To my mind there appears to be no sort of necessary theoretical antagonism between Catastrophismand Uniformitarianism.
Nor can it be questioned that Uniformitarianism has even a stronger title than Catastrophism to call itself the geological speculation of Britain, or, if you will, British popular geology.
Professor Sollas has very justly said, 'Geology has no need to return to the catastrophism of its youth; in becoming evolutional it does not cease to remain essentially uniformitarian[149].
Lyell, in his frequent visits to the continent, became a friend of the illustrious Cuvier, whose strong bias for Catastrophism was so forcibly shown in his writings and conversation.
The Revolt of Scrope and Lyell against Catastrophism 33 VI.
These were the cause of the unconformities and the corresponding apparent wholesale changes in species so common in the rocky strata, and which gave rise to the doctrine of catastrophism of the early geologists.
The great apostles of catastrophism were Cuvier in France and Buckland in England.
Catastrophism and uniformitarianism are opposite extremes which must be combined and reconciled.
On first thought it might seem that such lawless movement was rather in keeping with catastrophism than uniformitarianism.
But to deny catastrophism was to suggest a revolution in current thought.
And the controversy waged over the age of the earth had not been more bitter, that over catastrophism not more acrimonious, than that which now raged over the question of the transmutation of species.
For the idea of catastrophism had not concerned the destruction of species merely, but their introduction as well.
Next he declared that evolution embraced all that was sound in both catastrophism and uniformitarianism while rejecting the arbitrary limits and assumptions of both.
Huxley then proceeded to shew that uniformitarianism and catastrophism had neglected this last and most important branch of geology, the attempt to trace the interaction of causes which had brought the world into its present condition.
In his effort to disprove catastrophism he failed to clearly see that species, as we style them, became extinct, though really the changes in the species practically amounted to extinctions of the earlier species as such.
Its few broad laws will include "neither the absolute uniformitarianism of Lyell and Hutton, Darwin and Haeckel, nor the universal catastrophism of Cuvier and the majority of teleogists.
It should not be forgotten, however, that from one point of view there is a truth in catastrophism which is sometimes overlooked by the advocates of continuity and uniformity.
Catastrophism was the natural method of accounting for these gaps, and, as we shall see, it possesses a basis of truth.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "catastrophism" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
