The epoch that never was: why geologists refused to formally recognise the Anthropocene (and what this tells us about the values of science)

DIPC Seminars

Speaker

José Luis Granados
EHU

When

2026/06/11
17:00

Place

DIPC Josebe Olarra Seminar Room

Host

DIPC, Group for the Integrated History and Philosophy of Science (iHPS, EHU)

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DIPC, together with the Integrated History and Philosophy of Science group (iHPS, EHU), organizes a monthly colloquium featuring professional historians of science, aimed at broadening the training of scientific researchers as well as engaging the general public on topics related to the history of science.

The epoch that never was: why geologists refused to formally recognise the Anthropocene (and what this tells us about the values of science)(in Spanish)

In March 2024, an international committee of geologists voted against declaring the Anthropocene an official new geological epoch. The decision brought to an end fifteen years of work by a multidisciplinary team that had even proposed a specific location —Lake Crawford in Canada— for the famous "golden spike" that would mark the start of the human era. But the most striking development came afterwards: the very same body that rejected the proposal declared that the concept remains “useful” for other sciences and for society.

How is it possible for the same institution to formally reject an idea yet validate it for broader applications? Was this a scientific defeat or a reflection of something deeper?

This talk by José Luis Granados, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of the Basque Country (EHU), offers an interpretation of the Anthropocene debate that goes beyond the technical anecdote. Contrasting the image of a science that advances through the accumulation of evidence, we will see how this case reveals a tension between two scientific cultures with differing values. On the one hand, Earth System Science, which gave rise to the concept of the Anthropocene in the context of the Cold War, the space race and the rise of global environmentalism. On the other, traditional Stratigraphy, the discipline responsible for formalising units of geological time, with its own criteria of precision, stability and technical utility.

Through this story, we will explore how values —epistemic, procedural and pragmatic— shape what counts as evidence, who has the authority to decide, and what purposes scientific knowledge should serve. And to gain some perspective, we will revisit a forgotten voice: that of the Italian geologist Antonio Stoppani, who in 1873 proposed an "Anthropozoic era". Far from being a mere precursor, Stoppani offers us a revealing contrast to how the relationship between humanity and the planet might have been conceived differently.

The result is a reflection on what it means to "fail" in science, how authority is negotiated between disciplines, and why sometimes the most influential concepts are those that never become official.

The seminar will be in Spanish.