Talk:Uniformitarianism

18th Century

While the 18th century section provides interesting information on the history of geology, it does not provide any information of importance on the concept of Uniformitarianism. It mentions the concept of deep time, but that is not of concern to Uniformitarianism either. I believe that it should be removed from the article. --OtisDixon (talk) 21:53, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

What Lyell actually said

The Uniformitarianism Article is based on universal misunderstanding that Lyell supported Hutton's dictum that 'The present is the key to the past'. In fact in the preface to his Fifth edition, dated October 1836, Lyell actually supports the opposite position: "... the author is aware that in endeavouring to attain this object, he has occasionally carried the beginner beyond his depth. It is presumed, however, that the reader will understand enough to be convinced that the forces formerly employed to remodel the crust of the earth were the same as those now acting: or, at least, he will perceive that the opposite hypothesis is very questionable;..."

— Obviously the opposite to Lyell's hypothesis would be stated as follows:"The forces now acting to remodel the crust of the earth are the same as those formerly employed;..." which Lyell considers very questionable and opens his mental door wide to the possibility of Catastrophism.

The latter statement means exactly the same as Hutton's 'The present is the key to the past', so Lyell was trying to redirect geologist's efforts to learning from the past rather than impressing our conjectural and incomplete understanding of present processes upon our interpretation of the evidence revealed in stratigraphy.

Lyell wanted his readers to interpret present events and the potential for future disasters in the light of what we can learn from geology, not that we should interpret geology in the light of what we can see happening today.

I think Lyell's 'Legend of the Seven Sleepers' is appropriate here, as it is now 187 years since Lyell's Principle of Uniformity was first misinterpreted.

The basic definition of Uniformitarianism used in the Article does not reflect Lyell's intended meaning, so I think the entire article should be scrapped and we should begin again. Geologician (talk) 15:00, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

It seems to me that all we know is how things work today, not how things worked in the past not having actually observed them in the distant past. So, how can we say that the current forces are the same as those in the past when we don't know the forces of the past. Since all we know is the present (the last few hundred years) the evidence in the geologic record past can only be understood by what we know.

Also, the 9th edition of "Principles" available in Project Gutenberg, does not have that quote above. Here is similar quote from the end of chapter 5: "I shall proceed in the following chapters to enumerate some of the principal difficulties still opposed to the theory of the uniform nature and energy of the causes which have worked successive changes in the crust of the earth, and in the condition of its living inhabitants. The discussion of so important a question on the present occasion may appear premature, but it is one which naturally arises out of a review of the former history of the science. It is, of course, impossible to enter into such speculative topics, without occasionally carrying the novice beyond his depth, and appealing to facts and conclusions with which he will be unacquainted, until he has studied some elementary work on geology, but it may be useful to excite his curiosity, and lead him to study such works by calling his attention at once to some of the principal points of controversy." and this sub-title to the same chapter, "Objections to the doctrine, that causes similar in kind and energy to those now acting, have produced the former changes of the earth's surface, considered." --Barthlomuelchance (talk) 18:56, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

In science today there are thousands of different opinions about practically every subject under the sun. This is particularly true of geology, which is not a Newtonian science."The geologist cannot proceed in the way pursued in other sciences; he can only bring forward the results of what has been; but what the cause is he may guess, without coming to other or greater certainty than that which is gained by increased probabilities for the hypothesis”. Sefstrom 1836. Geology is the most accessible book telling us what Reality is actually all about. Things happened during geological time for which there are no modern parallels. When we look at a rock or a stratigraphic sequence it is trying to tell us something about reality. We still only know a minute fraction of that message is about, and most geologists haven't time to be interested in these philosophical aspects. They are employed to know enough about the practical consequences of their specialist corner of geology to remain useful to their employer. The philosophy of reality doesn't appear in their employment contract. They console themselves by thinking "the present is the key to the past" whereas in reality our understanding of the present gets weirder every day. We do need a few present analogies to begin to understand stratigraphy etc. But we always need to respect the principle of 'multiple working hypotheses, if our collective understanding of reality is to advance. With luck, we may have a few thousand years left to work out what the message is telling us. Geologician (talk) 11:02, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

References

"Systems of inorganic earth history"

The article currently states "Geoscientists support diverse systems of Earth history, the nature of which rests on a certain mixture of views about the process, control, rate, and state which are preferred". Is this supposed to be a statement about what geoscientists support ''now'', or in the 19th century? The placement of the text suggest the latter, but the wording (particularly the use of the present tense) implies the former. I'm also not sure what is meant by the claim "Because geologists and geomorphologists tend to adopt opposite views over process, rate, and state in the inorganic world, there are eight different systems of beliefs in the development of the terrestrial sphere", and the following table and paragraphs don't explain which views are held by geologists and which by geomorphologists. (And besides, I'm not sure it even makes sense to treat "geologists" and "geomorphologists" as fundamentally distinct groups). Iapetus (talk) 12:04, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

lead paragraph

the sentence "Other scientists disagree and consider that nature is not absolutely uniform, even though it does exhibit certain regularities." is supported by a single citation from 1778. Is there any source that surveys scientists from this century that would support that sentence or can it be removed? It certainly doesn't belong in the lead. jonas (talk) 19:16, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Social sciences section

requires expansion MinTrouble (talk) 23:47, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps the section in Social Sciences should be expanded. Right now the info is limited to historical linguistics, which is correct, though I would like to see a quote by a more senior member of the research community, e.g. William Labov or J. K. Chambers who have written on it. This can then be completed with Ringe as an attestation of a more recent application. I offered Suzanne Romaine's paper from 1988 on the issue, but Weinreich, Labov & Herzog wrote on it in the 1960s and would be the best source for a direct quotation. Their 1968 long paper should be mentioned. MinTrouble (talk) 23:52, 1 September 2024 (UTC)