Chapter 2-- Jennifer E

According to The Sixth Extinction an Unnatural History, on page 27 it states, “ The animal was, he maintained with Buffon, the largest of all beasts-- ‘five or six times the cubic volume of the elephant.’ (This would disprove the theory, popular in Europe at the time, that the animal of the New World were smaller and more ‘degenerate’ than those of the Old.)” (CL) This shows that early scientists around the 1700's had this idea that the New World was under developed, which reflects on their view of  animals that lives in the New World. This relates to the greater theme that science is constantly changing the way we understand the world. Through observation and the scientific method, scientists are able to continue to test theory and alter it based on their new discovery. In the quote, it clearly demonstrates that after this investigation, the beliefs of scientists changed and that other areas of the world have different species of animals. Overall, it illustrates that our understanding of  the world is still evolving and changing the way scientists think.