As prehistoric bones were unearthed, some Victorians wondered about the timeline of creation and the nature of God.

The present is the key to the past. Every geologist worth their sodium chloride knows this. The famous phrase, a distillation of the principle of uniformitarianism, can be seen emblazoned on mugs ...

Substantive uniformitarianism (a testable theory of geologic change postulating uniformity of rates or material conditions) is false and stifling to hypothesis formation.