“Buffon’s work created a great furore, of course. The theologians at the Sorbonne condemned him, and Buffon dutifully retracted. But he wasn’t sincere: ‘It is better to be humble than hanged.”

Source: Ages in Chaos (2003), Chapter 6, “Upon this chaos rode the distressed ark” (p. 55)

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Stephen Baxter 55
author 1957

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