Indeed, there is so much catastrophism being uncovered these days, one wonders what uniformitarianism even means any more.
“Indeed, there is so much catastrophism being uncovered these days, one wonders what uniformitarianism even means any more.”
—Agreed, it does get confusing. But who’s been redefining the terms?
It was the uniformitarians that actually emphasized the incredible transforming power of earthquakes, volcanoes, and local floods (Lyell’s writings on volcanoes remind me of Steven Austin’s writings on Mt St. Helens). It was the catastrophists the downplayed the power of such events. To the catastrophists, the “catastrophes” (or “revolutions” as they often called them) were mysterious events which were global, or at least continent-wide, that were powerful enough to, at minimum, utterly wipe a continent, if not multiple continents, from the face of Earth – or make new continents appear. For the early catastrophists, such as Cuvier, there were only 8 or 9 such events in the history of Earth (and no, they were not young-earthers. For most catastrophists, none of the ‘catastrophes’ had occurred within the history of humanity, except – for some catastrophists – possibly the event recorded as Noah’s Flood).
Now, apparently, a “catastrophe” is a 20 foot wide crack.