In Chapter 3, Kolbert discuss the two terms, catastrophism and uniformitarianism. These words are antithetical standpoints on extinction and evolution that were debated over by William Whewell and Charles Darwin. William Whewell, the catastrophist, believed that species go extinct gradually but did not believe that evolution was possible - especially to humans who wouldn’t be able to track such a process. Charles Darwin disagreed, saying that that species competed with each other for food until the species with the most favorable qualities would survive while the other died out. Kolbert takes a trip to the Icelandic Museum of Natural History, where she learns about the auk, a species of large bird that is extinct. On this trip, Kolbert notes that instead of species dying off due to not having favorable traits to survive, it was humans that hunted the auk to extinction as they did with many other animals.
Darwin’s survival-of-the-fittest theory relates to the theme that the Earth itself is one interconnected system and that natural systems change over time and space. In page 54, Kolbert writes, “The appearance of new forms and the disappearance of old forms were...bound together… driving both was the struggle for existence… which rewarded the fit and eliminated the less so.” This connects to the theme because since some species die off along with their traits, the earth as a natural system looks different as a new species of animal emerges over time.
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