THE DYNAMIC EARTH: A BLOG ABOUT GEOLOGY AND THE EARTH SCIENCES

Friday, November 14, 2008

I still think "Subduction Denialists" would be a great Band Name

Fun times in the constantly aggravating world of pseudoscience nutjobs! Brian, over at Clastic Detritus, has put up a very nice summary of the subduction vs anti-subduction worldviews, in THREE PARTS! Here's Part One, here's Part Two, and here's Part the Third.

Brian has a great summary up, though I think the real value of the work is seeing how absolutely crazy some people are. His Part One, a summary that provides the backstory of Brian's interactions with morons, nicely demonstrates the anti-intellectualism of the pseudo-scientist, marked by a rabid refusal to actually try and read up on the literature, and a general disdain for anyone who doesn't seem to share their gnostic world view.

A while back I put up a post on Neil Adam's Expanding Earth stuff; it's garnered a few comments, here and there, and has made for some fun reading (at least I think so). We've had a lot of memes floating around in the Serious of Tubes here; maybe we should do a Pseudoscience Meme?

11 comments:

Bryan said...

Here is my pseudoscience post.

Enjoy the Rods and Orbs of nonsensical wonder.

-Bryan

http://www.in-terra-veritas.blogspot.com/2008/11/orbs-and-rodspseudoscience-meme.html

Anonymous said...

goo da

Eric said...

hmm...indeed, anonymous.

OilIsMastery said...

"In the oral session, except for one presentation that was clearly pro plate tectonics, and another one that did not address the issue of global and large scale geology specifically, there was general consensus that subduction, and therefore plate tectonics, is mechanically impossible." -- Stavros T. Tassos (seismologist/geoscientist) and Karsten M. Storetvedt (geophysicist), November 2007

"Five propositions in Geology, namely Plate Tectonics, Constant Size Earth, Heat Engine Earth, Elastic Rebound, and the Organic Origin of Hydrocarbon Reserves are challenged as Myths because their potential truth is not confirmed by Observation, and/or Experiment, and/or Logic. In their place the Excess Mass Stress Tectonics - EMST, i.e., a Solid, Quantified, Growing and Radiating Earth and its implications, such as the Inorganic Origin of Hydrocarbons, claims to be a Comprehensive Proposition." -- Stavros T. Tassos, seismologist/geoscientist, November 2007

"Around the lovely Ring of Fire we have what are commonly called 'subduction zones'. Cue Disney "Rites of Spring" music and animation. ... Are we in some kind of hell where facts are thrown out, en masse, no matter how they accumulate? You know, when this blows up, there's gonna be an awfully big splatter." -- Neal Adams, artist/computer animator, February 2007

"Ganymede's grooved terrain likely formed during an epoch of global expansion...." -- Michael T. Bland and Adam P. Showman, planetary scientists, 2007

"The idea of an earth which is constant and unchanging has been restated so often throughout history that it has now become established as a firm fact. It needs no proof -- which is lucky since there is none." -- Stephen Hurrell, engineer, April 2006

"Since planets and moons did not pop into existence at their current size, everyone agrees they must have expanded at some point in their history." -- Dennis D. McCarthy, geoscientist, November 2005

"In fact, it is now widely accepted that the Jovian moon, Ganymede, has experienced significant, internally-generated, post-formation expansion. As Prockter (2001) writes: 'The bright terrain formed as Ganymede underwent some extreme resurfacing event, probably as a result of the moon's increase in size'. Collins et al. (1999) agree that the formation of the grooved terrain on Ganymede was likely the result of post-formation 'global expansion'. " -- Dennis D. McCarthy, geoscientist, November 2005

"The insinuation that we do not know a physical process responsible for an accelerated Earth expansion is not a scientific counter argument. The physical nature of many processes has regularly been recognized in science, long after they were first recognized as real phenomena." -- Stefan Cwojdzinski, geologist, 2005

"The causal understanding of Earth expansion is not yet fully understood, but the empirical processes involved are confirmed by such numerous and different sets of data that this should be considered fact." -- Stefan Cwojdzinski, geologist, 2005

"There is now a lack of reference or any factual basis in plate tectonic discussions." -- Stefan Cwojdzinski, geologist, 2005

"When studying the history of the creation and formulation of plate tectonics one can come to the conclusion that it is, and was at best only a hypothesis. A hypothesis, which uses an assumption at its basis. This is the assumption that the Earth has retained a constant size during its geological evolution. This assumption however is not supported by facts." -- Stefan Cwojdzinski, geologist, 2005

"At a conference on the expanding Earth in Sydney in 1981 Peter Smith did a test survey of people attending: sixty people interviewed expressed disbelief in the hypothesis, but none of them had read Carey's book on the topic." -- Cliff Ollier, geologist, 2005

"To date however, there is no direct unambiguous evidence that mantle convection and/or mantle circulation actually takes place; in fact, there is some evidence to the contrary. Moreover, there is no evidence that oceanic basalt can be repeatedly recycled through the mantle without being substantially and irreversibly changed. Yet, mantle convection/circulation and basalt recycling are fundamental necessities for the validity of plate tectonics. Furthermore, plate tectonics theory does not provide an energy source for geodynamic activity." -- J. Marvin Herndon, geophysicist, 2005

"It is important to note that all the periods [Earth's orbit and year] were likely of different duration in the geological past." -- Rajat Mazumder (geologist) and Makoto Arima (geologist) 2005

"This implies that slow Earth expansion might have occured if G varies (Runcorn 1964, pg. 825)." -- Rajat Mazumder (geologist) and Makoto Arima (geologist), 2005

"It's a mess out there. We are seeing that planets have a long, rocky road to go down before they become full grown." --George H. Rieke, astronomer, October 2004

"Currently, the moon is moving away from the Earth at such a great rate, that if you extrapolate back in time -- the moon would have been so close to the Earth 1.4 billion years ago that it would have been torn apart by tidal forces (Slichter, 1963)." -- Dennis D. McCarthy, geoscientist, 2003

"All marine fossils from 200 million years ago or earlier are found exclusively on continental locations -- just as expanding Earth theory predicts. That's because all large marine environments pre-Jurassic were epicontinental seas -- not oceans. Incredibly, if we deny expanding Earth theory, all the pre-Jurassic oceanic marine fossils must have vanished, along with all pre-Jurassic oceanic crust, as well as all of the fossils of all the trans-Pacific taxa that simply "walked" from one location to the other. Hmmm. Even your mainstream fixist geologist counterparts of the first half of the twentieth century didn't have to accept that many miracles." -- Dennis D. McCarthy, geoscientist, October 2003

"Biogeographic arguments for a closed Pacific (just like biogeographic arguments for a closed Atlantic and closed Indian) are based on evolutionary theory. Specifically, according to the theory of evolution, you can't have a host of closely-related, poor dispersing taxa suddenly appearing on opposite sides of an ocean -- when it is highly improbable for any of the ancestral taxa to cross oceans. So according to the referenced paper above, unless plate tectonic theorists want to rely on divine intervention, a slew of creation stories or a myriad of impossible trans-oceanic crossings of terrestrial taxa, their paleomaps are wrong. Panthalassa could not have existed between all of the hundred plus referenced taxa, which is to say, it didn't exist." -- Dennis D. McCarthy, geoscientist, October 2003

"The most reasonable mechanism for planetary expansion, in my opinion, involves fluid-sink views of gravity which involves the collection (not the spontaneous generation) of ultra-mundane matter at the cores of astronomical bodies." -- Dennis D. McCarthy, geoscientist, October 2003

"There is no known physical principle, no known physics law, no known physics theory, and no known physics equation which remotely suggests that planets and stars cannot gain mass via collection of sub-sub-sub atomic particles. None. There is no violating regarding known laws of physics. Indeed, the Earth does gain some mass (a small amount) due to being pelted with solar wind, neutrinos, etc. Does this change all of physics? It does not change or alter basic physics -- or even modern physics. It merely reinterprets the equations of general relativity. It is consistent with mass conservation and energy conservation. I really can't state this any more simply." -- Dennis D. McCarthy, geoscientist, October 2003

"[Bruce C.] Heezen interpreted the medial rift as evidence in support of the expanding earth hypothesis." -- Naomi Oreskes, geologist, 2003

"Natural geo-fusion in the earth occurs in or near the core of the earth, in the hot, hydrogen-bearing metals and minerals which are subjected to extreme off-equilibrium conditions deep in the earth. This hypothesis can be tested by measuring tritium and helium-3 in magmatic fluids from hot-spot volcanoes which tap magmas from plumes arising from the core-mantle boundary. In particular, magmatic waters of Kilauea, Loihi, and Icelandic volcanoes are predicted to contain significant tritium. We predict that tritium is also present in Jupiter, originating from ‘cold’ fusion in or near its metallic hydrogen core." -- Steve E. Jones (physicist) and John E. Ellsworth (physicist), 2003

"The helium results, which agree with what is found in deep-source lavas, such as Hawaii and Iceland, provide the first strong, direct evidence for a nuclear reactor at the center of the Earth." -- J. Marvin Herndon, geophysicist, 2003

"Researchers now believe that Ganymede's more youthful-looking half could be due to a crust that stretched--as has happened in the past few million years on Europa--rather than any sort of icy volcanism, as many had assumed." -- Richard. A. Kerr, physicist, 2001

"The bright terrain formed as Ganymede underwent some extreme resurfacing event, probably as a result of the moon's increase in size." -- Louise M. Prockter, physicist, 2001

"The implications of employing the present rate of tidal energy dissipation on a geological timescale are catastrophic. Around 1500 Ma the Moon would have been close to the Earth, with the consequence that the much larger tidal forces would have disrupted the Moon or caused the total melting of Earth's mantle and of the moon." George E. Williams, geologist/geophysicist, 2000

"No evidence whatsoever of subduction has been found on any other planet or moon of the solar system." -- David Ford, geologist, 2000

"No longer a rebel – they now believe it! At least, they all will eventually. It takes some people a while to catch up." -- Samuel W. Carey, geologist, 2000

"The nebular hypothesis is completely false and one day will be recognized as one of the greatest errors in the history of science, possibly surpassing the centuries-old dogma of geocentrism overturned in the 16th and 17th centuries by Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler. However, the prevailing dominance of religion in that era makes that error less egregious than the adoption of subduction in the 20th Century." -- Lawrence S. Myers, cryptologist/geoscientist, 1999

"Subduction is not only illogical, it is not supported by geological or physical evidence, and violates fundamental laws of physics." -- Lawrence S. Myers, cryptologist/geoscientist, 1999

"My research, based on irrefutable evidence of constant accretion of meteorites and meteor dust, concludes that Earth began as an asteroid remnant of an earlier comet captured by the Sun. The proto-planet then grew over uncountable years (possibly many more than the 4.5 Ga now believed) in an accretion process that is still underway and will continue into the future at an accelerating pace because of Earth’s constantly increasing mass and gravitational power." -- Lawrence S. Myers, cryptologist/geoscientist, 1999

"The greatest disturbance of traditional geological views came from the concept of oceanic seafloor spreading. By now, this has developed into a well-balanced theory which is in agreement with the results of geological and geophysical observations." -- Yury V. Chudinov, geologist, 1998

"Now that the subduction concept has been developed for almost 30 years, it can be said that it has not been fruitful geologically." -- Yury V. Chudinov, geologist, 1998

"There is no doubt that the subduction model constitutes the weakest link in the construction of plate tectonics, as has been repeatedly pointed out." -- Yury V. Chudinov, geologist, 1998

"About twenty years ago, when I expressed my reservations about the plate tectonics theory to one of its supporters, I got the answer, 'You either believe in it or not.' Unfortunately the religious mentality of the supporters of plate tectonics did not change in the years to come." -- Stavros T. Tassos, seismologist/geoscientist, 1997

"The many geophysical and geological paradoxes that have accumulated during the past two or three decades are apparently the consequences of forcing observational data into an inadequate tectonic model."-- Karsten M. Storetvedt, geophysicist, 1992

"There is nothing more contentious in global tectonics at this time than the expanding Earth concept." -- Hugh Owen, geophysicist, 1992

"The plate-tectonics advocates have produced a concept based on well documented expansion criteria and complemented by a hypothetical subduction process." -- Hugh Wilson, geologist, 1973

"Subduction is a myth." -- Samuel W. Carey, geologist, 1988

"The most likely site for error is in the most fundamental of our beliefs." -- Samuel W. Carey, geologist, 1988

"I have no doubt that our own orthodox dogma still has falsities within the self-evident axioms we believe we know to be true." -- Samuel W. Carey, geologist 1988

"The balance of evidence seems to require an expanding Earth." -- Derek V. Ager, biogeographer, 1986

"The hypothesis of an expanding Earth is inescapable." -- Derek V. Ager, biogeographer, 1986

"The Expanding Earth Hypothesis goes back to at least 1933, a time when the Continental Drift Hypothesis was accorded the same sort of ridicule. Now, Continental Drift is enthroned; and ironically many of its strongest proponents are vehemently opposed to the Expanding Earth, ignoring the lessons of history." -- William R. Corliss, physicist, 1985

"The geological and geophysical implications of such Earth expansion are so profound that most geologists and geophysicists shy away from them. In order to fit with the reconstruction that seems to be required, the volume of the Earth was only 51 per cent of its present value, and the surface area 64 per cent of that of the present day, 200 million years ago. Established theory says that the Earth's interior is stable, an inner core of nickel iron surrounded by an outer layer that behaves like a fluid. Perhaps we are completely wrong and the inner core is in some state nobody has yet imagined, a state that is undergoing a transition from a high-density state to a lower density state, and pushing out the crust, the skin of the Earth, as it expands." -- Hugh Owen, geophysicist, 1984

"I have been continually amazed that the simplicity with which Earth expansion answers so much of the Earth's evolution has been so delayed in universal adoption." -- Klaus A. Vogel, engineer, 1983

"Well if you say it took a long time to abandon it, it took a long time for people to accept it." -- Samuel W. Carey, geologist, 1981

"People don't want to see it. They believe in subduction like a religion." -- Samuel W. Carey, geologist, 1981

"I had taught subduction for more years than any of the present generation of people had been with it. And when they have been in it as long as I have they'll abandon it too." -- Samuel W. Carey, geologist, 1981

"Subduction exists only in the minds of its creators." -- Samuel W. Carey, geologist, 1976

"American thinking has now arrived pretty much at where I was twenty years ago." -- Samuel W. Carey, geologist, 1972

"The continental drift may be explained by an expanding Earth only." -- Laszlo Egyed, geophysicist, 1960

"We have to be prepared always for the possibility that each new discovery, no matter which science furnishes it, may modify the conclusions that we draw." -- Alfred L. Wegener, astrophysicist/geoscientist, 1928

Eric said...

Wow...that is an impressive list of poorly cited psuedo-geologists and shamefully out-of-context statements from a variety of other sources, most of whom support Plate Tectonics.

Good Job, OilIsMastery!

Andrew Alden, Oakland Geology blog said...

OilIsMastery and his igor Anaconda just love the scientific technique of PVA: Proof by Vigorous Assertion. They also love the contrarian-bozo worldview, in which "they laughed at Einstein" proves that "they laugh at me, therefore I am Einstein" (and not Bozo).

James said...

Well truthfully the earth is expanding. I reccomend you look up the 4th revolt video made by Dennis McCarthy. Just as you say that we should study up on subduction you should study up on this before rejecting it. The idea that solid rock could bend at a 45+ degree angle then straighten back never sat right for me. This theory explains quite a bit. The biggest criticism of the theory is not know how it happens. For me that doesn't matter. I don't know how gravity works but it is obvious it is there. The same applies to the expanding earth.

john delano said...

Thank you. Very smart people know that subducton does not exist, and I can tell them I have 36 years of early Earth geology -4.6 billion years to the present time that I am willing to e-mail you my book free. use:
sunnyday1@optonline.net
My book "The Origin Of Mountains" will be e-mailed to you.
john Delano
originofquake

john delano said...

The facts I know are true.
1] All mid-ocean ridges that circumnavigate around Africa/Europa area start at 248 mya at our north pole and moving counter-clockwise around Africa get younger.
Mauritania-Atlantic Ocean ridge =186 mya.
South Africa - Ridge [And the Karoo massive lava flows]-124 mya.
South of India-The "Indian Ocean ridge is 65 mya.

john delano said...

The ocean "trenches" ,are all completed structures.
That a fact. No subduction is indicated, because no evidence proves it does exist.
My research proves two rotating areas ,the Pacific Half of Earth [centered at the Hawaiian Islands and the opposite area Africa, Europe, Asia, centered at Botswana South Africa.
The Pacific Side is rotating clockwise and as mentioned above the African side is rotating counter-clockwise.
All mountains-folded Mountains were formed when they were on the Equator of Planet Earth. That is a fact.
The heat flow through the lithosphere of the ocean crust is 70 % higher then Continental crust is because of a massive ice cap movement . See Delano's Discovery-Amazon book "The Origin of Mountains."
Write me at:
sunnyday1@optonline.net ,and "I will transmit a free copy of my book.
John Delano
originofquake

electroplatetectonics said...

Gentlemen, you all seem to be in a paradox of one degree or another. Expanding lacks a viable mechanism/source, and to ignore this major contribution, both to its viability and to it being widely accepted should not be brushed aside as insignificant. Yet Plate Tectonic's proponents have the need also for a viable mechanism;

This is what two preeminent geophysicists have to say about convection.
http://www.dst.uniro...antle_Dynamics_
MANTLE DYNAMICS AND PLATE KINEMATICS
Carlo Doglioni, La Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
Roberto Sabadini, University of Milan, Italy

Quote< ". . . . . none of the proposed models of mantle convection can account for the simpler pattern in plate motion we observe at the surface, nor has a unique solution been proposed for how material in the mantle convects. At the moment there is no way to link mantle dynamics and plate kinematics at the surface, considering that the mantle and lithosphere are detached. The Atlantic and Indian ridges are in fact moving apart with respect to Africa, proving not to be fixed both relative to each other and relative to any fixed point in the mantle. This evidence confirms that ocean ridges are decoupled from the underlying mantle.">Unquote

With convection eliminated as a possible mechanism for plate movement Geophysicists have suggested that the reason the oceanic plates are subducting is they are just pulling themselves down into the convergent boundary by gravity, that their own mass pulling them into the interior. But to do this they must eliminate all of the shear derived friction that exists between the crust and mantle. The standard model cannot overcome the fact that the friction and mantle density prevents such a passive process from occurring. They also need to explain what process allows subduction to even start in the first place since it takes, according to the model, a large mass of oceanic plate to pull itself down into the mantle.

Perhaps there is common ground between the two models; A "Schrödinger's plate model" if you will. Where the geoid both expands and contracts according to its structural responses to a variable magnetic field generating core.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanding_Earth
Quote< "A compromise between Earth-expansion and Earth-contraction is the "theory of thermal cycles" by Irish physicist John Joly. He assumed that heat flow from radioactive decay inside Earth surpasses the cooling of Earth's exterior. Together with British geologist Arthur Holmes, Joly proposed a hypothesis in which Earth loses its heat by cyclic periods of expansion. In their hypothesis, expansion led to cracks and joints in Earth's interior, that could fill with magma. This was followed by a cooling phase, where the magma would freeze and become solid rock again, causing Earth to shrink".>Unquote.

Both Joly and Holmes are to anyone's estimations without reproach in their work and should give anyone in this debate cause to consider not only their own position on this matter but how far we are from really having a viable source of energy to drive any of the various model's mechanisms.

To see my geologic model using a Solar/Geoid magnetic field generator thermal-cycle that not only provides the source but describes the Earth's Plate tectonic divergent/convergent processes to an unmatched level of prediction of observation and accuracy, go to;
http://www.electroplatetectonics.com/

Marc A linquist