The Origins of a New Science of Geology

新地质学的起源

• 批准号: 8719713
• 负责人: Kenneth Taylor
• 金额: $ 1.32万
• 依托单位: University of Oklahoma Norman Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1988
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1988-03-01 至 1988-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8719713&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Origins; New; Science; Geology

Geology, unlike astronomy, physics, or geometry, is of relatively recent origins as a science. It cannot trace its history back to ancient times. Clearly, thinkers in antiquity and medieval times observed and offered explanations for certain terrestrial phenomena, but geology came into being only in the wake of the great intellectual transformations of the 17th and 18th centuries. The ingredients of a specifically geological perspective -- e.g., a view of the earth not as a cosmic region but as an object; a historical outlook on nature, and ideas on how to decipher the earth's superficial parts historically; conviction that the earth's constituents are governed by processes reducible to general understanding -- were gradually assembled over the course of a century and a half, before the spectacular success of geological science became evident in the first part of the 19th century leading up to the work of Charles Darwin. Dr. Taylor is investigating the early development of geological science by focussing on the historical role of natural law as a model for scientific investigation and explanation in the thought of a group of 18th century naturalists. By assessing the importance ascribed by a selection of French scientists during the middle and later decades of the 18th century to recognition of law-like regularities in their efforts to establish a science of the earth, Dr. Taylor hopes to contribute to the historical recovery of the cultural framework of geology's origins. He will examine this groups scientific works and their use of empirical generalizations in scientific argument. Dr. Taylor argues that the Enlightenment's emphasis upon reduction of phenomena to empirical rule was manifested in the ways geological concepts were formualted in the 18th century, as well as in the ways early geologists began to conduct fieldwork and to devise methods for graphic representation of phenomena they thought significant. These studies by Dr. Taylor promise to greatly enhance our understanding of the origins of the science of geology.

地质学不同于天文学、物理学或几何学，它作为一门科学的起源相对较晚。它的历史不能追溯到古代。显然，古代和中世纪的思想家观察并解释了某些地球现象，但地质学只是在17和18世纪伟大的智力变革之后才出现的。特定地质视角的要素——例如，将地球视为一个物体而不是一个宇宙区域；自然观的历史观，以及如何历史地解读地球表面的思想；在19世纪上半叶，地质科学取得了显著的成功，导致了查尔斯·达尔文的工作。在此之前，人们在一个半世纪的时间里逐渐形成了这样的信念：地球的组成部分是由可简化为一般理解的过程所支配的。泰勒博士正在研究地质科学的早期发展，他的研究重点是18世纪一群博物学家的思想中自然规律作为科学研究和解释模式的历史作用。在18世纪中后期的几十年里，一些法国科学家在努力建立地球科学的过程中，承认了类似定律的规律性，泰勒博士通过评估他们的重要性，希望为地质学起源的文化框架的历史恢复做出贡献。他将研究这一群体的科学著作以及他们在科学论证中对经验概括的运用。泰勒博士认为，启蒙运动强调将现象归结为经验法则，这体现在18世纪形成地质概念的方式上，也体现在早期地质学家开始进行实地考察和设计他们认为重要的现象的图形表示方法的方式上。泰勒博士的这些研究有望大大提高我们对地质科学起源的理解。