萬物簡史 第80期:敲石頭的人們(12)

Between Hutton's day and Lyell's there arose a newgeological controversy, which largely superseded,but is often confused with, the old Neptunian-Plutonian dispute. The new battle became anargument between catastrophism anduniformitarianism—unattractive terms for animportant and very long-running dispute.

在赫頓時代和萊爾時代之間，地質(zhì)學界發(fā)生了一場新的爭論。它在很大程度上取代了過去的水成論與火成論之爭，而又往往交混在一起。新的戰(zhàn)斗成為災(zāi)變論和均變論之爭。給一場重要而又曠日持久的爭論起這樣的名字，似乎有點兒不夠味兒。

Catastrophists, as you might expect from the name, believed that the Earth was shaped byabrupt cataclysmic events—floods principally, which is why catastrophism and neptunism areoften wrongly bundled together. Catastrophism was particularly comforting to clerics likeBuckland because it allowed them to incorporate the biblical flood of Noah into seriousscientific discussions. Uniformitarians by contrast believed that changes on Earth were gradualand that nearly all Earth processes happened slowly, over immense spans of time. Hutton wasmuch more the father of the notion than Lyell, but it was Lyell most people read, and so hebecame in most people's minds, then and now, the father of modern geological thought.

災(zāi)變論者——顧名思義——認為，地球是由突發(fā)的災(zāi)難性事件形成的——主要是洪水。這就是人們常常把災(zāi)變論和水成論互相混淆的原因。災(zāi)變論尤其迎合巴克蘭這樣的教士的心理，這樣他們可以把《圣經(jīng)》里諾亞時代的洪水納入嚴肅的科學討論。均變論者恰恰相反，認為地球上的變化是逐漸形成的，幾乎所有的地質(zhì)變化過程都是緩慢的，都要經(jīng)歷漫長的時間。最先提出這種見解的與其說是萊爾，不如說是赫頓，但大多數(shù)人讀的是萊爾的作品，因此在大多數(shù)人的腦海里，無論是當時還是現(xiàn)在，他成了近代地質(zhì)學之父。

Lyell believed that the Earth's shifts were uniform and steady—that everything that had everhappened in the past could be explained by events still going on today. Lyell and his adherentsdidn't just disdain catastrophism, they detested it. Catastrophists believed that extinctionswere part of a series in which animals were repeatedly wiped out and replaced with new sets—abelief that the naturalist T. H. Huxley mockingly likened to "a succession of rubbers of whist, atthe end of which the players upset the table and called for a new pack." It was too convenienta way to explain the unknown. "Never was there a dogma more calculated to fosterindolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity," sniffed Lyell.

萊爾認為，地球的變遷是一貫的，緩慢的--過去已經(jīng)發(fā)生過的一切都可以用今天仍在發(fā)生的事情來解釋。萊爾和他的信徒們不但瞧不起災(zāi)變論，而且對它深惡痛絕。災(zāi)變論者認為，絕種是一系列過程的組成部分，在此過程中，動物不斷滅亡，被新的動物取而代之--博物學家T.H.赫胥黎把這種看法挖苦地比做是"惠斯特牌戲里的一連串勝局，到了最后，打牌的人推翻桌子，要求換一副新牌"。以這種方法來解釋未知的事物未免過于俗套。“從來沒有見過比這樣的一種教條更蓄意助長懶漢精神，更削弱人們的好奇心的了。”萊爾嗤之以鼻地說。