Catastrophes and Earth History: The New Uniformitarianism

by William A. Berggren (Editor), John A. Van Couvering (Editor)

Overview

This book, based on papers from a symposium at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, shows the necessity of developing a new philosophy in place of the classical uniformitarianism based only on processes familiar in human experience.

Originally published in 1984.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691612683
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	07/14/2014
Series:	Princeton Series in Geology and Paleontology , #711
Pages:	478
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.00(d)

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Catastrophes and Earth History

The New Uniformitarianism

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By William A. Berggren, John A. Van Couvering

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1984 Princeton University Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-08329-2

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CHAPTER 1

TOWARD THE VINDICATION OF PUNCTUATIONAL CHANGE

STEPHEN JAY GOULD

Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University

PART I LYELL'S VISION AND RHETORIC

The sanctified writings of a profession are often among the most misunderstood, largely because so few people read them. Sir Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology (1830–1833) rests prominently among such works. Most geologists revere it as a painstaking, scrupulously objective, empirical catalogue that established their calling by demonstrating the power of modern causes to explain all past results. In fact, it is a lawyer's brief, ingeniously constructed to push a point by all means, most fair, but some foul. And it was written by a lawyer, for Lyell trained and qualified in the profession banned from Utopia by Saint Thomas More (1516): "They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters."

Lyell had a vision of the earth and its history. He wished to transfer the timeless majesty of Newton's cosmos to an earth that most of his colleagues viewed as progressing in definite and limited directions, powered by occasional, devastating paroxysms. As the planets circle continuously, always in steady motion, always returning to previous positions, so would the earth move, as a changing yet timeless planet, through its own history — in modern jargon: a dynamic steady state. Land and sea would change places as the products of continents slowly eroded to fill up oceans, but land and sea would always exist in roughly constant amounts. Species would die and new ones would arise, but the mean complexity of life would not alter and its basic designs, created at the beginning, would endure to the end of time. In short, Lyell's vision of earth history and geological process rested upon two cardinal tenets: gradualism and non-directionalism.

Lyell called upon a "principle of uniformity" as his primary intellectual weapon against catastrophism and directionalism. As a primary tactic in his belief, Lyell argued that the procedures of science itself required a belief in uniformity, since the alternate claims of "catastrophism" precluded rational inquiry and resolution:

The student, instead of being encouraged with the hope of interpreting the enigmas presented to him in the earth's structure, — instead of being prompted to undertake laborious inquiries into the natural history of the organic world, and the complicated effects of the igneous and aqueous causes now in operation, was taught to despond from the first. Geology, it was affirmed, could never rise to the rank of an exact science, — the greater number of phenomena must forever remain inexplicable, or only be partially elucidated by ingenious conjectures (Lyell, 1842, vol. 1, p. 325).

Yet, what is unscientific about the hypothesis that catastrophic events shape a planet's surface? (Look at Mercury and our moon.) Or, is it unscientific to hypothesize that the history of terrestrial vertebrates includes progressive trends? (Indeed, it does.) "Uniformity" had a host of distinct meanings for Lyell. Some are (as he stated) methodological prerequisites for doing science. Others are specific, substantive claims about the empirical world: they may be true, false, or somewhere in between without threatening the enterprises of science. Lyell was strongly committed to the substantive claims, and he supported them (perhaps unconsciously) with a consummate trick of argument: he gave the same name — uniformity — to the methodological presuppositions and to the substantive claims, and then he maintained that scientists must accept the substantive claims because the practice of their profession rests upon the methodological presuppositions.

THE MULTIPLE MEANINGS OF UNIFORMITY

During the 1960s, several geologists and historians independently recognized the hybrid nature of "uniformitarianism" (Hooykaas, 1963; Gould, 1965; and Simpson, 1963). Since then, several historians, particularly Rudwick (1972) and Porter (1976), have forcefully asserted this "revisionist" interpretation of the history of geology. (See also: Lawrence, 1973; and the Lyell issue — July 1976 — of the British Journal for the History of Science.) Lyell the Cardboard Hero, the white knight of science against lingering supernaturalism, is being replaced by Lyell the Passionate Believer, who pits his system of a balanced and stately earth against equally passionate (and equally scientific) beliefs in definite directions and catastrophic changes. A much more interesting man, and one much truer to the original.

Rudwick (1972) has teased apart four different meanings of uniformitarianism that I arrange as follows into two distinct subcatagories (see Gould, 1965).

Methodological Presuppositions Accepted by All Scientists

1) The Uniformity of law Natural laws are invariant in space and time. John Stuart Mill (1881) argued that such a postulate of uniformity must be invoked if we are to have any confidence in the validity of inductive inference; for if laws change, then an hypothesis about cause and effect gains no support from repeated observations — the law may alter the next time and yield a different result. We cannot "prove" the assumption of invariant laws; we cannot even venture forth into the world to gather empirical evidence for it. It is an a priori methodological assumption made in order to practice science; it is a warrant for inductive inference (Gould, 1965).

2) The uniformity of process (actualism) Whenever possible, explain past results as the outcome of causes that are still operating on the earth. Do not invent causes with no modern analogues when present causes can render the observed results. Philosopher Nelson Goodman (1967) has recognized that an assertion of actualism represents a particular defense of the general principle of simplicity. As such, it is another a priori methodological assumption shared by all scientists and not a statement about the empirical world.

Substantive Assertions about the World

3) Uniformity of rate (gradualism) Friedrich Engels once expressed his frustration about the course of reform in his adopted country with these words: "It moves, as all things in England, with slow and measured pace." Lyell's vision of the world lay within this stately tradition. His earth was surely in constant flux, but at a pace so leisurely that a human observer during a lifetime of watching might proclaim it static. Yet, the immensity of time guaranteed enormous results in accumulation. All the great events of earth history, from the cutting of the Grand Canyon to the rise of the Himalayas, must be interpreted as being the outcome of ordinary causes advancing step by innumerable step — millimeters of downcutting or uprising per century, accumulated slowly and steadily through eons. In 1829, Lyell wrote to Murchison about his grand vision of an earth governed by causes that "never acted with different degrees of energy from that which they now exert."

Unlike the first two uniformities, gradualism is not a presupposition of method. It is a definite empirical claim about the world. It may be true or false. It must be tested, not assumed.

4) Uniformity of conditions (non-directionalism, dynamic steady state) Lyell's earth was a place of constant change, yet permanent aspect. Like the wind and rivers of Ecclesiastes, it cycled endlessly with no direction. Lyell was quite confident that Paleozoic mammals would soon be found; after all, the Mesozoic had just fallen with the discovery of Jurassic mammals at Stonesfield. Moreover, the extinction of large groups implied no direction to the history of life, for they would reappear when the "great year" made its full cycle:

Then might those genera of animals return, of which the memorials are preserved in the ancient rocks of our continents. The huge iguanodon might reappear in the woods, and the ichthyosaur in the sea, while the pterodactyle [sic] might flit again through the umbrageous groves of tree-ferns (Lyell, 1842, vol. 1, p. 193).

Again, uniformity of conditions is not a necessary assumption, but a testable claim about the real world. Indeed, it is quite incorrect in Lyell's strict formulation. We do not expect to encounter a Silurian rat, much less a post-Holocene dinosaur.

MODERN GEOLOGY AS A BLEND OF LYELL AND THE CATASTROPHISTS

What, then, was Lyell's battle with the "catastrophists" all about? We are taught, in the conventional textbooks of geology, that Lyell routed a group of theological apologists and established geology as a modern science. This homily supposes that the catastrophists directly denied science by rejecting the first two uniformities in favor of an earth ruled directly by a god who capriciously changed his own laws.

The catastrophists did no such thing. They held as staunchly as Lyell to the uniformity of law, for they matched him in their commitment to science (Rudwick, 1972). Even the Reverend Thomas Burnet, author of the most fantastic scriptural geology (1681), invoked Lyell's favorite metaphor of the Gordian knot, and for the same reason — to attack a belief in miracles (suspension of natural law) as a denial of science itself: "They say in short, that God Almighty created waters on purpose to make the Deluge. ... And this, in a few words, is the whole account of the business. This is to cut the knot when we cannot loose it" (Burnet, 1691 ed., p. 33).

Moreover, catastrophists supported with equal fervor the second methodological uniformity (actualism). One must, they argued, begin with the observable modern causes, gauge their effects, and estimate their explanatory power in yielding past results. If modern causes suffice, then no others should be invoked. In any case, the only good argument for a cataclysmic cause is a result that modern causes cannot produce. Thus, Alcide d'Orbigny, a firm believer in frequent universal cataclysm, wrote:

Natural causes now in action have always existed. ... To have a satisfactory explanation of all past phenomena, the study of present phenomena is indispensable. ... Science owes much to Mr. Lyell for the development of this system, supported by copious research as wise as it is ingenious (d'Orbigny, 1849–1852, vol. 1, p. 71).

Catastrophists and uniformitarians disagreed on matters of substance: the third and fourth meanings of uniformity. Catastrophists denied a uniformity of rate since they attributed much of the earth's structure and topography to intermittent paroxysms, often on a worldwide scale, rather than to the simple accumulation of tiny changes. In addition, and nearly to a man, they adopted a directional view of earth history. The nebular hypothesis, with its consequence of a continually cooling earth, provided the dynamics both for direction and for intermittent global catastrophe. As the earth cooled, it contracted, drawing the more fluid interior away from the rigid crust. Instability built up until the crust collapsed upon the constricted interior, linear mountain belts were thrown up along its major cracks, and in the process, much of life was wiped out. New creations had to cope with less hospitable, cooler climates; life had to become progressively more complex in order to survive in more rigorous environments.

The textbook tale of uniformitarian goodies versus catastrophist baddies is a bit of self-serving, historically inaccurate rhetoric (see Porter, 1976, on Lyell's creative use of history). Lyell was a brilliant man, one of the great scientists of the nineteenth — or, indeed, of any — century. But he was not using the weapon of uniformitarianism specifically to uphold science against a group of aging theological apologists, who wished to retain the earth as a domain of miracles. The catastrophists were as "scientific" as the uniformitarians. Everyone upheld the two methodological uniformities as part of the definition of science. The two schools had major substantive disagreements about rates and direction. Moreover, in advocating paroxysmal change, the catastrophists were not letting a reverence for God blind them to the facts of earth history. If anything, as they saw it, they were the empirical literalists, who read their story directly, without interpolation. Local and regional geological sections usually record an episodic history with profound faunal and stratigraphic breaks. Lyell was the interpolationist, the non-literalist. To preserve his belief in gradualism, he argued that appearances are misleading and that gaps in the record can explain away nearly all supposed catastrophes — if a record preserves only one step in a thousand, then truly gradual changes will appear to be abrupt.

Modern geology is a fairly even mixture of what Lyell espoused and what the catastrophists believed. Both schools accepted the first two uniformities. Lyell largely triumphed with his third uniformity of rate, while our current ideas on the history of earth and life lie closer to the directionalism of catastrophists than to Lyell's steady state. Yet, modern geology bears Lyell's name. We are all educated to call ourselves uniformitarians and to enshrine Lyell's doctrine as "the greatest single contribution geologists have made to scientific thought" (Longwell and Flint, 1955, p. 385).

In short, Lyell won with rhetoric what he could not carry with data. Late in his life, he dropped his rigid insistence on an earth in steady state, when the evidence of progression in life's history inspired his conversion to evolutionary theory (Wilson, 1970; Gould, 1970). As for the substantive uniformity of rate (gradualism), he continued to assert its necessity by conflating it with the methodological uniformities of law and process. In the following famous passage, for example, Lyell first argues that catastrophism is unscientific on methodological grounds, and then he asserts that a substantive belief in gradualism can make geology a science:

Never was there a dogma more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity, than this assumption of the discordance between the ancient and existing causes of change. ... Geology, it was affirmed, could never rise to the rank of an exact science ... the greater number of phenomena must forever remain inexplicable [second uniformity]. ... The course directly opposed to this method of philosophizing consists in an earnest and patient inquiry how far geological appearances are reconcilable with the effect of changes now in progress. ... For this reason all theories are rejected which involve the assumption of sudden and violent catastrophes and revolutions of the whole earth, and its inhabitants [third uniformity] ... theories which are restrained by no reference to existing analogies, and in which a desire is manifested to cut, rather than patiently to untie, the Gordian knot (Lyell, 1842, vol. 1, pp. 324–326).

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Catastrophes and Earth History by William A. Berggren, John A. Van Couvering. Copyright © 1984 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents

• FrontMatter, pg. i
• Contents, pg. v
• Foreword, pg. xi
• Introduction, pg. 1
• Chapter 1. Toward the Vindication of Punctuational Change, pg. 9
• Chapter 2. Perfection, Continuity, and Common Sense in Historical Geology, pg. 35
• Chapter 3. Reflections on the "Rare Event" and Related Concepts in Geology, pg. 77
• Chapter 4. The Stratigraphic Code and what it implies, pg. 91
• Chapter 5. Statistical Sedimentation and Magnetic Polarity Stratigraphy, pg. 101
• Chapter 6. Mass Extinction: Unique or Recurrent Causes?, pg. 115
• Chapter 7. The Two Phanerozoic Supercycles, pg. 129
• Chapter 8. The Fabric of Cretaceous Marine Extinctions, pg. 151
• Chapter 10. Changes in The Angiosperm Flora Across the Cretaceoustertiary Boundary, pg. 279
• Chapter 11. Palynological Evidence for Change in Continental Floras at the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary, pg. 315
• Chapter 12. Mammal Evolution near the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary, pg. 339
• Chapter 13. Terminal Cretaceous Extinctions Of Large Reptiles, pg. 373
• Chapter 14. Low Sea Levels, Droughts, and Mammalian Extinctions, pg. 387
• Chapter 15. Eustasy, Geoid Changes, and Multiple Geophysical Interaction, pg. 395
• Chapter 16. On two Kinds of Rapid Faunal Turnover, pg. 417
• Chapter 17. The Phanerozoic “Crisis” as Viewed from the Miocene, pg. 437
• Chapter 18. Marine Mineral Resources and Uniformitarianism, pg. 449