uniformitarianism vs catastrophism

45degreeN

Two great themes of scientific thought brought down to the bare essence. Is the history of the Earth one of continuity over vast eons of time with little or no change, or have there been sudden and catastrophic changes that took an "instant" of geologic time yet re-shaped the entire landscape of Earth.

While the evidence for uniformitarianism might suggest we look at the movement of the continents as a primary example inch by inch they move eventually moving far from their original position (if there was an original position that can be discerned).

Whereas the evidence for catastrophism would point to the meteor/comet impact of 65 million years ago which is attributed to wiping out 70% of all life on Earth. Earth has of course been hit by more than one meteor/comet in its history likewise there have been multiple catastrophes such as super volcanoes making sudden changes to the entire Earth's eco system. But between these giant events calm uniformity.

Is there any debate about which of these ways of thinking of our Earth's history? Can we agree on one or the other as a paradigm to try and understand the geologic time frame?

45degreeN · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 3:07 pm Post subject:

The problem of course with the catastrophism theory is that Darwin and the other evolutionist have declared that immense eons of uninterrupted time are needed and with the advent of this geologic catastrophic view it has weakened that old Darwinian point of view.

With one or another of the super-volcanoes going off and shutting down the sunlight for several years all over the globe it doesn't leave much time for new species to evolve into the new environment. Or some asteroid slamming into the Earth another period of quite cold summers with a very short growing season and vast amount of individual species members dying off due to lack of food.
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Hellbound · Tadpole Joined: 07 Sep 2008 Posts: 23

45degreen, this poll is misleading. Uniformitarianism is not at odds with the fact that catastrophes shape the Earth.