Putting Trolling in Perspective.

( or, .. What do you do when you perceive science to be failing? ..)


The question of trolling has arisen again on Rationalskeptics Discussion Forum.

[  Quoting Theropod:- 

" ... Jesus fucking Christ on a stick, can't you read? What part of "if they haven't published" can't you grasp? Now, having made that really fucking clear, how the hell is anyone supposed to know of these "authorities" unless they have published in reputable journals?

"I know for a fact there are several professional scientists that participate on a regular basis here on ratskep. [ .. I have enough professional qualifications in earth sciences to see through this EE smoke and mirrors.. ] That professional training allows me to adjudicate these citations as sorely lacking in direct support of an EE.

"My opinion is based on the historical facts of this thread. I've been here since day one.  The topic was started to specifically troll this forum.

"In case you haven't noticed I have no desire, or intent, to be helpful in regards to this topic on any level. It's ALL bullshit, and the whole intent of this thread was, and is, to troll this forum. I've already listed my concerns with your "facts". I really don't give a rats ass if the EE folks have their feeling hurt, or if I piss them all off. This EE crap isn't about the science. It's about what folks will believe even in the face of overwhelming evidence telling them they're notion is totally fucking nuts. Exactly like creationism in that regard isn't it? I am not a humanitarian, or even a very nice man. As far as I'm concerned these folks came into my house and shit right in the middle of my living room floor. I'm really supposed to now be helpful to any aspect of this insanity? I don't think so. Even defending this tripe in a passing manner deserves scorn AFAIC." ]

This point, about the forum being assailed by "nuts" obsessing about Earth expansion, has been raised from the beginning.  Under no circumstances could S.Athearn, the subject of the above abusive attack be accused of trolling, and neither could the original poster of the thread.  Below is the original post by 'Brainman',  a cognitive scientist interested in the emotional response of people to views that contradict their own beliefs, and how consensus ('Groupthink') therefore arises - the Groupthink in this case being the monolithic belief of Plate tectonics. :

['Brainman' :-   Expanding earth. Do the continents wind back to a sphere
#1  Post by Brain man » Jun 14, 2010 12:27 pm

"Most people are familiar with neal adams interesting animations.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PQSrsy9xg70
My interest is actually psychological regarding this. I am training in neuropsychology and am interested in the mechanism behind the reaction of disbelief itself. I am presuming there will be not be many here in favour of expanding earth hypothesis.

The point is, can this thread force readers to answer the primary question of the thread first. i.e. Can the poll question itself actually be answered with a yes or no ? EDIT. The question is "Do the continents "look" as if they wind back to a sphere ?"

So this thread is primarily about psychology. You can post on how the video itself made you feel. Conflicted, angry etc.

I would also like to make these following points to introduce that the topic has an educated, reasoning and respectable proponent. The point of this thread is not to debate the geology though. These points are just stated to offset the damage having an artist proposing the subject has done. It should be remembered though that in spite of his background Neal Adams claims that the plates were not shrunk or altered in the 3d modeller. The ins-and-outs of geology is a different subject from this and should be started on the earth sciences section.]

...from which it is quite clear that the intention of the post is exactly as it says -  nothing to do with the for-or-against geological  arguments of Earth expansion but simply to test emotional reaction to that video.  It's difficult to see how it can be read otherwise.

Neverthless apart from the few respondents who did answer within the guidelines but noted that a response would obviously be tempered by initial belief and the scientific merit of the video, by far the majority appeared to consider their intelligence confronted and scientific acumen abused, and Brainman was shortly banned for being a "troll" for exactly the reason Brainman specifically stated, and what Theropod says in somewhat more colourful vernacular :- "This EE crap isn't about the science. It's about what folks will believe even in the face of overwhelming evidence telling them they're notion is totally fucking nuts".

Evidently the fine point of Mr Adam's video (and Brainman's intention in posting the question) escapes the Theropod - that the italicised "nuts" in question are in fact those believing in Plate Tectonics - and how might it feel to be labelled a nut, even just on the basis of a space/time-traveller's cursory glimpse of an enlarging, rotating Earth such as that video illustrates.

Today Plate Tectonics is standard teaching in schools colleges, universites, and even kindergartens. as well as used in top-level media presentations to the public.  And there is even the view that it is deserving of a Nobel prize.

But what do you do when you perceive it to be simply wrong in critical aspects and think it appropriate to say so?  Do you present your hopeful case to what you see as the arbiters of scientific respectability in the expectation they have a duty to listen?  .. maybe even too in the expectation (if reason and logic is applied) that there might possibly be some capitulation to your illuminated insight?  Well, .. if you're naive you might, but you certainly won't get any marks for pointing out to the scientific community at large that the Earth is round and rotating, and that the consequences of this is something everybody's been missing all along.  Theropod has a point.  It *is* something like dumping right in the middle of the living-room.  No matter how much you might try to persuade and say, "No, .. but look, .. seriously, .. it's all good, and it goes so much better with your furniture than the junk you have strewn around."  You could even add that every living room should have a pile of it right up to the ceiling, ... and (getting really bolshie) add further  .. "So what's wrong with *you* then?" 

Even on a sliding scale from wheedling to belligerent, somehow I don't think that cuts it.  Some other strategem is called for.  But what?  What do you do when even  'peaceful proselytising' elicits the antagonistic odium and abuse that has been the history of Rationalskeptic's response since day 1 - and some other forums as well, and (though somewhat better dressed) the scientific literature too.   Everybody likes to arrange their living room the way that suits them - because there are friends that turn up from time to time who like a cozy corner to relax in where they don't have to consider their place in the world.  Living is a social enterprise after all, and it helps if everybody is like me.

Well, there are two things you can do.  The first is simply putting it out there for whoever is inclined to look at it - passive proselytising /gentle persuasion for those who may be persuaded, but in the full knowledge that there will be hecklers at the rear who will take every opportunity they can to shout you down and try to make a fool of you.

And the other thing you can do is recognise therefore what it is you're up against and 'fight fire with fire', .. stir-'em-up and dump some reflective 'troll-shit' in the living room and leave them to the consequences when it hits the fan, and the public, seeing finally that their tax dollars are being consumed on a gravytrain ("in the dining car of free lunch"), insists on a better deal.

(Mirror mirror on the wall..)

"Many people here are home-schooling because our education system has them come out dumber than they went in."  J.T - USA.

"Children have this habit of thinking for themselves, and the point of education is to cure them of this habit." ~ Bertrand Russell.

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

Florian Stirs the Pot

(Trackin' the Sackin')

2013-02-13  : Too Funny

Having been banned from the discourse because I was deemed not to be engaged in reasonable and rational debate, but nevertheless tracking the gladiatorial contest between the Greatest Scientific Achievement since Sliced Bread with Jamonit, and poor old unscientific Earth expansion, I couldn't help noticing this funny one today by one of the Pteros -  :-

"I imagine about the same time you realize that posting on a web forum that is dedicated to far far more than your silly version doesn't provide you any protection from having it pointed out that if this insanity held any merit it could be published in a major geology journal. Get it?

... to which the obvious reply (which would get me banned again for sure) (as being a remark offensive to the forum) would be that a lot of insanity *is* published in major geological journals, even insanity that has *no* merit (acknowledging however that some of the greatest expressions of human intellect have been deemed 'insane' until Jo Blog dinosaurs "get it", whereupon it overnight becomes pedestrian,  swamp-squelching, commonplace cud-munching for the tribe).

You can swear to your heart's content, abuse contributions in the vilest invective - provided you use cuss-words and don't attempt anything more literary.  Literary merit would be deemed offensive to the forum these days of mis-spelling and tortured syntax masquerading as acceptable scientific communication.  The above point would be deemed, not to be replying to what's said, but to be being offensive to the forum at large, namely, .. it would be referred to general cogitation and they all would throw a tissy fit, feel diminished and squeal.

 (How 'science' purports to conduct itself ) (giggle and point).  Which of course is why judgement is anonymous.

And that's not even mentioning the content of the rest of the forum he's taking about.  This one has now gone to P429, and looks like it might even get to P430, when Florian gets back.  I wouldn't even bother to check what the rest of them have gone to, given the claim of skepticism.  They're certainly a very skeptical bunch on this one, even when it comes to the simplest observation, like the crust collapsing BIGTIME (bigtime) .. mountains resulting from erosion of the dirt, and mountain belts resulting from collapse of the crust.  Evidently they find collapse in the mantle is ok, but not in the crust, even though it's the collapse in the crust we *can* see, and collapse in the mantle that we *can't*.

Nothing like some home 'pseudoscience' truths is there?  (about not offending the forum or the sobriety of science.)


(Bunch of fixers)  ...  Here (trumpeting one of those truths again), .. save you googling :-

Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet, has said that "The mistake, of course, is to have thought that peer review was any more than a crude means of discovering the acceptability — not the validity — of a new finding. Editors and scientists alike insist on the pivotal importance of peer review. We portray peer review to the public as a quasi-sacred process that helps to make science our most objective truth teller. But we know that the system of peer review is biased, unjust, unaccountable, incomplete, easily fixed, often insulting, usually ignorant, occasionally foolish, and frequently wrong."   

I think some of these guys hold themselves to be Earth scientists  .. 'Hold'  (amongst other things like venerating 'subduction' /"sucking-and-pulling" and oh-yes, mantle wind) being the operative word.

(Oh dear, .. Banned again..)

(Fixers.)

Booing and Jeering

(Answering Stephen Hurrell comment here.)


(Transparent indeed.)  Metaphorical face-pulling and jeering,  ridicule and denigration is a standard tactic in science to reject unpalatable findings, though not usually so blatant.  Google  [Rationalskeptics + "point and laugh"] to see it pervades the whole forum.  'Pointing and laughing'  >> 'booing and jeering'.  Not quite sure what the next stage is.  Fisticuffs probably.

So much for Moderation, eh?  Under such protection it wasn't possible to get even close to having Plate Tectonics recognised as  "Just a Theory" in order to compare with Earth expansion.

Nevertheless,  it is fairly confronting to be faced all at once with evidence for Earth expansion, evidence that the Plate Tectonic paradigm is probably wrong, and evidence that the entire issue is coloured by politics at various levels.  It really is scratching at the underbelly of consensus, and a fine example how the 'scientific method' crudely applied with partisan interest, has led us up the garden path - (Craig Venter :- "I think the way science is conducted around the world, we probably waste over 90% of the money.)

That's quite a threesome to have to deal with, so you can understand the "point-and-laugh" response, because there is nothing else of much substance that can be raised in defence.  It's all it has.  Plate Tectonics *is* only a theory.  It *does* contradict itself whichever way it turns (and is therefore unworkable), there is *ample* evidence for Earth expansion, and Earth expansion *does* explain global geology much better.  (And the literature is replete with the dodgy shenanigans of practicing scientists in general.)

And it's all  substantiated.

Plate Tectonics *is* a big lie.  *That* is the story that can never be written because there are too many ramifications that these days of litigation are too risky to probe too deeply.  As we have just seen institutional  interest can be ferociously brutal (e.g. academic, in the way that young fellow Aaron Schwartz was recently hounded to his death for making available to the public, information that the public had already paid for; political in the way that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is similarly currently being hounded for 'political' transgression. (Who can forget that video of those helicopter killings done in our name?)).

"Oh yeah?  What about the helicopter that killed Osamabinladen then?"

And as I write, that other Bin Laden, ..Obama, ..under fire from the National Rifle Association for having a bodyguard for *his* children and denying their call for all children in American schools to be similarly protected. (And just in case of any autistic interpretation here, let me make it very clear I think Obama compared to the alternative is just fine.  God save us from *rampant* protectionism (Google 'Lenore Skenazy') (or here if you'd rather listen) that appears to afflict America from "knee pads for crawling babies" (google images) to automatic assault weaponry for drivers and home owners.

See?   It's all about scale and sense of proportion.
 
I'm not optimistic about public freedoms in the face of those who see their role in policing them.  One thing seems certain though - in today's world individuals are very much targets for attention if they step out of line.

The whole area (PT / EE) just needs a good clean-up, beginning (I think) in the schools as an object lesson in the way science works (or rather doesn't), ..but I don't know if it can be done.  Only the geological subtext will eventually creep out-from-under as a casualty survivor, but the aegis that buried it will be left untouched as "not the issue". 

But it is entirely the issue, and it was what allowed the lie to develop and flourish. In this case it doesn't much matter, because it is only geology. There are no real pecuniary interests such as there are in pharmaceuticals or biotech.  The closest we get is questioning the lengths institutions will go to to secure their kudos.  So there are no serious ramifications (if we count our children's education as of no consequence). However it is precisely because of this that it has thrived, and is therefore a prime example of  'science gone wrong'.  It's a corruption.  There's a lot to say about it.  (Society going wrong is another (but similar) story :: Scale, cause-and-effect, and sense of proportion.  There's one for quantification: how do you model that lot?

I see the thread is still locked. With four hundred and twenty pages of Booing-and-Jeering I think it has proved itself to be too adversarial. There are other ways.



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

Banned ! (The day the music died?)

(..The marching band that refused to yield.. )


[Click on images below for bigger ones.]

[I'm posting this to refute the charge on Rationalskeptics that I was "a disruptive influence incapable of reasoned and rational debate".  If you read my collection of "offensive behaviours" see if you find them justified given the context.  You might even wonder (as I do) if the targets to whom they are directed might not enjoy a degree of moderator protection.]




CERTIFICATE OF BANISHMENT
P418 Post #8350

..authenticating my credentials. (You can make that red-card image bigger by the way if you just click on it but here's the link down the bottom (save you typing it.)

Judgement
handed down

by Kiore
For what?  "..An intention to be not here to engage in reasoned and rational debate".
Why banned ?   Because hanging around will only prolong the disruptive posting(s)


Kiore  is a moderator on Rationalskepticism.org.  If you click the link at the bottom of the red card it will take you to an admirable project to use the latent power of computers connected to the web as a supercomputer to aid scientific research - a very laudable enterprise indeed - with which Kiore is closely associated, if not steering.  If he/she is steering, then that's not bad (for a mouse) (a hundred and one years old) (from South Sudan), eh?

Not that we're being ...  or animalist, .. or ageist, .. or nationalist you understand, .. just drawing attention to the anonymity that scientists prefer when they're indulging themselves in the company of news-and-views and people they would otherwise prefer not to be seen with - like Earth expansion for example. And/or the cabal who would like to sink it.  In such situations it does seem advisable not to let your real identity show.  You just never know who might be looking, .. or when you might be called upon to change hats, .. reverse your position, .. and it wouldn't do to be seen sporting a skunks bum. Might be ok when out hunting, .. but not when the scientific fashion (and needs for justifying grants submissions) requires something a bit more sophisticated.

So why banned?  Because, says Moderator Kiore,  I'm not there to "engage in reasoned and rational debate".

Now, .. I would dispute that entirely, as I think my postings in response to any 'reasoned and rational' points raised show.  In fact I might be credited with making a few (but that's easy for anybody to check). It's just that there's so little that would qualify as reasoned and rational to respond to.  When so much of the so-called 'reason and rationality' is pejorative and puerile comment, exchanges are rarely constructive.  But I do (/did) my best.

(Disruptive /stirring 'em up)   Mm-Mmm?  Now, .. I would agree with that wholeheartedly!, and would say that if anything,  congratulations would have been in order, .. *anything* (!) to disturb the so-called 'rationalism' that supports the turgidity that Plate Tectonics wallows in would have been welcome surely, but no, .. rather it seems to mean that anything that detracts from that stagnation is considered 'disruptive'. Quirky world.  I had already received my fourth red card by the time this blue note (below) showed up, which marks the beginning of 'the troubles'.  I didn't experience it.   I wasn't there.  I was already banned. But neverthless I got blamed for it.  My fourth warning (/month's suspension) was withdrawn and converted to a ban.

This was the start of  "The Troubles".

P418, post #8342



(A bit further down the same page is my banned notice, shown here at the top of the page.)

"Highly emotive today," says blue note.  So  what was happening?  Well, .. what was happening was that Spearthrower was feigning a tissy-fit over me having called him a nig-nog on my blog (note: not on the forum).  A what?  Yup. He'd read my blog you see, where I was commenting on the Kangaroo Court that had just awarded me my fourth red card (below) banning me for a month for "abusing" Gingko, and I had said he (Spearthrower.) was a bit of a dill.   I think it possible he was the one drawing my "insult-to Gingko" to the attention of moderators, since he said I had been reported so quickly after the fact (how would he know otherwise?)  He's forever creating diversions and lighting fires. Seems it's the only way he can contribute to discussion - "throwing spears around". Read any of his posts.   And note that it *was* on my blog and not on the forum.)  I called him a nig-nog specifically because of his propensity to use ridicule ("pointing and laughing") and it being the apparent limit of his repertoire in debate.  Not ridicule on account of illogic that can be discussed but simply just making faces and jeering (metaphorically speaking).  Others' responses typically add swearing to their accoutrements.  Gets a bit jading - hence the 'nig-nog'.  But apparently swearing and jeering is ok under the rules of the forum, and goes under the aegis of 'robust debate'.  It seems to be a case of the management having these attack dogs on the front line to do the savaging - the "willing idiots".  I wouldn't be surprised if half the time they don't understand their role in this 'Rationalskepticism'.)  Or maybe they just feel a natural predisposition to fulfil a role that is happily symbiotic..

So there he is, .. feigning umbrage and creating a stir and distorting the word - claiming copyright on it because he lives in England.  (Crikey, it might even be Scotland ! except no true Scot would do such a thing).  Well if that's the case he should know nig-nog has got nothing to do with Deep-Tan, and goodness only knows where the eggnog connection comes from.. Anyway, .. I had to post an explanation on the origin of the term as best I understand it, though some modern meanings appear to have arisen on the urban dictionary as people bandy it around.  Saves them inventing new ones and why bother when there are plenty already (clown, nig-nog, dill, dope, idiot..etc etc), and why get picky over which one applies to you, unless you want to wear it like a badge (for some reason - like, .. to show people "what-he-just-did").


So there we are.  I called him a nig-nog on my blog.

And he feigned a tissy fit on the forum, dragging in others.

And so my month's suspension for insulting Ginko was withdrawn and I was banned instead (for "being disruptive and having no intention to engage in reasoned and rational debate."

Here's my fourth red card, a bit further down the same page as that blue note above banning me for a month (for "insulting" Gingko). The othersr follow in reverse order, so you can see how I got my black belt in 'insulting behaviour'.

 FOURTH ACTIVE WARNING (P416 post#8320)
 The offence cited goes to Post #8259 on P413.

(In which Gingko escapes with a caution) (the blue note just above the red one) Why shouldn't there be a first time penalty for truly abusive invective.  One might ask, but Moderator View appears to be, "It's not what's said that matters, if you want to be offended by it that's your business."  Exactly this point is the substance of the first and fourth warnings - and those in between as well.


 THIRD ACTIVE WARNING (P391, post #7802)
The offence cited goes to post #7760 on  P388.

(Paul changed his avatar since the mention.  Here's Paul, suffering from homeopathy)

SECOND ACTIVE WARNING, (P379, post #7566)
Offences cited are  1.  post #7425 on P372, and 2. post #7419 on P371

(Note that the enquiry regarding infection was a reference to a virus alert on the frontpage of the forum at the time, in conjunction with the gobbledegook posting to which it referred.) ("Please be aware this is a witless zone.  Any posts that can in anyway be construed as a joke will be deemed offensive due to the cognitive incapacity of the resident cabal to understand this form of communication.")

FIRST ACTIVE WARNING,  (P367, post #7324)
(The link refers to a couple of posts just higher up the same page, ..post #7321 )

So you can see how I went from bad to worse, and how the forum was seriously endangered by my "insults", culminating in my fourth red card being "awarded", then summarily withdrawn in my absence and replaced with a ban : I was being abusive, they were engaging in reasoned and rational debate.  Though I repudiate entirely calling any of them "scum" and "vermin".  That again was Shakespeare wrestling with his flea-infested straw, and using poetic licence to represent my reference to a 'kangaroo court' as vermin, a term I do believe has respectable currency and which refers exactly to this situation, .. and that is not _ of _ my _ making.  (Though I carried the can.)


Well, it was an experience in the world of reasoned and rational debate.  The best bit I thought was where they all jumped out and detonated themselves, when I said I had just learned that the Earth was oblate ( post #7541 and following few responses).  That was really quite funny.  What was not funny however was what it revealed - an astonishing inability to see through a leg-pull given that most of their 'degredation-posts' are themselves mostly leg-pulls (to the best of my reading), not really meant to apply personally.  One misguided jihadist I could understand, .. but several, .. and all pushing each other out of the way to detonate first.  (Holey Moley!!).  It was virtually an exact copy of the nig-nog furore - except I think the nig-nog response was so surely feigned, the oblate Earth one most certainly was not.  All of a sudden I understand the Koran jihadists's response to cartoons - and why I was banned..   Is Salman Rushdie still in hiding?  Are women in the west treated any better than in Pakistan?  (Going by some women's experiences this side of the dark, it's debateable.)

Judgement :-

(Kangaroo) :- "No madam, simply because he punched the wall, kicked the cat, .. broke all the plates and stuck a knife through the bread fixing it to the table whilst informing the neighbours at large of his great good fortune in having married you, does not mean he was being abusive towards you in any way. He was merely expressing a robust domestic view, just as you were exemplifying domestic bliss by sipping your wine and reading your book whilst he did so. To this court's way of thinking both of you are the epitome of domestic harmony.  I am of the opinion that you are being abusive of your spouse by expecting to lodge a complaint.  I therefore issue you with a blue card and suggest you return home and put the dinner on so you do not, if you so object, have to witness a repeat of what we can only regard (as indeed your husband declared to the neighbours), as a somewhat excited affirmation of your virtuous qualities.  But in no way threatening to your person as you suggest.  No true Scotsman would ever contemplate abuse.."

"Award" :-   (I must say, I was really struck by the "being awarded" my fourth red card.)

"Now, .. Do the right thing and stand still please, while I award you this bullet as a reward for your contribution to making this forum a better place by your absence."

The really strange thing (about the oblate Earth) was the way it went right over their heads.  If a leg-pull like that is too subtle, what chance for them seeing the flaws in Plate Tectonics?  Would they have the wit to question it?  Or see the questions if put to them?   And if, as I think, most of the 'abusive banter' is not really meant to be abusive, but simply obstructive and disruptive (to which I was to an extent mirrorring), then all things considered it seems highly possible that *THAT* was the charge of being disruptive - not just for joshing them out of their literalist comfort zone, but in being too close to the bone in mirroring their reflection back to them.  (Or was what was revealed in the mirror for real?)  (Oh, Gee..) (Australia's future, .. hairdressers and make-up artists, late-stirrers and sunny-sellers.)

Some swamp that rational place.

(Think I'll go down the sea-side for a paddle and contemplate where all that sand and water came from, and why the Earth isn't just a big beach.)


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

Banned ("The day the Music died")

( Holding page for what was revealed.)


Hmm, ... Looks like the Black Spot's turned up today.  This doesn't look good.  The Thwoth is an apologist for rough language.   It will be interesting to see what he makes of this in the context of the few following posts addressing 'rough language'.

[Addendum, 14th January, 10am.  I see the Thwoth has changed his avatar today.]

MOD. THWOTH YESTERDAY
(click the images for bigger ones)

MOD THWOTH TODAY

Make of it what you like, .. but I think he's trying to put a different complexion on things. ( Oi moight be wrong, but T'aats what oi t'ink.  An' Oim nat two broight.)

Madagascar to Africa - a seamless fit.

(Seamless?  Not that you would guess from their juxtaposed continental margins.)

Fig.0.  Madagascar to Africa fit.  (a) Looks good to me.  (b) Looks even better.  [Added as an afterthought to the post below in case it wasn't clear what I meant by the juxtaposed continental margins looking a bit iffy.]  Superficially the split looks good, as in (a), but when the geology is taken into acount the waterline itself won't do, .. because the build-up of stratigraphic sequence over time has to be taken into account (b); see Fig.4 below).

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


Hmmm...

 (... Still harping on about the importance of letting the data speak for itself, rather than being guided by theories),  ..  the fit of Madagascar to Africa provides us with a good case in point, .. because did it?  I mean, fit? .. once upon a time?

This example illustrates the criticism that Wegener faced in relation to the Atlantic in a nutshell, but these days we are in a much more foward position to answer the question.  Continental shapes are much more readily accepted as indicative of crustal rupture than in Wegener's day, and spreading ridges and transform faults are accepted too as indicative of the trace of continental separation.  This adds much to the arsenal of 'facts' that that may be brought to bear on the question, .. the 'facts' are no longer 'hypotheses'.

Nevertheless, in regard to Madagascar and Africa (and India) and in a context of Plate Tectonics and Earth expansion there does remain some aspects of theory in regard to where Madagascar might once have fitted.  Certainly Madagascar is a crustal fragment, and there are geological similarities with Africa (and India), .. biological similarites too, and clearly (given what we know of spreading ridges) the Indian ocean was once closed.  So where precisely did Madagascar fit in the jigsaw puzzle?

Best Plate Tectonic practice using the objectified data of palaeomagnetism and the geophysical black box puts it in what is called the "northern position" (Fig.1), with consequences for the entire population of continents waiting to grow into so-called plates to the east and south in the figure,

Fig.1. Madagascar - Africa fit according to Plate Tectonics best practice can-o'-worms palaeomagnetism, in what is known as the 'northern position' (about 2,500km further north of the "southern position').   (Image courtesy of  http://www.scotese.com/satlanim.htm .)

Fig.2. Alternative fits of Madagascar to Africa.  1. = Northern position (according to the 'objectified data of palaeomagnetism' and consensus Plate Tectonics); 2. = southern position ( according to the subjective, opinionated, non-scientific correlation of geology and Earth expansion here). (Click the image for a bigger figure; geology courtesy of UNESCO world map.)


See how 'science' is done?  And why geology gets such a bad rap?  You're supposed to distance yourself from the data, .. "objectify" it.  Put it in the box, shake it, close your eyes, and Lo! the box will speak.  Using your head (a.k.a. 'common sense) is not considered 'science'.  You have to 'measure it' to make it 'science', then theorise what it means.  That way you're ok, according to 'The Method'.

[ Bloody 'Method' actors, .. doing Plate Tectonics..  ]

Now, .. I would agree with that (about measuring being science).  There's nothing scientific about common sense though.  Common sense is the destination at which science hopes to arrive.  Through the application of science, puzzles become common sense, self-evident truths.  Commonsense transcends 'The Method'.  And that's what geology boils down to with its commonsense ('Pssst') Principles of Stratigraphic and Structural Superposition shouting clues in our ear, by which commonsense application all is revealed, if we just keep our hypotheses and theories out of the way - Common Sense Rules.

So let's see how we get on with some anti-science commonsense (Fig.3).
























Fig.3. Anti-science common sense revealed.  The fit of Madagascar and Africa according to commonsense Geology and Earth expansion.  Is seamless. The detachment from Africa, which is axial to the syncline (blue-and-green "boomerang'', bounded by blue) at the southern extremity of the Great African Rift Valley, is hardly detectable. (Blue = Jurassic, Green = Cretaceous; mixed sediments and volcanics)  Geology courtesy of UNESCO.

It's obvious, .. it's where it all happened.  No need for 'supporting' palaeomagnetics - which are not supporting at all.  Just like day and night are perfectly explicable to our space traveller in terms of shadow cast by a spinning Earth, and an avalanche burying the village (rather than a village rushing under the mountain) is explicable from the vantage of distance, so too it is perfectly obvious that Madagascar has separated from Africa along the axis of the syncline in the southern position - palaeomagnetic 'evidence' or not. 

Anyway, hidden in those measurements taken to "objectify the data" and purge it of all subjective influence is the randomising effects of surficial slumping and other crustal rotations that happened since the Curie point was frozen in the rocks, not the least of which are the trials and tribulations of trying to collect orientated samples in the first place (or worse, have others collect them for you).   I reckon it's a wonder palaeomagnetic data  even places Madagascar anywhere *near* Africa, .. which 'northerly position' makes me seriously suspect further finagling and cooking of the data.  (... )

(Geology?) .. it's how it maps out that counts, .. how 'the data' is contextualised - scale and time and all that, .. not what you 'measure' (with all its inherent uncertainties) at a specific field location.

Fig.4 Near retrofit of Madagascar to Mozambique.  Lighter colours (= Tertiary sediments) infill the 'scar' created as Madagascar recedes from Africa - or rather Africa recedes from Madagascar - is about 350-400km.  Tertiary sediments filling the gap reflect falling sea-level /local isostatic correction as the Earth gets bigger.  Note the ENE-WSW move is reflected in structure that spans from pre-Jurassic times (the intracratonic syncline of Jurassic volcanics preserved to the west) to post-Tertiary times (parallel coastlines) (Image base courtesy of Google Earth, geology courtesy of UNESCO.)


So there we have it, .. the simple commonsense, no-hypothesis needed, non-scientific ("Pssst"-in-your ear) picture : Madagascar as a crustal fragment detached from Africa as the Indian Ocean opened, and part of a much larger picture of crustal dilation. It fits, .. with the proviso that it overlaps some 400-450km of the Mozambique coast.

Which (overlap) is a nicety that would have scuppered Wegener totally at the time, because there is no coastline fit here whatsoever, .. but the geology , sequenced in time, fits very well.   (Ask mother.)

[Added, 2012-09-15.  (Loose talking here).  I meant there is no fit of that syncline ('banana') with the coastline, so I guess I shouldn't say that, about "no coastline fit whatsoever", because the actual coastline of Neogene (yellow) and Quaternary (buff colour) sediments fits quite well with the banana, .. which shows the importance of flat detachments, basin subsidence and isostatic rebound of the pull-aparts.]

How many more suchlike overlaps (/duplications) (/isostatic adjustments) are hidden in the stratigraphic sequence, that support Earth expansion, and belie Plate Tectonics?

Lots.  It's the whole story of geology that is yet to be properly contextualised, and has universally been overlooked; an Earth that is getting bigger.

Fig.5.  Madagascar and Africa separation in relation to India is shown by the arrow, the trace of transforms in upper mantle between Madagascar and the Seychelles, those of the spreading ridge more generally, and the paired banks of the Seychelles and the Maldives representing an ancient position of Madagascar and India across the ridge. (Click for a bigger figure.)

In terms of global context, geology has hardly begun.  And, .. since it's telling us the Earth is getting bigger, .. neither has physics. [link added 20170417; about 9:10 in, where she says,  "It looks like we're going to have to start over", and he says, "Ya-ya."]

( Commonsense, .. see? )

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


[Added below, .. 2012-09-16  in answer to Anonymous, ..September 11, 2012 8:15 PM ]
(More on the Madagascar fit.)

Fig.6.  More on the Madagascar fit.  Bad and jangly on the left, smooth and good on the right. (Click image for a bigger one.)

Bad on the left.  Is based on a common misunderstanding what transform faults are all about (Mental note to deal with later.)   Transform faults are the trace of spreading *along* the ridges as much as they are *across* the ridge.  The red interpretation denies the obvious structural connections in regard to the Great Rift Valley /African coast /Madagascar separation /Indian connection illustrated by Good on the Right.  (And a whole lot more in the global context.) The Mozambique Basin (white) is the scar left on the mantle as Africa shimmied to the left on flat structures when it detached ("un-docked") from India, leaving the Moz. and Mad. Plateaus also as scars - which is why the left /south side of spreading on the Indian Ocean Ridge is more than on the north /right side. In other words, Africa probably separated from India, rather than the other way round, leaving the Seychelles and Madagascar in its wake.  Similarly the Indian coast has shifted too from the Mascarene / Laccadives ridges.

Fig.7. Madagascar Separation according to the Davie Fracture Zone (a.k.a. "The Garden Path.")  This is a classic example of  thinking in a lobotomised way about detail ..that sees villages rushing under mountains, rather than looking with cognitive connection at the larger picture as in Fig.6 green above. (Reference : - Fig.1 :- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1464343X05002220

[Further update 2012-10-04 ]

Fig8.  Gravity signature.  The 'Davie Fracture Zone' (Fig.7) is paired here with the Mozambique Escarpment to the west (yellow lines in (a) ).  The rift separating Madagascar from Africa is a 'doppelganger' of the African Rift Valley to the west, and the Indian Ocean spreading Ridge to the east.  (Click the image for a bigger figure.)

[Added 20180731 - "Fudge"]

[Added 20180905 :=: [Added 20180905 :=: 

[Added 20180905 :=: Correlation Madagascar to Western Ghats, India ]

Earth Expansion for Kids

 Helping Mum and Dad with the homework
( .. Plate Tectonics - the official version for kiddies .. )

---

Child abuse (Yeah!)
(.. in more ways than just this one.)

Fig.1. Pangaea - in the Panthalassic- Tethyan seas
(that never existed) [original here]

The picture is from the Kidipede. It shows the continents assembled on one side of the Earth surrounded by the mythical Panthalassa. Mythical? Sure, ..

So children do so like stories. Like this one:-

"Once upon a time, in a big flat land far, far away, .. there lived a beautiful princess. Every morning when she got up she would sit in front of the mirror and say to herself, "I am so beautiful." One morning after many years had passed and she had become Queen of the Realm she thought, "Indeed, I am more beautiful than ever." And it was true. She was very, very beautiful indeed. People throughout the kingdom whispered to each other of her beauty, saying, "There never was such a beautiful princess, and now she is our queen she is more beautiful than ever. We are so lucky to have such a beautiful princess become queen."

One day, having heard of this beautiful princess who had become queen, there came to the castle a famous painter who asked if he could paint her portrait. The queen, who was as usual studying her beauty in the mirror thought, "What an excellent thing it would be if I could hang such a picture on the wall behind me so I could see its reflection in the mirror, and see how beautiful I am twice over, ..and so she said to her councillors, after a suitable delay so she could attire herself, to bring the painter to her chambers.

Now, the queen knew that in a far-off kingdom there lived a king who had procured for himself a bride by mail-order, on no more encouragement than the picture painted of her by this same painter. The queen had also heard rumours that the reason this painter was so famous was that he used a trick, which was to mix eggs with his paint to give a lustrous quality to the image, and so she thought to herself, "Perhaps if I mix egg with these lotions that have helped to make me so beautiful all these years people will surely think I am even still more beautiful." And so she called her favourite maid and said, "Maid, fetch me some eggs." The maid duly returned with the eggs and when she had departed the queen thought to herself, "In fact, if eggs are such a magical ingredient then instead of lotion perhaps I should just use egg so the painter will see I am most beautiful of all, and do a bloody good job." And so she cracked six eggs into a bowl and proceeded to paint herself with egg, believing that it would make her more beautiful than anyone in the whole wide, wide world .. .. .. (etc. etc...)"

See? Stories. Children fall for them every time. If you got this far you'll know exactly what I mean, because the child is deep in all of us, in the trust we put in our dealings with the world around us. The abuse of that trust ranges from a harmless and instructive silvery translucence, to a dark forbidding blue, bordering on panthalassic black.

Panthalassa? Who are they kidding? Not my kids. How about yours?

I mean, ..kids, ..they really have to put up with a lot of rubbish from adults (or read, 'lies and harmless stories') (?) Is this why we call them kiddies? ..because we are always kidding them? ... First, there's Santa Claus, .. then the Easter Bunny ..then the tooth fairy (I'm sure there are more), and now, from institutions of learning, the "Panthalassa", the mythical big ocean that never was, but that nevertheless we tell our children the continents used to sail around on, "the way bath toys move around in the bathtub".   [Note the subliminal shots of the child in the accompanying advert on the page, too which seem a bit inappropriate too (i.m.o., .. kids being invited to drop bombs on other kids) (video1 of four).  "Get them when they're young and Bob's your Uncle."]

Parents, ..telling their children lies with a straight face. Reminds me of the story of the dad who stood his little boy on the table, then with outstretched arms told his son to jump - and promptly moved out of the way so the child fell on the floor, then said, "Just kidding. Don't trust anyone, son ..not even your own father."

But there's a big difference between the Santa Claus, Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy kind of kidding given evidential reality by the presents under the tree and money under the pillow, and the fictional princess that lives between the pages of a book decorating herself with egg to look nice. Fairy stories allow the child to be eased gently into the realms of permitted fantasy, to help to discriminate the internal world from the real one. The trust in a child's face when he/she comes to you with a question is a precious jewel not to be abused, but it is exactly that abuse of trust that we are witnessing in the above picture of the Panthalassa, designed for consumption by very young children in the name of science.

"Hey, ..we couldn't get them with the Santa Clause, the Funny-Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, ..let's get them with this one... "

Why do we abuse children so? Why couldn't Nasa, the USGS, and all the other institutions   complicit in educating our children, give them (and the child in us) the alternative story - the one WITHOUT the mythical 'theoretical' Panthalassa? This one:-

Version for children - (with instructive silvery tranlucence)
No mythical Panthlassa - just today's oceans

Fig.2. Pangaea from opposite sides of the Pacific Mantle Bubble. 

(Like an open locket .... Snap it shut to see Pangaea.)

See? No jolly fat men dressed in red scooting aboot the sky on a sledge pulled by reindeers, no rabbits, no fairies, no myths, no stories, no deep-blue-bordering-on-panthalassic-black, and no_"moving_plates",  ..just the straightforward geological fact as it exists - the continents reassembled as they once were before the break-up. Goodness knows they're spending enough on space exploration, you'd think (in the name of fair representation of science) they could rise to showing an alternative figure like the one just above, instead of leaving it to fringe-artists like me, to do on a pension.

So why does the Panthalassic invention survive? Why? Because the current crop of Plate Tectonicists have grown up on stories that they believe to be true, because those stories have been told to them by adults with a straight face, and because they've paid for them, and because of the popular belief that 'paying for' means commensurate value. They don't realise they've had their trust abused.  They seem to think that because they learnt it in school, and see it still being taught in schools, and indeed because it is the consensus view of all educational institutions, that they must be on pretty strong ground.  Well, not so. Much of consensus is a fraud to beware of. The construction of Plate Tectonics is built, as Harry Hess pointed out in his "Essay in Geopoetry", not on the facts but on the fiction of his own "philosophical dissatisfaction", with the implication of the facts of that dilation - that the 'locket' in the above picture does indeed snap shut.

Despite the 'locket' being known to close by the extents of the Atlantic, Indian and Southern Oceans (this much is not controversial), and despite the simple construction here for the closure of the Pacific, Hess could not "philosophically" accept it for the Pacific, because to do so would snap the locket shut completely, which would mean that the Pangaean crust covered the entire globe, which would mean in turn (to put it in context of the present day), that the Earth has virtually doubled in size.

It was EXACTLY this implied philosophically unsatisfying size-doubling that was the crux of refusal. Hess acknowledged the geological support for it, and conceded it would solve his three most important problems in understanding the ocean floors, but he couldn't accept it because to do so would mean, .. (well, ..no need to repeat it here).  But it is why Plate Tectonics exists today as an overblown, bloviating, blustering consensus model for the Earth sciences that doesn't work, (link) noting as we go that there is NOTHING about the geological facts of crustal architecture that is not better explained by Earth expansion.

How many BILLIONS of dollars are being spent on space exploration (e.g., looking for Plate Tectonics on other planets) when they can't even see the much more accessible variety here on Earth?

Rather, not can't - won't. Instead they're telling you that all that dark blue stuff in the top image is reality. And fervently asking you to believe them. Why? Do they believe it themselves? I don't know how many do, but there's a whole lot of careers involved in supporting that dark-blue never-never, and the necessity to maintain those careers (and for educators not to transgress the curriculum) is a powerful encouragement to belief, even if it is tongue in cheek. Even if the story is one of twisted logic: at least it is straight-faced, which as dissemblers know is so beguiling to the winning of trust.

But that deep blue-black Panthalassa is based on no evidence whatsoever, ..only the failure of logic to accept what is staring us in the face, ..that the locket does indeed close, .. and a disingenous attempt to conceal this by not presenting the obvious alternative case for what happens if subduction is interpreted as 'overriding'. And by not-doing-it where it counts most of all - in the kidipede, ...abusing our children (and us mums and dads helping with homework) (since we do like stories too) with the biggest lie of all - the lie of omission.

"... We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."  ~  George Orwell)

<Boom - boom>

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

Blowing the whistle on Plate Tectonics

http://users.indigo.net.au/don/nonsense/index.html

Plate Tectonics, founded on the convenient assumption that the Earth cannot get bigger, is untenable for the reasons listed on the above linked page. The geological evidence is that the Earth is indeed getting bigger, and is doing so at an extraordinary rate having doubled in size in the recent geological past; it is no exaggeration to say that on the scale of geological time the planet is exploding. The cause is unknown, but must in some way be related to energy transformations within the planet's interior.


Failure by the geological and geophysics community to acknowledge and investigate this aspect of global tectonics is sourced wholly within the convenience of a monolithic and duplicitous consensus, which refuses to apply the fundamental principle of science - falsification. Instead, and for reasons of self-serving interest effort is directed to shoring up the initial assumption, resulting in an illogical geological model that contradicts itself at every turn. Despite this Plate Tectonics claims to be the jewel in the crown of the Earth sciences, an achievement of the twentieth century comparable with space travel, even (it is said) deserving of a Nobel prize.


Plate Tectonics survives solely because of a combination of hubris ("There is no known way whereby the Earth can get bigger to the extent apparent, therefore it cannot happen") and comfortable expediency:- "..therefore as scientists we can all sit back and enjoy the benefits of consensus."


This state of affairs is unacceptable. It contradicts not only the ethics of scientific endeavour, but offends public morality. The public is not getting value for money, education is falling well below the plimsol line, and science is falling into disrepute.


The onus is on all right-thinking people to protest this state of affairs. For the science itself, the issue is the sterility that consensus engenders, and the consequent usurption of its goals. For the public purse the issue is one of plunder of its investment in its future. As Michael Crichton astutely observed, "Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, then reach for your wallet, because you're being had."


All naysayers who vest the reasons for rejection of an expanding Earth in the monolithic view of Plate Tectonics had better review their conviction in the light of the geological evidence, for the only logical conclusion that can derive from it is that the Earth is indeed getting bigger.


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