Re: Hades - or Eden?

In message <873bl9k85i.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Gareth McCaughan <Gareth.McCaughan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> That's nice. But you don't always quote verbatim, and you
> (quite rightly) never quote the entirety of an article, so
> there is scope for doubt as to whether what you've said is
> an accurate representation of what the article says even
> if all your quotations are correct.

But I always indicate when I am quoting by the usual marks of quotation and
also by giving the reference after the passage. As to the summary I give
linking the quotes, you are correct in that there is scope for doubt but
again, with New Scientist so readily available, I would be very stupid to
misrepresent what the author has said.

What I deduce from the facts is, of course, another matter entirely and I
have no complaint if you find fault with that.

> Sure, "evolution" can (in everyday use) refer to any gradual
> change, as well as having the technical meaning it has in
> biology. Likewise, "creation" can (in everyday use) refer
> to what happens when an artist produces a work of art.

I think that quite a few scientists are happy to use terms like "evolved" to
describe *any* process of gradual change, whether or not life was involved.

> Sure, if Harrison's right then some things currently
> believed about the "evolution" of the earth into its
> present state will need changing.

Good - and those changes will bring the theory a tiny step closer to the
Biblical scenario.

> None of this has anything to do with whether evolution
> (in the biological sense) is right, nor with whether
> creationism (in the historico-theological sense) is right.

I disagree. If it could be proved beyond doubt that the earth was only 6,000
years old (notice the "if") then evolution (in the biological sense) would
have to be abandoned, because it depends on long ages of time. The two
things - biological evolution and long geological time - hang together.

> Perhaps you imagine that there's something in Harrison's
> proposal that's inconsistent with some idea that's
> fundamental to present scientific ideas about how the
> earth got to be the way it is. I've no idea what, or why.

Well, scientists claim to have done all sorts of calculations on the rate of
cooling possible for an Earth-sized body; that's why they are able to say
that much of the present temperature of the earth has to be down to
radioactivity. If the earth started off as present theories claim and if
cooling proceeds at particular rates and if there is the amount of
radioactivity that we understand there to be, then continental crust should
not have appeared when the new evidence shows that it did, in fact, appear.

So what's wrong? Have we got the amount of radioactivity wrong? If so, then
how do we account for the present temperature of the earth, because if there
isn't as much radioactivity as we thought then after 4.56 billion years the
earth should be very much colder than it is.

Have we got the rate of cooling wrong? If we have, then either we are far
more ignorant about the size and composition of the earth than we thought we
were or there is something fundamentally wrong about our understanding of
fundamental physical processes (and I'm sure that you, like me, would be
most reluctant to adopt that idea!)

So that leaves the origin of the earth - and if that is wrong, then there is
something very wrong with a good deal of speculative cosmology as concerning
the origin of the universe.

> So far as I can make out, the only actual discovery Harrison
> claims to have made is that there was continental crust on the
> earth's surface earlier than had previously been thought.
> I've no idea how that's supposed to conflict with the existence
> of "primaeval soups" or lightning bolts.

Continental crust *and* conditions very similar to those today - and that
was one of the quoted passages, put within marks of quotation and
everything. Do you wish to claim that I have misquoted?

God bless,
Kendall K. Down

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