James Hutton Bibliography
James Hutton, sometimes called the father of modern geology, did not set out to be a scientist. Hutton was the son of Edinburgh's city treasurer, William Hutton and Sarah Balfour. (Aronson). William Hutton was a wealthy man, who was not only the city treasurer, but also owned two farms. (O'Connor and Robertson). When his father died when James was still a young child, his mother took over the supervision of his education. (Aronson). Sarah never remarried, but chose to raise James and his sisters as a single mother. At age 10, James entered Edinburgh High School, where he studied Latin, Greek, and mathematics. Hutton began his formal university education at 14, and was initially drawn to the study of chemistry and philosophy. (Aronson). Hutton completed his initial university education at 17. (O'Connor and Robertson). Hutton then studied medicine and chemistry at the Universities of Edinburgh, Paris, and Leiden, in the Netherlands. (Mathez). Hutton also tried an apprenticeship in law, but decided to attend medical school instead. (Aronson). Hutton then spent 14 years as a farmer. While a farmer, Hutton began to notice things like wind and weather and began to concentrate his powers of observation on the effects of
In addition, Hutton's theory of deep time opposed Catastrophism, which held that the world was only thousands of years old. Instead, Hutton believed that the Earth was infinitely old, because "the tremendous displacements and changes he was seeing did not happen in a short period of time by means of catastrophe, but that processes still happening on the Earth in the present day had caused them." (Wikipedia). The theory of deep time, while accepted in modern times, was extremely revolutionary during Hutton's time. "The age of the Earth was a topic which, certainly in Europe at that time, was highly religious in nature. The Bible was taken as literal truth, despite the acceptance by most that the Earth revolved around the sun." (O'Connor and Robertson.) In fact, "scientists such as Newton had expounded much energy working on a chronology of the Earth using the scriptures." (O'Connor and Roberston). The standard chronology of the Earth was based on a six day creation, that Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day, and that a day to God was like 1,000 years. (O'Connor and Robertson). Hutton's theory of uniformitarianism extended to living creatures as well as the earth. In fact, his theory of uniformitarianism incorporated elements of natural selection long before Darwin. Hutton's came to this conclusion after experimenting with plant and animal bleeding. Those experiments led Hutton to the conclusion that there were variations that were heritable, as the result of breeding and non-heritable variations that were the result of environmental factors. (Wikipedia). As a result of those experiments, Hutton believed in survival of the fittest, and that those qualities that enabled certain members of a species to survive and thrive would be repeated in later generations. Hutton believed that this natural selection would effect animals and plants. However, while Hutton believed that natural selection could modify a species, he "rejected the idea of evolution originating species as a 'romantic fantasy.'" (Wikipedia). Hutton's theories had a tremendous impact on the scientists that came after him. Although Hutton's written work was difficult to digest, his friend John Playfair published Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth in 1802. Playfair's presentation of Hutton's ideas stated Hutton's theories, gave the facts to support them, and outlined the arguments against them. Playfair was not only an advocate of Hutton's theories, but also Hutton's first student. Hutton had taught Pl
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Approximate Word count = 1711
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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