James Hutton and geological snake oil

A geologist friend of mine told me recently that he is distantly related to James Hutton. That’s something of which a geologist would be proud since Hutton is widely considered the father of modern geology. Hutton’s big contribution was a fundamental principle of earth science called uniformitarianism, used to interpret the past history of our globe.

My friend sent me an article about Hutton with the following paragraph:

Another of Hutton’s key concepts was the Theory of Uniformitarianism. This was the belief that geological forces at work in the present day—barely noticeable to the human eye, yet immense in their impact—are the same as those that operated in the past. … It became evident from such analysis that enormous lengths of time were required to account for the thicknesses of exposed rock layers. Uniformitarianism is one of the fundamental principles of earth science. Hutton’s theories amounted to a frontal attack on a popular contemporary school of thought called catastrophism: the belief that only natural catastrophes, such as the Great Flood, could account for the form and nature of a 6,000-year-old Earth. The great age of Earth was the first revolutionary concept to emerge from the new science of geology. (Mathez, E.A. (ed.), Earth Inside and Out, New Press, American Museum of Natural History, 2000)

If you thought geology was an objective, dispassionate science then note the words: “belief” and “frontal attack”. Here we see some key points about modern geology:

1. It’s based on uniformitarianism which is a “belief” about the past.
2. Uniformitarianism is a “frontal attack” on the biblical account of Noah’s Flood.
3. That belief leads to “The Great Age of Earth”. In other words, the vast age of the earth is not derived from an objective scientific measurement but from a subjective philosophical/religious belief.

Charles Lyell championed Hutton’s idea of uniformitarianism, also known as “gradualism”. Through his Principles of Geology (1830) he established this belief as the reigning paradigm in geological circles for 150 years until the 1980s.

However, it is now widely acknowledged that uniformitarianism is not supported by the geological evidence.

Warren D. Allmon, Director of the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, NY, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University said,

Lyell also sold geology some snake oil. He convinced geologists that … all past processes acted at essentially their current rates (that is, those observed in historical time). This extreme gradualism has led to numerous unfortunate consequences, including the rejection of sudden or catastrophic events in the face of positive evidence for them, for no reason other than that they were not gradual. (Post Gradualism, Science 262, p. 122, October 1, 1993)

Do you see what he said? For some 150 years geologists in their professional discipline have been consistently rejecting evidence that did not agree with their anti-biblical beliefs.

Did you notice the words “snake oil” and “unfortunate consequences”? By far the most significant “unfortunate consequence” is that geologists have convinced millions of people the Bible cannot be trusted because of their faulty belief of uniformitarianism.

Derek Ager, emeritus professor of Geology at the University College of Swansea, has said much the same thing as Allmon. Ager wrote two books advocating a return to catastrophism and his ideas have been widely taken up. Speaking of geologists’ deeply held belief in uniformitarianism he said:

…we have allowed ourselves to be brain-washed into avoiding any interpretation of the past that involves extreme and what might be termed ‘catastrophic’ processes.” (The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, Macmillan, London, p. 46–47, 1987)

But when we refuse to be brain-washed and look at the geological evidence without its uniformitarianism embellishments we find the evidence is consistent with the Bible. It is what we would expect from the account of the global catastrophic Flood of Noah’s Day.

For a review of a biography of James Hutton see The Man Who Found Time.