Deep Time
Gould ranks the development of the concept "deep time," which involved deliberately rejecting the biblical description of earth's past for nearly incomprehensible eons, with the revolutions associated with Copernicus and Darwin. To illustrate this, Gould picked three major figures in the history of geology, one traditional villain (Thomas Burnet) and two traditional heroes (James Hutton and Charles Lyell).
Read more about this topic: Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle
Famous quotes containing the words deep and/or time:
“In love’s deep womb our fears are held;
there God’s rich tears are sown
and bring to birth, in hope new-born,
the strength to journey on.”
—Rob Johns (20th century)
“Little minds mistake little objects for great ones, and lavish away upon the former that time and attention which only the latter deserve. To such mistakes we owe the numerous and frivolous tribe of insect-mongers, shell-mongers, and pursuers and driers of butterflies, etc. The strong mind distinguishes, not only between the useful and the useless, but likewise between the useful and the curious.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)