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Why I Am a Presentist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2013

Naomi Oreskes
Naomi Oreskes*
Affiliation:
Department of History of Science, Harvard University E-mail: [email protected]
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Extract

Both geologists and historians study the past, but they have divergent views of the present. Geologists are unambiguously presentist. They believe that the observable present is a crucial resource in understanding the past, because in the observable present we can see and study the processes that have occurred in the unobservable past. For geologists, it is largely uncontroversial that the past not only can but should be interpreted with reference to the present.

Type
Research Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 26 , Issue 4: Approaches, Styles, and Narratives: Reflections on Doing History of Science , December 2013 , pp. 595 - 609
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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