As with Evolution, Big Banging or other Long-Ager Gospel, C14 dating is riven with impossibilities and contradicts common sense and observational evidence.
Excellent as usual. Do you have a reference for "Entire fields of fossilised animals and flora have been found heaped together, with the animals obviously fleeing a mortal threat." The age of the earth is a bit like the size of the universe. It is accurate enough near by but less and less reliable as time and distance increase. I love your thing about the sea not being salty enough - how the heck do you explain that? I recently discovered that an old PR "friend" of mine lied his way into a fellowship at a famous UK university claiming to be a professor when he is nothing of the sort. What matters is the present time and how much money and status we can get for appearing to be what we are not and appearing to know what we do not. Reading Durant on Rome I see that is has always been this way. great stuff keep and thanks for writing. Are you putting all this in a book? I hope you will.
Thanks David for the comments and insights. Very kind. Modern science criticises the medieval or early modern and scorns their investigations, claiming that their philosophies negated many important discoveries (not true but such are the claims). Yet in the 'modern world', we see the same 'trap' of 'science' and its tautological echo chambers, fuelled by money and power as your friend exemplifies - the need for status and optics.
On catastrophism, the hated Velikovsky (Earth in Upheaval) convinced Einstein of its merits with his usual meticulous detail (https://unstabbinated.substack.com/p/velikovsky-catastrophe-and-einstein). In the UK a Christian bishop Buckland analysed Kirkland Cave in Yorkshire (1821) and there was a veritable zoo of fossilised African animals, broken bones, shattered bodies, elephants, hippotami, lions, and many others including hyenas. Buckland bizarrely penned the official narrative which is that the fissure crack containing these beasts (relabelled a 'cave') was the home of hyenas (not native to Britain). They hunted, dragged their prey home and chewed on their bones. Mysteriously the hyena bones are also broken, fragmented and shattered...yet any official narrative calls this a great 'discovery' confirming long ages....ridiculous and stupid, but there it is.
'Apocalypse' by Amos Nur (2021) is similar to Velikovsky in some respects, 'The New Catastrophism' by Derek Ager (1993) is a good book, both provide sources, along with the founder of catastrophism 'Georges Cuvier' a good book on GC is by Martin Rudwick who translates the original French into English.
Catastrophism was the dominant theme until Lyell the lawyer who wanted to unmoor geology from Moses, came along with unsubstantiated long age claims (based on non-existing 'layers' of sedimentary rock). Agassiz (19th century) came up with the Ice Age theory - if true it would have fundamentally reduced carbon content, resulting in long ages of dating when the objects would be much younger. He is now of course labelled a white supremacist so Agassiz has been scrubbed from history but many of his ideas formed later geological concepts.
Thanks for the references and links. This comes down to truth. My PR "chum" is a useful chap indeed as he allows close analysis of the type that cares not a jot for truth but a great deal for his own status. When pushed he will admit this. He thinks the truth is beside the point. What matters to him above all things are the number of letters after his name and the number of badges affixed to his jacket. I kid you not. I am his opposite. I would relish exile atop a mountain contemplating creation - the same would kill him. Most people study for status not truth. What a big waste of time. So called scientific ideas have become like hit records. The truth is whatever sells and least of all what is actually true. According to Durant the first century AD Roman's had sophisticated medicinal science and performed cosmetic surgery and he knows that from a contemporary source. We do not hear that at school. But we do here about Edward Jenner. It seems to me highly likely that periodic mass flooding must be a common event. In my own short life time there have been several. There was a moderately large Tsunami 45 miles off the east coast of Japan in 2011. Imagine what a large earth quake could do? Imagine a Tsunami 100 times that size. A huge wave would roll over all the land on the earth and the sea's surface would be choked with detritus just as we see in a river after a flood. This would have lodged in any convenient cave. Maybe the rate of a flood on a global scale like this might be one time in twenty five thousand years or less. Certainly far less often than a asteroid strike big enough to have a global impact. Looking forward to your next post.
Hi David, good post - your friend is probably not unique. Education has been reduced to, as you say, collecting 'badges'. They teach theory in school as fact and there is little vocational or trades training - actually doing something with your hands is frowned on. Better memorise arcane maths or equations. Durant is probably right about ancient medicine, in the medieval period there were advances in surgery and discovery of all sorts but no one is taught them. How many know about Roger Bacon and optics - some 400 years in advance of Newton's similar discoveries? Eyeglasses were created in the 12th century. Imagine a world without them. The ancients - every culture - have records of floods, fires, earthquakes and cosmic disaster. 1250 BC ~ entire civilisations disappeared, probably due to a series of cosmic catastrophes. 750 BC the time of Isaiah, a similar set of terrrestrial catastrophes occurred. The Hindus date the Himalayas to about 3000 years in age, a mountain 10,000 feet high was formed in Mexico in 3 or 4 years in the 1930s. A new field of fossilised dinos was recently uncovered in Italy - all in the motion of fleeing a disaster. The hubris and arrogance of our age - we think we know everything when we know very little. $cientism as a project is a religion of pride and certainty, where neither is warranted. How rational are we really? Jenner et al were and are still frauds making profits but applauded as saviours. In comparison there is much to be said about the morals and cultures of the medieval and ancient pagan periods in some respects. Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Aurelius - they suffered their own ignorance and humility.
Excellent as usual. Do you have a reference for "Entire fields of fossilised animals and flora have been found heaped together, with the animals obviously fleeing a mortal threat." The age of the earth is a bit like the size of the universe. It is accurate enough near by but less and less reliable as time and distance increase. I love your thing about the sea not being salty enough - how the heck do you explain that? I recently discovered that an old PR "friend" of mine lied his way into a fellowship at a famous UK university claiming to be a professor when he is nothing of the sort. What matters is the present time and how much money and status we can get for appearing to be what we are not and appearing to know what we do not. Reading Durant on Rome I see that is has always been this way. great stuff keep and thanks for writing. Are you putting all this in a book? I hope you will.
Thanks David for the comments and insights. Very kind. Modern science criticises the medieval or early modern and scorns their investigations, claiming that their philosophies negated many important discoveries (not true but such are the claims). Yet in the 'modern world', we see the same 'trap' of 'science' and its tautological echo chambers, fuelled by money and power as your friend exemplifies - the need for status and optics.
On catastrophism, the hated Velikovsky (Earth in Upheaval) convinced Einstein of its merits with his usual meticulous detail (https://unstabbinated.substack.com/p/velikovsky-catastrophe-and-einstein). In the UK a Christian bishop Buckland analysed Kirkland Cave in Yorkshire (1821) and there was a veritable zoo of fossilised African animals, broken bones, shattered bodies, elephants, hippotami, lions, and many others including hyenas. Buckland bizarrely penned the official narrative which is that the fissure crack containing these beasts (relabelled a 'cave') was the home of hyenas (not native to Britain). They hunted, dragged their prey home and chewed on their bones. Mysteriously the hyena bones are also broken, fragmented and shattered...yet any official narrative calls this a great 'discovery' confirming long ages....ridiculous and stupid, but there it is.
'Apocalypse' by Amos Nur (2021) is similar to Velikovsky in some respects, 'The New Catastrophism' by Derek Ager (1993) is a good book, both provide sources, along with the founder of catastrophism 'Georges Cuvier' a good book on GC is by Martin Rudwick who translates the original French into English.
Catastrophism was the dominant theme until Lyell the lawyer who wanted to unmoor geology from Moses, came along with unsubstantiated long age claims (based on non-existing 'layers' of sedimentary rock). Agassiz (19th century) came up with the Ice Age theory - if true it would have fundamentally reduced carbon content, resulting in long ages of dating when the objects would be much younger. He is now of course labelled a white supremacist so Agassiz has been scrubbed from history but many of his ideas formed later geological concepts.
Thanks for the references and links. This comes down to truth. My PR "chum" is a useful chap indeed as he allows close analysis of the type that cares not a jot for truth but a great deal for his own status. When pushed he will admit this. He thinks the truth is beside the point. What matters to him above all things are the number of letters after his name and the number of badges affixed to his jacket. I kid you not. I am his opposite. I would relish exile atop a mountain contemplating creation - the same would kill him. Most people study for status not truth. What a big waste of time. So called scientific ideas have become like hit records. The truth is whatever sells and least of all what is actually true. According to Durant the first century AD Roman's had sophisticated medicinal science and performed cosmetic surgery and he knows that from a contemporary source. We do not hear that at school. But we do here about Edward Jenner. It seems to me highly likely that periodic mass flooding must be a common event. In my own short life time there have been several. There was a moderately large Tsunami 45 miles off the east coast of Japan in 2011. Imagine what a large earth quake could do? Imagine a Tsunami 100 times that size. A huge wave would roll over all the land on the earth and the sea's surface would be choked with detritus just as we see in a river after a flood. This would have lodged in any convenient cave. Maybe the rate of a flood on a global scale like this might be one time in twenty five thousand years or less. Certainly far less often than a asteroid strike big enough to have a global impact. Looking forward to your next post.
Hi David, good post - your friend is probably not unique. Education has been reduced to, as you say, collecting 'badges'. They teach theory in school as fact and there is little vocational or trades training - actually doing something with your hands is frowned on. Better memorise arcane maths or equations. Durant is probably right about ancient medicine, in the medieval period there were advances in surgery and discovery of all sorts but no one is taught them. How many know about Roger Bacon and optics - some 400 years in advance of Newton's similar discoveries? Eyeglasses were created in the 12th century. Imagine a world without them. The ancients - every culture - have records of floods, fires, earthquakes and cosmic disaster. 1250 BC ~ entire civilisations disappeared, probably due to a series of cosmic catastrophes. 750 BC the time of Isaiah, a similar set of terrrestrial catastrophes occurred. The Hindus date the Himalayas to about 3000 years in age, a mountain 10,000 feet high was formed in Mexico in 3 or 4 years in the 1930s. A new field of fossilised dinos was recently uncovered in Italy - all in the motion of fleeing a disaster. The hubris and arrogance of our age - we think we know everything when we know very little. $cientism as a project is a religion of pride and certainty, where neither is warranted. How rational are we really? Jenner et al were and are still frauds making profits but applauded as saviours. In comparison there is much to be said about the morals and cultures of the medieval and ancient pagan periods in some respects. Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Aurelius - they suffered their own ignorance and humility.