Lyell and Darwin, Geologists Studies in the Earth Sciences in the Age of Reform

About this book

The studies in this second volume by Martin Rudwick (the first being The New Science of Geology: Studies in the Earth Science in the Age of Reform) focus on the figures of Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin. Lyell rose to be of pivotal importance in the second quarter of the 19th century because he challenged other geologists throughout Europe by probing their methods and conclusions to the limit. While adopting their goal of reconstructing the contingent history of the earth, he claimed that the physical processes observable in action in the present could explain far more about the past than was commonly believed, and that it was unnecessary to postulate occasional catastrophic events of still greater intensity. Far more controversial was Lyell's further claim that the earth and its life had always been in a stable steady state, rather than developing in a broadly linear or directional fashion. His younger friend Charles Darwin first made his name as a Lyellian geologist; Darwin's early work in geology, studied here, provided important foundations for his later and more famous research on speciation and other biological problems.

Contents

Introduction; Notes on the articles; Bibliography; Lyell's Concept of Uniformity: Uniformity and progression: reflections on the structure of geological theory in the age of Lyell; Lyell and the Principles of Geology. The Making of the Principles: Poulett Scrope on the volcanos of the Auvergne: Lyellian time and political economy; Lyell on Etna, and the antiquity of the earth; Historical analogies in the early geological work of Charles Lyell; Charles Lyell's dream of a statistical palaeontology. The Reception of the Principles: Caricature as a Source for the History of Science: De la Beche's anti-Lyellian sketches of 1831; Charles Lyell, F.R.S. (1797 - 1875) and his London lectures on geology, 1832 - 33. Darwin as a Geologist: Charles Darwin in London: the Integration of Public and Private Science; Darwin and Glen Roy: a 'Great Failure' in Scientific Method?; Index.

Customer Reviews

Biography

Martin J.S. Rudwick is the Professor Emeritus of History of Science at the University of California San Diego, USA, and the University of Cambridge, UK.