Principles of geology Uniformitarianism Devolution Commentary

Charles Lyell geology

Principles of geology

• Agencies whose effects are observable today
• are sufficient to explain all conditions and anomalies
• in the geological record—
• types of rock (volcanic, sedimentary, metamorphic)
• faults and fissures, stratisgraphic
• displacements and depressions
• earthquakes, gradual building up of volcanos
• loess, diluvium, erratics, consolidation of masses
• uplifting, tilting, buckling,
• unconformities
• melting, crystallization, the formation of granite
• “granite penetrating metamorphic shists”
• fossilization of plant and animal remains.
• In short,
• catastrophes and supernatural events
• epochs of paroxysmal and paranormal changes
• are not needed
• for the science of geology,
• said Charles Lyell.

Uniformitarianism

• “The present
• is a key to the past.”
• We don’t need exceptions to the natural order
• to explain the actions of miracles
• we witness daily.
• Circumstances being equal
• the same methods produce the same results
• although circumstances are seldom equal.
• Things tend to take a lot of time
• except for those
• that happen suddenly
• unexpected.
• Things tend to fall
• except for those that fly.
• Things tend to die
• except for those that survive.

Devolution

• Charles Lyell wrote the book on geology
• that Darwin read on his first voyage on the Beagle
• but Lyell thought that Darwin was wrong
• expecting to find fossils of modern life
• even in the oldest sediments
• or admitting that new forms have appeared
• but not that they evolved from previous forms.
• The record gradually revealed the truth
• and Lyell became a proponent of evolution
• even the evolution of humans
• showing that science is not like religion;
• a good scientist admits when he was wrong.