Changes

|pages=9, 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> Despite his treatises lacking both a timescale and even a clearly developed sense of time, in 1778 he proposed, apparently following his own belief ''"past is so old and has left so few traces that one can say anything one likes about it"'',<ref name="Rappaport1997"/> that the Earth was about 74,832 years old,<ref name="ingv">INGV</ref> what was also 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>{{#tag:ref|cf. Of course, no one can precisely gauge hom much [[Enlightment]] thinking about material origin for life and organic species contributed to the political, social, and religious turmoil of the French Revolution, but some observers at the time saw a causal link. Notions of biological instability seemed to breed social disorder; ... and chaos ensued as the law of jungle became the rule in Paris. For [[Cuvier]], ... Speculative systems in natural history invited ruin. ... [He] took every opportunity to criticize the speculations of [[Buffon]] and other materialist-minded naturalists.<ref name="Larson"/>|group=note}} Despite his treatises lacking both a timescale and even a clearly developed sense of time, in 1778 he proposed, apparently following his own belief ''"past is so old and has left so few traces that one can say anything one likes about it"'',<ref name="Rappaport1997"/> that the Earth was about 74,832 years old,<ref name="ingv">INGV</ref> what was also in line with thinking that pushed God as [[Creator]] either back in time or out of the picture altogether.<ref name="Larson"/>

In the early nineteenth-century, the so called [[uniformitarian]]s conspired to overthrow the [[Biblical chronology]] that would measure geologic time in generations of man.<ref name="Richter">{{cite journal |title=Geological Notes: Kelvin and the Age of Earth |author=F.M. Richter |publisher=Journal of Geology |year=1986 |volume=94 |pages=395–401 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/30068713}}</ref> The dictum as a fundamental maxim for their geological speculation and worldview<ref name="PerryInAS">{{cite web |title=Kelvin, Perry and the Age of the Earth |author=Philip C. England, Peter Molnar, Frank M. Richter |date= |url=http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/page2/kelvin-perry-and-the-age-of-the-earth |accessdate=13 June 2015 |quote=Before dissecting Kelvin's arguments, it is worth describing the worldview that he was opposing.}}</ref> was expressed through [[James Hutton]]’s aphorism,<ref name="ingv"/> coming from his 1785 book ''Theory of the earth'': ''“The revolt, therefore, of this physical inquiry is, that we find [[Singularity#Antipathy to the idea of beginning|no vestige of a beginning]], [[Horror of a Divine Foot|no prospect of an end]].“''<ref name="KelvinOnDynamics">{{cite web |title=On Geological Dynamics |author=W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin) |publisher= Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow |year=1869 |url=http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/on_geological_dynamics.html |aaccessdate=May 17, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Theory of the earth; or an investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolution and restoration of land upon the globe. |author=James Hutton |publisher=Royal Society of Edinburgh |year=1785 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=RjYAAAAAQAAJ}}</ref> Hutton's theory of the earth was not based on field observations but on his [[Wishful thinking|wishful]], speculative confusion of geological process with [[Newton]]ian [[physics]].<ref name="GOULDinNYT">{{cite web |title=IT'S AN OLD, OLD , OLD, OLD WORLD |publisher= NYT |author=D. R. Wallace |date= June 14, 1987 |url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/09/home/gould-arrow.html |accessdate=7 June 2015 |quote=Hutton's theory of the earth as a geological clockwork of eroding continents balanced against uplifting ocean basins was not based on field observations but on his wishful, speculative confusion of geological process with Newtonian physics....Hutton and Lyell were dedicated not to modern notions of geological dynamism but to antique ones of geological steady-state...The textbook legend of Hutton and Lyell seems dim and confused compared with that of Copernicus and Galileo. In demonstrating the shallowness of that legend}}</ref>

In the early nineteenth-century, the so called [[uniformitarian]]s conspired to overthrow the [[Biblical chronology]] that would measure geologic time in generations of man.<ref name="Richter">{{cite journal |title=Geological Notes: Kelvin and the Age of Earth |author=F.M. Richter |publisher=Journal of Geology |year=1986 |volume=94 |pages=395–401 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/30068713}}</ref> The dictum as a fundamental maxim for their geological speculation and worldview<ref name="PerryInAS">{{cite web |title=Kelvin, Perry and the Age of the Earth |author=Philip C. England, Peter Molnar, Frank M. Richter |date= |url=http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/page2/kelvin-perry-and-the-age-of-the-earth |accessdate=13 June 2015 |quote=Before dissecting Kelvin's arguments, it is worth describing the worldview that he was opposing.}}</ref> was expressed through [[James Hutton]]’s aphorism,<ref name="ingv"/> coming from his 1785 book ''Theory of the earth'': ''“The revolt, therefore, of this physical inquiry is, that we find [[Singularity#Antipathy to the idea of beginning|no vestige of a beginning]], [[Horror of a Divine Foot|no prospect of an end]].“''<ref name="KelvinOnDynamics">{{cite web |title=On Geological Dynamics |author=W. Thomson (Lord Kelvin) |publisher= Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow |year=1869 |url=http://zapatopi.net/kelvin/papers/on_geological_dynamics.html |aaccessdate=May 17, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Theory of the earth; or an investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolution and restoration of land upon the globe. |author=James Hutton |publisher=Royal Society of Edinburgh |year=1785 |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=RjYAAAAAQAAJ}}</ref> Hutton's theory of the earth was not based on field observations but on his [[Wishful thinking|wishful]], speculative confusion of geological process with [[Newton]]ian [[physics]].<ref name="GOULDinNYT">{{cite web |title=IT'S AN OLD, OLD , OLD, OLD WORLD |publisher= NYT |author=D. R. Wallace |date= June 14, 1987 |url=http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/09/home/gould-arrow.html |accessdate=7 June 2015 |quote=Hutton's theory of the earth as a geological clockwork of eroding continents balanced against uplifting ocean basins was not based on field observations but on his wishful, speculative confusion of geological process with Newtonian physics....Hutton and Lyell were dedicated not to modern notions of geological dynamism but to antique ones of geological steady-state...The textbook legend of Hutton and Lyell seems dim and confused compared with that of Copernicus and Galileo. In demonstrating the shallowness of that legend}}</ref>