Rise of Modern Science

Outline #8

New Sciences: Creation of the Discipline of Geology

[See timeline of the sources and practices of geology]

motivations for new geological investigations
- the desire to scientifically organize, classify, find patterns in knowledge
- natural theology and the creation of specialized studies
- industrialism (development from 1700s to 1800 to 1850) and its needs, e.g. pottery industry
  - materials: stone, ores, coal
  - transportation: the siting of roads, canals
- entrpreneurs and natural philosophers: the "Lunar Society"
- specialization of science into "disciplines" with research programs, societies, roles
geological fieldwork and classification: associative data and regular patterns of stratigraphy
- mapping orderly geographical distribution (1740s- )
- minerals and crystalline forms (1745- )
- stratigraphy (1770s- ): development centered in German mining, with descriptive and mapping work of Lehmann and Füchsel
- physical properties and chemical composition (Werner, 1774)
- regularity of strata and predictability (Whitehurst, 1778)
- fossils and biostratigraphy (Smith, 1815)
dynamic models of the Earth
- observations of sediments, earthquakes (1755), volcanism
- uniform processes and historical development
  - Werner's saturated fluid, deposition, precipitation (1774)
  - Hutton's interior heat, transformation, building of layers (Theory of the Earth, with Proofs and Illustrations, 1785)
  - Buffon's cooling theory (1779)
  - Newtonian physics and Laplace's nebular hypothesis (1790s)
- expanded age of the earth
  - the standard estimate from Biblical history (Ussher, 1650)
  - cooling rate estimate (Buffon, 1779)
  - sedimentation (Werner, 1774)
  - denudation estimate (Hutton, 1785)
  - implications of fossils of extinct forms (1780s- )
- the theory of special creations and epochs (Cuvier, 1812; Lyell, 1830s)
scientific principles (Lyell's Principles of Geology, 1830-33)
- the appeal to naturalism and laws, and the search for causes
- the methodological debate over catastrophe and Lyell's principle of uniformity
- the central role of uniformitarianism in the science of geology