I would agree with Malcolm here.
In my experience, off-beat ideas from outside the profession come from two types of people: the well-meaning amateur and the genuinely deluded.
The first is typically someone with an enquiring mind, enough creativity to think about a subject in an innovative way, and the courage to present his ideas to a wider audience. What he or she lacks is the knowledge
of how to critically appraise the idea.
I believe fervently in science and the scientific method; I think it is a wonderful thing, and the more people who can be exposed to it the better. So let us not chase the amateur away from the big boys' room. And
the expanding earth hypothesis is not that bad an idea, actually. It is certainly no spaghetti monster - which is why the idea has been around for as long as it has. It is superficially attractive - one can envisage the Gondwana world as entirely covered in
continental crust, which broke up as a result of expansive forces. And one could still observe subduction if the rate of creation of oceanic crust was greater than the rate of subduction.
What has to be communicated is that just advancing a hypothesis is not enough. Anyone can have an idea; there's no shortage of them around. The first question that has to be asked - and this is what the amateur does
not know - is, "How can I falsify this?" Can one make testable predictions from the hypothesis, such that if one of them fails, the hypothesis can be rejected? This is how advances are made. If there is no possible test, then the hypothesis is, as Pauli would
say, not even wrong.
If one gets a reply along the lines of, "No, I'm right because God told me", then obviously one is wasting time continuing the conversation. But if one more person can be brought into the rational light of the scientific
method, I think it is worthwhile.
Roger Musson
Dear All:
Whilst I agree that this is not the place to discuss controversial possibilities in depth, I deplore Dr Rippington's disparaging subject line above.
Science is surely about reaching beyond established categories of knowledge. Thinking 'outside the box' is surely to be encouraged, and questions coming from the sidelines can sometimes cause us to reconsider the so-called 'established certainties'.
The Expanding Earth is as much a philosophical challenge as a scientific question, because scientific evidence can so easily be adapted to fit anticipated reality. There have been many occasions in the past when earth science has moved forward reluctantly
in the face of new interpretations of the data, as those of us who remember the early days of plate tectonics have good cause to remember.
We should consider well-intended suggestions with due humility, rejecting those that are unfounded with charitable comment and storing away better ideas for future use, if and when appropriate.
Cheers
Malcolm
On 4 May 2011, at 08:17, Stephen Rippington wrote:
Hopefully, most of the people who subscribe to Geo-tectonics are like me, and will have deleted this email based on the obviously silly subject before bothering to read it. For the rest of you….
Dear Geo-tectonics list,
I love to have a laugh as much as the next guy, but Geo-tectonics appears to have taken a turn for the hippy and surreal in recent days. I think it’s great that everyone’s getting involved in these discussions, but I’m not sure a mailing list is the correct
forum for debate.
For those who have data there is a perfectly decent peer-review system in place, where you can write up your ideas and get the undivided attention of at least two reviewers!
Please by all means ask questions of the geologists on the list, but maybe those who feel they would like to reply could use some judgment as to whether the rest of the mailing list needs to see their reply.
Is there not a group on a social networking website that the free thinkers out there could post their ideas on, and everyone else could send their replies to?
I think the recent explosion of wackiness and the plethora of replies that I seem to get warrants everyone taking a moment to think about how they use this list. That way we can all keep enjoying the extremely valuable and useful aspects of Geo-Tectonics without
it becoming a massive pain in the inbox.
Cheers
Steve
---------------------------------------------
Dr Stephen Rippington
Geologist
Arctic Research and Database Project
CASP, University of Cambridge
181a Huntingdon Road
Cambridge CB3 0DH
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