Re: [asa] historical science?

Thanks.

Much hard-rock geology i.e. the geology of metamorphic and igneous terrains
starts off with straight historical geology involving mapping and using the
usual techniques of super-position, cross-cutting relationships to work out
both the structure and the "history " of the area. This I did in my
undergraduate mapping project north of Great Bear Lake (64deg north) of part
of a 1800my basic intrusion in 2400million shield. From field relationships,
ie historical geological methods it was clear that the basic rocks intruded
and were thus later than the gneiss/shield and then all were cut by dikes
which were all in the same direction and grew wonderful raspberries. I also
began to work out the actual order of the intrusion of the basic rocks and
differed in my interpretation with the doctorate student I was assisting.
(We argued for a year until he went back the next summer and hauled down his
flag! Our prof was highly amused and from then on used it as an argument why
students should always argue their case against their profs. He never used
the expression "critical thinking" but just encouraged us to do it. Students
preferring spoon-feeding did not like him. In these basic rocks I also found
examples of flow structures including what seemed like cross-bedding.

A particular good book on Precambrian geology in the early days is The
Highlands Controversy by David Oldroyd (Chicago). He is a militant atheist
who reckons that geology with its vast age leads to atheism. He gave a paper
on such to the INHIGEO (history of geology ) conference in Bavaria this
summer, but I couldn't go due to my wife's illness but was hoping Moshier
and I could challenge him.

As for your cougars, in principle you could devise an experiment to do it if
you had enough dollars and equipment. However that is the problem with much
science (whatever beast - and beasts all have the same transcendental plan
according to the anti-Darwinist Richard Owen!) is you have to make
conclusions on limited data and in principle your conclusions could be
overthrown or modified - as Kettlewell found out.

Trilobites are in the Cambrian but how sound is the evidence that the
Cambrian was c500 million years ago?

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Mahaffy" <Mahaffy@dordt.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2007 11:33 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] historical science?

> See below:
> --
>
> James Mahaffy (mahaffy@dordt.edu) Phone: 712 722-6279
> 498 4th Ave NE
> Biology Department FAX : 712 722-1198
> Dordt College, Sioux Center IA 51250-1697
>
>>>> On 9/10/2007 at 12:20 PM, in message
> <20070910172239.255BD7120F5@gray.dordt.edu>, "Michael Roberts"
> <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk> wrote:
> [snip]
>> I would like to give a response to Moorad but I cant understand what he
>> is
>> saying, except that he is not willing to recognise the scientific basis
>> of
>> geology as a historical science. No amount of explanation will help him.
>
> I believe Moorad has at times assumed geology is a historical science and
> indeed parts of it are, including the parts I got my PhD in. I think
> Michael is right that Moorad and some others tend at times to dismiss
> these sciences. That is rather unfortunate and I think wrong [there
> Michael - I thought you would appreciate my being critical of the other
> side too]. We should also remember that some of geology is hard rock and
> really applied physics and chemistry to the nature of rocks.
>
> However, observational and historical science are different beasts than
> physics and chemistry. Yes as someone indicated we can be sure that we
> have Trilobites in rocks we call Cambrian. On the other hand we are less
> confident on how well the models we use for deltas and swamps really work
> for the Carboniferous coal-swamps. In observational science I might be
> right in the patterns I think I see in dispersing cougars, but since I
> can't put collars on them and since the number of observations is low and
> especially because living creatures don't always read the book and act the
> same way, my conclusions should be considered tentative. See;
> http://www.greatplainszoo.org/conservation/cougar-in-our-area
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Tue Sep 11 05:07:15 2007