Martin John Spencer Rudwick (born 1932) is a British

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the structure, composition, and History of Earth, history of Earth. Geologists incorporate techniques from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and geography to perform research in the Field research, ...

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 species; as well as the ...

, and academic. Rudwick is an

emeritus professor ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

of History at the

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and an affiliated research scholar at

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'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 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 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 from the History of Science Society. In 2008, he was elected a

Fellow of the British Academy Fellowship of the British Academy (post-nominal letters 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 t ...

(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 university press of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It pu ...

, 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,
brief description at Routledge website
* ''Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution'' (Chicago, 2005, )

(Chicago, 2008, ) * '' Earth's Deep History: How It Was Discovered and Why It Matters'' (Chicago, 2014, )brief description at U. of Chicago Press

References

External links

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