1797: Catastrophist geology - The book of science

Catastrophist geology
Noah’s flood
Belief
Commentary

Catastrophist geology

Early geologists didn’t believe
the strata of the earth evolved
under the slow natural forces observable today.
Instead, they thought that the strata and their fossils
were laid down and deformed over a few thousand years
in a series of mind-bending catastrophies
consistent with the views of Christian theologians
who claimed that the world was only six thousand years old.
But controversy ensued as geologists began to inspect
strata and fossils observable in cliffs, canal cuts, and pit mines.
Geologists who called themselves Neptunists
believed that rocks formed in our early oceans
from the crystallization of minerals,
were populated by fossils from periods of new creation,
and were later raised and weathered in their present beds.
Geologists who called themselves Plutonists
believed that volcanoes and earthquakes
show that our rocks were formed under heat and pressure,
then wore down, settled in the ocean,
and were raised again.
Sir James Hall, a Neptunist,
and his friend, James Hutton, a Plutonist,
argued for years
until Hall decided to determine the effects
of different heating and cooling processes, and found
he could convert hornblende into different types of rock,
so Hall changed his mind and became a Plutonist.
Meanwhile, Hutton had already proposed the theory
that overthrew catastrophist geology.

Noah’s flood

According to early Christian theologians,
the book of Genesis has the explanation
for which geologists needed to strive.
Noah’s flood washed dead animals and sediments
into the oceans.
Belief and reason, literal and figural, historic and mythic,
observation and interpretation—are all mixed up,
disorder dying into chaos, life reaching for order,
each animal climbing over another to survive
or dying to have its traces misinterpreted,
subservient to a belief
subservient to a theory
subservient to a fancy
subservient to stupidity and greed.
A beautiful story ending with a covenant,
a rainbow put up to symbolize the promise of protection,
a clever story inspired by ancient observations
of sea shells and fish fossils in the mountains,
an ignorant story grasping fictions
to affirm a world-view separate from reality.

Belief

I believe
what I need to believe
and what I refuse to question.
I believe what I know to be true
and what I accept from others.
I know I make mistakes
and my beliefs might be mistaken,
but in believing I do not doubt
and believe in my believing.
Belief in an empirical or scientific fact
is no different from belief in spirits.
I evaluate it in terms of my beliefs
and either accept it or reject it.

The evolution of thought progresses by chance discoveries and the slow and inconsistent accumulation of evidence. The alternative to catastrophism was not fully expressed until Lyell published Principles of geology in 1830. Today some people today claim that catastrophism is supported by evidence and geologists may admit that the earth has been formed by an interplay of catastrophic events and uniformitarian processes.

Opposed to the progress of science is the inertia of belief, which no human is free of, no more than a building can be free of its foundations or a bridge can be free of its connections to its shores. But an imbalance is possible in favor of science, as is leaning forward to move ahead without falling or steering a unicycle by leaning in one direction or the other.