The Origins of a New Science of Geology

地质学与天文学、物理学或几何学不同， 作为一门科学的最新起源。 它无法追溯历史 回到古代 显然，古代和中世纪的思想家 时间观察，并提供了某些地球的解释 现象，但地质学只是在大自然之后才出现的。 17世纪和18世纪的伟大思想变革 个世纪 一种特殊的地质成分 视角--例如，一种不把地球看作是宇宙区域的观点 而是作为一个对象;对自然的历史观， 如何从历史上解读地球表面的部分; 坚信地球的组成部分是由 可还原为一般理解的过程逐渐 经过一个半世纪的发展， 地质科学的巨大成功在 19世纪上半叶，直到查理一世 达尔文。 泰勒博士正在研究早期的地质发展 科学通过关注自然法作为一种 科学调查和解释的模式 一群18世纪世纪自然主义者的想法。 通过评估 一些法国科学家认为 在18世纪中后期， 承认他们的努力， 建立一门地球科学，泰勒博士希望能做出贡献 地质学文化框架的历史性恢复 起源. 他将研究这个群体的科学工作和他们的 在科学论证中使用经验概括。 博士 泰勒认为，启蒙运动强调还原， 现象的经验法则表现在 地质学概念是在18世纪世纪形成的， 以及早期地质学家开始进行实地考察的方式 并设计出用图形表示现象的方法 他们认为意义重大。 泰勒博士的这些研究承诺， 极大地增强了我们对科学起源的理解 地质学。

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.