Is uniformitarianism necessary

Gould, S. J. (1965). Is uniformitarianism necessary. American Journal of Science, 263(3), 223-228.

Type

Journal article

Intellectual base

Primary research

Year

1965

Link

https://doi.org/10.2475/ajs.263.3.223matched

Cited from

earth_sciences

Cited by

2 citations across 1 artifact.

Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.

Primes

• Uniformitarianism
  • (2) the assumption has multiple strengths — substantive uniformitarianism (the rates and intensities of processes have also remained roughly constant) is stronger than methodological uniformitarianism (only the kinds of processes are invariant) which is stronger than ontological uniformitarianism (only the physical laws are invariant), a tripartite analysis Gould (1965) developed in his influential paper "Is uniformitarianism necessary?";

    This sourceDistinguishes substantive uniformitarianism (rate invariance) from methodological uniformitarianism (kind invariance) from ontological uniformitarianism (law invariance); argues only the methodological version is a useful (and the substantive version a falsifiable) doctrine.

  • (3) the principle is pragmatic rather than absolute — it licenses reconstruction in the absence of positive evidence for regime change, but must be suspended when evidence of regime change emerges (mass extinctions, major geochemical transitions, anthropogenic changes), a pragmatic reading consistent with Gould's (1965) reduction of uniformitarianism to its methodological component only;

    This sourceArgues that the methodological reading reduces uniformitarianism to a pragmatic assumption of mechanism continuity, suspendable when evidence of regime change (e.g., catastrophic events) is present.

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