{"id":25988,"date":"2023-03-23T17:59:11","date_gmt":"2023-03-23T16:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/?p=75723"},"modified":"2023-03-23T18:35:43","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T17:35:43","slug":"james-hutton-theory-how-his-theory-paved-the-way-for-darwin","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/james-hutton-theory-how-his-theory-paved-the-way-for-darwin\/","title":{"rendered":"James Hutton theory: how his theory paved the way for Darwin"},"content":{"rendered":"

How the father of geology – and biology – James Hutton challenged 18th century beliefs <\/p>

By Stuart Blackman\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Thursday, 23 March 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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B<\/span>ack in the 18th century, most scholars believed that the Earth had been created about 6,000 years previously and that it hadn\u2019t changed much in that time, with mountains, rocks and lakes still sitting pretty much where God had placed them. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, Scottish geologist James Hutton disagreed. And in challenging the prevailing orthodoxy, he set the scene for Darwin\u2019s theory of evolution<\/a><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hutton thought that the Earth was more dynamic than theologians would have it, and spent decades travelling Britain in search of evidence. \u201cLord pity the arse that\u2019s clagged to a head that will hunt stones,\u201d he wrote during one particularly arduous leg on horseback.<\/span><\/p>\n

He discovered sites where strata meet at right angles, where older rocks overlaid younger ones, and, in Holyrood Park in his home city of Edinburgh, a small cliff that became known as \u2018Hutton\u2019s Section\u2019. Here he observed that lava had penetrated the existing sedimentary rock layer.<\/span><\/p>\n

It all pointed to the conclusion that the Earth\u2019s crust was constantly recycling itself. Earthquakes and volcanic activity turn ocean floors into mountains, which erode into sediment, which settles on the seabed to become rock once again. And because it all happens very, very slowly, the planet must be extraordinarily old.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hutton did not actually put a figure on its age. Instead he talked of \u201cdeep time\u201d, in which \u201cwe find no vestige of a beginning \u2013 no prospect of an end\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

These insights earned Hutton the sobriquet \u201cthe father of modern geology\u201d, but he was also an influential uncle of modern biology. He provided the timeframe necessary for evolution to work its magic; it was then left to Darwin to work out the mechanism.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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