Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
time scales to bestow on evolution. The problem was, Croll
believed, geologists were simply unable to imagine magnitudes
as large as a million years, let alone countless millions of years.
He suggested that once this 'deficiency' was recognised then
Darwin and the geologists would see that geological processes
were actually much faster than they realised, and hence geolog-
ical time was not nearly as long as they thought.
Another critic was John Phillips, the nephew of William
Smith. Phillips had undergone all his geological training along-
side Smith and was now the Professor in Geology at Oxford
University. He accused geologists of speaking with 'heedless
freedom of the ages that have gone' and questioned whether
their claim that the Earth was millions of years old was
'information of value'. He considered that this 'abuse of arith-
metic' was likely to lead to 'a low estimate of the evidence in
support of such random conclusions, and of the uncritical
judgement which so readily accepts them.' Then, as perhaps
now, geologists were often considered to be numerically illiter-
ate: 'I dislike very much to consider any quantitative problem
set by a geologist. In nearly every case the conditions given are
much too vague for the matter to be in any sense satisfactory',
complained the physicist John Perry.
Although Darwin later said that his calculation was only an
attempt to give a crude idea of geological time, it was an attempt
he was to regret. Immediately the calculation was seized upon
and used as ammunition against the whole argument for
evolution. Darwin's theory for the transmutation of one species
into another was seriously discredited by this rather casual, and
actually unimportant, calculation. A year later the American
edition of his book carried a footnote revising some of the
assumptions made and a confession that 'I have been rash and
unguarded in the calculation'. By the third edition in 1861 it had
disappeared altogether.
But worse was to come.
