Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site psivax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!psivax!friesen From: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: The Rock of Ages and the Ages of Rocks Message-ID: <801@psivax.UUCP> Date: Mon, 21-Oct-85 16:26:58 EDT Article-I.D.: psivax.801 Posted: Mon Oct 21 16:26:58 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 26-Oct-85 07:34:44 EDT References: <430@imsvax.UUCP> Reply-To: friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) Organization: Pacesetter Systems Inc., Sylmar, CA Lines: 241 In article <430@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: > > This article deals with the major point on which most > Velikovskian catastrophists like myself concur with creationists: > the question of "how old is the earth, it's life forms and so > forth". I have been accused of "helping" the creationists before > by other net.origins contributors. I am no creationist. The > creationists, like traditional scientists, are SURE of their > position. I regard the question of creation versus evolution as > one of life's unknowables. First error, no scientist worhty of the name is ever *sure* of anything, except perhaps the raw observations. Evolutionary theory is, however, the best available explanation of the observations. > I am certain that traditional (slow > and imperceptible) evolution could account for the difference > between, say, a wolf and a collie, but for no changes larger than > that. > For someone who claims that the answers are unknowable you are awfully certain of something that has no basis in observation. > I am certain that Velikovskian (catastrophic) evolution > could explain the transmutation of species, ONCE YOU ALREADY HAVE > COMPLICATED LIFE FORMS ON OUR PLANET TO BEGIN WITH. I am > uncertain as to whether even catastrophic evolution could explain > the rise of our present complicated life forms from single-celled > animals. > Interesting, but what mechanism would produce speciation at the rate required? None is known, and all but the most extreme Punctuationalists believe that a speciation event *requires* at least a few thousand years to occur. Velikovskian catastrophes might cause mass extinctions, but are far rapid to permit speciation by any plausible mechanism. > And, from what little I have seen of the emerging > science of creationism as evidenced by the articles of Kukuk and > Brown on the net, I am convinced that it is a bad mistake on the > part of scientists not to take them seriously. These guys are > essentially correct in challenging the notion which modern > science has of the age of the earth. When they provide real evidence, properly reproducible by other researchers, we will at least listen. Until then they are no more scientists than Astrologers. > > The funny thing about the creation/evolution debate is that, > on this one critical and all important point, it is the > scientists who are dealing from a position of AXIOMATICS, and > therefore dogma. What axioms? The only axioms I am really aware of are the axioms of the scientific method. If you eliminate those you no longer have *science*, you have religion, or philosophy, or even superstition. > > The Ages of Rocks > > There is no reason to doubt the measurements of stellar > distances which modern scientists work with. There is likewise, > no reason to doubt that they are at least in the ballpark with > their ages FOR THE UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE, which are based on > knowledge of stellar distances and properties of light. But the > ages which traditional scientists give for our own solar system, > for this planet, for the various geological epochs this planet > has undergone, and, generally, for every kind of an ORIGENS > related timeframe, are not based on any such solid ground. There > are good reasons for doubting these schemes. > Why are astronomical measurements so much more reliable than geological? Astronomical measurements are based largely upon *extrapolation*, a nototiously unreliable method. They are also based on a very strict form of Uniformitarianism. > Beginning around 1800 or so, Lamarck and Lyell and other > scientists developed what came to be known as the doctrine of > uniformity, upon which nearly all of our present natural sciences > are based. This doctrine states that the conditions we observe > in the present can be assumed to have prevailed in all past ages, > that all changes which ever occurred in geological and biological > forms occured in slow and minute, nearly inperceptable steps, the > way they do now. This amounts to an axiom, or an article of > faith; it is not something which anyone has ever proved, yet > this basic assumption stands squarely at the bottom of virtually > every scheme by which scientists try to estimate ancient time > frames. And also every scheme by which scientist try to estimate the distances and ages of stars and galaxies! You have really mis-stated the axiom. It is more correctly stated as: The *laws* and *processes* in effect are the same everywhere and in every time throughout the universe. Catastrophic event are allowed, *if* they are observable as occuring today somewhere in the universe. This axiom is one of the central axioms of the scientific method. Without it there would be no way to study events remote in time and space, since there would be no locally accessible method of verifying interpretations. If I cannot assume that the laws of physics are the same in the vicinity of a distant star I cannot rely on any comparison of observations of it with observation of events in Earth laboratories. This invalidates spectroscopy, orbital mass calculations, and much much more. Similar considerations apply to the study of past events. > Darwin based his theory of evolution on this concept, > because the notion of CATASTROPHIC evolution, or macro-evolution, > had not occured to him. He believed that huge time spans were > needed for any reasonable theory of evolution, and that the > standard creationist theories of HIS time didn't give him any > more than the 6000 or 7000 years which Bishop Usher and like > minded folk believed in. > Garbage! During the time Darwin was first learning about biology Catastrophism was one of the seriously considered theories about the history of the Earth. To say that he had not thought about it would be a grave insult to Darwin's intelligence! By the time he started serious work on his theory of evolution the catastrophic theories had largely been rejected as being to unwieldy and contrived. If he accepted the evidence available to him of the inadequacy of such theories, that is merely the scientific method! > In taking this route, these scientists adopted what amounted > to an AXIOMATIC approach to an emperical science. When you date > geological strata using the assumption that sedimentation always > occurred at present rates, never mind how quickly a global > disaster which involved large scale flooding could put down > layers of sediment, Noone has ever made this silly assumption to my knowledge. All that is assumed is that sedimentation in the past has occured in generally similar manners to the ways it occurs now. In fact the nature of the sediment often contains clues as to rates of sedimentation, so the stricter assumption is unnecessary and unusable. > when you use radio-carbon dating and assume > that present ratios of radio to ordinary carbon have always held > good, when you use similar assumptions on every other scheme for > dating ancient time-frames, These assumptions were only accepted *provisionally*, and subject to later verification. In the case of radio-carbon dating recent research has provided independent estimates of past carbon ratios, allowing the dating method to be adjusted for actual ratios rather than simply assuming a constant ratio. (Look at the assumptions about red-shift which are so central to cosmological distance measurement - they are very similar to these assumptions) > In real life, outside the ivory > tower, when you take a wrong turn at the crossroads, the distance > you have covered since the wrong turn is not called PROGRESS. > That distance is merely the measure of how far you have to go > BACK. > Science doesn't work that way, since there are no roads except those we make ourselves. When scientist find out they are wrong the new data usually points to a better solution, thus avoiding the need to go *back*. We usually end up going *sideways* at the *worst*. > > The scientists who developed the principal of uniformity, > aside from commiting themselves and future scientists to an > axiomatic approach to what should be emperical science, Except that even empIrical reasoning requires axioms, there is no avoiding them! And the principle of uniformitarianism is necessary for reasoning about remote events on the basis of proximate data. > > The Big Lie > > 1. The big lie: Man has been on this planet for at least a > million years, but only learned to read and write within the > last few thousand years. > > The reality, as stated by an Egyptian priest, speaking to > the Greek sage, Solon, in Plato's dialogue, "The Timaeus": > > "Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be > provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized > life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like > a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of > you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you > have to begin all over again like chilodren, and know > nothing of what happened in ancient times, either amongst us > or amongst yourselves. THis sounds very like a description of events like our recent Middle Ages, which did not in the least fool archaeologists into thinking reading and writing were invented only a few hundred years ago! Such events have indeed occured quite frequently, and could well have been known to Egyptian scholars. Ancient Egypt had fallen to barbarian invassions, as had Mykenean "Greece". The Cretan empire had been destroyed by a volcanic explosion. The Chaldean, Babylonian, and Assyrian civilizations in Mesopotamia had been destroyed. What reason is there to believe that this is *not* what the priest was talking about? > > 2. The big lie: The ancients saw the world as a small flat > place, and typically knew little of the world beyond their > own back yards. > Well, that depends on where you are talking about, and in what era of history! The ancient Greeks had figured out that the Earth was a sphere, but they did not have general education, so only a few scholars ever knew it! When the Greek civilization was absorbed the knowledge was lost. certainly the average person did *percieve* the world that way. In fact most people today *still* do! Only here, in a country with widespread education, and in other similar countries, is this viewpoint truly minor. > > 3. The big lie: Stories of global floods and disasters really > amount to some imaginative primative hyping a story about a > flood in his back yard, or the local river overflowing its > banks, This is not quite what is being claimed by archaeologist and anthropologists. A better example might be Paul Bunyan, or Billy the Kid as he is popularly believed to have been, or even Robin Hood. Such stories *grow* with time. It is like the fish that got away! > > Plato and Ovid were very definitely not talking about the > woodshed burning down last Tuesday night. It is not Plato and > Ovid, but rather the scientists and scholars who perpetuate this > kind of notion who deserve to be treated like idiots. If this is what scientist believed, thay *would* be idiots. How about a *major*, large-scale draught that grew over the years to be a global disaster.("You think that was someting - well let me tell you what happened to ME during the gret draught"). Or maybe it was some other disaster that got exaggerated in a similar manner. Remember these authors were not talking from first-hand knoeledge, they were not even basing thier writings on interviews with survivors, they were relying wholely on hear-say evidence. The scientific method hadn't been invented yet. -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) UUCP: {ttidca|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|quad1|nrcvax|bellcore|logico}!psivax!friesen ARPA: ttidca!psivax!friesen@rand-unix.arpa