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Title: The Man Who Found Time: James Hutton and the Discovery of Earth's Antiquity by Jack Repcheck ISBN: 0-7382-0692-X Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (12 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: unearths a forgotten heroic scientific giant
Comment: This books makes a powerfully convincing case that James Hutton was a revolutionary scientist who literally gave us our modern conception of the world. The planet earth is over 4 billion years old and it is Hutton who first rigorously refuted the dogma that the world was created a mere 6,000 years ago. More importantly, he saw that currently active physical processes were responsible for the world's present shape and history, that these processes acted slowly but over vast periods of time. To understand our world is to see it as James Hutton did.
Repcheck beautifully presents the social context in which Hutton lived, with a lively and fascinating account of the Scottish Enlightenment and Hutton's relations with the leading figures of his day, a remarkable period of human intellectual development. The social history is the greatest strength of the book. But one also walks away with an appreciation for the enormity of Hutton's contribution and a great fondness for this loveable and remarkable man.
Rating: 4
Summary: A necessary biography
Comment: Repcheck's biography of James Hutton (the father of geology) is a well presented insight not only into the character and mindset of a man who provided the ultimate steps to establishing the Earth's true age in the face of religious doctrine, but also provides a fascinating general history of the time before and during the Scottish Enlightenment.
It is the latter that allows Repcheck to give substance to what would otherwise become an essay for two thirds of the book barely deals with Hutton, more with the history of various personages at the time. As such, under the guise of dealing with Hutton's youth it becomes apparent that this author has little source material so we are treated to a lengthy chapter on the Jacobite uprising and the battle of Culloden. None of which Hutton appears to have actively participated in. Still, it is presented in an interesting manner.
To begin we are given a somewhat nostalgic and romantic scene of an aging man finally proving his theories off Scotland's windswept coasts (the kind of thing that might open a tv documentary) and we then move swiftly into a commentary on previous scientific thinkers such as Luther, Gallileo et al and how they tentatively challenged Christian representation of the earth's origins to fit in with doctrinal requirements. We are also given details on how early Church thinkers kept altering the date of the world's creation to ensure that foretold events were always pushed back as the apocalyptic event approached. An opening page on the uniqueness of Castle rock's composition allow Repcheck to give us an early history of Edinburgh. Then we move into a seventy page history lesson on the early eighteenth century (roughly 1715 - 45) focusing on Bonnie Prince Charlie that just keeps on the titular track by telling us where Hutton was at each point as he studied to be a lawyer, then a doctor before, come 1745, settling onto a farm at Slighhouses where his management led to his fascination with soil and erosion.
The second half of the book devotes itself entirely to following the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment - Watts, Black, Hume, Hutton and Smith (plus several others) and how they formed their own 'Inklings' that met discussed and formed a scientific clique in Edinburgh. As a result we then move rapidly on through his years spent study rock strata, his formulation of geothermal science to explain the cyclic nature of an ancient Earth, contradicting opponents like Werner who espoused the universal ocean theory. Eventually Hutton delivered his two lecture, 500 single print texts and promptly was the focus of both support and attack from those who say his statement that placed the earth as extremely ancient. The argument raged well beyond his death until eventually people like Lyle and Darwin saw the inevitability of fact and serious attempts began at dating the earth (eventually via isotopic decay in the 1950s).
If you had only read half this book you might be forgiven for thinking it had very little to do with Hutton and admittedly in the first part this is one of those books where the content tends to wander off the subject matter but it is done in a manner that the extra information about the period is fascinating in itself. However, come the latter stages, Hutton's presentation of his theories is placed within the intellectual context of the age, stressing its importance to the scientific community as a whole and permitting further achievements. What this book attempts to do with some success is give the modern reader an elegy to the Father of Geology from who simple observations contradicted the human view in an altogether Galilean way.
Rating: 3
Summary: Disappointing
Comment: The topic of this book - the story of the man who first discovered how the earth had evolved over countless ages of geologic time - is intriguing and full of promise. Unhappily, the book does not live up to the promise.
To be fair, not a great deal seems to be known about James Hutton and any writer would be stretched to develop a book-length manuscript with so little directly relevant material. This explains the tediously detailed tangents that the writer chooses to indulge in. They provide background and context but are pedestrian and uninspired.
The writer is introduced on the back cover as an editor "with a long career of publishing works of science". It seems that this is the first book he has written and one should therefore be tolerant. It doesn't explain why it is so poorly edited. The copy editing alone is abysmal - was there no-one to check typos and spellings? He over-uses the word "rigorous" which only goes to point out that his own work is less than rigorous. The book is noticeably US-centric and in parts the US-based vocabulary is both inappropriate and distracting. A greater sensitivity to words would have added a lot.
We have to be grateful to the writer for introducing this little-known scientist to a wider readership. However, he does not do his subject justice.
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Title: The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science, Sainthood, and the Humble Genius Who Discovered a New History of the Earth by Alan Cutler ISBN: 0525947086 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 14 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Krakatoa : The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 by Simon Winchester ISBN: 0066212855 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: In the Blink of an Eye by Andrew Parker ISBN: 0738206075 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: 15 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Isaac Newton by JAMES GLEICK ISBN: 0375422331 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: Life on a Young Planet : The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth by Andrew H. Knoll ISBN: 0691009783 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 17 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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