Geological History Turned Upside Down
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OPINION NATURE|Vol 454|24 July 2008 Core caper Journey to the Center of the Earth Film directed by Eric Brevig In UK and US cinemas now When Jules Verne wrote A Journey to the LINE CINEMA S. RAYMOND/NEW Centre of the Earth in 1864, science was still coming to terms with the planet’s extreme age, and Verne’s story of a swiss-cheese globe containing vast seas and prehistoric creatures had a satisfying ring of plausibility. The novel’s eccentric scientist, Otto Lidenbrock, invokes real-life researchers from Humphry Davy to Joseph Fourier, and the thrilling plot is regu- larly punctuated by scientific musings that were then cutting-edge. The book may have inspired many to become geologists, but for recent generations of read- ers, the obvious impossibility of the subterra- nean voyage has detracted from its allure. It was even “too fantastic” for David Stevenson of the Jules Verne dismantled: Journey to the Center of the Earth is silly, but holds science in high regard. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, who proposed an unmanned mission to probe (Josh Hutcherson) and the Icelandic daughter pokes fun at the maverick scientist trope, with Earth’s core in this journal in 2003. of a missing Vernite (Anita Briem). deadpan lines like “Although [he] was ridiculed So this 2008 cinematic visit to Verne’s strange A sleight of hand with the science — a few by the scientific community, he was eventually subterranean world is more akin to fantasy “seismic readings” on a computer screen — found to be correct.” than science fiction. Journey to the Center of gets the trio to the centre of Earth. But once That said, the movie is pretty mindless. It the Earth, the new 3D film by special-effects underground, science saves the day as Fraser’s has the standard comedic patter in the face of guru Eric Brevig, is silly — in a good way. And character shows expert knowledge of mineral danger, with punchlines you can see coming within its imaginary world, the film holds properties that rescues them from lava, dino- all 6,400 kilometres from the centre of Earth. science and fact in high regard. saurs and the like. Mandatory shots take advantage of the 3D to The film is not an exact remake of the novel. The film’s tough scientist hero and its excit- make the audience jump. Happily, it doesn’t Rather, it imagines a world where a few present- ing caverns and formations might even have take itself too seriously: “Eat your trilobite son; day maverick geologists called Vernites believe the effect on young audiences that the novel you’ve got to keep your strength up.” And its the novel to be fact not fiction. The action fol- presumably had on previous proto-geologists. new and improved 3D effects are a lot of fun lows a geologist, played for broad comedy by It vividly portrays the geological world of rocks to watch. ■ Brendan Fraser, his sullen teenage nephew and lava as diverse, dynamic and cool. It also Emma Marris is a correspondent for Nature. Geological history turned upside down Worlds Before Adam: The Reconstruction of cultural impact with that of relativity or Darwin- Rudwick’s books are myth-busters, of which Geohistory in the Age of Reform ian evolution. Rudwick, an influential historian writers of introductory geology texts and pop- by Martin J. S. Rudwick of Earth science, emphasizes geology’s histori- ularizations should take note. In both volumes University of Chicago Press: 2008. 614 pp. cal and causal approaches to understanding, he counters the Anglocentric view that James $49.00 complementing his magisterial book Bursting Hutton, William Smith and Charles Lyell were the Limits of Time (University of Chicago Press, the founders of modern geology who shone Geologists study Earth by applying principles 2005). This earlier work covered the period their British intellectual light onto the dark- borrowed from more fundamental sciences. between 1787 and 1822, when French savant ness of continental musings. To a large degree, Yet geology also has its own set of attitudes that Georges Cuvier and his fellow continental geol- he argues, the reverse was the case. have accrued during the discipline’s long his- ogists gave meaning to signs of the past, such as Controversially, Rudwick challenges the view tory. The nature of geological inquiry, involv- fossils and strata, in the same way as historians that geology’s development is a story of secular ing a synthesis of historical and philosophical and archaeologists use monuments and archives progress. He shows that the founders of geol- reasoning, lies at the heart of Martin Rudwick’s to map human history. Worlds Before Adam ogy were almost all men of faith. Yet they often fine new book. looks at how the ideas generated by Cuvier and engaged in fierce debates with pseudo-scientists Worlds Before Adam shows that the emer- others came together with more theoretical con- who ascribed absolute authority to readings of gence of modern geology was comparable in its cepts between 1820 and 1845. the Bible. Theologians have discredited such 406 NATURE|Vol 454|24 July 2008 OPINION views for centuries, but they still persist, with by his advocacy of actualism, which was widely processes, before interpreting the evidence. geologists continuing to refute them. used, nor was any serious denunciation forth- Worlds Before Adam concludes with the If contemporary lists of the greatest scien- coming from the biblical literalists, who were development of glacial theory, popularized tists feature a geologist at all, it is usually Lyell, considered anti-scientific by Lyell and by his in the nineteenth century by Cuvier’s disciple a central figure in Worlds Before Adam. Lyell critics. Instead, the geological facts themselves Louis Agassiz, perhaps the greatest of the cata- intended the title of his great multi-volume seemed contrary to Lyell’s vision of uniform strophists. Agassiz’s theory of the great spread opus Principles of Geology (first published in action by small-scale processes operating over of ice sheets during relatively recent geologi- 1830–1833) to recall Isaac Newton’s Principia. a long time. Examples include evidence for cal time gained rapid acceptance among cat- He sought to recast geology on firm founda- sudden mass extinctions from records in vari- astrophists because it accounted for many tions, just as Newton had done for physics. ous ‘bone caves’, the existence of huge blocks anomalous features originally ascribed to huge Following his geologist contemporaries and sitting erratically out of geological place in the floods or tsunamis. However, Lyell resisted, predecessors, Lyell used the understanding of Alps and northern Europe, and deep U-shaped remaining true to his epistemological project. present-day causes to interpret the deep past valleys containing streams too small to account As we enter an era of global crises about — a principle termed actualism. Rudwick for their excavation. Lyell’s critics held that one water, energy and the environment, and as we explains that Lyell’s excellent descriptions of should inquire into nature through evidence, seek to understand the development of our current geological processes, embellished with rather than through privileged reasoning. species among others in one corner of the Uni- observations from his own geological excur- The great Cambridge polymath William verse, geologists’ perspectives give a means for sions, derived from an original listing by the Whewell named the two sides in the debate. both understanding and coping. In showing eighteenth-century German scholar Karl Ernst Lyell’s advocates he labelled ‘uniformitarians’; how these perspectives arose, Rudwick high- Adolf von Hoff. Lyell greatly extended the actu- their opponents he called ‘catastrophists’. It is an lights an underappreciated, glorious advance in alistic method by making pronouncements irony of subsequent developments in geology, human thought, the documentation of which is about how the complex geological processes and a testimony to the success of Lyell’s advo- a rather glorious achievement in itself. ■ of the past occurred through the progressive cacy, that catastrophism came to be regarded Victor R. Baker is Regents’ Professor of Hydrology action of small-scale procedures that were still as unconventional. This perverted Whewell’s and Water Resources, Planetary Sciences and in operation, and by prescribing how geologists original intention, which was to show that the Geosciences at the University of Arizona, Tucson, should reason about these past processes. uniformitarians and Lyell were extreme in Arizona 85721, USA, and ex-president of the Rudwick shows that Lyell’s ideas met with thinking that geologists should say in advance Geological Society of America. almost universal criticism. This was not caused how nature works, through slow and uniform e-mail: [email protected] informed by NASA and research into artificial Romance among robots intelligence. Pixar animators have mastered the literature on non-verbal communication; they have studied in detail the workings of robots WALL·E from Mars rovers to assembly lines, and have Film directed by Andrew Stanton internalized the stunning images from the In UK and US cinemas now Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. The animation in WALL·E is astonishing, but A few years ago, at the Massachusetts Institute Pixar recognized long ago that technology alone of Technology’s artificial intelligence lab, I met does not fill cinemas. Stories do, and WALL·E’s an android. Her conversation was perfunctory, creators are master storytellers. Sci-fi master mostly simple responses to my equally simple Robert Heinlein maintained that there are only words, but her eyes, widening, narrowing and three plots in science fiction. All figure here: a subtly changing angle, made a genuine emo- sweet love story, the triumph of plucky stowa- tional connection.