Final answer:
James Hutton and Charles Lyell challenged traditional views with their ideas on uniformitarianism and an older Earth, having a profound impact on the scientific understanding of Earth's history and aiding the development of Darwin's theory of evolution.
Step-by-step explanation:
Two pivotal figures in shaping our understanding of the history of the earth are James Hutton and Charles Lyell. Hutton advocated the idea that geological change was gradual and the product of small changes over long periods, which contrasted sharply with the then-dominant belief in a young Earth shaped by catastrophic events. This view is often referred to as the principle of uniformitarianism. Lyell, also a geologist, expanded upon Hutton’s work, suggesting that the geological processes we observe today, such as erosion and sedimentation, have been working in much the same way throughout Earth's history, implying a much older Earth than previously thought. He published these ideas in his influential work, Principles of Geology. Both Hutton's and Lyell's concepts greatly contributed to the development of Darwin's theory of evolution by providing the necessary time frame for gradual biological change to occur.
This transformation in the perception of Earth's age and the processes shaping its surface radically altered the scientific community's perspective on Earth's history, fueling the shift from a biblical framework to a scientific one, where observations and evidence began to define our understanding of the natural world.