Wegener Re: Charles Darwin film 'too controversial for religious America'
- From: Robert Grumbine <bobg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:15:34 -0500
In article <v1lva5d5mg4bsdgq78s7gb0c3jk5c134pt@xxxxxxx>, Hatunen wrote:
On Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:13:09 -0700 (PDT), calvin
<crice5@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[trim]
No, the research would seek to find out if there is a
designer (or designers) or not. It also would entertain
Eastern viewpoints as possible avenues of approach.
Almost anything *except* Creationism would be on
the table.
But that is NOT what the promulgators of ID have done. They have
not engaged in an honest search to determine whether there was a
"designer" or not.
If they want to be taken seriously they must engage in such
reasearch (although I personally have a hard time imagining what
valid evidence would consist of) and publish it for the
inspection of others who might find reason to criticise it. It is
encumbent on those suggesting a hypothesis to provide evidence to
support it, not to ask others to do the research for them.
When Wegener first suggesed that the continents moved around
will-nilly over the surface of the earth he was not taken
seriously because there was no supporting evidence for it, save
the possibly coincidental matching of the American and
Euro-African coastlines. He, and others at that time, could not
suggest a mechanism for such motion.
He did suggest a mechanism. The mechanism was shown to be
horribly insufficient (10 or more orders of magnitude) by Jeffreys
in 1929. Wegener died in 1930, so we didn't get to see whether
and how he could respond. Maybe he'd have hit on plate tectonics
vs. his original drift.
Data side, on the other hand, he actually did quite well. There
was much, much more to it than eyeballing the shapes of continents.
Among other things, it included geological formations which were
peculiar w.r.t. either continent that they were on, but continuous
between continents (South America and Africa). The modern
thumbnail sketches of evidence for plates moving around still
relies on arguments he first advanced.
I heartily recomment reading the 4th edition (came out in 1929,
and is the last one edited by Wegener himself) and seeing for yourself
what he had to say. It's available in English, from Dover.
[trim]
--
Robert Grumbine http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/ Science blog
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences
.
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