The science of geology was constructed in the decades around 1800 from earlier practices that had been significantly different in their cognitive goals. In the studies collected here Martin Rudwick traces how it came to be recognised as a new kind of natural science, because it was constituted around the idea that the natural world had its own history. The earth had to be understood not only in relation to unchanging natural laws that could be observed in action in the present, but also in terms of a pre-human past that could be reliably known, even if not directly observable and its traces only fragmentarily preserved. In contrast to this radically novel sense of nature's own contingent history, the earth's unimaginably vast timescale was already taken for granted by many naturalists (though not yet by the wider public), and the concurrent development of biblical scholarship precluded any significant sense of conflict with religious tradition. A companion volume, Lyell and Darwin, Geologists: Studies in the Earth Sciences in the Age of Reform, was published in 2005.
| ISBN: | 9781138382503 |
| Publication date: | 18th October 2018 |
| Author: | M J S Rudwick |
| Publisher: | Routledge an imprint of Taylor & Francis |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 336 pages |
| Series: | Variorum Collected Studies Series |
| Genres: |
History and Archaeology History of science |
The science of geology was constructed in the decades around 1800 from earlier practices that had been significantly different in their cognitive goals. In the studies collected here Martin Rudwick traces how it came to be recognised as a new kind of natural science, because it was constituted around the idea that the natural world had its own history. The earth had to be understood not only in relation to unchanging natural laws that could be observed in action in the present, but also in terms of a pre-human past that could be reliably known, even if not directly observable and its traces only fragmentarily preserved. In contrast to this radically novel sense of nature's own contingent history, the earth's unimaginably vast timescale was already taken for granted by many naturalists (though not yet by the wider public), and the concurrent development of biblical scholarship precluded any significant sense of conflict with religious tradition. A companion volume, Lyell and Darwin, Geologists: Studies in the Earth Sciences in the Age of Reform, was published in 2005.
The New Science of Geology features in the following genres: History and Archaeology, History of science
The New Science of Geology is available in Paperback, Hardback
The New Science of Geology was written by M J S Rudwick and published by Routledge an imprint of Taylor & Francis
The New Science of Geology has 336 pages
Yes it is part of Variorum Collected Studies Series series
£50.39