Monday, June 10, 2013

Reflection. Why do these blogs?

[Originaly posted 6/10/2013 (June 10, 2013), returned to draft 20160916, resurrected 20210407]

Basically the primal scream thing, I guess, .. and therefore an infantile narcissistic indulgence, because if I were to say I did it for any other reason I'd be making excuses.  So, .. here they are:-

1.  Because the internet makes their effective dissemination possible.  And therein ('effective') is a facility the world hasn't seen before.  With the press of a button information can detonate the world.  Bottom-up people-power democratises the world, .. and for better and worse, removes it from institutional control (Wikileaks).  In the academic world it provides a ring-road around the exorbitant paygates that assure a consensus of convenience headed up by the literati.   For all the hype that represents science as a field of discussion and debate the reality is quite otherwise, scientists do not regard controversial views that go to the heart of the matter very favourably..  They may allow, and indeed thrive on, differences that relate to the flounces and feathers of the Eamperor's wardrobe, but anyone drawing attention to nudity gets very short shrift indeed.  Dissenting views on what constitutes fashion are not tolerated.  Therefore the next 'why' is :-

2. 'Jihad': Protesting a number of things, the first of which is ostensibly the ill-founded consensus view that Plate Tectonics presents a credible model for Earth science when it patently doesn't.  Anyone reasonably cognisant of the basic premises of Plate Tectonics can pick any number of holes in it.   The reason they don't is because to do so simply states what everybody else already knows - that they are pejoratives that could potentially throw the field into chaos (and reputations with it) - and because to detract from the consensus view invites opprobrium.  Better to go with the flow and remain within the stated consensus by deliberately ignoring the inconsistencies, or if they must be mentioned then to disingenuously represent them as positively as possible, as "opportunities for more research", thereby elevating what is really crass nonsense to some sort of respectability.  And if you don't self-censor, then others will do it for you.

But just to digress here from the 'whys' of these posts for a moment it seems to me that these inconsistencies can actually be turned to serve a double purpose.  On the one hand ignoring (/omitting) them helps to cement a consensus, which is the vehicle that scientists must ride if they wish to secure funding and career advancement.  And on the other hand (since they *are* obvious contradictions and so hardly require mention at all) to actually draw attention to them as positives ancillary to consensus is a kind of silent code that says, "We recognise these disconnects would up-end the apple cart if we focussed on them and so we won't, we'll leave them aside for now and trot them out later when a significant alternative is identified that consensus can recognise as *useful to purpose* - purpose being funding and career advancement.  [Not useful to science, because if so then they would be voraciously examined as soon as identified.]  Obviously contradictions of consensus are not by themselves opportunities for research, they must be framed in a positive context, not one that highlights deficiency.

But science is our truth-teller, and its enterprise should be to establish truth.  The holes and obvious contradictions should be the devices by which the field is questioned at every turn, but even a cursory review of the literature will show a complete absence of anything that interrogates Plate Tectonics in a subtractive way in order to better appraise it.  So in a way these errors are potential trump cards that carry with them the communicability of memes that everyone knows but holds close to the chest to be played at a convenient time in the future.  They are not things to be *discovered* in the future, .. they are already known and, though unstated, well known, .. they are at once the 'don't-go-there' means that could undermine and destroy, and at the same time be the gems of memes by which future change will be clinched.

Thus they carry more weight, more real currency, than the eventual, pivotal *element* of change, and will overwhelm it.   Moreover the drowning of that element will be silent, unstated, self-evident, and belong to everyone.  Thus the element by the same token is relatively insignificant, and (in geology) is itself already branded an 'everybody-knows' thing.  No-one will, or can (!) claim any pivotal role because everybody knows them already. It's already in first-year textbooks.

In the context of Earth expansion the element of change identified here is boudinage, or large-scale boudinage, or regional boudinage, or (one step further) boudinage of the lithosphere.  The term was coined at the outcrop scale, but it occurs on all scales, and was identified as such in the beginning; Lohest who coined the term (in 1908) identified the uplift of the entire Bastogne region of Belgium as a result of boudinage.  That this scale factor has been ignored for nearly a century is irrelevant because it is validated in the principle of scale-invariance that has similarly existed, and thus belongs to everyone.  There are no marks for pointing out the significance of scale, because all that's doing is potentially drawing attention to others' deficit in not having done so themselves, but who would insist is not a deficit at all, .. they just "never bothered" (because it is self-evident, .. in first-year text-books and everybody knows it already so why should they?).  To do so just invites a defensive  "Yeah-yeah, so what, .. everybody knows that", but at the same time elicits an unstated but epiphanous, "..Actually, we never saw it quite like that.."  But there are no marks for drawing attention to the whole, the pattern, "the whole being more than the sum of the parts", when the parts are already well known.   And no marks either for highlighting the unstated contradictions of Plate Tectonics that undermine that paradigm, and that will eventually lead to change.

3.  Belling the cat.  So, no marks for pointing out what everybody "already knows" - that the change to Earth expansion is inevitable, that it is already in motion under the aegis of lithospheric boudinage, that it belongs to everyone through the simple geological principle of scale-invariance, and therefore that it very much *does*present a challenge to physics.  Physics already knows it has more problems than you can poke a stick at ("boson-like particles discovered on the stroke of a funding midnight" notwithstanding).  But who will bell *that* cat?  The excitement attached to the scale-invariance principle in that field that has led to the creamery of Big Bing theory could just as well be read as an applecart in disarray.  The increase in the Earth's curved surface area with time is not in geological question, but the implications for a mantle volume /mass increase very much is, and must be found in physical theory.  So again theory will be pitched against fact, so we shouldn't expect resolution any time soon.

4.  Advertsing serendipity as a means to discovery before 'science' encountered 'The Method'. (Boudinage as an organising principle for the location and formation of ore deposits => boudinage as a key to Earth expansion.)  Serendipity of discovery is all about pattern and the larger-scale context.  The scientific method is the antithesis, .. all about elements and reductivism, and claiming relevance when some inevitable correlation is 'discovered' (/noticed) - as it invariably must, since elements are part of  pattern.  But without context the correlation is disembodied (the pale cadaverous body-parts of Plate Tectonics, levitated by faith and belief in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,  versus the in-your-face Beauty of Mother Earth, turning, .. ever turning. 

5.  Putting money where the mouth is.   And the name as well.  If Institutions of learning can make a fool of themselves by promoting Plate Tectonics, then I don't see why I can't by promoting Earth expansion.  Why not (?).  Though paying for a service provider just to get spammed, stiff knees and constipation is not going to happen for very much longer, even if it is for Sophie More's edification.  (The 'Teams of Researchers' intent on putting "Jesus Christ on a stick" can look after themselves and will get there anyway, eventually - once most of them die off).  Well, .. maybe it won't work.  I just fancied the idea of Sophie taking a shortcut and splitting her jeans on a pesky maneuver - like connecting the dots between gravity, mantle growth and magnetic field ('mechanism').  Though I don't know about a Big Bang. (That's a memory Lane thing.) 

6.  Subtexts - of which there are many.  How science is done.  The role of institutions of learning in these days of the internet ('Grooming' for institutionalisation).  Public funding of exorbitant paygates available to the 'groomed'..  Science as a career rather than a calling, and the opportunistic 'paedophiles' it attracts to itself (grooming again).  "Scientists Believe" rather than scientists think.  "The Church of Plate Tectonics."  Degredation rituals as an analogue for excommunication.   'Plank-by-plank' pussyfooting, instead of getting to the point.  'Game-playing' :: the bearpits of academia masquerading as parlours of respectable discourse. And heaps more.  I'll add them if you suggest any.

7.  What does it matter?   To think it might is a conceit of the first order.  If we had to rootle around in the bottom of the bag we might come up with the one about focussing where ore deposits are most likely to occur, .. which I guess is useful to the economic affairs of man, but that's old hat now.  And anyway with the amount of red and green tape obstructing whichever way we turn that might no longer be so now.  Use has been usurped by expediency.  It's all got too hard.  The fun's gone out of it.  In some strange way we seem to be living in an increasingly dystopian and despotic world sold to us, as marketeers will, as 'democratically improved', but isn't.  Or maybe it is, and that's just the price that has to be paid when a boundary is crossed and things no longer work the way they should according to the rules..

As far as Earth expansion is concerned the Earth is not going to blow up any time soon, .. so what does it matter?  Geology has little to say about the quantum world ever since physics demonstrated its p-p-pyrotechnic p-p-pomposity'.


========================

So, .. drawing a line.  That concludes about ten years of posting on the net (1. sci.geo.geology (don's blog), 2. website, 3. Rationalskepticism, 4.  Blogger).  There are a few loose ends that remain to be tidied up, but the gist of it is all there ("I-Ching").  The Earth is getting bigger, .. "expanding".   For sure.

Which returns me to the question why did I bother (stating the obvious that has been stated before)?  To which the best answer I can give is "Just because".  Self-assertion is like that. I'm a bully at heart when I can hide behind the internet with an identity that nobody would bother to steal,  but like others I would be a coward when confronted with the discipline and retribution that the institutionalised power of the academic world can muster, if I was part of that.  Which I'm not.  Which is why I can do it. And those who are, can't.

Now I have to go and put the rubbish out - which has accummulated (somewhat; ten years, after all), then go out to play.  Get a life.

A big thanks to all readers for indulging me this.  The thought of that, and the needle instigating Jihad in the first place has largely been the motivation for writing it. 

Ciao.

[20210407.  Well that was nearly (/ effectively was) a decade ago.  Memory Lane.  You do get strangely afflicted sometimes. It's a kind of madness, I guess, but out of that deeper exploration does arise a sense of connectedness and meaning (maybe) that eludes younger years. (But to what end?)]


[ See also - Debunking Plate Tectonics - at :-
http://www.platetectonicsbiglie.blogspot.com/

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Colostomy bag break-out ( sausages )

(Blog for website at http://users.indigo.net.au/don/ )

Remember? .. what we said about when you get a log-jam in the natural flow of things? .. and everything gets clogged up? .. and a breakout happening further back upstream so that the flow can find a better course to continue on, and leave the stagnation behind?  (link)  Well, .since we are into profanity, scatology and bad puns when it comes to plate tectonics, .. and in the name (believe it or not) of trying to clean things up, I want to have another go at floating a certain geological word past everybody, .. firstly because it is so delightfully risible, causing (as it frequently does) everything from a polite grin to an uproariously coarse cackle of unrestrained guffaws that helps to earn the Earth sciences the reputation of a romance that you can't take seriously, and secondly because i.m.h.o. it rates as *THE* most important structure in geology, such is the simultaneously holistic, scale-invariant simplicity/complexity that the structure offers as a key to understanding geology at all scales. 

And the word is? ..

Boudinage.  Or, as it is increasingly known by its larger-than-life expression - lithospheric boudinage.

 Boudinage is ...
"....a rare geological phenomenon.  There is no mention of this type of deformation in any works in English, so far as the writer is aware, nor does it seem to have had consideration from any but thegeologists of Belgium... There seems to be nothing in the arts or in nature which can be compared in mechanical origin to boudinages, which makes them the more interesting and the more worthy of study." (Quirke, T. 1923. Boudinage, an unusual structural phenomenon. Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, v.34, pp 659-650 

Quirke was wrong.  The structure was described nearly a century earlier by MacCulloch, J. 1816, A
geological description of Glen Tilt.  Geological Society of London Transactions, v.3, p.259-337.]

It is nearly a century since Quirke eulogised its importance, and I would agree with him. Completely.  The way I see it, the dearth of attention paid to it in the interim decades is the reason Plate Tectonics has gained such a foothold.  Anyone cognisant of its holistic qualities of boudinage cannot help but be awed by its (quirky) explanatory power when it comes to understanding crustal deformation, particularly when it comes to relating domains of extension to compression on all scales ( link )

A 'boudin'(French word) is a sausage, defined (once-upon-a-time), not as your end-to-end links-type British sort piled in a heap, but the bigger continental salami sort that you often see "side-by-side on a butcher's slab or hanging up in the window (though the way the sausages are packaged these days for the supermarket there's not a lot of difference. 

The arrangement is a bit like the hand with the fingers firmed up for a karate chop (sort of like a layer of rock. The closed gaps /'breaks') between the fingers are like fractures.  If you cut the fingers off (as a butcher might), and and put some mince around them and squeeze them flat on the table, the fingers separate, with the mince squeezing into the gaps between them, but keep their orientation relative to each other.  That's the sort of separation that happens when a layer is compressed by gravity. If the fingers are extended (sideways) then the mince is mobilised relatively passively into the gap. With the compression being gravitational force, and the fingers free to spread then the separation is like what happens when a sequence of rocks that is riddled with fractures is 'spread'.

It happens at all scales, from micron-scale muds to the scale of the lithosphere, and at all levels in the crust. Given that two-thirds of the Earth's surface is ocean floor (/mantle emplacement,compensating for spreading), boudinage (as abyssal hills) provides a good analogy by which to understand this emplacement as well as what's happening in the overlying continental crust. However, geologists in the dining car of the gravytrain of free lunch would far rather have this simplicity (first coined by Lohest, Fourmarier and others more than a century ago as just "sausages") dressed up as something like "non-homogeneousl lithospheric stretching structures". Which is what you do when you don't much care to be labelled 'Johnnies-come-lately' - first you change the language, then you label it as 'new' (and hope nobody notices).

Boudinage combines brittle and ductile structres on all scales applies from unconsolidated sediments on continental shelves to the highest temperature regimes in the crust. It provides the most comprehensive framework there is by which to understand geological structure.

"Boudinage is a result of compression and consequent elongation which, in large complexes must yield truly large-scale plastic transfer of rock matter; this is of obvious significance for large-scale tectonics." (Hans Ramberg, 1955. Natural and experimental boudinage and pinch-and-swell structures, Journal of Geology, p.513.)

"Boudinage occurs on all scales." (Dennis, J.G., 1972.. Structural Geology, Ronald Press, New York, 532pp.) (Student text book.)

And indeed Lohest interpreted the uplift of the Batogne region of Belgium as due to large-scale boudinage, an interpretation that was later (1980) applied to the metamorphic core complexes of the Basin and Range province of North America.

If all roads lead to Rome (Earth expansion) then the shortcut is lithospheric boudinage. But going by the bullshit that is building up under the rubric of Plate Tectonics, it will certainly be interesting to witness what happens when there is a breakout and the *importance* of it for understanding the larger-scale framework for global tectonics (as well as physics) hits the fan.

Why the delay (of half a century at least)? Because Plate Tectonics got in the way, and however much that paradigm is wrong it serves a purpose - which is that of 'scientists' (not of science), who, when the game isrumbled, just shrug their shoulder and say, well, being wrong is how science moves forward. But do you see any of them accenting the negatives with a pinch of Popper? Never. To a man (and woman) they will only publish in the name of consensus ('coz that way, you get the money).

Simple. And understandable. And it must be said, necessary. But scientists will only take cognisance of the 'facts' (in context) when they are forced to. Theories, on the other hand offer much better return on investment.

From go. ..

 Fig.1.  Asymmetrical boudinage in ferruginous muds.  Specimen is about 5cm across
 .. to woh :-

Fig.2. H. Fossen modelling lithospheric boudinage, citing Gartrell, 1997, .. also modelling.  Crustal thickness is between 20-40 km -  an order of magnitude more when the lithosphere is referenced.  [ Note the *asymmetry of boudinage structure chosen for the illustration.]

"Scale invariance" - the most important phenomenon encountered by astrophysicists exploring the universe and by (some) geologists noticing the crustal structure on Earth. )

 ".. One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.  The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.  The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.  All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full: unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.  Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after."   (Ecclesiastes :  "All is vanity, .. a chase after wind.") 


And more than wind it certainly will be, when that bag breaks. ...  ...  You know, I get the feeling it already has, which is why everybody is keeping their head down on this topic.  The calm before the clamouring storm?  Nope.  It will all creep in the back door as the train clatters over the points at walking speed, to save everybody falling off - as the above figure is doing.  There are no marks for making a noise when it comes to the memes of change that everybody discovers they already know, .. nor for drawing their dormancy to attention - like mountains are erosional features, and that there is a belt of them going all around the Earth's Pangaean equatorial zone, and that it split around the middle to let the mantle out, and that subduction is really overriding, and that rollback is silly, .. etc., etc. ..and that the Earth is getting bigger (because of all that obvious ocean floor, the ridges, the transform faults, the mountains etc etc.)

It is absolutely amazing, is it not, .. that given the magnetic and gravity detail of the ocean floors available today there isn't a structural map of it coming out of any of our institutions.  Anybody got any idea why the only one we do have is that multi-hued rainbow map-of-ages?  What's that?  There really *is* a pot of gold at the end of it?  (Oh, .. right, .. I see ee.)

Joke?  I don't think so.  I think that is *precisely* the reason. Nobody's game to upset it.  They're all working out how to cannibalise the new stuff from satellites and gross regional compilations into the old, so that nothing of the old ideas changes, .. very quickly at any rate.  First you have to milk the golden eggs for what they're worth, *before* they lose their attraction, even if it is becoming much tarnished.  From the consensus veiwpoint there is nothing acceptable-to-purpose to put in its place.  When it comes to resurrecting old stuff as redolent and on the nose as Earth expansion, .. well, .. that is very risky business.

It will have to be done though, before geology makes sense again though.  The bubble needs to burst.  The boil needs lanced.  Breakout needs to happen to clear the stagnation.


"Mash with your sausages, sir?"

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Contradicting consensus

No Prizes


















 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stanczyk_Matejko.JPG


Mostly, there are no prizes for contradicting consensus.  Prizes are for consolidating an existing consensus in a way that will allow it to roll better, not (to use a railroad analogy), for switching the points that make it turn sharp left, or stops it in its tracks, or, as is the case here, go into reverse.  Not only are all the bandwagoners likely to fall off, but the vehicle is likely to be so severely damaged it is only fit for the scrap heap.  Even moreso there are no prizes for blowing whistles while doing so. If significant deviation is the intention it is usually better to adopt a quieter, more sober, and more surreptitious (political) approach by canvassing opinion and building a consensus, so that with time the bandwagon (and the people on it) are able to take the curve at a more acceptable pace.

It is half a century since Plate Tectonics left the station, and has been gathering momentum ever since as the framework for interpreting geology.  The increase in momentum however is due more to its path being downhill, helped by the weight of conjectural baggage, than it is to to do with any fuel stoking its firebox, which at every test turns out to be more damp squibs than anything else.  "Downhill all the way" ('subduction'), is Plate Tectonics default acknowledgement of the imperative of gravity.  It would surely far rather have a primary mechanism tangential to the Earth's crust whose full force could better make plates collide and crumple crust. 

It's actually something of a discomfiture for Plate Tectonics (not at all highlighted), that its *primary* mechanism *is* vertical - as in Earth Expansion.  The difference is simply that Earth expansion's primary verticality acts in the opposite direction from subduction. It is not down (towards the Earth's core, but  up, away from it, and has an accompanying signature related to the Earth's rotation and its first-order deformation (its oblate shape), and the way that oblateness has been modified in the dilation of the crust.  The big question for Earth expansion, which it can't yet answer (because it is a question for theoretical physics, not geology), is how rotation and energy are linked to create the material of the mantle (with its magnetic signature).

There is a further irony for Plate Tectonics too,  in that the more directly its primary downward dynamic is actioned (as in slab 'rollback'), the less collisional crumpling and moving plates can happen, and the more crustal extension is increased (e.g. the 'back-arc basins of the Western Pacific).  But crustal extension is what happens at the ridges where the supposed convection cell is rising. So no matter which way Plate tectonics turns, gravity-driven extension is its primary dynamic (as in Earth expansion).

In Plate Tectonics gravitational adjustment (by falling mantle slabs) is the motive force, .. the driver, .. the *cause* of plate movement.   In Earth expansion downwards gravitational adjustment is a *result* of upwards (/'outwards') global enlargement, that has a symmetry of inscription linking it to Earth's rotation - which Plate Tectonics ignores.  What precisely is causing the enlargement is not known, but it is materially manifest in the creation of the  mantle (including water).

Earth expansion thus *empirically* (not hypothetically) links the Earth's gravitational field with rotation and the creation of planetary material, and is a pointer to the physical reality of the quantum world at a scale that is directly accessible to us.  It is an exciting perspective on a subject that for half a century has shown no inclination to progress.  Plate Tectonics on the other hand remains mired in the *assumptions, speculations and escapes* of goal-post shifts of half a century in order to avoid exactly this conclusion, and even then is forced to recognise gravitational collapse (of the mantle) as its primary dynamic (subduction /return to the mantle), despite its yearning for a dominantly tangential one (to crumple continents).

...........................

Of course there's a cost. Financial and health are uppermost.  The time (mis-)spent working through something like this is substantial and negatively affects income in a number of ways.  And a desk job is a pain, literally.  There is also the psychic cost of being irked by the corruption and the threat to free speech that contrived conformity induces.  Encountering corruption in science (our "truth-teller"), is not good for you. Scepticism is insidious and leads to cynicism, which tends to spill over into other areas of life.  The often spectacular, errant behaviour of our commanders of societal institutions generally, doesn't help.  And of course if you're going to indulge in what others see as a foolish enterprise, then there's the cost of having to dress the part too. Well, .. it allows some concession to their view - but if they don't understand the nuttiness of the target subject(s) I doubt they'd see the irony in the fancy dress adopted to hob-nob with the walkers and the talkers.

Others, scientists among them who should know better, typically trot out the shibboleth, "If you have something to say, you should say it within the pages of scientific discourse and test it with peer review, .. scientists would give their right hand to say something new..etc etc."   This of course is a myth.  To bring any alternative message to the attention of a monolithic consensus (particularly when it reeks of corruption) is simply an invitation to be shot.  As has been demonstrated over the period of some ten years ["ten" refers to my old website; today (20200522) it is more like twenty]of posting about this on the internet, scientists are *not* interested in questioning the cardiac health of consensus, especially when that consensus appears increasingly like a cadaver. The reasons are not on account of any geo-logic, but on account of their own personal professional security.  Despite its logic and scientific credentials, Earth expansion is a professional poison that, by the evidence, virtually all academics will not touch however much they might be inclined, or even want, to do so.  And be sure there are no prizes for drawing attention to the courage of their convictions.


Finally, a word of caution for others who think they might be in a position to go forward with this.  Make no mistake, there will be no prizes.  Geology today is far too ensconced in its own convictions and the (unwarranted) institutional kudos that supports it. Previous advances in the field followed crises of sorts, when things weren't working.  There were questions about what to do with the ocean floors.  Were they submerged continents?  Did landbridges exist? Exactly how were the vertical movements of orogenesis, taphrogenesis and epeirogenesis related? And what about the thousands of kilometres of trans-Atlantic displacement (Continental Drift")?  And the heat source apparently necessary to do that?  And (to cap it all) the astounding discovery of recent sea-floor spreading.  All of these represented advances from a position gained.  Earth expansion represents nothing of the sort, but a return to an earlier position already discarded. Investigating it means undoing everything that has been assembled to support a false consensus, and by implication to a considerable extent, the reputations of those who have built it.  Despite the  manifest contradictions of Plate Tectonics, and the vistas offered by the alternative of expansion, the advocates of Plate Tectonics will do everything in their power to maintain its current status.

After the war and the triumph of theoretical physics in the creation of The Bomb, the whole way science was done, changed.  Natural philosophy was replaced by more quantitative and theoretical methods to which the principle of multiple working hypotheses was seen as better adapted.  It allowed focus, .. a more reductionist, 'scientific' approach.  Logic took a back seat.  Overnight it was acceptable to allow illogical contradictions, because if you scratched beneath the surface (with a little more arithmetical scribbling based on a 'good idea') you might find (at best) they were not contradictions at all, or (at worst) have another 'piece-of-the-jigsaw' to add to the mix.  In geology, neither proved to be true.  There has been no conceptual advance since Plate Tectonics was first formulated, only goal-post-shifts of the 'escape' sort.  Of course, these are not seen as such by a new generation who have learned the litany (and the method), but as proof of the theory.

Is this why (Earth) science is failing?  Because its core principle of logic has been usurped by theory?  Because theory has come to be maladapted?  ..  and, in the case of the Earth sciences at least, made it possible for those who inherently cannot see the difference between the two, to hog the driving seat?

Sam Carey (on Earth expansion; interviewed in 2002 just before he died).

"Through the 30s and 40s and 50s if you dared to propose this sort of thing [EE - d.f.] in America you'd be laughed at, you're a ratbag flat-earther. And there was no chance of getting a job if you had that kind of idea. But by about 1956 I could see the glimmerings of the recognition that something was wrong."   http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/tribute-to-sam-carey-and-peter-hunt/3508908#transcript

The present cohort, demonstrating obeisance to consensus.   Paradoxically, those who can, and should, and who are ostensibly in the best position to do so, .. will not, because like ingenues coerced to the sex trade, their hands are tied by the threat of retribution.  Even when the door is opened to set them free they cannot escape.  The risks are too great.  They are prisoners of the politics of consensus.
"Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference-- science and the nation will suffer."    (Michael Crichton quoting Philip Handler, former president of the National Academy of Sciences.)

Plainly, the worst of it is that the science is not the issue. Rational argument is irrelevant. The subtext, 'consensus' and the politics of one sort or another that attend it, is the issue.  

Why science is failing? - willing idiotry in the driving seat, incompetence stoking the firebox, and consensus politics in the guard's van.

[ See also - Debunking Plate Tectonics - at :-
http://www.platetectonicsbiglie.blogspot.com/ ]


Monday, April 8, 2013

Consensus Science


(Michael Crichton quote:- ".. If it is consensus it is not science.") :- 

"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

"Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world.

"In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period."

He's quite right, but I would put it a bit differently.  Science is concerned with getting right answers to questions when the natural world doesn't match with the template of knowledge and understanding we have of it.  It's a work in progress.  If we have a consensus along the way then it effectively dampens the fire, .. puts it out. We might never get there. The 'science' would be short-circuited.  We would put up with a half-answer. 

< read more >


[ See also - Debunking Plate Tectonics - at :-
http://www.platetectonicsbiglie.blogspot.com/ ]


Sunday, March 24, 2013

Geologists 'R Us

Geology rules
( .. you bet! .. )



Students contemplate a basalt dyke and appear to be expressing manifest disinterest. But I don't think they are. I think they're being very diplomatic.


[This image was taken from the web a while back; can't remember where from.  If anybody objects to me using it I'll remove it, but in view of the subject of these posts it seems to illustrate a nice point (see footnote*)]

Being centre-stage, the subject of this photo is almost certainly the dyke. but I do wonder at the apparent disinterest, .. and why that might be.

It must be the first or second field trip when students get taken to look at a dyke, because like mountains (and valleys) a dyke is one of the simplest, yet most interesting things to contemplate in geology and is instructive for a number of reasons.  We won't cover them all here, .. just to say that when looked at properly (i.e., from the viewpoint of the most incisive question - being, "How the Hell did it get there?"), one look is all it takes to dismiss Plate Tectonics in an instant.  Less incisively perhaps are some others that are more 'circumlocutory' steps along the way to an answer, and are therefore equally valid.

It would have to be the most representative expression of the Principle of Structural Superposition in that it is clearly cutting through, and is therefore later than, the host rock, which in this case looks like granite.  The dyke, which is probably of dolerite (slightly coarser than basalt but of the same composition) is cutting, and therefore younger than, the granite.  So properly speaking we should refer to The Principle of Stratigraphic, Structural, and Magmatic Superposition. This is the triumvirate of Earth processes operating at different scales and different levels in the crust that allows proper time-sequencing of geological events and interpretation of Earth history. The other reasons relate to larger questions of global significance as sketched below.

What seems interesting to me about this picture is why somebody is taking it.  That somebody is probably the group leader, who has decided to take a picture in order to save himself the bother of saying a thousand words about something to do with this particular pit-stop, and which is self-evident.  And maybe something too about the apparent disinterest on show, for that dyke epitomises a fundamental point of logic that the "outsiders" of Plate Tectonics ("without a geological clue") ignore.

So let's consider what it is by asking some of those leading questions.

Did the granite body move sideways to let the dyke in, or did the dyke (being magma) (an incompressible fluid) intrude and forcefully heave the host-rock aside?   Ostensibly the students appear to be looking for an answer.  One at least seems to be convinced it lies underfoot, whilst the others seem to think it lies somewhere off to the side.  [Well, .. at least they're looking at the right side - looking at it my way, that is.]

So, .. pit stop, ..questions, .. thinking, .. photograph.   Here's my take on it (it goes  like this) :-

(Team leader) :-
"Here's a dyke, .. etc., etc., .. with a chilled basaltic margin (both sides) (indicating cooling) (etc.,  etc.)," .. and .. (applying best teaching practice by using leading questions the class can answer themselves, .. "Which was first and which was second, the dyke or the host rock?"

"..Well obviously the granite is first, and the dyke is second".

Then the next question follows :-
"So where did the granite come from?"  To which the answer is, well, .. it's coarse grained, .. it cooled slowly, and there's a great mass of it, so it must have originated at depth and cooled slowly. .. .. 
<  ... >
"So what's the answer?"
"Deep."
"And where did the dyke come from then?"
"Deeper."
"But the dyke is fine-grained and chilled quickly, so where did it crystallise in relation to the granite, and how did it lose its heat?"
"The dyke intruded, .. lost its heat to the granite as it came up, which must have therefore been cooler than the dyke."
"So how did the granite get from being in a hot place to being in a cold place?"
"It must have been uplifted."
"Right? Who thinks that's right? ... How much granite have we got here?"
< .. The whole country .. >
"So how did the whole country get uplifted from a hot place to a cold place?"

You can see here the students beginning to shuffle a bit at this point.  This is not what was expected from a simple dyke in a simple granite. Anyway, it was supposed to be about the dyke, not the granite.

"And what about the dyke?  Where did it come from, what was it feeding? And where is all of that 'feeded-stuff'  now?  And if the granite cooled at depth and got uplifted so we can stand on it, what happened to what was on top of *it*?  Erosion?  Who said 'erosion'? Did someone say erosion?  And how did *that* erosion, relate to the dyke's erosion that we see now - and what it (the dyke) was feeding?  And how do we think this uplift happened exactly, if it applies to the whole country, and the dykes (and that little sill over there - out of the picture) are not folded?  And what do you think uplift means for the 'sideways' aspect of this intrusion shown by the separation of the walls of the dyke?  Did this 'sideways behaviour crumple anything?  And where did the *granite* come from in relation to the basalt, if it was at depth long enough to cool down and be coarse grained? .. And if the basalt was below the granite in the first place, why did it come up?  Why didn't it just stay down there and likewise be coarse-grained?  And since it did come up, why did it come up in such skittery bits as this dyke, instead of in a big country-wide mass like the granite.  Fracture?  Who said fracture?   How deep was it, and how laterally extensive might it have been? Can we map it and find out?  What was the spatial and temporal relationship of the respective melts?  And which do you think was under the greater pressure to come up? "  Why did the granite 'come up' on the scale of the whole country while the basalt is just coming up what is essentially a hairline fracture - or less?

This is the bit where the students begin to look right and left, and realise that what he's going to say next is ...

" And let me have your thoughts by Monday."




Fig.2.  Filaments of NW-striking dolerite dykes intrude a diapiric granite pluton.  (Pilbara region, Western Australia.)  [GoogleEarth Location :-   -22.822591°, 117.341177°]


[*Footnote :- The point here being (apart from the obvious one of erosion) the importance of fracturing as indicative of scale of crustal penetration, and the likely importance of incremental upwards movement as a means of creating sideways space rather than (as Plate Tectonics has it) ~3,000km of (sideways) movement such as are said to build the Himalayas and, further away, deform the Russian Peninsula ["far-field tectonics"].

Truly, we live on a flat ('sideways') Earth according to Plate Tectonics.  This, I think, could well be what is occupying the collective minds of the students in the picture, which is why they're shuffling and contemplating their boots.  But how are they going to weasel such cleverness into their class exercise on which they'll be judged at the end of term?  It's all very well for the group leader to be asking suchlike questions implying 'up', but they know perfectly well that 'im indoors, .. their professor, waxes lyrical about sideways Plate Tectonics being the best thing since sliced bread and deserving a Nobel prize, with five centimetres of dyke three thousand kilometres away heaving up the Himalayas and all..  The students are no doubt wondering why three thousand sideways kilometres are needed at all if just a few centimeters of on-the-spot 'up' will do the job anyway.  Or even better if the global distribution of dykes in general are the issue, just lithospheric stretching - as the crust adjusts to outwards movement from the centre - like Earth expansion says?  Why the need for all the sideways hyperactivity?

Let's hope that's what they're doing anyway (contemplating).  We need a whole new crop of geologists apparently.  Otherwise another generation is (well and truly) screwed., and screwed up.

Geology.  It's all a question of scale. Observation / Logic /'Science'. And not getting carried away by anthropomorphic-homo/eccentric fantasy and speculation (/'models'). ["India came running full speed at Asia and boom, they collided," - said.]  Communicating to the public on the level of three-year-olds is one thing, but precisely what is being communicated is another.  A mindset is a mindset.  And the mind of Plate Tectonics is set in a both naive and zombie-like cast.  (And a few other adjectives as well, i.m.o.,  when it comes to questions relating to the biggest 'dyke' intrusions of all - those  (as Plate Tectonics would have it) constituting the sheeted dykes of the ocean floors.)