Word.ws English Dictionary

shifting baseline syndrome

shifting baseline syndrome noun: the tendency of each generation to consider the state the environment (or by extension any other thing) was in when they grew up or first examined it to be its natural state (baseline), normalizing changes made by prior generations.

Noun

shifting baseline syndrome (usually uncountable, plural shifting baseline syndromes)

  1. (usually) The tendency of each generation to consider the state the environment (or by extension any other thing) was in when they grew up or first examined it to be its natural state (baseline), normalizing changes made by prior generations.
    • […] in what has been called the "shifting baseline syndrome" (Pauly 1995). For example, Trautman (1981) described Ohio in the late 18th century as characterized by a "profusion of 'durable springs and small brooks,' both flowing throughout the year, and the great amount of bog, prairie, and swamp...2000 April 12, National Research Council, Commission on Geosciences, Environment, and Resources, Water Science and Technology Board, Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, Committee to...
    • […] It is important to realise whether or not we suffer from shifting baseline syndrome, because if we make ecological models that relate to 'natural' conditions, they will have been programmed with erroneous starting points (Sheppard, 1995).2013 March 5, Ian D. Rotherham, Trees, Forested Landscapes and Grazing Animals: A European Perspective on Woodlands and Grazed Treescapes, Routledge, →ISBN, page 100

Examples of shifting baseline syndrome in a sentence

  • […] in what has been called the "shifting baseline syndrome" (Pauly 1995).2000 April 12, National Research Council, Commission on Geosciences, Environment, and Resources, Water Science and Technology Board, Board...
  • He dubbed the effect "shifting baseline syndrome".2021 June 25, Richard Fisher, “Generational amnesia: The memory loss that harms the planet”, in BBC News:

Forms of shifting baseline syndrome

pluralshifting baseline syndromes

Origin of shifting baseline syndrome

Coined by scientist Daniel Pauly, in reference to generations of scientists treating the successively reduced fish populations of their own time, rather than the earliest recorded fish population levels, as the "baseline", so the "baseline" kept shifting.

Questions about shifting baseline syndrome

What does shifting baseline syndrome mean?
Shifting baseline syndrome means the tendency of each generation to consider the state the environment (or by extension any other thing) was in when they grew up or first examined it to be its natural state (baseline), normalizing changes made by prior generations.
How do you use shifting baseline syndrome in a sentence?
[…] in what has been called the "shifting baseline syndrome" (Pauly 1995).
What part of speech is shifting baseline syndrome?
Shifting baseline syndrome is a noun.
What is the plural of shifting baseline syndrome?
The plural of shifting baseline syndrome is shifting baseline syndromes.

Words near shifting baseline syndrome in the dictionary

  1. shiftin'
  2. shiftiness
  3. shiftinesses
  4. shifting
  5. shifting about
  6. shifting baseline syndrome
  7. shifting cultivation
  8. shifting executory interest
  9. shifting executory interests
  10. shifting gears
  11. shifting ground

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shifting baseline syndrome (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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