Changes

|location=New York

|location=New York

|year=2006

|year=2006

|pages=13-18, 39, 58-62  

|pages=9, 13-18, 39, 58-62  

|isbn=0-8129-6849-2

|isbn=0-8129-6849-2

|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=xzLRvxlJhzkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Larson+Evolution:+The+Remarkable+History&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PbZfVJugD83vaJengLgI&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=rejected%20Christianity%20&f=false}}</ref> In 1778, he proposed that the Earth was about 74,832 years old<ref name="ingv">INGV</ref>, what was in line with thinking that pushed God as creator either back in time or out of the picture altogether.<ref name="Larson"/>

|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=xzLRvxlJhzkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Larson+Evolution:+The+Remarkable+History&hl=en&sa=X&ei=PbZfVJugD83vaJengLgI&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=rejected%20Christianity%20&f=false}}</ref> In 1778, he proposed that the Earth was about 74,832 years old<ref name="ingv">INGV</ref>, what was in line with thinking that pushed God as creator either back in time or out of the picture altogether.<ref name="Larson"/>

In 1830 [[Charles Lyell]], despite being familiar with Fourier's arguments<ref name="PerryKelvinCritique"/>, supported with a convert's zeal the Hutton's idea of a

In 1830 [[Charles Lyell]], despite being familiar with Fourier's arguments<ref name="PerryKelvinCritique"/>, supported with a convert's zeal the Hutton's idea of a

steady-state Earth of indefinite age in ''Principles of Geology''<ref name="ingv" />, a book that later influenced [[Darwin]]. Lyell started his book with a self-serving history of geology that [[Academician Burdenko syndrome|uncritically hailed]] any insight anticipating uniformitarianism and under the banner ''“to free the science from Moses”''<ref>{{cite book |author= Charles Lyell |title= Principles of Geology |Volume= 1 |year=1881 (1990)|publisher=University of Chicago Press (reprint) |pages=268 (XVII)  |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=9WjnbzHpvfEC |quote=Most other geologists, whether or not they agreed with Lyell on specific issues, would in fact have considered themselves his allies in hoping “to free the science from Moses” (Lyell 1881, vol.1, p.268).}}</ref> [[Kerkut’s student syndrome|utterly dismissed]] the contributions of [[Catastrophism|catastrophists]]. Before Darwin boarded the HMS Beagle in 1831, his Cambridge tutor Adam Sedgwick, who had supplied Darwin with a reading list for the voyage, conspicuously omitted controversial Lyell’s ''Principles''. Darwin was however given a copy of the book by the ship's aristocratic captain Robert FitzRoy.<ref name="Larson"/><ref>{{cite web |title=The Voyage of Charles Darwin, Part 1 |publisher=BBC |year=1978 |pages=7-part series Part 1, 46min:15sec  |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hoDaxVIVPE&feature=youtu.be&t=2850 |accessdate=May 17, 2015 |quote=}}</ref> Darwin was fascinated by book, he dedicated his own writings about the voyage to Lyell, and in his letters claimed that ''"I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell's brains ... the great merit of the Principles, was that it altered the whole tone of one's mind & therefore that when seeing a thing never seen by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes."''<ref>{{cite web |title=Darwin Correspondence Database: Darwin, C. R. to Horner, Leonard 29 Aug 1844 |author=Ch.Darwin |publisher=Darwin Correspondence Project by Cambridge University Library |url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/entry-771 |accessdate=May 17, 2015}}</ref> In his 1859 ''[[The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection|Origin of species by means of Natural selection]]'', Darwin declared that ''‘He who can read Sir Charles Lyell’s grand work on the Principles of Geology, which the future historian will recognise as having produced a revolution in natural science, yet does not admit how incomprehensibly vast have been the past periods of time, may at once close this volume.’''<ref name="KelvinOnDynamics"/><ref>{{cite book |title= On the Origin of Species |author= Charles Darwin |year=1859 |pages=282 |edition=1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RdIp_XRopbcC&q=incomprehensibly+vast#v=snippet&q=incomprehensibly%20vast&f=false}}</ref> Darwin based his views on Hutton and Lyell who were dedicated not to modern notions of geological dynamism but to antique ones of geological steady-state.<ref name="GOULDinNYT"/> It is believed a feeling of guilt at having helped Darwin arrive at his heretical theories was a factor that might have contributed to FitzRoy’s tragic decision to suicide on 30th April, 1865.<ref>{{cite web |title= FitzRoy's Bicentenary|publisher= The Friends of Charles Darwin |url=http://friendsofdarwin.com/articles/fitzroy/ |quote= The ridicule over the weather forecasts was probably the last straw that drove FitzRoy to suicide on 30th April, 1865. But there were numerous other factors that might have contributed to his tragic decision: his failed New Zealand governorship; a feeling of guilt at having helped Darwin arrive at his heretical theories; his belief that suicide was a family trait; who knows what else might have helped push him over the edge? |accessdate=May 17, 2015}}</ref>

steady-state Earth of indefinite age in ''Principles of Geology''<ref name="ingv" />, a book that later influenced [[Darwin]]. Lyell started his book with a self-serving history of geology that [[Academician Burdenko syndrome|uncritically hailed]] any insight anticipating uniformitarianism and under the banner ''“to free the science from Moses”''<ref>{{cite book |author= Charles Lyell |title= Principles of Geology |Volume= 1 |year=1881 (1990)|publisher=University of Chicago Press (reprint) |pages=268 (XVII)  |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=9WjnbzHpvfEC |quote=Most other geologists, whether or not they agreed with Lyell on specific issues, would in fact have considered themselves his allies in hoping “to free the science from Moses” (Lyell 1881, vol.1, p.268).}}</ref> [[Kerkut’s student syndrome|utterly dismissed]] the contributions of [[Catastrophism|catastrophists]] including [[Georges Cuvier]], the "lion of nineteenth-century French science" and founder of modern comparative anatomy and paleontology, who as early as 1796 announced ''"the existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some kind of catastrophe"'' and whose scientific arguments for the theory of special creation held back the tide of evolutionary thought for a generation.<ref name="Larson"/> Lyell shown up to be a disciple of Buffon, who resolutely refused to accept the notion of catastrophes, including the [[Noah's Flood|Biblical Flood]], which many of their contemporaries upheld. Before Darwin boarded the HMS Beagle in 1831, his Cambridge tutor Adam Sedgwick, who had supplied Darwin with a reading list for the voyage, conspicuously omitted controversial Lyell’s ''Principles''. Darwin was however given a copy of the book by the ship's aristocratic captain Robert FitzRoy.<ref name="Larson"/><ref>{{cite web |title=The Voyage of Charles Darwin, Part 1 |publisher=BBC |year=1978 |pages=7-part series Part 1, 46min:15sec  |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hoDaxVIVPE&feature=youtu.be&t=2850 |accessdate=May 17, 2015 |quote=}}</ref> Darwin was fascinated by book, he dedicated his own writings about the voyage to Lyell, and in his letters claimed that ''"I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell's brains ... the great merit of the Principles, was that it altered the whole tone of one's mind & therefore that when seeing a thing never seen by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes."''<ref>{{cite web |title=Darwin Correspondence Database: Darwin, C. R. to Horner, Leonard 29 Aug 1844 |author=Ch.Darwin |publisher=Darwin Correspondence Project by Cambridge University Library |url=http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/entry-771 |accessdate=May 17, 2015}}</ref> In his 1859 ''[[The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection|Origin of species by means of Natural selection]]'', Darwin declared that ''‘He who can read Sir Charles Lyell’s grand work on the Principles of Geology, which the future historian will recognise as having produced a revolution in natural science, yet does not admit how incomprehensibly vast have been the past periods of time, may at once close this volume.’''<ref name="KelvinOnDynamics"/><ref>{{cite book |title= On the Origin of Species |author= Charles Darwin |year=1859 |pages=282 |edition=1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RdIp_XRopbcC&q=incomprehensibly+vast#v=snippet&q=incomprehensibly%20vast&f=false}}</ref> Darwin based his views on Hutton and Lyell who were dedicated not to modern notions of geological dynamism but to antique ones of geological steady-state.<ref name="GOULDinNYT"/> It is believed a feeling of guilt at having helped Darwin arrive at his heretical theories was a factor that might have contributed to FitzRoy’s tragic decision to suicide on 30th April, 1865.<ref>{{cite web |title= FitzRoy's Bicentenary|publisher= The Friends of Charles Darwin |url=http://friendsofdarwin.com/articles/fitzroy/ |quote= The ridicule over the weather forecasts was probably the last straw that drove FitzRoy to suicide on 30th April, 1865. But there were numerous other factors that might have contributed to his tragic decision: his failed New Zealand governorship; a feeling of guilt at having helped Darwin arrive at his heretical theories; his belief that suicide was a family trait; who knows what else might have helped push him over the edge? |accessdate=May 17, 2015}}</ref>

After taking into account the estimated uncertainties in thermal gradient and thermal conductivity, Kelvin broadened an upper limit for the age of the Earth to interval between 20 and 400 millions of years (20 ~ 400 Ma). In a later paper, based on experimental results performed by Carl Barus (who found out that diabase, a typical basalt of very primitive character, melts between 1100°C and 1170°C and is thoroughly liquid at 1300°C)<ref name="KelvinNature1895">{{cite journal |title=On the Age of the Earth |author= Lord Kelvin |journal= Nature (reprint in SA)|date= January 3, 1895 |pages= 334-337 |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lord-kelvin-on-the-age-of-the-earth/ |accessdate=14 June 2015 |quote= Carl Barus (Phil. Mag., 1893, first half year, pp. 186, 187, 301-305) that diabase, a typical basalt of very primitive character, melts between 1,100° C. and 1,170° and is thoroughly liquid at 1,300°.}}</ref>, he modified the value for supposed initial molten rock temperature to 1200°C<ref name="Richter"/>, thus by the end of the 1800s narrowed down the interval to 20 ~ 40Ma<ref name="chemeu">{{cite web |title=William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin |publisher=chemeurope.com |url=http://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/William_Thomson%2C_1st_Baron_Kelvin.html |accessdate=14 June 2015 |quote= Thomson ultimately settled on an estimate that the Earth was 20-40 million years old }}</ref>, with personal preference for the lower value which is also the most quoted one.<ref>{{cite book |title= The Dating Game: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth  |author= Cherry Lewis  |publisher= Cambridge University Press |year= 2012 |pages= 39 |isbn= 978-11076-59599 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=vU1yZQ03Kz0C }}</ref><ref name="West"/>

After taking into account the estimated uncertainties in thermal gradient and thermal conductivity, Kelvin broadened an upper limit for the age of the Earth to interval between 20 and 400 millions of years (20 ~ 400 Ma). In a later paper, based on experimental results performed by Carl Barus (who found out that diabase, a typical basalt of very primitive character, melts between 1100°C and 1170°C and is thoroughly liquid at 1300°C)<ref name="KelvinNature1895">{{cite journal |title=On the Age of the Earth |author= Lord Kelvin |journal= Nature (reprint in SA)|date= January 3, 1895 |pages= 334-337 |url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lord-kelvin-on-the-age-of-the-earth/ |accessdate=14 June 2015 |quote= Carl Barus (Phil. Mag., 1893, first half year, pp. 186, 187, 301-305) that diabase, a typical basalt of very primitive character, melts between 1,100° C. and 1,170° and is thoroughly liquid at 1,300°.}}</ref>, he modified the value for supposed initial molten rock temperature to 1200°C<ref name="Richter"/>, thus by the end of the 1800s narrowed down the interval to 20 ~ 40Ma<ref name="chemeu">{{cite web |title=William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin |publisher=chemeurope.com |url=http://www.chemeurope.com/en/encyclopedia/William_Thomson%2C_1st_Baron_Kelvin.html |accessdate=14 June 2015 |quote= Thomson ultimately settled on an estimate that the Earth was 20-40 million years old }}</ref>, with personal preference for the lower value which is also the most quoted one.<ref>{{cite book |title= The Dating Game: One Man's Search for the Age of the Earth  |author= Cherry Lewis  |publisher= Cambridge University Press |year= 2012 |pages= 39 |isbn= 978-11076-59599 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=vU1yZQ03Kz0C }}</ref><ref name="West"/>

Many scientists liked these values, since they appeared to be consistent with calculations made by [[Hermann von Helmholtz]], who in 1854 estimated the age of sun to be between 20 and 40 million years,<ref name="ingv"/><ref>{{cite web |title= Trial balloons and the age of the earth |author= Tas Walker |publisher=CMI |url= http://creation.com/trial-balloons-geochronology |accessdate= 14 June 2015}}</ref> but for both evolutionists in biology as well as uniformitarians in geology they were distastefully low.<ref name="KelvinRevisited">{{cite web |title= Lord Kelvin revisited on the young age of the earth |author= John Woodmorappe |publisher=CMI |url= http://creation.com/trial-balloons-geochronology |accessdate= 14 June 2015}}</ref>

Many scientists liked these values, since they appeared to be consistent with calculations made by [[Hermann von Helmholtz]], who in 1854 estimated the age of sun to be between 20 and 40 million years,<ref name="ingv"/><ref>{{cite web |title= Trial balloons and the age of the earth |author= Tas Walker |publisher=CMI |url= http://creation.com/trial-balloons-geochronology |accessdate= 14 June 2015}}</ref> but for both evolutionists in biology as well as uniformitarians in geology they were distastefully low.<ref name="KelvinRevisited">{{cite web |title= Lord Kelvin revisited on the young age of the earth |author= John Woodmorappe |publisher=CMI |url= http://creation.com/trial-balloons-geochronology |accessdate= 14 June 2015}}</ref>

== The game changer: Radioactivity mythmaking==

== The game changer: Radioactivity mythmaking==