They are also epistemological, in that they seem appropriate or useful to invoke in some form in order to have any chance at all for achieving knowledge. It is for these reasons that the highly respected analytical philosopher Goodman (1967, p. 93) concluded, ‘The Principle of Uniformity dissolves into a principle of Kinase Inhibitor Library simplicity that is not peculiar to geology but pervades all science and even daily life.” For example, one must assume UL in order to land a spacecraft at a future time at a particular spot on Mars, i.e., one assumes that the laws

of physics apply to more than just the actual time and place of this instant. Physicists also assume a kind of parsimony by invoking weak forms UM and UP when making simplifying assumptions about the systems that they choose to model, generating conclusions by deductions from these assumptions combined with physical laws. In contrast, the other forms of uniformitarianism (UK, UD, UR, and US) are all substantive, or ontological, in that they claim a priori how nature is supposed to be. As William Whewell pointed out in his 1832 critique of Lyell’s Principles, selleck chemical it is not appropriate for the scientist to

conclude how nature is supposed to be in advance of any inquiry into the matter. Instead, it is the role of the scientist to interpret nature (Whewell is talking about geology here, not about either physics or “systems”), and science for Whewell is about getting to the correct interpretation. Many geologists continue to be confused by the terms “uniformity of nature” and “uniformitarianism.” Of course, Verteporfin cost Whewell introduced the latter to encompass all that was being argued in Lyell’s

Principles of Geology. In that book Lyell had discussed three principles ( Camandi, 1999): (1) the “Uniformity Principle” (a strong version of UM or UP) from which Lyell held that past geological events must be explained by the same causes now in operation, (2) a Uniformity of Rate Principle (UR above), and (3) a Steady-State Principle (US above). Lyell’s version of the “Uniformity Principle” is not merely methodological. It is stipulative in that it says what must be done, not what may be done. Indeed, all of Lyell’s principles are stipulative, with number one stipulating that explanations must be done in a certain way, and numbers two and three stipulating that nature/reality is a certain way (i.e., these are ontological claims). Using Gould’s (1965) distinctions, uniformity of law and uniformity of process are methodological (so long as we do not say “one must”), and uniformity of rate and of state are both stipulative and substantive. There is also the more general view of “uniformity of nature” in science, holding uniformity to be a larger concept than what is applicable only to the inferences about the past made by geologists.