Chapter 3

     The ideas of catastrophism and uniformitarianism are introduced in this chapter and are considered opposing ideas. Catastrophism is the belief that a species extinction was caused by a catastrophy and uniformitarianism is the belief that a species extinction happened overtime leading towards gradual changes. William Whewell( a catastrophist) and his associate, Charles Lyell have been trying to disprove each other’s ideology with research. Lyell did research on rocks and found no evidence leading towards a global catastrophe occurring in the past and concluded that the extinction happened gradually overtime. If that’s the case then I wonder what could have caused their death if the species are constantly producing offspring for many more generations to come. Did environmental conditions get tougher overtime for them to adapt? Kolbert visits the Icelandic Museum of History to learn about the great auk. It was a large bird that went extinct during the mid 19th century. They were captured by fishermen and got their eggs destroyed. Darwin’s belief of human intelligence evolving was correct but he did not realize that mankind itself was causing many of these extinctions.