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Posted on 02/27/2008 4:50:10 PM PST by blam
Do you have the mistaken belief that I am some sort of radical uniformitarianist? Even Lyell wasn’t.
I never said it/they was/were all wrong. But the wrong portions are sufficient to eliminate the feasibility of his main theses.
Evidence-based science has better predictive power than Velikovsky's general "predictions"...similar to how you could go to a psychic if you want, but most folks would rather go to a doctor to determine what is wrong.
Well, I have a T-shirt of Hutton, actually. :-)
Lyell was also brilliant. I am still amazed at the insights these two men had, and their ability to integrate spatially disparate data into a conceptual model with such limited access and tools.
But of course, I also recognize the importance of certain catastrophic events, such as the formation of Luna, the K-T impact, etc. Agassiz might be my favorite catastrophist (albeit for his glacial-theory development, not his delayed acceptance of Darwin's work or his personality); again, he showed insight in pulling together disparaate observations into a good conceptual model. See a pattern?
Is that a surprise? It's a fairly typical view for geologists...uniformitarianism as a key, with gradualism punctuated by occasional catastrophic events. Pure catastrophism would ignore such things as thick sequences of varves, while pure gradualism would ignore the scale of the Scablands jökulhlaup, etc.
Just as a matter of curiousity Gondring, are you a member of the scientific cummunity®? IOW, do you have a dog in this hunt?
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0/history_12
Uniform Processes of Change
Lyell’s version of geology came to be known as uniformitarianism, because of his fierce insistence that the processes that alter the Earth are uniform through time. Like Hutton, Lyell viewed the history of Earth as being vast and directionless. And the history of life was no different.
Lyell crafted a powerful lens for viewing the history of the Earth. On Darwin’s voyage aboard the Beagle, for example, he was able to decipher the history of the Canary Islands (right) by applying Lyell’s ideas to the volcanic rock he encountered there. Today satellite measurements reveal that mountains may rise an inch a year, while radioactive clocks help show how they’ve been rising that way for millions of years. But Lyell could never have grasped the mechanism — plate tectonics — that makes this kind of geological change happen.
Yet geologists today also know that some of the factors that changed the Earth in the past cannot be seen at work today. For example, the early Earth was pummeled by gigantic hunks of solar debris, some as big as Mars. For the first one or two billion years of Earth’s history, plate tectonics didn’t even exist as we know it today.
Lyell had an equally profound effect on our understanding of life’s history. He influenced Darwin so deeply that Darwin envisioned evolution as a sort of biological uniformitarianism. Evolution took place from one generation to the next before our very eyes, he argued, but it worked too slowly for us to perceive.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/tecto.htm
Abstract. – This paper looks at the challenges confronting plate tectonics – the ruling paradigm in the earth sciences. The classical model of thin lithospheric plates moving over a global asthenosphere is shown to be implausible. Evidence is presented that appears to contradict continental drift, seafloor spreading and subduction, and the claim that the oceanic crust is relatively young. The problems posed by vertical tectonic movements are reviewed, including evidence for large areas of submerged continental crust in today’s oceans. It is concluded that the fundamental tenets of plate tectonics might be wrong.
Did Venus have insurance?
Thanks. There haven’t been any show-stoppers regarding Venus’ rotational anomaly alone (leaving aside other anomalies); possibilities include capture by the Sun, impact, a former and now escaped moon (which isn’t quite enough to explain retrograde motion by itself), or other encounter to “flip” the planet n-to-s, or Van Flandern’s model.
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http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0/history_12
“Yet geologists today also know that some of the factors that changed the Earth in the past cannot be seen at work today. For example, the early Earth was pummeled by gigantic hunks of solar debris, some as big as Mars....”
See, planets do things like collide with other planets...the only thing we disagree upon is WHEN IT HAPPENED!
In my opinion, everyone has a dog in this hunt. (I am very interested in public science education, so I am a member of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, even though I am not actually in academia.)
But since I am not a researcher who stands to benefit economically from the outcome of research on this topic, I can't claim to have a dog in the hunt, in that sense. As a Professional Geologist, I would still do my job the way I do it, even if Congress declared Velikovsky's work gospel and the value of pi to be 3, since my clients want the correct answers...which are based on the evidence, not preconceived ideas.
Frankly, I specialize in out-of-the-box thinking and am extremely sensitive to crushing of "maverick" scientists who suggest alternative hypotheses. Go back decades and you'll find my published writing in support of Peter Duesberg; look at my current criticism of how Dr. David Legates (and to a lesser extent George Taylor) was treated. Heck, I'm so far out, I support the US Constitution and still intend to vote for Dr. Ron Paul! ;-)
But Velikovsky wasn't a maverick scientist. He was anti-science, choosing instead to follow a process of:
BTW, I can understand the reasoning behind the response to publication of his work, but I also regret that it made a martyr out of him, as I think that Americans in particular like to support an underdog, and are likely to throw support behind someone treated unfairly--without even considering whether he's right.
the tail might be a bit of a give-away?
I never said that collisions don't occur.
But the "when" is very important in two ways...
First of all, when a solar system is forming, there are a lot more "free" objects in immature orbits. Later, many of those free objects have coalesced into major bodies, so the frequency is greatly reduced.
Secondly, the effects of such a collision in the early Earth wouldn't have witnesses and a destroyed ecosystem. For recent Earth, there's no way we could have had such collisions (or near misses) without major evidence in the ACTUAL PHYSICAL RECORD.
And believe me, stopping and starting the Earth would have slammed folks around a lot like a 60,000+ mph Tilt-A-Whirl. I think that they might have noticed the ripping apart of the earth a bit more than what was going on in the sky.
"I think that they might have noticed the ripping apart of the earth a bit more than what was going on in the sky."
Uniformitarianism is different from gradualism. This paragraph addresses the former, and it's correct that there are exceptions to uniformitarianism--I already said I'm not a radical uniformitarianist, and I don't know of any geologists who are.
Same with gradualism. Lyell's own works recognize catastrophic events. Recall his extensive study of volcanoes and earthquakes, for example! People try to paint him as far more radical than he was.
Lyell had an equally profound effect on our understanding of life’s history. He influenced Darwin so deeply that Darwin envisioned evolution as a sort of biological uniformitarianism. Evolution took place from one generation to the next before our very eyes, he argued, but it worked too slowly for us to perceive.
To some extent, that's true, because a slight preference to a genotype is simply generational variation to us. It's identified as an evolutionary change only when you see the big picture.
This paper looks at the challenges confronting plate tectonics – the ruling paradigm in the earth sciences.
What a paper. Did you note the age of many of the sources, and how new information was excluded? Did you note that the implication was that if we didn't yet have information on something, it was evidence against plate tectonics? Did you note that many of the "questions" weren't really things that detract from the theory?
Are there modifications and updates to the theory needed and occurring? Yes. But there aren't any deal-killers.
I guess when you have an organization that has only 800 members, and is multidisciplinary and has to span topics as diverse as this one and "Emerging Paradigms at the Frontiers of Consciousness & UFO Research" (the theme of their next conference), it's difficult to find competent peer reviewers in any given field of study.
Great suggestion! Anyone ignorant enough to retain any respect for Carl Sagan absolutely has to read this book.
ML/NJ
What a CROCK!
Oh yeah, science has sure demonstrated that the laws of physics have changed. </sarc>
While Electric Universe proponents Wal Thornhill and his colleagues acknowledge that Velikovsky was wrong on several points, they agree with Velikovsky that electromagnetism was the key to an earlier epoch of planetary catastrophe. And today, evidence has become overwhelming that we live in an “electrically connected” solar system.
Uh, no. I agree that there is auroral activity on Io, but we don't see arcs or plasma jets across interplanetary distances or even anything close to a miniscule portion of the distance to a moon. There's no date on the article, but it doesn't seem to include the results of probes that have done imaging since Galileo.
and I don't see how electromagnetic forces would have acted to prevent people from being slammed around. Picture yourself riding on a vehicle going 60,000 mph (100,000 kph), which suddenly stops. Even if you have magnetic shoes that hold you onto the top, do you think you won't be torn apart? In an auto accident, even if a person is outwardly restrained in his seat, the movement of (unrestrained directly) internal organs relative to the skeleton can kill. For fun, check out what Joe Friday says.
Dr. Einstein thought so little of Velikovsky's ideas that he was rereading that book about the planet Venus at the time of his death. (It takes a pretty stupid man to reread a worthless book.)
pretend that the laws of physics just magically changed (e.g., the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of angular momentum), and accept the musings of a psychiatrist over evidence-based theories.
And you pretend also, when you want to. Else where did all the energy and angular momentum that exists now come from? As for evidence based theories, you might read Earth in Upheaval, unless you feel that "stones and bones" are not evidence either.
ML/NJ
Gondring, will you please consider this? Earth in Upheaval is simply a well-sourced collection of observations.
I respect Carl Sagan for only a few specific things. Overall, he was an arrogant jerk who displayed his incompetence repeatedly.
Still doesn't mean Velikovsky was right!
Velikovsky wrote a trilogy- Ages in Chaos Earth in Upheaval and Worlds in Collision.
All 3 are very interesting.
Certainly more entertaining than the “reality” shows filling in for the lack of scripts.
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