808,000,000,000 square ft. =312,000,000,000 square yards =10,314,041,322 square rods, =257,851,033 roods, =64,462,758 square acres, =100,723 square miles. How much of the earth’s territory would this take up? There are in the United States alone 3,611,689 square miles, and in the single State of Colorado 104,500 square miles. Therefore there is room enough in Colorado alone, for every being that has ever lived, to find a grave 2 ft. by 6, and occupy it alone with none above or beneath him. These are plain facts which any schoolboy can easily figure out for himself. How inconceivably ridiculous, and how imposing in its scientific pomposity, is therefore, the statement that the whole surface of the earth has been dug over 128 times to bury the dead!

Reader, lay this fact up on some prominent shelf in your memory, where you can look at it when you will, that the single State of Colorado, is sufficient to give to every one who has ever lived in this world a clear title to twelve square feet, and have abundance of room to spare besides. And when science arises with such absurd pretensions to cloud the record of Moses, or the doctrine of the resurrection, smite its putty face with this iron-fisted fact. U. S.