The Man Who Found Time

The story of the gentleman farmer from Edinburgh who discovered that the earth was millions of years old, not six thousand, paving the way for Darwin's theory of evolution Three men's contributions helped free science from the straightjacket of theology - Nicholaus Copernicus and Charles Darwin, and James Hutton, who did not receive the same recognition, yet still profoundly changed our understanding of the earth and its forces. Hutton proved that the earth was millions of years old rather than the biblically determined six thousand, and that it was continuously being shaped and re-shaped by everyday forces, rather than one cataclysmic event. He went on to provide the scientific proof that allowed Darwin's theory of evolution to be viable. This is also the story of Scotland and the Scottish Enlightenment, which brought together some of the greatest thinkers of the age, from David Hume and Adam Smith to James Watt and Erasmus Darwin. It is also a story about the power of the written word. Repcheck argues that Hutton's work was lost to history because he could not describe his findings in graceful and readable prose: Unlike Darwin's Origin of the Species, Hutton's one and only book was impenetrable. Jack Repcheck tells the remarkable story of this Scottish gentleman and farmer, and how his simple observations on his small tract of land led him to a theory that was in direct confrontation with the Bible. This is a marvellous narrative about a little known man and the science he founded.