Perilous Planet Earth

Introduction; Part I. Catastrophism: The Story of its Decline and Fall … and Resurrection; Section 1. From Prehistory to 1899: Catastrophism Dominates for Centuries, but Then Gives Way to Gradualism: 1. Mythology, religion and catastrophism; 2. Hutton: fact and fiction about the origins of modern gradualism; 3. Cuvier and Lamarck: choosing between extinction and evolution; 4. Natural theology and Noah's Flood: the high-water mark of catastrophism; 5. Catastrophism, uniformitarianism and idealist philosophy; 6. Lyell triumphant: gradualism dominates geology; 7. Darwin and evolution; 8. After the Origin: the triumph of evolutionary gradualism; Section 2: From 1900 to 1979: Gradualism Reigns Supreme: 9. Neo-Darwinism: the Modern Synthesis; 10. Phyletic gradualism; 11. Gradualist perceptions of human evolution; 12. Heretical catastrophists; 13. Atlantis: rational and irrational theories of a 'lost' civilisation; 14. Evolutionary mass extinctions and neocatastrophism; 15. Punctuated equilibrium: a new evolutionary perspective; 16. Human evolution: gradual or punctuational?; Section 3. From 1980 to the Present Day: Catastrophism Strikes Back: 17. Evolution evolving; 18. Into the new millennium: evolution today; 19. Chaos in the Solar System; 20. Catastrophes on Earth; 21. The death of the dinosaurs: iridium and the K-T extinctions; 22. The continuing K-T debate; 23. Mass extinctions and the course of evolution; Part II. Catastrophes and the History of Life on Earth: 24. Extinctions large and small; 25. Cyclic processes and mass extinctions; 26. The uncertain origins of humankind; 27. Ice ages in the Pleistocene epoch; 28. Modern views of Atlantis; 29. Natural catastrophes and the rise and fall of civilisations; 30. Conclusions; References; Index.