Reviewing the term uniformitarianism in modern Earth sciences Marco Romano Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, “Sapienza” Università di Roma, P.le A. Moro 5, 00185 Roma, Italy abstract article info Article history: Received 16 September 2014 Accepted 9 May 2015 Available online 22 May 2015 Keywords: Uniformitarianism Catastrophism Actualism Gradualism Lyell Whewell Uniformitarianism is a classical term of the geological sciences, coined in 1832 by Whewell to indicate a specific part of Lyell's hypothesis. However, over the years uniformitarianism has been used with different meanings, fi- nally becoming synonymous with the entire theoretical system proposed by Lyell in his Principles. The popularity of this term and its frequently kaleidoscopic usage in the literature may be due in large part to the apparent sim- plicity of the “principle” of uniformitarianism. This is often summarized by the classical adage “the present is the key to the past”, a reductionist motto that has been passed through many generations of Earth scientists. In the text that follows, the major revisions of the term by Gould, Mayr and Rudwick are discussed in detail. These re- visions are used as solid epistemological basis for understanding the countless “shades of meaning” attributed to the term over time, and the main reasons that led to the overgrowth of a semantic chaos; one that poorly fits a modern scientific discipline. Apart from the “invariance of natural laws” in space and time (the basic assumptions made in all scientific disci- plines), all remaining “principles” historically related to, or imbedded within uniformitarianism, have been defin- itively falsified. Even the “Uniformity of process”, which is essentially coincident with the term “actualism”, can be applied only to certain categories of products and processes (or to some particular stages in the evolution of our planet). In many cases, an extension of a current process to the past and vice versa is not warranted, in view of the crucial importance played by “configurational causes” during the evolution of our planet. On the whole the analysis carried out highlights a real need to reconsider and investigate the epistemological un- derpinning of the Earth sciences, with one main effort aimed at solid preparation of young geologists, beginning with the basic courses of university education. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 2. Principal reviews of the term uniformitarianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 3. Modern usage of the term . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 4. What remains of uniformitarianism in the modern understanding of the Earth sciences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 5. Discussion and conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 1. Introduction Uniformitarianism is a classical term of the geological sciences, a term that has frequently been the subject of heated debate since the time of its first appearance in literature, in 1832. Though uniformitari- anism is traditionally associated with the name of one of the founders of geology (e.g. Zittel, 1901), Charles Lyell (1797–1875) and superficially only to his “predecessor” James Hutton (actually several concepts embedded in the term ‘uniformitarianism’ had been pioneering developed as early as the fifteenth century by prominent naturalists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Agostino Scilla; see Romano, 2013, 2015), the word was originally coined in 1832 by William Whewell (Fig. 1), in an anonymous review of Volume 2 of Lyell's Princi- ples (Marvin, 1999). Whewell identified uniformitarianism as one of the fundamental principles on which the Lyell theoretical system is based, particularly that relating to the uniformity of rates and intensities in the natural processes, rejecting the possibility that major changes in Earth-Science Reviews 148 (2015) 65–76 E-mail address: marco.romano@uniroma1.it. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2015.05.010 0012-8252/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Earth-Science Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/earscirev