Just as we obviously don't think that every sentence containing the word "phlogiston" is untrue (consider "Phlogiston doesn't exist" and "17th-century chemists believed in phlogiston"), nor does the moral error theorist hold that every sentence containing a moral term is untrue; indeed, the use of such terms is surely essential to articulating and advocating the error theory.
On the other hand, Whewell explained, when phlogiston theory, which colligated facts about the class of phenomena "chemical combination," was extended to colligate the class of phenomena "weight of bodies," it was unable to do so without an ad hoc and implausible modification (namely, the assumption that phlogiston has "negative weight") (see 1858b, 92 3).
Further information: Joseph Priestley and Dissent; see also: Commons:Joseph Priestley Cartoons Although Priestley was busy defending phlogiston theory from the "new chemists", most of what he published in Birmingham was theological.
This would mean, for example, that when Priestley and Lavoisier watched the same experiment, Lavioisier should have seen what accorded with his theory that combustion and respiration are oxidation processes, while Priestley's visual experiences should have agreed with his theory that burning and respiration are processes of phlogiston release.
In their view, plumes were the phlogiston or the Sasquatch of geophysics, chimeras created to explain poorly understood phenomena that could be accounted for in other ways.
Another Nobel laureate, Paul Krugman, labelled a rival view of business cycles "Phlogiston economics", a reference to a debunked 17th-century theory of chemistry.
Should phlogiston theorists have the right to propagate their arguments?
In more modern times the phlogiston theory enjoyed scientific popularity.
Thus, wood was a combination of phlogiston and wood ashes.
Therefore, metals were composed of calx and phlogiston.
