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James Hutton
Sign in to saveAlso known as The Father of Modern Geology
Scottish geologist, physician, chemical manufacturer, naturalist, and experimental agriculturalist; (1726-1797)
James Hutton was an 18th-century Scottish scientist and thinker who worked across multiple fields including geology, medicine, chemistry, and farming. He matters primarily as a pioneering geologist whose ideas about how Earth's rocks and landscapes form over vast stretches of time laid important groundwork for modern geology.
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Person · Open Library
- Born
- 1726
- Died
- 1797
- Works
- 31
via Open Library + Wikidata
Listeners · Last.fm
- Listeners
- 1,522
- Total plays
- 3,220
Tags
James is 17. James is from Halifax. James plays guitar. Some people like the way he plays. James sings. Some people like his voice. James writes songs. Some people like his songs. James sings other people's songs too. Some people like these as well. have a look at his Myspace <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/James+Hutton">Read more on Last.fm</a>
Recent publications · Crossref
5 total works indexed
- The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews
· 2021 · cited 76,905x
- Special points for Brillouin-zone integrations
· 1976 · cited 67,092x
- Fiji: an open-source platform for biological-image analysis
· 2012 · cited 64,963x
- SciPy 1.0: fundamental algorithms for scientific computing in Python
· 2020 · cited 34,533x
- Structural equation modeling in practice: A review and recommended two-step approach.
· 1988 · cited 31,223x
via Crossref · CC0
Quotes
- “The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now. No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle.”
- “We find no vestige of a beginning - no prospect of an end.”
- “In a letter to Sir John Hall, he says that he was become very fond of studying the surface of the earth, and was looking with anxious curiosity into every pit, or ditch, or bed of a river that fell in his way; "and that if he did not always avoid the fate of Thales, his misfortune was certainly not owing to the same cause." This letter is from Yarmouth; it has no date, but it is plain from circumstances that it must have been written in 1753.”
- “From the date... when he was yet a very young man, and making excursions on foot through the different counties of England, till that which we are now arrived at, a period of about thirty years, he had never ceased to study the natural history of the globe, with a view of ascertaining the changes that have taken place on its surface, and of discovering the causes by which they have been produced.”
- “Few men have entered with better preparation on the arduous task of investigating the true theory of the earth.”
- “He was one of those who are much more delighted with the contemplation of truth, than with the praise of having discovered it.”
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Wikidata facts
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- Hutton James portrait Raeburn.jpg
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- James Hutton
- date of birth
- 1726-06-03
- date of death
- 1797-03-26
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- name in native language
- James Hutton
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Article
James Hutton ( /ˈhʌtən/; 3 June O.S. 1726 – 26 March 1797) was a Scottish geologist, agriculturalist, chemical manufacturer, naturalist and physician. Often referred to as the "Father of Modern Geology," he played a key role in establishing geology as a modern science.
Hutton advanced the idea that the physical world's remote history can be inferred from evidence in present-day rocks. Through his study of features in the landscape and coastlines of his native Scottish Lowlands, such as Salisbury Crags or Siccar Point, he developed the theory that geological features could not be static but underwent continuing transformation over indefinitely long periods of time. From this he argued, in agreement with many other early geologists, that the Earth could not be young. He was one of the earliest proponents of what in the 1830s became known as uniformitarianism, the science which explains features of the Earth's crust as the outcome of continuing natural processes over the long geologic time scale. Hutton also put forward a thesis for a 'system of the habitable Earth' proposed as a deistic mechanism designed to keep the world eternally suitable for humans, an early attempt to formulate what today might be called one kind of anthropic principle.
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