I too was sent a copy of this book to review. After an
initial reading, I would have preferred to ignore it but since
it's come up for discussion I'd like to add my opinion as a
geologist.
I found the book to be tedious to read due to it's rambling
and it takes the author over 100 pages before he even begins
to present his central thesis about objects popping into our
world from the fourth dimension.
In short, I believe this book to be a classic example of
pseudoscience and not worthy of serious consideration. Why
pseudoscience?
- Total lack of references to, and apparently knowledge of,
the primary scientific literature.
- A clear hostility toward the mainstream scientific
establishment.
- An attempt to overthrow much of modern science based on
little more than armchair "theorizing".
- Bizarre ideas dependant upon violations of the laws of
physics and physical objects materializing from other
dimensions based upon the author's observation of what
he believes to be anomalous phenomena.
- Reliance upon other classic works of pseudoscience by
people such as Immanuel Velikovsky, Ignatius Donnelly,
Charles Fort, and even Ted Holden (ask me if you don't
know who these people are).
- Many factual errors and misrepresentations of mainstream
science.
These are typical characteristics of pseudoscience that
become depressingly familiar the more one reads these types of
books (and I've unfortunately wasted a lot of my time doing so).
Some examples of errors and misrepresentations:
- On page 252, Peterson claims overthrust faults (using a
45 year-old structural geology text to define them) are
determined solely on the basis of their fossil content
departing from what's expected and have nothing to do
with thrusting. They're instead a "Fortean-like"
deposit (from some other dimension presumably). Total
nonsense.
- Peterson's "melted" rocks around Phoenix don't look any
different from typically-weathered alluvial fan
conglomerates I've seen all over the southwest (e.g. the
Echo Canyon conglomerate off I-80 east of Salt Lake City
I was climbing on not too long ago). His statement on
page 107 about there being "no evidence of erosion
whatsoever" in these rocks is belied by the photo just
below this statement which shows, upon close examination,
the sands and gravels which eroded from these rocks!
- On page 115, Peterson claims that "The sharp contrast
between the fluid contours of this new red rock and
the jagged aspect of the native grey rocks in the area
is plainly evident." I guess he's never heard of
differential weathering. The photos of outcrops in this
book do not look "melted", they look weathered.
- His claim on pages 124-125 that "till and associated
drift deposits were not formed by any kind of glacial
action" is ridiculous. One can travel to active glaciers
and OBSERVE this type of material being deposited.
- On pages 247-248, his claim that "...the transition of
silt or mud to stone is not supported by either physics
or chemistry" in nonsense. Disregard common sense
observations and the tens of thousands of scientific
studies in sedimentary petrology and instead believe
that rocks with fossils in them popped into being from
the fourth dimension (based on only Peterson's armchair
theorizing).
- As an aside, on pages 250-251 are photographs of what is
purported to be a fossil of a small jellyfish which seems
"...to have been transmuted instantly to stone." I've
seen a lot of fossils in my time and the photo looks to
me like a rounded piece of limestone with a magic marker
drawing on it (I'm not saying that's what it is, just that
this is what it looks like to me in the photo). Perhaps
Peterson would like to bring this in for examination by a
real paleontologist? I'm sure I could recommend one near
Peterson's home.
The loess deposit claims by Peterson have already been
discussed so I'll skip all that nonsense.
I could go on and on but I've already wasted too much of my
precious time on this junk. If someone is proposing radical
new ideas which purport to overthrow most of modern science,
then it's only fair to ask them to present a coherent case
backed up by real evidence and a demonstration of familiarity
with the material being discussed (e.g. when discussing the
"melted" rocks it would be nice to know the name of the rock
formation being discussed and see references to papers in the
literature discussing this formation).
Feel free to flame away but I'm not going to get caught up in
a discussion of minutia in this book. It's up to Peterson and
his defenders to do their homework when presenting this loopy
idea. It's not up to mainstream science to defend themselves
from claims made by someone with delusions of grandeur who feels
like fantasizing about things it's obvious they know little about.
- Steve.
-- Steven H. Schimmrich, Assistant Professor of Geology Department of Geology, Geography, and Environmental Studies Calvin College, 2301 Burton Street SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546 sschimmr@calvin.edu (office), schimmri@earthlink.net (home) 616-957-7053 (voice mail), 616-957-6501 (fax) http://home.earthlink.net/~schimmrich/