Ages in Chaos: James Hutton and the Discovery of Deep Time

by Stephen Baxter

Book Overview

"This book, then, is the story of how a farmer's son from Scotland learned to peer into the deepest abysses of time. It is a drama of personality, landscape and ideas, of an intellectual revolution that shaped our world--and of a man whose vision, rooted in antiquity yet tinged with modern philosophies, was not only ahead of his own time but speaks to our new century."--From the Foreword In the eighteenth century, the received wisdom, following Bishop...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765312387
• ISBN13: 9780765312389
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Forge
• Length: 245 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Review of Ages in Chaos: James Hutton and the Discovery of Deep Time by Stephen Baxter

This book gives an accurate assessment of the contributions of James Hutton (1726-1797) to science in general and geology in particular. Baxter gives "deep time" emphasis, but he does this, not by allowing the question of time to dominate the book. The organization of the book serves to elucidate the scientific concept of geologic time, a concept which Hutton jump-started, and delineates how the concept of deep time has evolved to modern day. New ground and interesting for me is Baxter's treatment of "design arguments" (page 42) stemming all the way back to Aristotle. "Fred Hoyle - the British astrophysicist who unraveled the production of carbon I stars - said in 1959, 'I do not believe that any scientist who examined the evidence would fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequence they produce inside the stars." Stephen Baxter, the author, is an award-winning science fiction writer and was formerly educated as a physicist and engineer. I am a geologist by training and profession, and initially wondered if Baxter could give an adequate perspective to a work on Hutton. Please let me state to my geological friends that Baxter seems to have assimilated geology very well and shares most or all of our sensibilities. I can only guess that writing science fiction must be wonderful training and preparation for understanding and explaining the history of science and geology. As an example of two areas that satisfied my geologic chauvinism, Baxter pays very close attention to the roles of "field work" and Hutton's rock collection in the development of his scientific conclusions. This was new Hutton territory for me and I found Baxter's treatment fascinating - great book. One of Baxter's final conclusions concerning Hutton is: "There have been many great geologists, but no figure before or since bequeathed a package of so many profound and integrated insights as James Hutton. And he was the first to construct a model of Earth's history containing its most essential feature, a vast and deep abyss of time." To reach this conclusion Baxter takes us through a real History of Science lesson, not just Hutton biography, but the biography and contributions of his precursors, teachers, scientific peers, and successors who were impacted, conflicted by, and who supported and elaborated Hutton's work. Baxter is able to do this in 231 pages, and I think it would have been difficult to do it in fewer. Baxter quotes Stephen Jay Gould: "......though Hutton was a great thinker, he was not a modern thinker. And he has been hugely misunderstood" (page 216). Baxter attempts to place the reader in the historic context in which Hutton lived: "How much harder it was for Hutton in a time when the textbooks had yet to be written!" There is a splendid review of James Ussher, the Irish bishop, that had established the earth's birthday as 22 October, 4004, B

excellent

This is a very, very good book -- its combination of Hutton's philosophy of knowledge with his theory of the Earth is a great step in the right direction -- the first in a popular book cencerning Hutton. It aslo places Hutton in his intellectual millieu really well.