Skyelines wrote:If we dismiss the science because of the beliefs the scientists hold then we may miss some new and important discoveries. In fact if this was done to Maxwell then we wouldn't be writing on here.
Fair enough, however, that wasn't the issue with the material Chris Mac linked to. The pages on the link mainly comprised lots of block quotes from articles and other websites strung together to try and make it look like they were contradicting mainstream geological thought. Often these quotes were irrelevant, misunderstood, or contradictory.
Sorry again for the overlong message, and there's nothing personal in it, I just want to be very clear that there isn't the faintest vestige of credibility in the OP - this isn't a rejection of an alternative viewpoint, it's a rejection of something that doesn't even make sense within its own framework.
Some of the quoted sources do challenge mainstream thought fairly. For example, the stuff on mantle plumes (e.g. questioning that there is such a thing) is interesting in that it shows what happens when a culture comprising loads of different specialists have to work with intersecting ideas that they cannot credibly have the time to fully engage with. I don't necessarily agree with what Don Anderson puts on his website, or the tone, but this is an important dialogue regardless of whether one is 'plumist' or not it'll either disprove the existence of plumes or drive the better definition required to understand their mechanism and significance. So, like you say, fair enough - an important alternative voice and not one, I should add, which questions plate tectonics.
Other sources quoted challenge the mainstream by refusal to engage. One of the sources quoted is based on a book by otherwise seemingly credible workers who, in the nineties, wrote a book based on some deeply questionable and really scientifically regressive foundations. In fact some of the theory they base their model on relies on long-debunked phenomena that never really made sense, have been rejected by the establishment, and are also used by anti-plumists (e.g. not the establishment) as an example of what bad science looks like. So, in this case, a superficially credible but, frankly, poor attempt at an alternative voice.
Yet more of the sources quoted in the webpage are from creationists who publish in their own journals to look like scientists. The example I recall being that seafloor magnetic anomalies used in palaeogeographic reconstructions resemble (to someone not involved in the field) TV feedback signals and therefore clearly aren't measuring anything. The fact that we have 70 years (or more) of data and experts from other fields looking at this and finding consistent and corroborative evidence is by-the-by, the whole point is that they are quite like those signals, and that that tells you something. So, in this case, an alternative voice that pretends to credibility but demonstrates no understanding of or interest in understanding what they're looking at.
So when we have a page quoting these things incoherently and indiscriminately, we're not looking at an ingenious iconoclast like a Maxwell or a Lapworth, we're looking at someone who doesn't understand what they're saying and is simply attempting to undermine a robust framework. Yes, it is important to pay attention to opposing theories. This isn't a theory, though, this is junk. A pig in a tiara does not a Princess make.
To get to the point that you can agree with the above relies on a basic level of familiarity with the science. As such, I've been careful to be critical of the originator of the page and not of Chris Mac or people like him. This is a cynical attempt designed to fool people, so it would be unfair to decry people who it has fooled. However, you don't need to be in any way a specialist to take a critical view of the page.
The author has a number of subpages, those attempting to undermine plate tectonic models and those presenting his 'alternative'. Anyone could find issues with the alternative. Although science often ends up in formulae, expensive instruments and big words, it always starts in reasoned analysis and, with enough information, anyone can do this.
If you ignore the bit about Noah (though you should really as this should be evidence based and there is no contemporary evidence of Noah's existence) you can still take the rest apart with no special knowledge. The author says that there were two islands, one with people and animals, another bigger one with dinosaurs. Noah took the animals to sea while there was a meteor bombardment. The bombardment was enough to cause flooding and throw marine sediment (containing marine animals) onto the dinosaur's island. He then says this is why the lower sand is full of marine fossils and the upper sand is full of dinosaurs. Even if you wanted to believe this it just doesn't make sense - why on earth would a wave of sand landing above an island of dinosaurs somehow bury them on top?
It's one thing keeping an open mind, it's another just believing something because it's there.
