René Thom’s theory of catastrophes was thought as an intellectual revolution by some researchers, or contrarily as the height of scientific irresponsibility by others. This mathematical theory was introduced in the late 1960s by the French mathematician and was propelled on wave of hype and enthusiasm during the mid-1970. However it died out in a bitter controversy at the end of the decade. When surveying the fate of catastrophe theory, Tom said in 1991:

Sociologically speaking, it can be said that this theory is a shipwreck. But in some sense, it was a subtle wreck, because the ideas that I have introduced gained ground. In fact they are now incorporated in everyday language.

I wrote in 2009 a paper on Catastrophes and theories, which was published in French in the book Vers une anthropologie des catastrophes, showing clearly that the idea of a demographic catastrophe had gained ground in anthropology. But as I showed Thom’s theory was unable to assert itself in social sciences. Only one application of his approach was published by Petitot in Mathematics and Social Science (1978, 64, 43-70): Sur le modèle historique de Thom-Pomian. In fact, it did not explain catastrophes, but only provided an understanding of them and did not assist in preventing them. A more complete theory would have included necessarily the intelligibility of catastrophes at the deepest level, but also at higher layers. It is only thanks to these various levels of understanding that these theories may become more complete and even predictive.

You will find this paper here enclosed. May it be interesting to publish it in English?