Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Of or pertaining to uniformity or the doctrine of uniformity. See the noun.
- noun One who upholds a system or doctrine of uniformity; specifically, in geology, one who advocates the theory that causes now active in bringing about geological changes have always been similar in character and intensity, or, in other words, that there has been no essential change in the character of geological events during the lapse of the geological ages: the opposite of
catastrophist .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Geol.) Of, pertaining to, or designating, the view or doctrine that existing causes, acting in the same manner and with essentially the same intensity as at the present time, are sufficient to account for all geological changes.
- noun (Geol.) One who accepts uniformitarianism, or the uniformitarian doctrine.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun One who accepts uniformitarianism, or the uniformitarian doctrine.
- adjective Of, pertaining to, or designating, the view or doctrine that existing causes, acting in the same manner and with essentially the same intensity as at the present time, are sufficient to account for all geological changes.
Etymologies
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Examples
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He then suggests that the basalt, a remnant of the Meteors of various types fall to earth continually; some reach the surface and are then called uniformitarian theories occurred at least 3.5 billion years ago.
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But now came Charles Lyell with his famous extension of the "uniformitarian" doctrine, claiming that past changes of the earth's surface have been like present changes in degree as well as in kind.
A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume III: Modern development of the physical sciences 1904
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What I meant to say was that the formation of strata in the earth leads to consistent results, and the "uniformitarian" theories currently being worked on tend to mesh very well and explain each other's unusual phenomena.
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Rejects uniformitarian ages as based on unprovable presuppositions
The Funniest Page on the Internet Sean 2009
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Yet another driver of evolution, among several identified that are less-than random as well as less-than uniformitarian.
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When Rob Wilson talks about the uniformitarian principle, I am not certain if this is what he had in mind from WL05 I would suspect it differs from the views of a number of participants at this blog:
More North American Upper Treeline: Wilson-Luckman 2002, 2003 « Climate Audit 2007
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The ‘uniformitarian principle’ of dendroclimatology is defended most vigorously by those who do not understand, or care to investigate, its statistical implications – especially as pertains to reconstruction accuracy during the MWP.
More North American Upper Treeline: Wilson-Luckman 2002, 2003 « Climate Audit 2007
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Those who argued for natural selection, and geologists who accepted uniformitarian principles, were faced with a very restricted time frame because of these clear thermodynamic restrictions.
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My educated guess as to the reason many of you do this is not that you are trying to argue in a circle, but that it is so ingrained in you to think in naturalistic or uniformitarian terms that you have trouble conceiving another way of looking at things.
Biblical inerrancy vs. physical evidence: continued - The Panda's Thumb 2007
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Lord Kelvin was quite right to criticize the vague, uniformitarian idea that the earth had always existed.
Cephalopod development and evolution - The Panda's Thumb 2007
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