What did Sir Charles Lyell accomplish with his famous Principles of Geology?
Sir Charles Lyells three volume book, Principles of Geology published in 1830, has been called the most important book ever. It was important because his ideas on how the earth had been formed were completely opposite to the prevailing beliefs. Previously, it was believed that the sedimentary rock strata seen were a result of cataclysms like Noahs flood. However, Sir Charles Lyell believed that cataclysms were not responsible for forming the appearance of the earths crust, but very slow processes like we see happening today. He coined the clich that the present is the key to the past, which has been the motto of uniformitarianism science. The uniformitarianism concept, along with its mandatory accompanying old earth philosophy, provided the primary influence for Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. Together, these ideas have caused a paradigm shift from a biblical creation, young earth worldview to a humanistic, evolutionary old earth worldview. Certainly this paradigm shift, re
