Plate Tectonics Gets Squishy (P.T. looks less like "hard" science)

Creation-Evolution Headlines ^ | 7/09/2004 | Creation-Evolution Headlines

[Young Werther]

Pardon me but I thought that the Laser Reflectors left on the Moon during the Apollo missions have been used to measure "continental drift?" Core samples taken along the Mid Atlantic Ridge have magnetic memory of when the Earth's magnetic field has shifted. These magnetic pointers are an archeological record of the spreading sea floor.

The turtles that live their life on the Brazilian shoreline but return to Ascension Island, (in the middle of the South Atlantic) suggest that these animals are responding just like other animals that migrate to procreate in "home waters!"

Heck, I like to read SciAm and National Geographics. Nifty maps and theses.

[Strategerist]

It's actually basically of impossible for the creationists to comprehend science.

The words of Genesis getting modified some here and there (a sentence added here, one removed there, and rearranged a bit in order) is unthinkable.

Because it's religion, not science.

The details of Plate Tectonics get modified all the time. It doesn't mean the whole theory is gone. It's just the result of new measurements, debate, etc. Nothing in the posted article is overturning Plate Tectonics.

The plates move; the movement can be measured. Year by year.

Hotspot theory is in an interesting state of flux (they might not be fixed, and there might not be as many "real" ones as once thought), but that's only one side component of the whole thing.

[jennyp]

Shifting   tectonic platesPLACEMARKER.

[PatrickHenry]

Anti-science archival ping.

[VadeRetro]

Coppedge unearthing a hyperbolic popularizing article on issues in geology, one originally published 32 years ago (if 1972 is when I think it was) is not much of a "headline." (OK, it seems to have been republished in 1983.) What's the matter with him? What's the matter with you?

BTW, plate tectonics was about 5 years old in 1972. If it had been overthrown then, it wouldn't have been quite that much of a revolution. If it were overthrown now, it would be.

[Elsie]

"Give me a lever long enough, and a fulcrum strong enough, and single-handed I can move the world."

- Archimedes

Just WHERE is the lever that pushes the continents around?

---

Define the internal push-point that forces trillions of tons of Earth to move against one another.

[Elsie]

BTW, plate tectonics was about 5 years old in 1972. If it had been overthrown then, it wouldn't have been quite that much of a revolution. If it were overthrown now, it would be.

Surely there have been many quite 'old' theories that have been 'overthrown' by more knowledge gained, why should PT be sacrosanct?

[VadeRetro]

For people who are paying attention, once a theory has made predictions that are repeatedly confirmed its true overthrow becomes increasingly unlikely. It may be modified at some point but we have obviously gained useful knowledge in adopting said theory and are not likely to discard it completely. In this fashion we have accumulated a now very large body of useful knowledge, much of which is at little hazard of being totally discarded because it in some way works better than the ignorance we had before.

But there are people who are not paying lest they hazard the fires of Hell by so doing. Then, there are people whose idea of paying attention is sifting through volumes and volumes of publications looking for only a tiny handful of "honest" quotes which can be used to paint a wrong picture, in effect "lying with truth."

[Snerfling]

It's actually basically impossible for the creationists to comprehend science.

It's a result of evolution. Some have a dominant 'faith' gene which allows them to fit in within groups. In days of yore, this was an excellent survival strategy. While the agitators where off discovering, fighting, challenging, etc., a significant number kept their heads down and focused on harvesting the wheat. The same tendency to pay obedience to tribal leaders has merely been shifted, first to rock/tree gods, and now to more embelished versions.

[gcruse]

Heh. Great post.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Dataman]

(P.T. looks less like "hard" science)

Why should that bother an evolutionist? If they were really concerned about hard science, they'd reject evolution.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Yes, but then again, "believers" in plate tec. theory were ignored and ridiculed from 1924 through the mid-60's!

"Science" dogma is somewhat more "religious" in nature than Church dogmatics....)

[x1stcav]

Geomorphology bumo.

[bondserv]

Coppedge unearthing a hyperbolic popularizing article on issues in geology, one originally published 32 years ago (if 1972 is when I think it was) is not much of a "headline." (OK, it seems to have been republished in 1983.) What's the matter with him? What's the matter with you?

"In the July 8 issue of Nature,1 Norman H. Sleep..."

"Richard A. Kerr in the July 9 issue of Science..."

These are recent articles on the subject. Baars just said the same thing better in 1983. People from the past aren't always dumb knuckledraggers as you seem to assert.

[Desdemona]

STOP PLATE TECTONICS

If you're going to stop something, it may as well be big!

(I saw that on a t-shirt once.)

[bondserv]

LOL!!

[Elsie]

So.... if Mountains are MADE by Plates crunching together, how did Ol' Gondolaland (sp?) manage to EVER get layers and layers of rock deposited?

Isn't there some kind of verticle gradient needed to move dirt downstream?

And just WHERE did ALL that sand come from that is in the massive SANDSTONE layers that makes up so much of the American Southwest?

[VadeRetro]

These are recent articles on the subject. Baars just said the same thing better in 1983.

No no no no no no no no no no no no no! Bears "said it better" because he said something utterly different. The question is how he managed to get republished in 1983. His statements should have been recognized as unsupportable by that time.

The recent articles contain the usual arguments about areas of uncertainty on the current frontiers. I tell you what's going on here on every thread in which you post this stuff, but I'll say it again.

Coppedge is one of those data lawyer creationists, a type of player visible on these threads. He assembles lying mosaic pictures with bits of truth selected with microscopic care from the real scientific literature. Yes, one can make an argument that this is somehow better than the Carl Baugh fake-artifacts school of how to paint a lying picture, but I'm not impressed. It's what you do, not how you do it.

[bondserv]

Coppedge is one of those data lawyer creationists, a type of player visible on these threads. He assembles lying mosaic pictures with bits of truth selected with microscopic care from the real scientific literature. Yes, one can make an argument that this is somehow better than the Carl Baugh fake-artifacts school of how to paint a lying picture, but I'm not impressed. It's what you do, not how you do it.

Tell your friends to stop dishing this stuff up.

I have a better solution:

At every opportunity, admit that there is much yet to be learned before we can use this information to mold it into the Evolutionary model. Geology plays a large role in the evidences which are supposed to support evolution. If Plate Tectonics is questionable, then the explanations for sedimentary, volcanic, hydro oceanic and fossil deposition scenario's, become a 50 year rabbit trail of misleading support.

Letting this play out further, continues to go against your theory. Coppedge's continued exhibition of the multiplicity of holes in the accurate representation of the data, chafes.