Why James Hutton's 300th should be about celebrating creativity in science
Before Hutton became a giant of geology he studied humanities at university and recognised the importance of creativity in scientific research, writes Roger Cox
Next Wednesday, 3 June it will be 300 years since James Hutton, “the father of geology”, was born in Edinburgh. As previously discussed on scotsman.com, the fact that Hutton’s tercentenary isn’t being made a much bigger deal of should be a big deal in itself. This, after all, is a man whose groundbreaking work revolutionised the way the whole of humanity thinks about the history of the earth. Not many people get to put that kind of thing on a CV.
Before Hutton, most Europeans were more-or-less cool with the Biblical notion that the planet had been created by a benevolent God about 6,000 years previously, presumably at a moment when there was a particularly plentiful supply of cosmic-grade sticky-back plastic. After Hutton, however, we’d caught ourselves on to the idea of Deep Time, thanks to his studies of rock formations leading him to conclude that the process by which the earth’s crust is continually destroying and renewing itself shows “no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end.”
Any chance of – say – a national holiday to mark this momentous occasion? Nope, although on 15 June Scotland will of course be enjoying a national holiday because its football team made it to the second phase of a competition it almost certainly won’t win. Priorities, eh? Still, never mind, because there are plenty of people who are doing their best to highlight the monumental scale of Hutton’s achievements; and fittingly, for reasons we’ll get into later, a lot of this activity seems to be emanating from the creative sector.
Not that the relevant scientific bodies aren’t doing their bit. As you might reasonably expect, the folks at the Scottish Geology Trust have made the theme of this year’s Scottish Geology Festival (1-30 June) “300 Years of Deep Time” and fairly stuffed the programme with Hutton-related happenings, while on 3 June the Royal Society of Edinburgh will be holding an all-day symposium, “Celebrating James Hutton’s Lasting Impact”. On 5 June, the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh will be offering an afternoon of short talks and tours of its temporary Hutton Tercentenary display while just down the road at Dynamic Earth they have a programme of Hutton-themed events running throughout the year.
As previously reported, from the start of June it will also be possible to access the famous Hutton’s Section on Salisbury Crags in Edinburgh, as Historic Environment Scotland prepare to re-open the Radical Road, and the Scottish Geology Trust is working on a new James Hutton Deep Time Trail at Siccar Point in the Scottish Borders, which they hope will make it easier for visitors to both reach and understand a landform of central importance to Hutton’s work.
What stands out, though, is the extent to which Hutton’s 300th birthday is being marked by the artistic community as well as the scientific one. Scotsman art critic Susan Mansfield has already remarked on the number of Hutton-themed exhibitions taking place. At time of writing, in his home city of Edinburgh, you can take your pick from a major group show called Earth Matters at Inverleith House (until 1 November) and the RSA’s Annual Exhibition (until 14 June), which this year, in a nod to Hutton, invited artists to respond to the theme “In Time”. There’s also an exhibition of work by Calum Wallis at An Tobar on Mull (until 24 June) called The Ground Shakes, in which the Dundee-based artist “reflects on the dynamic forces that shape the land and our fleeting relationship to deep geological time.”
Musicians are getting in on the act too: on 27 June, at Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh, there will be a Hutton 300 concert, concluding with an “earth-themed” set from Karine Polwart and Dave Milligan, whose most recent album included the song Siccar Point, and also featuring Olivia Rafferty, whose album Typical Forever is all about geology.
Books-wise, Edinburgh publishers Birlinn are re-releasing Ray Perman’s 2022 study of Hutton, James Hutton: The Genius of Time, reviewed very favourably by the late, great Scotsman critic Allan Massie when first published, and Anne Brusatte has penned a new children’s book, The Rocktastic Life of James Hutton, Scottish Geologist, illustrated by Maikki Haapalainen. There has been a flurry of more generally geology-themed books in Scotland this year, too, from Kenneth Steven’s In Search of Gems (a “delightfully accessible” collection of essays on geology, according to Scotsman critic David Robinson) to Rocks: A Guide to the Stones Around Us and the Stories They Tell by Vojta Hybl – a beautifully illustrated field guide by the Czech-born, Scotland-based writer and artist.
Why is it significant that artists are so engaged in Hutton’s tercentenary? Well, because much has been made of Hutton’s great scientific breakthrough as an imaginative act. As Perman points out in his book, Hutton himself “defended imagination as a tool in the quest for scientific truth.” At a time when arts subjects at our universities seem to be under siege, perhaps we would do well to remember that when Hutton first went to Edinburgh University it was to study humanities. There are all kinds of ways to train a brain – and AI doesn’t do imagination.
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