Perilous planet earth : catastrophes and catastrophism through the ages
Perilous Planet Earth places our present concern about the threat to Earth from asteroids and comets within an historical context, looking at the evidence for past events within the geological and historical records. The book looks at the way in which prevailing views about modes of global change have changed dramatically over the years. It also considers the way in which catastrophic events are now seen to have influenced the course of evolution in the distant past, as well as the rise and fall of civilizations in more recent times. Professor Palmer argues that the better we understand our past, the greater the likelihood that we will be able to take appropriate action to preserve our civilization for the future
ix, 522 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm
9780521819282, 0521819288
50810521
Catastrophism: The Story of its Decline and Fall ... and Resurrection
From prehistory to 1899: Catastrophism dominates for centuries, but then gives way to gradualism
Mythology, religion and catastrophism
Hutton: fact and fiction about the origins of modern gradualism
Cuvier and Lamarck: choosing between extinction and evolution
Natural theology and Noah's Flood: the high-water mark of catastrophism
Catastrophism, uniformitarianism and idealist philosophy
Lyell triumphant: gradualism dominates geology
Darwin and evolution
After the Origin: the triumph of evolutionary gradualism
From 1900 to 1979: Gradualism reigns supreme
Neo-Darwinism: the Modern Synthesis
Phyletic gradualism
Gradualist perceptions of human evolution
Heretical catastrophists
Atlantis: rational and irrational theories of a 'lost' civilisation
Evolutionary mass extinctions and neocatastrophism
Punctuated equilibrium: a new evolutionary perspective. Human evolution: gradual or punctuational?
From 1980 to the present day: Catastrophism strikes back
Evolution evolving
Into the new millennium: evolution today
Chaos in the Solar System
Catastrophes on Earth
The death of the dinosaurs: iridium and the K-T extinctions
The continuing K-T debate
Mass extinctions and the course of evolution
Catastrophes and the History of Life on Earth
Extinctions large and small
Cyclic processes and mass extinctions
The uncertain origins of humankind
Ice ages in the Pleistocene epoch
Modern views of Atlantis
Natural catastrophes and the rise and fall of civilisations
Conclusions