History of geology: scottish uniformitarianism from the point of view of philosophy of science. Didactic implications

Abstract

We are trying in this work to do an approximation to History and Philosophy of Geology by the application of the concept of “research traditions” from L. Laudan to the birth of geology as science with the “Theory of the Earth” by J. Hutton and the “Principles of Geology” by C. Lyell, which founded the uniformitarianism/actualism, hegemonic theory from 1840 to the sixties of the last century, with the appearance of neocatastrofism. Also, we will see how these concepts can be applied to teacher treaning and the curriculum of sciences of post-compulsory secondary education.