U. of E.

(np) Contraction for University of Ediacara.

Uniformitarian

(adj) 1. Assumption that processes acting in the past are the same as those acting in the present. [den., science] 2. Assumption that processes acting in the past are the same as those acting in the present with the same rates. [conn., TAE, Ted Holden] 3. The position of Sir Charles Lyell, as opposed to Georges Baron de Cuvier's Catastrophism, in last century's quarrel among geologists. Lyell won.

Uniformitarian BS

(np) 1. Acceptance of uniformitarian(2). [den., Ted Holden] 2. Descriptor used by Ted Holden of any post that disagrees with him, regardless of the nature of assumptions used. [conn., t.o. Regulars]

University of Ediacara

(np) 1. Talk.origins "virtual university", a running in-joke which places t.o. regulars in various unlikely faculty positions. The name derives from a set of hills in Australia, where a spectacular find of pre-Cambrian multicellular fossils were discovered in the mid-1960's. The U. of E. motto is "Knowledge, Wisdom, Beer". The Dean is Chris Colby, the registrars are Stephen "Chris" Watson and Seanna "Chris" Watson. The quoted "Chris" in names derives from the seeming omnipresence of definitive posts from the "big three", Chris Colby, Chris Stassen, and Chris Nedin at the time that the U. of E. was created; "Chris" is added to most faculty names in deference to a Monty Python skit. Many references to fossil forms, strangely enough, are to fauna of the Burgess Shale rather than to the Ediacaran Fauna.