Sledge

 Plate trouble
( .. the Trouble with Plate Tectonics is .. )

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[From first edition /archives]

... that it is basically a construct of geophysicists, ..who firstly (by-and-large) (and by their own admission) don't have much of a geological clue, and secondly do not obey the falsification rules of science.

And that's not me saying it.  Read what Shawna Vogel has to say.  Her considered words make for a much more effective sledge than mine. She met a lot of the people in the process of researching her book and got the inside story from a number of people directly involved:-

" Even with advances in the field, however, crucial pieces of information are missing, especially in these studies of the surface. One of the main reasons is that geophysicists have been strangers to the field of geology for such a long time. In many researcher's minds, and for obvious reasons, deep Earth science leaves off where surface science begins - in other words, where geology begins. For decades there has been a lack of communication, some even say a disdain for each other, between the two fields. As geologist Christopher Scotese at the University of Texas explains it, geophysicists have always had the upper hand in terms of making models and amassing numbers. Theirs was the dominant field so there has been resentment as a result of that. The main reason however is that each group has defined itself and its work in a certain way and each has continued along that path. Geologists and geophysicists rarely go to the same meetings or collaborate on the same problems. Geologists have all grown up believing that the rocks tell a story. The layers upon layers of stone are all laid down in a specific sequence, and those who know how to read that sequence can read the story of a region - when uplift took place, when volcanoes loosed their contents. Geophysicists on the other hand have become so specialised in the subfield that few of them know how to read geologists' maps or understand the subtleties of strata. This parochialism [d.f. link] leads many geologists to believe that without the hard evidence geophysicists are missing a big piece of the Earth's story."  [Shawna Vogel (1995) 'Naked Earth, the new Geophysics, p.139, Dutton, Penguin Books, 217pps.]

What she's saying here in a more polite way than me, is that while geologists stick as best they can to the geological reality that is written in the rock, geophysicists, being essentially restricted to interpretation of what happens at the end of a scribbling, shaky pen, .. a seismograph (usually on the other side of the world from where the action is taking place), consider themselves having a licence to invent constructions with an unfettered disregard for geological reality.

"Poor buggers they", you could say, "restricted by such limitation", except that in their extravagance they show absolutely no respect for the essence of science - falsification.  

The whole of Plate Tectonics is a litany of contradictions, which after half a century they still show no inclination to rationalise.  Why?  Well, firstly, they can't, because there *is* no logical reconciliation.  And secondly they probably think it doesn't matter since the more furfies they can successfully strew around and bamboozle everybody with, the more they can control the agenda.  And physics being what it is (the key to understanding the ghostly quantum world with its wherewithal to destroy the natural material one) (... and recalcitrant neighbours), attracts the major part of funding (link).  Get on the back of that one and you're on a winner, professionally speaking.

And so we have dubious suppositions assumptions and speculations tricked out in rubbery arithmetic as their support, and promoted by a media cheer squad with its own separate agenda - the more 'ideas' out there, no matter how nutty, the more there is to write about and the more secure is their financial base (provided people prefer fake news and fairy floss romance novels over hard facts written in stone that speak for themselves, that is).

The whole schemozzle is essentially supported by disinformation.  There is huge capital in being wrong, provided it is coloured with the kudos of learned institutions.  Being wrong underwrites the chance to try again ("more research is needed"), and gets rid of the problem that being right presents - what to do for an encore.  To the career research scientist "more research needed" is virtually a catch phrase for 'money in the bank'.   There is no reward in being right when it has the potential to put everybody offside and upset the applecart, not in the short term anyway, .. like here.  And put you out of a job into the bargain.

But models sourced in falsehood and speculative imagination at the expense of hard geological fact are valueless, no matter how inventive the arithmetic used to support it.

And that is why there is no inclination from geophysicists to include geological reality.  The 'geology' that they do attempt to include is a half-formed, flung-about, dissonant cacophony, a Heath-Robinson contraption whose purpose seems solely to bamboozle the onlooker in a morass of gratuitous construction, to pull wool over eyes whilst trying to attract funding for their misbegotten enterprise -  Plate Tectonics.

So that's where it begins, .. and where it stops.  Were they to include geological reality instead of the fiction of hypothesis and theory, typically represented as 'fact', they would have no story other than Earth Expansion with all its acknowledged problems of mechanism for Earth enlargement, ..and that would incur the wrath of their fellow physicists.   Physics, the big money spinner, would become controversial, introduce schism, divide funding and put people out of a job.  As things are, its easy.  Why make things hard for yourself, a cross for your own back?

It's all about jobs and careers.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with jobs and careers, except that in this case the science itself (with its essence of falsification that no-one is interested in other than whistleblowers like here) is clearly of secondary importance.  To the career scientist, the creed is "We are a community", whose dictate by its very exigencies of organisation, is that it must be unconditionally obeyed - and woe betide any who cross it.

So why do geologists put up with it if they recognise the problem with geophysics?  They put up with it because they recognise realities, and the imperative to publish for the sake of career.  A consensus allows this to happen.  And according to Shawna Vogel (above), in adopting Plate Tectonics' assumption of a Panthalassa Scotese is leading the way, with his throwaway line:-  "...There probably  has been an ocean in the present-day position of the Pacific Ocean for nearly a billion years..." (link)

"Probably"?  Really?  Why?  ... How much uncertainty is tied up in that 'probably'?  How much 'more research' is going into the validity of that "billion years"?  I submit none, because if it were, then the supposed pairing of ridge creation and mantle destruction would be more closely examined than it is, and that would risk upsetting the applecart.  As it stands, it is silent homage to the axiom that underpins plate tectonics and which everyone understands (as the 'ghost that dare not speak its name')  - the assumption that the Earth must remain a constant size .

Even geologists need to face the realities of a job and a career, ..and in the academic world if you don't publish you don't have one.  And as noted above, being wrong lots of times can be argued to have more currency than being right once.  It underwrites the chance for more research, more publications, and therefore (whether right or wrong) more standing.  Being right (in a milieu of 'wrong') on the other hand arouses all sorts of indignation from vested interests ensconced in the comfort of consensus and "more research needed":-

" When thoughts, logic and facts have the potential to humiliate and frighten, they will always be ignored. " (Mister supernatural)

Sites such as this arguing that a transparent deficit exists between the theory and the facts might be hoped to engender a more considered assessment of Plate Tectonic theory, but almost certainly the reverse will be true as authors and peer review alike close ranks and conspire to shore it up.  Almost certainly a more strident, more muscular exposition  as well as an increasing (and intentional) drop in the standard of peer review may be expected as ever more straws are clutched to present assumption, interpretation and theory as fact.  

But in the end, given enough rope it will hang itself as it becomes increasingly and transparently less credible, ..even to the frontline footsoldiers, ..the Hill-Buildies.

Wherever there is power, corruption poisons even the cleanest of newbie slates - eventually ('maiden')
 
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(This was written before I came across W.H. Menard's book, The Ocean of Truth, in which he admits the point (about not having a geological clue) - and justifies it by saying that those who developed Plate Tectonics "didn't need one" (repeat link).

Again .. it's the"whether-the-Earth-is-flat-or-round" 'scale' thing, but perhaps the irony here is that for all Plate Tectonics' claim to the high ground of scale, Earth expansion is working on a far bigger scale than Plate Tectonics by demonstrating that the Earth is essentially one 'plate' whose surface is continuously moving outwards from its centre and collapsing to take up the change in surface curvature, thus making its surface flatter than it used to be. 

(goes to 'erosion')