The problem with that is that "the common people" are not on our listserve, much less on our team, as far as I am aware. And a couple of years ago I carelessly used the term "unwashed masses" around here, referring to the students, and was admonished by a university administrator that this was not really acceptable by university policy.
And I love the term "creative interpretations of nature" . That might be a good thing for artists like Monet, but in science it pretty much equates to drivel. I can imagine that JMW Turner in his later years might have made something truly spectacular out of Plate Tectonics.
Dr. Robert Tracy
Professor of Geosciences
Associate Department Head
Director, Museum of Geosciences
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg VA 24061-0420
540-231-5980
540-231-3386 (F)
On Mar 3, 2015, at 4:16 PM, "Bottrill, Ralph (StateGrowth)" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I like Bruce's approach here, I think we shouldn't entirely ignore or disregard creative interpretations of nature by people not quite on our team, but politely explain the facts and why we believe what we do. The scientific method needs to get through to the common people rather than us trying to look down from our ivory towers at the great unwashed! Though our patience can be limited I know.
>
> regards
> Ralph Bottrill
> Senior Geologist, Mineralogist and Petrologist
> Metallic Minerals & Geochemistry
> Mineral Resources Tasmania
> PO Box 56, Rosny Park TAS 7018
> Phone: 61 3 6165 4715 (NOTE: new!), m: 0429 173 055; Fax: 61 3 6233 8338
> Email: [log in to unmask] or: [log in to unmask]
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Metamorphic Studies Group [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Bruce Yardley [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, 3 March 2015 12:07 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [geo-metamorphism] Plate tectonics
>
> Theresa
>
> I don't go back 100 years but I did take my first geology classes in 1965 when none of the people teaching me had heard of plate tectonics. Despite that, we were taught about Continental Drift, not least because beginning students in the UK were taught from Arthur Holmes's textbook. The evidence in favour of Continental Drift was pretty impressive, but you either decided that the alternative explanations of the observations were reasonable while the absence of a mechanism was not, or you felt that the observations were so compelling that a mechanism would eventually show up, as it did. Neither approach was deemed to be drivel, it was a question of how you called the imponderables. Faced with new evidence in the late 60s and early 70s most geologists accepted the new paradigm enthusiastically because it made coherent sense of much that seemed isolated and piecemeal. This web page is not presenting new and otherwise incomprehensible observations and it is not providing an explanation for known observations that do not have other, reasonable explanations. A new theory that does not make you see things that had puzzled you for years suddenly drop into place and creates more new problems than it solves is not a brave new paradigm, it is pointless.
>
> Bruce
>
> Professor Bruce Yardley
> School of Earth and Environment
> University of Leeds
> Leeds LS2 9JT
> UK
> Tel. +44 (0)113 343 5227
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Metamorphic Studies Group [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Theresa Jung [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 02 March 2015 10:42
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [geo-metamorphism] Plate tectonics
>
> 100 years ago, continental drift was considered as drivel by most geologists.
>
> At that time Alfred Wegener wasn't taken seriously by most of his colleagues,
>
> because his discoveries were new to them.
>
> Regards - Theresa
>
> http://innovative-planetary-science.page.tl/Plate-tectonics.htm
>
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