View source for Catastrophism

== Historical Development ==
Though [[Charles Lyell]] and [[Charles Darwin]] rejected Catastrophism for Uniformitarianism, scientists today have been forced to acknowledge that the same mass catastrophes denied by Darwin and Lyell did in fact happen, and that the fossil record shows life did die off rapidly.<ref name=berkeley>"[http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_12 Uniformitarianism: Charles Lyell]." Understanding Evolution. University of California Museum of Paleontology. April 18, 2012.</ref> The only disagreement on this point between Creationists and Evolutionists is when these events occurred, and how many of them there were. The overwhelming evidence of ancient mass extinctions has led to various hypotheses including huge asteroids and volcanic eruptions: {{cquote|"At least a handful of times in the last 500 million years, 50 to more than 90 percent of all species on Earth have disappeared in a geological blink of the eye... The causes of these mass extinction events are unsolved mysteries, though volcanic eruptions and the impacts of large asteroids or comets are prime suspects in many of the cases. Both would eject tons of debris into the atmosphere, darkening the skies for at least months on end. Starved of sunlight, plants and plant-eating creatures would quickly die. Space rocks and volcanoes could also unleash toxic and heat-trapping gases that—once the dust settled—enable runaway global warming... Massive floods of lava erupting from the central Atlantic magmatic province about 200 million years ago may explain the Triassic-Jurassic extinction. About 20 percent of all marine families went extinct, as well as most mammal-like creatures, many large amphibians, and all non-dinosaur archosaurs. An asteroid impact is another possible cause of the extinction, though a telltale crater has yet to be found."
-''National Geographic'', "[http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/mass-extinction/ Mass Extinctions: What Causes Animal Die-Offs?]"<ref name=natgeo>''National Geographic'', "[http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/prehistoric-world/mass-extinction/ Mass Extinctions: What Causes Animal Die-Offs?]"</ref>}} {{cquote|"For months I'd been on the trail of the greatest natural disaster in Earth's history. About 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, something killed some 90 percent of the planet's species. Less than 5 percent of the animal species in the seas survived. On land less than a third of the large animal species made it. Nearly all the trees died. Looy had told me that the Black Triangle was the best place today to see what the world would have looked like after the Permian extinction. This didn't look like apocalypse. We saw the first signs of death as we walked into the hills—hundreds of fallen timbers lay hidden in the undergrowth. A forest once grew here. Half a mile (0.8 kilometers) uphill we found the trunks of a stand of spruce, killed by acid rain. No birds called, no insects hummed. The only sound was the wind through the acid-tolerant weeds."
-Hillel J. Hoffman, "[http://science.nationalgeographic.com/prehistoric-world/permian-extinction/ The Permian Extinction - When Life Nearly Came to an End]," ''National Geographic''.<ref>Hillel J. Hoffman, "[http://science.nationalgeographic.com/prehistoric-world/permian-extinction/ The Permian Extinction - When Life Nearly Came to an End]." ''National Geographic''.</ref>}} Whereas scientists believe multiple such events occurred over hundreds of millions of years, giving each names such as Permian-Triassic extinction event, Devonian extinction, Ordovician-Silurian extinction, Cretaceous extinction event, Triassic-Jurassic extinction, and Pre-Cambrian mass extinction event,<ref name=natgeo /> Creationists believe a worldwide Flood was responsible, and that the [[Radiometric dating]] used by Evolutionists is incorrect. Thus, rather than many extinction events over a long period, these were all the same event occurring at one time. New research indicates one such event occurred as recently as 11.4 to 13.8 thousand years ago.<ref>Faith et al. Synchronous extinction of North America's Pleistocene mammals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2009; DOI: [https://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0908153106 10.1073/pnas.0908153106]. Cited at [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091127140706.htm ScienceDaily].</ref>