When Science was Art

The Father of Modern Geology

There was a time when being a scientist meant a complete engagement with the world, renaissance men who juggled countless interests and were often times compelled more by the joy of speculation and adventure then the dry technocratic specialization of today. They were often amatuer naturalists who stumbled on the mysterious underlayers of the known enviorment with an amatuer passion that I wish I could harness today. At one time science was an Art! So much science now is too complicated for the average person to really understand and so we must take it on faith what we are told. The scientist of the past was overturning the religious order while the scientist today is really a priest. Sometimes I want to get a telescope, go into the backyard, and sketch the moons of Saturn as if I were the first to see them.

James Hutton (d 1797) was a Scottish doctor, a chemist, a naturalist, an experimental farmer and most famously a geologist. He figured out the rudiments of rock formation, the forces of plate movement and theories of "deep time" He was completely changing our understanding of our world and ultimately our place in the universe. This was as much about philosophy as about science. His basic tools were his imagination and his eyes.

 "Hutton hit on a variety of ideas to explain the rock formations he saw around him, but according to Playfair he "was in no haste to publish his theory; for he was one of those who are much more delighted with the contemplation of truth, than with the praise of having discovered it”. After some 25 years of work, his Theory of the Earth; or an Investigation of the Laws observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land upon the Globe was read to meetings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in two parts, the first by his friend Joseph Black on 7 March 1785, and the second by himself on 4 April 1785. Hutton subsequently read an abstract of his dissertation Concerning the System of the Earth, its Duration and Stability at the Society meeting on 4 July 1785,  which he had printed and circulated privately. In it, he outlined his theory as follows:

The solid parts of the present land appear in general, to have been composed of the productions of the sea, and of other materials similar to those now found upon the shores. Hence we find reason to conclude:
1st, That the land on which we rest is not simple and original, but that it is a composition, and had been formed by the operation of second causes.
2nd, That before the present land was made, there had subsisted a world composed of sea and land, in which were tides and currents, with such operations at the bottom of the sea as now take place. And,
Lastly, That while the present land was forming at the bottom of the ocean, the former land maintained plants and animals; at least the sea was than inhabited by animals, in a similar manner as it is at present.
Hence we are led to conclude, that the greater part of our land, if not the whole had been produced by operations natural to this globe; but that in order to make this land a permanent body, resisting the operations of the waters, two things had been required;
1st, The consolidation of masses formed by collections of loose or incoherent materials;
2ndly, The elevation of those consolidated masses from the bottom of the sea, the place where they were collected, to the stations in which they now remain above the level of the ocean

More on James Hutton here on Wikipedia.

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