Re: Inside/Outside Earth Processes
From: Oriel36 (geraldkelleher_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 07/16/04
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Date: 16 Jul 2004 09:28:29 -0700
don@tower.net.au (don findlay) wrote in message news:<5f164087.0407141919.74145a4d@posting.google.com>...
> geraldkelleher@hotmail.com (Oriel36) wrote in message news:<273f8e06.0407120912.ef5f991@posting.google.com>...
> <snip>
>
> > > Oriel,
> > > My apologies for not answering your last one.
> >
> > I enjoy your postings too much to have you apologise.
>
> Yes, Me too - getting right up 'em! I love it! About time somebody
> did! Do you know, I don't think there has been one real objection
> to anything I've said on my site, Carsten's having a go at me about
> the twist in the growth, and he's not happy with the continents
> birling around like whigmaleeries. He reckon's he's got me with his
> coriolis and bits of flying rock. Tell you what O., I'm going to
> knock the USGS off the top of the googlelist for plate tectonics.
> Just watch after the next crawl or two. What about putting up a page
> I can link to and we'll roast them on this plate nonsense? If the
> Earth is a matter of 'formation' then 'deformation' needs an input to
> the system, which means as you say, astronomical of sorts.
>
All credit where it is due Don,to all intents and purposes it would
amount to crustal expansion even without accounting for the jigsaw
puzzle of continental landmass.I have no problem with the term 'Earth
expansion' save that the effects attributed to the coriolis force have
hemispherical differences as do seasonal variations in both
hemispheres and subsequently the greater rotation of the Earth is lost
to minor effects and causes.
>
> > A documentary on the BBC had a propellar driven India crashing into
> > Asia all the way from South America no less,a month ago I probably
> > would have settled for the explanation but it now seems that there is
> > a whole lot missing from that explanation notwithstanding that the PT
> > details propounded by participants in this forum merely make
> > contemporary views seem less unlikely
>
> I remember a long time ago someone being interviewed on the radio
> about the Falklands once being close to Madagascar, so I really don't
> know why they didn't put the propeller on South America.
> Perceptions and allegiances, eh? People are funny about their sense
> of proportion and insecurities. The other day a lady was recounting
> how once, when giving a talk to some intellectual literary club about
> children's stories (she was a visiting author to the country) the
> national flag was a bit too close to the podium. So she grabbed it
> and wrapped it around herself in some sort of gesture of militant
> nationalism, and then put it to one side saying it didn't match her
> frock. Half the audience walked out, and the other half nearly
> killed her. She needed a police escort to her hotel room. (Children's
> stories for goodness sake, and literary people too...). Seems
> there's a similar allegiance to this plate tectonic nonsense, ...
> Allegiance and consensus and insecurity, ...George and Stu. I think
> it's quite funny.
>
The reasons for many of the obstacles to progress are actually very
specific,at least this is what I learned from the experience between
physics and astronomy and unfortunately it appears that geology is
being subsumed into the same wretched condition.The methods for
approaching the celestial motion of planets is far different from the
approach needed to investigate geology but the component parts should
mesh as a whole picture and be understandable at a basic or intricate
level depending on the capability of the reader.From an astronomical
perspective,the situation exists where if something cannot be
accounted for,a new force is created or variations introduced to
already existing constants thereby to support existing theories the
whole picture becomes evermore disjointed and ugly.It's like the
picture of Dorian Gray where real astronomy is concerned.
>
> >
> >
> > I put it aside because
> > > it raised so many points, and then it got buried in the maelstrom of
> > > more immediate responses from Carsten (Hi Carsten!). I forget, but I
> > > remember I meant to say something along the lines of to hang in there,
> > > and that if what you are encoutering in the astronomical side is
> > > anything like what I am on the geological side, then I for one
> > > understand your position exactly.
> > >
> >
> > You know Don,for a number of months last year I pushed hard for using
> > supernova data as standard distance markers but dropped it for want of
> > comment,this year somebody came up with the same idea but retained
> > elements that were best jettisoned.In this respect,taking the Earth's
> > rotation into account will sooner or later be assimilated into the
> > evolution of physical features,unfortunately your work on the matter
> > will suffer the same dilution,nobody will ask you for comment and to
> > all intents and purposes your only reward will be indignity despite
> > the fact that it probably cost you drop by drop an inhuman effort to
> > have it discussed.My apologises to you in advance.
>
> Of course the rotation will be taken into account. I think it already
> is, but there's just a bit too much backing and filling to be done by
> those who should do it - or at least are in the best position.. It
> needs to wait. I recognise the tone of answers you get. And what you
> call the lack of comment sounds to me actually pretty loud (if
> somebody could do it (without the 'tone of answers') they would.
> ...And DAH chipping in there about first principles... He's dead
> right. Because that's always what it's all about - always - and as
> a rule first principles don't get an airing - ever.. I don't think
> people in general know what they are, these first principles. It's in
> the nature of science that they get forgotten. Must.
If you familiarise yourself with the original text of Newton,at first
he tells his readers not to take his geometrical/astronomical agenda
in terms of forces,gravitational or otherwise but in his later works
he becomes more emboldened and begins talking of his gravity
theory.What otherwise would have been a perfectly good correlation
between investigating the nature of forces at a human level descended
in a greedy intellectual exercise based on the spectacular insight of
Kepler.
"I likewise call attractions and impulses, in the same sense,
accelerative, and motive; and use the words attraction, impulse or
propensity of any sort towards a centre, promiscuously, and
indifferently, one for another; considering those forces not
physically, but mathematically: wherefore, the reader is not to
imagine, that by those words, I anywhere take upon me to define the
kind, or the manner of any action, the causes or the physical reason
thereof, or that I attribute forces, in a true and physical sense, to
certain centres (which are only mathematical points); when at any time
I happen to speak of centres as attracting, or as endued with
attractive powers."
http://members.tripod.com/~gravitee/definitions.htm#time
I am all too familiar with what Newton did and even if I do not expect
anyone to go through these badly organised first 'gravitational'
principles applied to astronomy at least you can see that there was a
time when Newton was not so sure of his audience.The point being that
the slow descent from astronomy to mathematical prediction began there
and in the early 20th century they jettisoned any pretense whatsoever
to astronomical modelling.
So acute is the situation that even if you wished to have the motions
of the Earth discussed ( for the purpose of geology ) as a normal
matter of course,there is no facility availible to handle it.It is all
about the laws of physics from the standpoint of homocentricity "Let
this be that" sort of thing.
It's very
> necessary that they do, otherwise the security of consensus is forever
> provisional and under attack, and 'filling out' can't properly
> function. Plate tectonics, ..it seems that a lot of people don't
> even undertand the structure of its own argument. They seem to think
> it's like a convection cell, that it doesn't matter where you begin
> you can just chip in anywhere - that every point is as valid as the
> next. They don't see the dependencies, the layering on which
> everything is built .. they think they can argue the whole circuit at
> once, blind us with some sort of catherine wheel of logic, even if
> there are odd holes in it. They don't see that with even one hole,
> the whole thing just seizes up.
>
Some see holes to be filled for the sake of allegiance,others see
exciting challenges,most certainly more of the latter are required
with the courage to return things to a molten state and build a better
picture without relying on older assumptions.I am not so hard on
adherence to older concepts but when observations of galaxies showed
up in 1923 it should have changed everything.The greatest known
structures in the cosmos were absorbed into earlier concepts built on
the 'fixed stars' and for the last 80 years physicists/astronomers
continued on as if nothing much occured.As I said,if galaxies were not
big enough or spectacular enough to change minds these few words are
hardly going to alter the way people think as they approach
astronomical matters.
> But for me the hard bit has been the previous 30 years, and making the
> necessary adjustments in various ways, and why I understand JPT, and
> what he must have gone through being done over like a dinner like he
> was. I find it offensive when people say that's the way the world is.
> Too right! The world is many things, but most of all it is as we
> make it. Yes, well, ...who are the makers, ..and who are the
> shakers..? And who are the dyed-in-the-wool bloody fakers? It's the
> sort of thing can't be understood from the outside - how things are.
> Confront them with simple facts and fallacies of the physical type?
> What chance where it counts?
>
> Look at this one. This is the one I like to illustrate, because it
> says everything that's important about plate tectonics in a nutshell.
> <http://users.indigo.net.au/don/ore/brokenhill1.jpg>
> <http://users.indigo.net.au/don/ore/brokenhill2.jpg> , namely the
> propensity of consensus to get hold of the wrong end of the stick, and
> the refusal of its 'church' to backpeddle in the face of the obvious.
> Geological enterprise (generations of them) have termed these most
> important of geological structures (because they are where you get ore
> deposits) "boudinage structures", and in tagging the wrong bit, have
> for decades diverted attention away from the most critical aspect of
> geological structure on which our civilisation is based, and in the
> process squandered untold BILLIONS of dollars. Point it out to
> them and think you'll win a nobel prize? No they burn you, <blue
> link google> then sneak round the back of the tent and change hats.
>
>
> But indignity? Umm, maybe, I don't really know how people see me.
> Cinderella? Ughly Sister? I guess when you don't shave and wear
> only old clothes.. Somebody a while ago reckoned I looked pretty
> good in sackcloth, lurching up alleyways with my cross, but , no,
> ..not at all, ..for me this is a dawdle, really. Great fun!
> ...(though just about run its course.) I was just interested to see
> what would happen when we took it to the street so to speak, encourage
> discussion without the trappings of badges and credentials -or even
> knowledge. And how the various players would disport themselves when
> it came to talking about things we don['t know too much about. I
> think we've tested the front row by now.. I just loved Stu, ... the
> kicker of one-legged butts squealing about "massive academic fraud"..
> And that other fellow, John Vidale, the front man for ucla, his
> raison d'etre being "but everybody believes in 40 terrawatts - why
> don't you?" . Then John Hernlund offering the grit: "Aw, .. we just
> shrug shoulders, change hats and walk away.." (Talk about Sister
> Fatima, hocus pocus, and the taffeta booth - and round the back of the
> tent!) And then that creep from BHP (above link). Just because you
> show people the way things are... Truth? ( Is from Venus.) Anything
> that is a means to an end. ("Truth has no place in science" - oft
> quoted)
>
> Turns out it was remarkably familiar to a road I've been down before,
> so recognising it makes it easy. I would be more perplexed
> otherwise, and certainly the responses have been very much par for the
> course for anyone trying to put any alternative view.... I get the
> picture of serious jigsaw players, and how they get really pissed off
> when you slope into the room and pass around the lid of the box with
> the picture on the front. ("Pssst...") To them the end is not the
> issue, but the means and the trappings, the furrowed brow, the
> deliberation, and the ostentatious demonstration of serious
> cleverness. But the picture on the box is seamless,... an offence to
> their own clunky efforts. That's what they don't like. The proof of
> their involvement being ignored, the involvement that lies in the
> rugged corners, the protruberances, the knobbly bits, and the
> splinters where things *almost* fit, but need finessing. No wonder
> they're pissed off with the idea of letting the picture speak for
> itself.
>
If first principles count for anything perhaps the first time I
recognised exactly what Copernicus and Kepler were looking at over and
above reading about it in a textbook and that made all the
difference.Turning my attension to geology it too looks all the more
lovely should anyone consider the component parts in overall motion
and so what if an enormous amount of sorting and sifting is required.
> You're dead right of course about the integration across disciplines,
> but that takes someone who is intimately versed in them, truly
> perceptive of their fundmentals, and intellectually honest enough to
> eschew consensus, and I don't think that can be done from the inside,
> it's too destructive all round ("we are a community of scientists")
> (ostracism). And science *has to* hold together. It just so happens
> that the leading edge - where the ideas come form - is not science.
> That community thing, consensus - it's the cross that 'science'
> (whatever scientists think it means) crucifies itself on, till the
> blood runs. Breaking ranks? Talk about police culture closing up..
> No wonder as Ralph says "Nobody talks to you any more" Not 'one of
> us'. 'George' me old scientific pal, ...where are you now?
>
> <snip>
Outside commitments do not make it easy to respond in the way you
deserve and I apologise for that,I don't say this as a complaint but
rather it is just the way things are.Perhaps someday things will
become easier but for now thanks for making allowances for the
untidiness of my posts.
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