Uniformitarianism - or how to property try to cite/reference things on steemit (or in life)

The internet is freeing and a wonderful way to share ideas and information.

To prove this, here is a photo we took earlier this year in Patagonia...

Mountains, colours, snow, cool!

However, there can be a tendency for not citing sources well with both ideas and photos.

We can all copy and paste at will and this allows us to move things around and share. That is cool. But referencing the work and ideas of others is really really important. We stand on the shoulders of giants... or as said the first time by Issac Newton (1675):

                     "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants"    

In science, if you use an idea that is not your own, then you must cite or give reference to where this idea came from.

For example, an awesome word and concept we can explore this with is Uniformitarianism (Whewell, 1832).

See the wiki write up on this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism

In 1832 a Cambridge scholar William Whewell, here is a good page outlining this and his predecessor James Hutton, came up with this concept:

http://pages.uwc.edu/keith.montgomery/ribmtn/uniform.htm

Since Uniformitarianism is not something I created, I have to try to cite the first use of this term (see above, e.g. Whewell, 1832) which then leads or helps lead the reader to my reference list where they can find out where this orginal source is. You can then try, I say "try" as finding older sources is sometimes difficult, to find the original source and read it yourself. Things get lost in translation so reading the first version of something is always best. Not relying on what someone else says about someone else's thoughts.

Cool!

Since this is difficult here, with a paper written over 186 years ago, I vote we look at the cool paper by Baker (1998) that is called: "Catastrophism and uniformitarianism logical roots and current relevance in geology", and does a great job of outlining the origins and significance of this word, for natural history and in particular for geology.

A quick google search leads us to the paper here. Feel free to read for your self and welcome to the rabbit-hole of science....

http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/specpubgsl/143/1/171.full.pdf

Keep that in mind because we all stand on the shoulders of Giants (Newton 1675) and should try to give them credit whenever we can. Good luck and keep sharing!

:)

References:

BAKER, V. R. 1998. Catastrophism and uniformitarianism: logical roots and current relevance in geology. 171 In: BLUNDELL,D. J. & ScoTt, A. C. (eds) Lvell: the Past is the Key to the Present. Geological Society,London, Special Publications, 143, 171-182. http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/specpubgsl/143/1/171.full.pdf

Newton, I. 1675, Isaac Newton letter to Robert Hooke, 1675
https://discover.hsp.org/Record/dc-9792/Details

Whewll, W. 1832. Review of Lyell, 1830-3, vol. ii. Quarterly Review, 47, 103-132.

photos are my own - copyright 2018 until the end of the interweb...