Editorial Type:
Article Category: Research Article
| Online Publication Date: 05 Nov 2007
The Imaginary Lyellian Revolution
The Imaginary Lyellian Revolution
Page Range: 126 – 133
Historians and philosophers of science have usually followed Kuhn in his appraisal of Lyell's contribution to geology as a major scientific revolution. Nevertheless a detailed analysis of the historical evidence rather support a different view: Lyell's work did not establish any paradigm to be unanimously accepted by his colleagues. Thus Kuhn's model of scientific change does not authorize us to speak of a Lyellian revolution in geology. On the contrary such an interpretation is a recent historiographic myth, originated with Gillispie's Genesis and Geology and promptly prevailing as a result of Kuhn's highly influential The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.