Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who believes in catastrophism; a cataclysmist.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Geol.) One who holds the theory or catastrophism.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Of, having, or being a theory that explains a situation by positing one or more catastrophic events, as opposed to gradual changes.
  • noun A catastrophist person: a person who subscribes to a catastrophist theory.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From catastrophe +‎ -ist.

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Examples

  • Jean Burgess, who I think totally correctly debunked the "catastrophist" narrative, as I later dubbed it, about the death of the newspaper.

    Larvatus Prodeo 2008

  • Even when the media was not “picking a winner” in the science, it supported the catastrophist message in its editorial decisions, choosing to cover (for example) ad nauseum a 30-year low in Arctic sea ice but failing to even mention a 30-year high in Antarctic sea ice which occurred on nearly the same day (more here).

    Coyote Blog » 2009 » November 2009

  • This removes the keystone of the catastrophist arguement, which is the only one which justifies emergency action.

    Global Warming vs. the Outside Temperature, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009

  • Even when the media was not “picking a winner” in the science, it supported the catastrophist message in its editorial decisions, choosing to cover (for example) ad nauseum a 30-year low in Arctic sea ice but failing to even mention a 30-year high in Antarctic sea ice which occurred on nearly the same day (more here).

    Coyote Blog » Blog Archive » Dangers of a Monoculture — Reactions to the CRU Emails 2009

  • I'm not a catastrophist about these, but it's certainly not that I trust us to make the right decisions; I just think we're going to see some radical upheavals that make the transhuman cybertopia look unlikely at more than a temporary subcultural level among a group limited by class and location.

    More Aesthetics Hal Duncan 2007

  • I'm not a catastrophist about these, but it's certainly not that I trust us to make the right decisions; I just think we're going to see some radical upheavals that make the transhuman cybertopia look unlikely at more than a temporary subcultural level among a group limited by class and location.

    More Aesthetics Hal Duncan 2007

  • If you're a catastrophist, you want to take steps that would have a huge impact on peoples lives before anything happened.

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2009

  • In this debate, Agassiz was a catastrophist, believing that God created species, then wiped them all out and started with new species.

    Agassiz, Louis 2009

  • Mainly I feel that the bat-winged model is a legacy of the flawed "orthodox" view of ornithodires as maladaptive failures, that was so common in the pre-Bakker era, i.e. a very negative and catastrophist view of these creatures.

    Life's Time Capsule: Questions about Pterosaurs #1 Peter Bond 2009

  • I should warn you that my chatter on this matter is ... well, catastrophist.

    Stan Goff: Commanding-in-Chief 2008

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