Revising the Revisions: Restoring James Hutton's Standing in Geology
A New GSA Memoir by A.M. Celâl Şengör
Boulder, Colo., USA: Noted Turkish geologist, and member of the American
Philosophical Society and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Dr. A.M.
Celâl Şengör has taken on the Herculean task of disputing revisionist
arguments to restore James Hutton's standing as the father of modern
geology. Drawing from a wealth of knowledge, Dr. Şengör has painstakingly
researched, richly referenced, and filled this memoir with enlightening
anecdotes and observations.
Dr. Şengör will now introduce you to GSA Memoir 216:
Revising the Revisions: James Hutton's Reputation among Geologists in
the Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.
A.M. Celâl Şengör,
İTÜ Maden Fakültesi, Jeoloji Bölümü ve Avrasya Yerbilimleri Enstitüsü,
Ayazağa 34469, Istanbul, Turkey; sengor@itu.edu.tr
In
Revising the Revisions: James Hutton's Reputation among Geologists in
the Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,
I tackle the problem resulting from a recent trend among some historians of
geology of considering the Scottish polymath James Hutton's (1726–1797) Theory of the Earth (Hutton, 1785, 1788, 1795, 1899) the last of
the "theories of the earth" genre of publications that had begun developing
in the seventeenth century and to regard it as something behind the times
already in the late eighteenth century and which was subsequently
remembered only because some later geologists, particularly Hutton's
countryman Sir Archibald Geikie (1835–1924), found it convenient to
represent it as a precursor of the prevailing opinions of the day. The
problem stems from the observation that the available documentation,
published and unpublished, from the late eighteenth century to the date of
publication of Geikie's widely read book Founders of Geology in
1897, shows that Hutton's theory was considered as something completely new
by his contemporaries, very different from anything that preceded it,
whether they agreed with him or not, and that it was widely discussed both
in his own country and abroad—from St. Petersburg through Europe to New
York. By the end of the third decade in the nineteenth century, many very
respectable geologists began seeing in him "the father of modern geology"
even before Sir Archibald was born. To present some of these documents, I
have reviewed in Memoir 216 a small part of the available literature of
geology from 1785 to 1897 in the Austrian, British, and Russian Empires,
France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and the United States, and I have
selected passages discussing Hutton's ideas, his legacy, and his relevance
to the current problems in geology at the times the documents I cite were
written. Despite the small selection, the book required citing more than
600 references and reading or skimming many more.
This review of the literature clearly shows that the revisionists' ideas
are not correct. So, the question becomes why some historians of geology
wrote things that belittle Hutton's importance. The answer to this "why" is
not easy to produce and even harder to demonstrate. Among the most
important of the answers to this question, I discuss especially four.
1. The revisionist historians' misconception of what science, and,
specifically, geology, is about. They seem to consider observations and
methods of observation to be the main core of geology, rather than its
theories; i.e., they think knowledge rather than understanding is the core
of science.
2. Historians of geology, particularly those with a social science
background, seem not adequately informed about the literature of geology
for the periods they write about.
3. One reason for the inadequate usage of the literature of geology is
clearly the slackening standards of peer review, especially in private
presses, including all the university presses.
4. Finally in at least one case, the religious feelings of one author
clearly caused him to favor his co-religionists against Hutton, against all
credible evidence.
Memoir 216 was conceived as an antidote to some of what I think are
unfounded claims about James Hutton's impact on geology and the nature of
geology itself.
Individual copies of the volume may be purchased through The Geological
Society of America online store,
https://rock.geosociety.org/Store/detail.aspx?id=MWR216
, or by contacting GSA Sales and Service, gsaservice@geosociety.org.
Book editors of earth science journals/publications may request a review
copy by contacting April Leo, aleo@geosociety.org.
Revising the Revisions: James Hutton's Reputation among Geologists in
the Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
by A.M. Celâl Şengör
Geological Society of America Memoir 216
MWR216, 150 p., plus indices, $70.00; GSA member price $49.00
ISBN 978-0-8137-1216-1
View the table of contents:
https://rock.geosociety.org/store/TOC/MWR216.pdf
www.geosociety.org
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