Chapter 3 Abudul Gaku

Chapter 3 begins by discussing William Whewell, one of the first presidents of the Geological Society of London. He considered himself and most scientists he knew as a "catastrophists." However there was one geologist he knew, but did not consider a catastrohpist. He called George Lyell a "uniformitarian." Catastrophism is the theory that species go extinct because of sudden catastrophic events. Uniformitarianism on the other hand, is the theory that species go extinct gradually over extended periods as a result of gradual changes. "As far as extinction was concerned, this, too, according to Lyell, occurred at a very slow pace-so slow that, at any given time, in any given place, it would not be surprising were it to go unnoticed.(48)" When I read this sentence, it made me think back to chapter 1 when the Golden Frogs were disappearing. The residents of the town were used to seeing the frogs around, but after a while they didn't notice that there were less and less of them. That wasn't until they found the bloated carcasses lying around. It was so sudden to them, but in reality it was happening slowly behind the scenes. One of the many readers of Lyell's work was Charles Darwin. Although it influenced Darwin, he disagreed with Lyell's disagreement of evolution. He argued that extinction wasn't possible without the origin of new species. There is a limited amount of resources on earth which species compete over. The superior species prevail and that causes the weaker species to go extinct and introduces new species. This chapter connected to the theme of humans altering natural systems. We have been superior in the resource gathering and disrupted the  ecosystem, resulting in the extinction of species.