A paradigmatic analysis of Darwin's use of uniformitarianism in 'The Origin of Species'.

Uniformitarianism was a Kuhnian paradigm advocated by Lyell that directed geologic research throughout the last two centuries. As such, the work of Lyell had a major influence on Charles Darwin, who used uniformitarianism to account for the paucity of the fossil record and to provide the open-ended time scale necessary for organic evolution. Darwin's use of gradualism to establish an open-ended time scale is incorrect, as the formulation of uniformitarianism calling for constant rates of processes has been disproven. Given the historical context of Lyell's day, however, Darwin had little choice but to adopt gradualism. The actualism of Hutton could not stand up to the arguments of catastrophists, and Darwin's alternative was catastrophism, a paradigm that would not accommodate his theory. -Author