Lemuria

[From the archives (don's blog - reposted)]

 Plate Tectonics and Landy Lemuria
( .. My part in the downfall of Plate Tectonics .. )

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Fig. 1.  Who remembers Lemuria?   Action Lady, Queen of the Continent that never was, is about to throw the Big Switch and create the ridge displacements of the ocean floor, which will let the Plate Tectonic genie out of the bottle.

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(...The pinnafore ... .. just in case she needs the kitchen. ) 

(.. The bazookas? ... ... Ask Madonna.)

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Fashions various :-

"Geologists, like other people are susceptible to fads.  Although most geologists believe plate tectonics is an exciting theory and accept it as a working model of the earth, the theory may or may not be correct.  Most geologists today believe that plates exist and move.  But widespread belief in a theory does not make it true.  Two hundred years ago geologist "knew" that basalt crystallised out of sea water.  In the 1800s glacial deposits were thought to be deposited by Noah's flood.  Both of these incorrect ideas were finally disproved by decades of exacting field work and often bitter debate." [ 1 ] [ 2 ].

" Forty years ago continental drift rated only a footnote in most introductory textbooks.  Now there are many believers in continental motion and text books use it as a framework for the entire field of physical geology.  Although the idea of continental stability provided the framework for many past textbooks, today the idea that continents are fixed in position rates only a footnote as an outmoded concept. [link lost; (find another.  There are lots similar.)] [Interesting wordsearch checklink dates April 2018]

On Continental Drift:- 

 "...Utter, damned rot!" said the president of the prestigious American Philosophical Society. 

"....If we are to believe [this] hypothesis, we must forget everything we have learned in the last 70 years and start all over again," said another American scientist.

"...Anyone who "valued his reputation for scientific sanity" would never dare support such a theory", said a British geologist. 

 "Thus did most in the scientific community ridicule the concept that would revolutionize the earth sciences and revile the man who dared to propose it, German meteorological pioneer and polar explorer Alfred Wegener. Science historians compare his story with the tribulations of Galileo." http://www.pangaea.org/wegener.htm

mole

Posting note
( .. .. )

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< back >
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This posting was interrupted by the killings in Paris by Islamic State. I delayed posting because I could see that by viewing a page beginning with an illustration of religious iconography readers might get the wrong idea and think I was exploiting religious sensitivities, particularly (in view of those shootings) in taking a tilt against Islam. Which I am not. .. Well, I am not taking a tilt against Islam (although 'Islam' - according to the multiple and various interpretations that are put on it - is heavily implicated in the current events, news of which was just coming in as I was posting), but I hope I am offending those sensitivities that see a role for religion in organising political affairs. If the Theocracy of Islam happens to be particularly good at that, then I'm agin' it on that score. But, .... 

Before continuing, I had better explain. 

I'm actually voicing a larger concern - that organised religion as a whole is motivated to appropriate ordinary human (/'spiritual') values, and, beginning with the child, preys on the natural tendency of people to put trust in others' goodwill, and thereby lead them by the nose up the garden path in the name of something that is supposedly good. Not that I am against 'goodwill' of course, though I have to confess the older I get, the more grumpy (cynical) I find myself to be. There's just so much bullshit around, .. so you have to be careful what you do with yours. Trust is essential to living a life, and is (I think) the default setting. That's why lowest common denominators can, when they feel like it, have a field day. It just takes one low-life cat among all those nice cuddly pidgeons to .. (if you get my drift). 

But there is nothing good about coercing the most emotionally vulnerable. So even more particularly I'm objecting to the way that theocrats - by commission (cultural sanction) and omission (dog whistling - giving tacit approval while expressing abhorrence), invoke 'religion' to manipulate others for self-serving political ends and their own power. Religious practices that exploit the weak need to be repudiated in the strongest possible way. And this, by no means, is restricted to Islam. 

Islamic State insist that these killings are carried out in large part for religious reasons. In the past, the intrusion of religion into political affairs proved to be a disastrous failure that western democracy sought to correct centuries ago. To see it raise its head again, particularly when this is coupled with the increasingly strident tone of religious affiliations of political elites in powerful nations (e.g. America), is unacceptable, dangerous, and highlights the darker subterannean currents of religion that stir society generally. 

Abhorent though these killings are, there is a certain, in-principle tit-for-tat rationale to them - "collateral damage" of a 'state-of-war', .. even though it is as Pope Francis says, "in bits" (remembering that it took the deaths of nearly thirty million people to stop the last one that was carried out (partially and arguably wholly) in the name of biblical genocide). 

So why am I objecting to religion? Because I see in it exactly the same cognitive deficit (/failure /displacements) that has led to Plate Tectonics in Earth science, namely legitimising figments of imagination by 'groupthink' and attempting thereby to give them physical substance when in reality they have even less than a will o' the wisp. The parallels are remarkable. 

However the really objectionable (and dangerous) thing is the power that comes to be wielded through a symbiotic, reciprocative, societal need of people to belong to a group. 

 Expressed through people's succeptibility to received wisdom from others whom they credit with authority, and its manipulation by those others for self-serving ends, this power has no foundational trappings, no substance in realism or resource. It is a power that is unconditionally bestowed, and received, by warrant, and therefore has no accountability. It is naked and absolute. Anyone can wield it, and whoever does can do so for great good or incomprehensible harm. Even as the parable of the Emperor's New Clothes adds the scalps of National Socialism and Dictatorial Authoritarianism (/'communism') of the last century to its belt, by the killings in Paris we are reminded yet again of the harm that can be done when individuals feel empowered by allegiance to a religious authority to do things in its name that otherwise by their own accountability to their own, they would not. 

This is especially dangerous today because of the nihilistic direction that popular culture has taken in the wake of those theoretical -ísms that, made bane by their corruption, have been laid to rest. But the source of their power can always arise again in another form. Rather than being a solution for mayhem, that "old-time religion" may well turn out to be a cause of it, creating a chain reaction of more problems in ways that we cannot imagine [link], and that could make the downfall of the Roman Empire and the still-born failure of a 'Third Reich' (from this to this) seem like a cup of spilt milk. ['Milk', and .. "Give me the child until he is seven."] 

 .................... 

So, that is why I am objecting to religion (and its deistic derivatives). Because through a serendipitous visit to the Oracle at Delphi I came to realise that Plate Tectonics (in science) and Religion (in human affairs) are closer similars than I thought. People have to be nuts to believe (in) either - forgivable up to a point for religion (one's spiritual issues /values are nobody else's business - though in some instances culture might well be), .. but not for science. Something is going on here that needs attention, .. and revision. The killings in Paris are simply the catalyst that has raised awareness of the problems that can arise when religion is conflated with politics, or, more exactly, with the failure of politics. What happens when religion is conflated with science? Intelligent Design if you are lucky; or Boko Haram if you're not. 

 Everybody needs to sit up and pay attention here. So long as politics spawns disaffection and hopelessness, this will continue. Society, under the rubric of religion, is at war with itself only this time, unlike the last when it became polarised in National Socialism, it is more like the breakout of a diffused cancer than a malignancy with a specific core that can be excised with a single snip. 

Previously I would have said that religion, with its displacements in metaphor and symbolism and the gobbledegook of theo-speak, has nothing to contribute but confusion, and for it to "keep off the grass", but I am wondering if, by a similar displacement, the Pope's duet with Shakira at the United Nations General Assembly was another dog whistle, this one being directed to the crew of his sinking ship, .. at least the one they have previously known. 

 Fig.4  The captain's cabin - looking towards the stern of the Big Ship which is showing a slight list to port, suggesting there could be a storm brewing.  ("Passing through the eye of a needle"and all that.)

Do we have a leader, making 'religion' relevant again?  [The Third World War "ïn bits".]  Pope Francis does look to me like the sort of a coot who would be quite happy in a lifeboat, though it has to be said he would have to choose his crew carefully.  If that 'duet' with Shakira was officially sanctioned, then there are more than a few would be very willing to toss him overboard - "by the light of a silvery moon".  I mean, would the U.N have asked her beforehand what song she planned to sing (her being forward with the rights of the child and all that), ..but then, being cognisant of possible papal sensitivities, would they have cleared it with the Pope?  Or are we supposed to see it as an ambush, and letting her do a 'Pussy Riot' on him ..  like they did on Putin?

 It is possible.  The Vatican has had a troubled relationship with the United Nations over population control for a long time, so it is interesting to see even as I write, that Pope Francis has opened St Peter's Holy Door and said that "by passing through it, Catholics should take on the role of the Good Samaritan".  Symbolism (re. "the eye of the needle")? or another dogwhistle with larger intent?

Remains to be seen.

[ Sicily as a litmus test?]

 "How high's the water Momma?"

( Let's hope he's got a long pair of wellies.)

20151115.
20151208
20161121   Yup, .. he's on track.


 

In Memoriam

-  The Boxing Day Tsunami of Christmas 2004 -  
(...Plate Tectonics - earthquakes and tsunamis...)

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(From the archives - 1st January, 2005)

This page is dedicated to the memory of those tens of thousands of families around the Indian Ocean killed by the Sumatra earthquake and the resulting tsunami of Boxing Day, the 26th December 2004, who have underscored with tragic loss of life the blindness of geological consensus in refusing to recognise the connection between earthquakes and the Earth's rotation and expansion in generating such catastrophies. On account of this deficit, the connection between earthquakes and the global structures that localise them have been and continue to be in large part fundamentally misconstrued.

Fig.1   Synopsis of continental rupture and growth of the ocean floors reflected in the change in the Earth's spin through geological time.   Grey band = mountain belts distended around the Pacific rim; yellow band = lower crustal level distension; grey lines are lines of major apparent 'torsional' displacements (but are largely normal growth faults); finer red lines are transform faults (which are also growth faults).  The individual major elements and movement pictures are described on the site.

From the equatorial dilation of the Pangaean Earth to the trace of structures on the ocean floors describing this, the first-order deformation of the planet is related to its spin.  This simple fact is ignored by geologists and geophysicists, who hubristically deny any association and instead use a working geological model called Plate Tectonics to explain earthquake distribution.

This model, constructed purely on hypothetical principles of convection according to buoyancy and flotation, considered to govern the internal workings of the planet, flies in the face of the obvious that any lay-person can see  - that the continental crust has been distended by the growth of the ocean floors, and that this growth is inscribed by the spin of the planet in the structures known as transform faults.  Views of the Earth from space have spectacularly underscored this spin-symmetry of deformation, yet despite the billions of dollars expended in space exploration and the movement picture being clearly defined in satellite measurement of small movements (image below), as well as the interpretation outlined on this site, scientists  continue to conveniently ignore the obvious pairing of Earth spin and mantle growth and the effect this has in generating earthquakes and killer tsunamis, because through its consequence of Earth expansion it implies the nemesis of plate tectonics which feeds the lifeblood of  consensus of the earth sciences, and because too there are unplatable implications in physics - there is no known way within current consensus whereby the Earth may enlarge to the extent apparent.

Plate tectonics  implies it,  gps movements show it, and the growth of the ocean floors define it.  You might think there would be some scientists who would regard this connection between earthquakes and the Earth's spin as an alternative framework to plate tectonics in which to explore the potential  for earthquake prediction given the huge loss of life that can occur.     But no (however see), ..  despite possible private agreement, when  observations are made that imply fatal errors in consensus, official story-tellers close ranks faster than thieves.  The loudest response by far is not to examine and discuss the evidence, but to proclaim "irrelevance" in the absence of  'peer review' and consensus,  and to otherwise deny,  ignore, and heap ad hominems on the bearer of new data and interpretations of it.

It is not possible to address this connection within the milieu of consensus.  It is only by a juxtaposition such as here, of the recent tragic loss of life caused by the tsunami around the Indian Ocean with the hubristic assertions of Earth scientists that current 'knowledge' of global dynamics is essentially correct, that a rise in the conscience of consensus might be made whereby possible alternatives may be explored and a better understanding might be gained.

Let us pray

...that they waken up, and put the science, if not the concerns of the people in the regions at risk of tsunamis, ahead of their career interest.

Fig.2.  Crustal movements depicting "independent Plate movement" according to GPS measurements (red arrows).  White lines are major movements described on this site; red lines are transforms.

This show is not over till the whole circus of fat ladies promoting plate tectonics sings (in unison):- "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that spin!"


Boxing Day, December 26th 2004 
Posted New Year's Day, 2005

[Addendum : The Tsunami of March 11th, 2011, Japan ]

(Pidgeons, .. coming home to roost (?) ( on the Big Island of Hawaii, April, 2018.)

Eureka

A Eureka moment
( .. is an ephiphany, ..a shortcut... )

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(Reprise old website, ~2011)

The point deserves a stern look, and from whom better than the man himself. 

Louis Pasteur (wikipedia)

"Chance favours only a prepared mind."

So what is this 'eureka' moment?  An observation, .. interpretation /conjecture /theory, .. a hypothesis, an intuitive guess? 

 No, ..none of these. It is simply being in the right place at the right time - with the experience and realisation to see a relevant connection to a pattern that is already apparent.  It's a very personal thing to which no-one else is privy.

Such moments (always something of a red light) nevertheless can provide valuable shortcuts when they happen to be right. They represent a realisation of the way that data is (or should be) structured with respect to symmetry scale and form in relation to experience. There is nothing mystical, magical or 'intelligent' about it. All it is, is having a previous context within which to fit observations and to understand their implications. It is 'filling out', extending the boundaries of previous observation.  To others without the same experience, however, it is easily seen as "off the wall", an invention of the crackpot screwball (cite Feynman - Aunt Minnie,  last sentence.. 

 
Such realisation is not an outward process of thinking of external things, but very much inward and passive - almost not thinking at all.  It's simply letting the 'obvious' reveal itself through context, scale and design. It's as unthinkingly or'nery as can be, and typically happens in moments of reverie  in the most or'nery of places. If it is regarded by others as special, that is only because by definition they do not have the same experience, the same 'preparation', .. the same contextualisation.

And as such it is indeed *highly* subjective.
 
Or is it?  To be sure it is peculiar to the individual, but by the exclusion of consciously directed thought it is arguably also as objective as can be, ..as if the mind itself is an eye of sorts, passively observing and bypassing the filters of conscious thought.  Context is already given by personal experience. 

It is top down, a glimpse of the 'destination', of the wood rather than the trees. In the jigsaw analogy it is the picture on the front of the box. The cognitive work of assembling the pieces are already largely in place.

Science on the other hand is typically a bottom-up affair. It is elemental, anatomical and to a degree an often piecemeal construction in the way that it busily, almost obsessively assembles the data, where more loosely may be more helpful. It takes pride in being 'objective', but it's kidding itself - this sort of 'objective' assembly is typically derived from a plethora of hypotheses, contributed by many people. In science however this variation masquerades as the versatility of one - the so called 'consensus' view. This 'versatility' has enormous value for those in a position to call for 'more research' to 'finesse' the theory in ever more detail, but in terms of useful result it can go nowhere.  By chasing its tail it has painted itself into the proverbial corner.  

On the other hand a correct theory predicts the outcome. Other than routine 'space-filling' it obviates the need for research. In a sense, and within its own terms of reference it also has nowhere to go. Its very success is its nemesis. It has, for all intents and purposes, 'arrived'. 

 

And herein lies the career scientist's dilemma.  For which is the more successful - the one that may be continually used to justify funding, or the one that has arrived at the destination the funding was intended to reach?  Problems, particularly ones that seem insolvable, are money in the bank, .. a milk cow to the career scientist.  Life support. Nothing less.

With the realisation that Plate Tectonics is false, then all must be reassembled: no plates, no collisions causing mountains, no crumpling of the crust causing folding (in the manner Plate Tectonics says), .. nothing of all of that. Earth expansion effectively presses the reset button on the Earth sciences and offers a whole different paradigm for geology, ..one that has not yet even begun to be broached by the broader community, and one that poses a formidable challenge to educational institutions. For how can these continue to teach a syllabus that by the deliberate exclusion of logical alternatives, is at best demonstrably false and at worst, corrupt. 

So where to next? Is there Life after Plate Tectonics?  ...  Indeed, is there life for geology after Earth expansion once, it is consolidated? 

Well (again), .. it wouldn't be the first time geology has been the start-point for enquiry into the human condition and its place in the environment, and no doubt it won't be the last. The implications of an earth that is in a state of slow explosion has obvious implications with respect to physics.  However they are more appropriately addressed by the respective disciplines, and anyway are not ones that should unduly concern us given the time scale on which humanity exists (notwithstanding the hype of "Climate Change" since this (present) article was posted on my website way.y back).  'Climate' has a different connotation in geology than it does in more regular public parlance. 

 

But that is another story .