Martin John Spencer Rudwick (born 1932) is a British

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

, and academic. Rudwick is an

emeritus professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

of History at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is ...

and an affiliated research scholar at

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

's Department of History and Philosophy of Science. His principal field of study is the history of the

earth sciences Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four spheres ...

; his work has been described as the "definitive histories of the pre-Darwinian earth sciences". Rudwick was an early scholar to critique the

conflict thesis The conflict thesis is a historiographical approach in the history of science that originated in the 19th century with John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White. It maintains that there is an intrinsic intellectual conflict between religion ...

regarding religion and science.

Honours

Rudwick was awarded the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society, London, in 1972. He was the recipient of

Sue Tyler Friedman Medal The Sue Tyler Friedman Medal is awarded by the Geological Society of London for work on the history of geology. Established in 1987, it is named after the wife of academic journal editor and publisher Gerald M. Friedman, and was funded by a gift t ...

of the Geological Society of London in 1988. The Society for the History of Natural History awarded Rudwick the Founder's Medal in 1988. Rudwick was named a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation for 1994–1995, the same years that he was Tarner Lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was recipient of the Bernal Prize from the Society for Social Sciences in 1999. He was the recipient of the 2007

George Sarton Medal The George Sarton Medal is the most prestigious award given by the History of Science Society. It has been awarded annually since 1955. It is awarded to an historian of science from the international community who became distinguished for "a lifet ...

from the

History of Science Society The History of Science Society (HSS) is the primary professional society for the academic study of the history of science. It was founded in 1924 by George Sarton, David Eugene Smith, and Lawrence Joseph Henderson, primarily to support the publi ...

. In 2008, he was elected a

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are: # Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom # ...

(FBA). In 2008 he was given the Prix Wegmann of the Société Géologique de France. Rudwick was awarded the Levinson Prize by the History of Science Society in 2012 and the Dingle Prize of the British Society for the History of Science in 2015. In 2016 the International Union of Geological Sciences awarded Rudwick the Tikhomirov Award.

Bibliography

* ''Living and Fossil Brachiopods'' (Hutchinson, 1970, ) * ''The Meaning of Fossils: Essays in the History of Paleontology'' (American Elsevier, 1972, ; 2nd ed. Science History Publications, 1976, ; 3rd ed.

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including '' The Chicago Manual of Style' ...

, 1985, ) * Martin Rudwick, “The Shape and Meaning of Earth History,” in God and Nature: Historical Essays and the Encounter between Christianity and Science, edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald Numbers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 296–321. * ''The Great Devonian Controversy: The Shaping of Scientific Knowledge among Gentlemanly Specialists'' (Chicago, 1985, ) * ''Scenes from Deep Time: Early Pictorial Images of the Prehistoric World'' (Chicago, 1992, ) * ''Georges Cuvier, Fossil Bones, and Geological Catastrophes'' (Chicago, 1997, ) * ''The New Science of Geology: Studies in the Earth Sciences in the Age of Revolution'' (Ashgate, 2004, ) * ''Lyell and Darwin, Geologists: Studies in the Earth Sciences in the Age of Reform'' (Ashgate, 2005, ) * ''Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution'' (Chicago, 2005, )
''Worlds Before Adam: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Reform''
(Chicago, 2008, ) * '' Earth's Deep History: How It Was Discovered and Why It Matters'' (Chicago, 2014, )

References

External links

* Historians of science 1932 births Living people Fellows of the British Academy {{UK-historian-stub