Barry
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Barry
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ParticipantHi Frank,
No, I’m not going to start expounding upon my academic pedigree so you can use it to accuse me of being an elitist. That’s what the internet is for, if you care about it.
Anyway, so what if there was some celestial body that once came close to the Earth? What does that have to do with a flood? One has to come up with a plausible physical connection for people to take it seriously. Dean Sessions understands this, apparently, because he tried to come up with a mechanism involving centrifugal force. That proposed mechanism cannot be correct, because it is only even hypothetically possible around the equator. Can you at least do enough research to confirm that centrifugal force becomes smaller and smaller as you decrease the spin radius? All you have to do is swing around a small weight on a string, and note that the weight tugs on your hand less and less the shorter the string is (assuming the time it takes to go around remains constant. If you can confirm that much, I would be happy to move on to discuss something else.
Participant“Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me. But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind….” (D&C 9:7-8)
I’ve written about a lot of problems in the UM, and your response has always essentially been to say, gee, you don’t know about any of that technical stuff, but answer these 10 other questions, or review these 11 pages of material and find all the problems in it. Don’t waste my time if you aren’t willing to try to work through a problem, even when you have help offered.
August 7, 2017 at 10:46 am in reply to: Private: Your Mechanism for the Universal Flood is Badly Flawed #32574ParticipantHi Frank.
1. Will is a geologist. When I mentioned him above, I linked an article he wrote about the UM on my blog, but the moderators here always remove any links to my blog from my posts. If you are interested in reading his argument, just Google “Will Meservy Universal Model”.
2. What I think is that SOMETHING happened, and some ancient tribal folks described it from their perspective, and using language that reflected their view of the world. Here is a good explanation of ancient Israelite cosmology, if you are interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8duzqEOhw8
July 27, 2017 at 11:30 am in reply to: Private: Your Mechanism for the Universal Flood is Badly Flawed #32442ParticipantHi Dennis,
I don’t think it requires a degree to understand truth, either. It requires lots of mental effort. For instance, if you were to apply yourself, you might find out that, long before Dean Sessions entered the scene, geologists already knew that you get glass if you take a blowtorch to a piece of rock and let it cool quickly, and that lots of quartz is made from hot, pressurized water so the resulting crystals can have fluid inclusions (“enhydros”) in them. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In other words, Dean Sessions’ handy experiments are meaningless.
In any case, do you have any objections to bring up about my point regarding centrifugal force at the Earth’s poles? This is high-school level physics that you can read about on Wikipedia. I’m not asking for much work.
July 24, 2017 at 9:29 am in reply to: Private: Your Mechanism for the Universal Flood is Badly Flawed #31817ParticipantHi Frank. Actually, the last poll I saw said about 40% of scientists in the USA believe in God. Also, for the most part they didn’t become atheist/agnostic by taking science classes. People who grow up as atheist/agnostic become scientists in disproportionate numbers.
Participant(Awaiting moderation)
May 31, 2017 at 9:37 pm in reply to: Private: Your Mechanism for the Universal Flood is Badly Flawed #31588ParticipantHi Frank,
I’ll respond to the one bit of evidence you put forward. I’m sure something happened to provoke all those flood legends, and personally I think there was a worldwide event, although not as dramatic as the UM holds. So anyway, I don’t have a problem with that.
As I read most of the rest of your reply, you’re just saying you believe Sessions because he provides lots of evidences. But if all those evidences don’t really prove what he says they do, then they add up to a big, fat nothing. I’ve taken apart several of his main arguments, and shown that they are fatally flawed. That’s fine if it doesn’t bother you enough to want to do some spot-checking yourself, however. I’ll just keep writing these things for the people who don’t have such unshakable faith in the UM.
May 30, 2017 at 8:32 am in reply to: Private: Your Mechanism for the Universal Flood is Badly Flawed #31542ParticipantHi Frank,
Thanks for putting forth the effort to look that up. No, it doesn’t resolve the differences between me and Sessions on the issue, however. In fact, the points you quoted support my point, and refute Dean’s. If you look in the UM book where he talks about “evidences” for the universal flood, he repeatedly says that various minerals “must have” come from “hyprethermal” conditions in the flood, rather than from molten rock, because melt always turns into glass. I wrote a blog post explaining the whole thing with the title, “Quartz is Not Glass. So What?”
Personally, I think this should make a difference to you as far as the UM is concerned, because it calls into question quite a number of Dean Sessions’ arguments. Does it completely disprove his main claims? Of course not, and I never said it did. But when, by searching the internet for a few minutes, you can find information that refutes a simple point that is referenced over and over in the UM’s arguments, doesn’t that make you want to exercise a little caution with the UM? Take it’s claims “with a grain of salt”?
As for the topic of this thread, I propose that you do like Dean Sessions says and perform your own experiment. Take a heavy-ish weight and tie it to a rope or string. Swing it in a circle around your head and note how hard the string tugs on your hand. Now hold the string so the weight is much closer to your hand (the swinging radius is much shorter) and do the same thing, making sure that the time it takes for the weight to go around once is about the same as before. You will find that it tugs on your hand much more weakly. You will have just proven to yourself that I was right, and Sessions’ centrifugal force explanation for the flood can’t be right, because it wouldn’t work at the poles, where the spin radius is zero. Supposing you go to the trouble to do that experiment, wouldn’t that make you wonder if Sessions’ other arguments are similarly flawed, when this one can be refuted by reference to a simple freshman-level physics principle? All I’m asking you to do at this point is to exercise a little caution.
May 29, 2017 at 3:17 pm in reply to: Private: Your Mechanism for the Universal Flood is Badly Flawed #31520ParticipantP.S. Frank, I can do requests if there is something in Chapter 8 that you think is especially impressive. (I just don’t do “deal with everything in this 224 page chapter, and then we can talk” kinds of requests.) If you think of something, let me know.
May 29, 2017 at 10:31 am in reply to: Private: Your Mechanism for the Universal Flood is Badly Flawed #31518ParticipantHi Frank,
You ask, “Why wait till later?” The answer, of course, is that I have a job, a family, a calling in church, and only 24 hours in a day. And I try to actually look things up and think about them before I start pontificating.
I’ll do whatever I have time to do, but I don’t see it as my job to challenge every single proposed evidence for the UM. It seems more economical to pick out some of the UM arguments that appear to be the more important ones, and show that Dean Sessions is playing fast and loose with the facts. I would think that honest people would see that at least as an indication that Sessions isn’t the sort of person one can trust to have done his homework on the topics he writes about.
For instance, how many times in the book does Sessions say that something or other must have happened how he thinks, because melted rock always turns to glass? Seems like an important point in the book to me. And yet, Sessions’ own sources say that crystals (even quartz) have been formed from melts in the laboratory. Does that bother you? Does it make you want to put forth a little effort and look up a few books in a university library to see who’s telling the truth? If not, then why not?
Your book review on the UM website says you are a retired Naval Intelligence analyst. I’m pretty certain you wouldn’t have lasted long enough to retire from that job if you just believed every information source that told you what you wanted to hear. People want a nice story all tied up in a bow, but reality is usually more complicated than that, and harder to sort out. But putting in the effort to understand the nuances, even if we can’t sort out every last detail, makes us wiser. What if, after trying to put in some due diligence, you came to the conclusion that the UM does not provide good arguments? What would you have lost? I wouldn’t think you would have to give up on your religious beliefs. You might come to the conclusion (like John A. Widtsoe in his book Evidences and Reconciliations) that the Flood may have been only a thin sheet of water in some places, or (like Hugh Nibley in his book Old Testament and Related Studies) that the Flood in the Bible was a localized event that was described from the point of view of particular people, and it seemed to them like the whole world was buried in the deluge. You might come to the conclusion that the Flood was just like you thought, but acknowledge that the UM didn’t provide very good evidence for it.
May 28, 2017 at 10:26 pm in reply to: Private: Your Mechanism for the Universal Flood is Badly Flawed #31513ParticipantHi Frank,
My post was only about the proposed mechanism. I don’t think much of the “evidences” presented in Ch. 8, either, but we can argue about that later. For now, do you find anything wrong with what I said about the proposed mechanism?
ParticipantHere’s the link to the Earth and Planetary Science Letters article I cited:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X97001593
ParticipantI couldn’t find any rules at that location.
ParticipantThe Universal Model (UM) relies very heavily on the claim that the quartz found in nature cannot possibly have formed from molten material. In a recent post, “Quartz is Not Glass. So What?”, I debunked their assertion that only glass, and never minerals like quartz, can form from molten rock. I even provided an example where Dean Sessions had quoted a geology textbook to support his argument, but ignored part of the same paragraph that said experimental petrologists have grown quartz and other minerals from hydrous granitic melts.
I brought this up in the discussion forum on the UM website, but to no avail. The UM Team insists that because it was a “hydrous” granitic melt, that means that it must be just like growing it in a hot, pressurized vat of water like they do in Dean Sessions’ garage. And plus the petrologist must not have really meant “melt” in a literal sense, and besides that the quartz they grew from the… some OTHER thing than a melt that they nevertheless called a melt… didn’t have as big crystals as natural granites. Oh, and there was a lot of stuff about how great the UM is, and how if I would just stop being so stubborn and open my mind to their glorious new vision of science, I could step with them into a triumphant future…. You get the idea.
So anyway, the UM Team is still stuck on the whole “only glass can come from a melt” thing. Because I am a helpful sort of guy, however, I’m going to give their metaphorical pot another stir. That is, even if the UM Team were right that only glass could form from a melt, they would still have a problem. Quartz and other crystals can form from glass.
Yep. It’s called “devitrification,” and I found a really great example for the UM Team to mull over. In 1997, a couple scientists from Stanford and the U.S. Geological Survey published a paper called, “Kinetics of the Coesite to Quartz Transformation” in Earth and Planetary Science Letters. First, they obtained some essentially pure silica glass from Corning, and baked it at 1000 °C and 3.6 GPa pressure for 24 hours. This produced coesite, which is a high-pressure polymorph (same chemical formula, different molecular-scale structure) of quartz. Then they adjusted the conditions to 700–1000°C at pressures of 190–410 MPa, which caused some of the coesite to transform into quartz. There was no water present, although the atoms in the original glass were about 0.1% hydrogen.
Now let’s review a couple of the demonstrably false statements in the UM that this information contradicts.
We know the physical properties of coesite and other high pressure. high temperature, silica-based minerals depicted in the Silica Phase Diagram, because of laboratory experiments conducted by scientists who were able to produce these minerals. After mineral formation, temperature and pressure return to normalized conditions and researchers observe and measure the physical properties of the minerals, such as density and crystal structure. Once heated, the minerals do not revert to natural quartz after they cool and/or with pressure reduction; the properties and crystalline structure of the minerals arc preserved, remaining as they were when formed. (UM, Vol. 1, pp. 102-103)
FALSE. In the experiments I described, coesite was produced from glass, the temperature and pressure were reduced (just not all the way to Earth surface conditions) and quartz formed.The Moon and other planets, Mars and Mercury, must show the telltale signs of a glass-like crust if they originated from a magmatic melt. (UM, Vol. 1, p. 105)
FALSE. Even if glass were the only possible product of a cooling melt (and it isn’t), the glass could still transform to a crystalline state under the right conditions.ParticipantHi UM Team,
Fortunately, I posted an entire article, entitled “Don’t Let the Core Fall Out: Nitpicking Earth’s Magnetic Field” that addresses several of the points you brought up. I’m not bothering to link it here, because all the other times I’ve tried to link my blog from here, the moderator has either deleted the post or removed the link. So Google it, I guess.
Anyway, most of your reply doesn’t have much to do with the topic I brought up, because the topic was NOT your ideas about piezoelectricity. (I don’t mind addressing that at some point, but can we please clear this one up, first?) It was about whether your characterization and criticism of the standard geological theory about the Earth’s magnetic field are demonstrably false. Here are a few quick replies to your points that seemed nominally relevant.
You say:
Moreover, you apparently dismissed or disregarded science’s most famous icon, Einstein, when he expresses concern about the “problem” surrounding the origin of the Earth’s energy field found on p115 of the UM and cited here:
“In more modern times Einstein, shortly after writing his special relativity paper in 1905, described the problem of the origin of the Earth’s magnetic field as being one of the most important unsolved problems in physics.”
Personally, I didn’t feel any overwhelming urge to respond to this, because Einstein said it over 100 years ago. So what? You go on:
So what do scientists believe causes the Earth’s energy field? You left out of your “competent” critique the UM quote on p115 from the article, Probing the Geodynamo in Scientific American which states:
“But how well do the geodynamo models capture the dynamo as it actually exists in the earth? The truth is that no one knows for certain.”
How could anyone “know for certain” whether a model of the deep Earth is correct without some way of going there to test the model directly? (For people who criticize scientists so much for “teaching theories as fact,” you sure quote them a lot saying the opposite.) And the author goes on to say that the main problem with computer simulations of the geodynamo is that supercomputers aren’t yet fast enough to properly simulate turbulence in the fluid flow on a small enough scale. Again… so what? For now, it appears the theory is at least physically plausible.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/probing-the-geodynamo-2005-07/
So neither you nor anyone else knows for certain the cause of the Earth’s energy field and you have left out a simple fact that every electrical engineer knows; heating a magnetic-field-creating object (such as the Earth) destroys its magnetism! So you are right Barry, “magnetism is destroyed by heat” in the hot core pseudotheory of the magmaplanet Earth.
I think you are confusing Dean Sessions with me. I said that only permanent ferromagnetism is destroyed by heat. If you doubt that, please read the Wikipedia article on the “Curie Temperature,” which says, “In physics and materials science, the Curie temperature (Tc), or Curie point, is the temperature at which certain materials lose their permanent magnetic properties, to be replaced by induced magnetism.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curie_temperature
By the way, if heat destroys all magnetism, then how can the Sun have a magnetic field? Do you think it has an ice core, too?
Why have dozens of engineers who have read this chapter, who work with energy fields and heat understood this and you have not? Where does the UM say that the Earth has a permanent ferromagnetic magma core? We quote on p114 exactly what the typical modern geology textbook says about the creation of the so-called magnetic field:
“The magnetic field is created by the flow of molten iron inside the Earth’s core.” (Note 5.12a p114 of UM)
Exactly. Either 1) you don’t understand that geologists don’t think the Earth is a permanent ferromagnet, or 2) you don’t understand that permanent ferromagnetism is the only kind of magnetism destroyed by heat. So which is it?
As far as your engineers go, I don’t know them, so I can’t address the reasons for their oversight.
Your second challenge states that “scientists do NOT believe… the cause of the Earth’s magnetic field” is permanent ferromagnetism (a permanent iron type magnet) and you therefore imply that the UM’s following statement is incorrect:
“a ‘permanent’ magnet’s energy field does not change or oscillate” (p. 117).
However, the UM never says that there is a magnet or any energy producing object in the core. But this is what modern science has portrayed with the following example quoted from the popular Understanding Earth college geology textbook on p116 in the UM stating:
“Earth’s magnetic field behaves as if a small but powerful permanent bar magnet were located near the center of the Earth…”
So the answer is that you don’t understand that permanent ferromagnetism is the only kind of magnetism destroyed by heat. Thanks for clearing that up. Also, I gather you are saying that your statement about how a permanent magnet’s field does not change or oscillate doesn’t prove anything about any actual geological theory. You just brought it up to prove that a theory nobody actually advocates can’t be true.
ParticipantHi UM Team,
Thank you for confirming that quartz can, in fact, form from a melt, contrary to what you say in your book (see p. 105, for instance). As you point out, it can also form from hydrothermal solutions and from the vapor phase. But since no geologist would dispute that, I fail to see how it addresses the problem I brought up.
Anyway, I also want to thank you for clarifying a few other issues. Here are the points I got out of your reply above.
1. You know full well that quartz and other minerals can form from a melt, but you are able to rationalize your explicit false statements to the contrary by noting that experimental petrologists haven’t been able to grow the crystals in synthetic granites as big as they occur in natural granites. And since crystal size is controlled by (among other things) cooling rate, and granites are thought to cool over long periods, you probably never have to worry about experimental petrologists ever producing evidence that meets your high standards.
2. You are allowed to ignore your high standards of evidence whenever it’s convenient for you. For instance, you cite the UM Identity Principle, “Identical results come from duplicating processes found in Nature.” Then you point out that you can use your autoclave to grow gem-quality quartz crystals that are essentially identical to natural, gem-quality quartz crystals… you know… the kind that geologists think are made by a similar process. But what you haven’t done is simultaneously grow quartz, two types of feldspars, micas, and so on all together in one mass in your autoclave. Before you start claiming that you have demonstrated how quartz grows in granitic rocks, don’t you think you ought to be able to produce a synthetic granite that is indistinguishable from natural granite? And if geologists actually think that granites come from hydrous granitic melts, why are you so insistent that experiments with pure silica melts disprove what geologists think?
3. You think that because you are able to string together “around 6,000 quotes from peer-reviewed journals, scientific textbooks and websites,” you are obviously able to understand the science explained there. Nope.
4. I didn’t know about some of those discoveries of water in space. I actually think that’s pretty cool (although I think you take that information and extrapolate FAR beyond what anyone has ever demonstrated, or even argued for.)
5. You have a ready-made excuse to dismiss almost any argument someone like me can make. That is, no single person has ever replicated every important experiment every scientist has ever done. So if you cite a scientific book to bolster your argument that quartz can’t form from a melt, and then I point out how the same book, in the same paragraph, explicitly talks about people forming quartz from a hydrous granitic MELT, you can just brush it off because I didn’t personally do those experiments, and neither did the author of the petrology textbook you cited. Of course, you don’t give me any reason I should think those scientists were lying about what they reported, and you cite plenty of experimental work you haven’t replicated yourself, but…. But nothing.
6. When you read scientific literature, you are really just browsing for keywords, rather than trying to comprehend. If you find the word “hydrous” with the word “melt”, then obviously it must be talking about hydrothermal growth like in your autoclave, and they must be using the word “melt” loosely, to mean something like “not a melt”.
7. You aren’t even willing to look up words you don’t know when you read scientific literature. You say, “Anhedral quartz probably means it was not Alpha quartz, which is what is found almost exclusively in Nature.” Um… no. Anhedral means it doesn’t have nice crystal faces, which often happens when crystal growth is diffusion limited, and occurs over a short time period. The crystal structure is still the same. Incidentally, you also don’t seem to understand that it’s impossible for beta-quartz to exist at Earth-surface conditions. You might have picked that up if you had read my article, “Quartz is not Glass. So What?”, on my blog. I tried posting a link to it on your forum, but you guys deleted it.
8. Whenever geologists try to reconstruct something that happened in the distant past, or happens in a place (like deep inside the Earth) that can’t be directly observed, you take that to mean their conclusions are “not scientific because [they] cannot be observed or proven.” And yet, when you try to reconstruct something that happened in the distant past, or happens in a place that can’t be directly observed, it’s really, really scientific.
9. When scientists look at the work of someone like Norman Bowen, figure out that it can’t explain all their observations, modify their theories to better encompass all their observations, but still hold on to some ideas from the previous work they think are still valuable… you take that to mean they are basing all their current theories on something that was proven false. Funny, I thought it showed that those guys were open-minded enough to recognize flaws in theories and try to correct them, but try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Also, I do not agree with your definition of science, but it’s not that I don’t think there’s such a thing as truth. Rather, I think it’s harder to prove you have the Absolute Truth than you seem to want to believe. If you really, really want to know exactly how I think science works, take a look at an essay I published in BYU Studies Quarterly, called “Science as Storytelling”. I hope you will not use the title of that essay to falsely claim that I think science is all a bunch of fiction. Even if I did believe in your definition of science, it’s clear that you don’t follow it yourself.
Participant“So far your review and discussion of the Universal Model has been spotty and biased evidently without actually reading or evaluating Volume I in its entirety before giving an objective review. In other words, it would appear that anything that goes against the ‘established doctrine’ of what you teach as a professor of geology is simply incorrect, no matter what. It also seems you cannot acknowledge the possibility of even one of the hundreds of new discoveries found in just this first volume. You wrote on your blog, “The UM provides a nearly perfect example of a pseudoscientific enterprise” which you concluded long before having had a chance to review the book (you had received the UM on April 18th and posted this response on the 21st). In certain respects, Galileo had the same problem with the ‘learned’ thinkers of his day when they refused to look through his telescope to see what was on the Moon – they already knew.”
Even worse, I still haven’t read your 800-page tome in its entirety! But yes, at that time I had only watched a 2-hour video about the UM on your YouTube channel, noticed that a number of your arguments were based on claims I knew to be factually incorrect, argued back and forth with some of you in the YouTube comments about some of those points, and looked up the topics in the UM book to see if you had any better arguments there. And yes, I have undoubtedly been biased to some degree by that experience.
However, that’s actually why I chose to start by addressing specific arguments, rather than take on the whole thing at once. You see, even if your overall conclusions are correct, some of your arguments may still be very flawed. For instance, if you claim that minerals like quartz can’t form from a melt, and some of the sources you cite to back up this claim actually reported just the opposite, then you clearly have made a flawed argument by any reasonable standard. What will you do with that information? You might radically change your mind about the UM. You might stand your ground on the UM as a whole, but acknowledge that certain of your arguments need some shoring up, referring instead to some other evidence that you think is better. You might argue in return that I’m the one who misinterpreted the sources, or misread the UM, or whatever. Any of that could conceivably be the response of generally reasonable people.
What is NOT reasonable, in contrast, is pretending that reading the entire UM will magically make your bad arguments good. Why not just try to evaluate my critiques of your arguments on their own, and if you find I am correct, admit that fact and bring up other arguments that you think support your conclusions better? Even if I’m the biggest Galileo-arresting, baby-eating, big-fat-meanie of a scientific bigot, it should still be useful for you to see which of your arguments are the weakest.
“Every day, the UM has new readers and open-minded reviewers who are earnestly seeking to discover how Nature really works and why we are such an important part of the beauty that surrounds us. Anyone can go to the UM website, UniversalModel.com under the Review Tab and read Written Reviews by dozens of people who have read all of Volume I and who tell of their story of finding truth and understanding in geology for the first time. Perhaps you judge these people as misguided, but some of them have been studying the UM for years, and will tell you nothing but goodness has come from the new understandings and explanations that the UM offers to all who will take the time to look and actually examine the new scientific discoveries and evidences found in this material. How else is the public to judge which science explains Nature better, other than to compare multiple competing hypotheses? On one hand, we have conventional science, which has not discovered one new significant natural law in over one hundred years, and it tells us everything came from nothing; on the other hand this new Millennial Science sets forth dozens of new natural laws that everyone can easily understand and test for themselves.”
If none of said people understand the standard scientific theories, and you describe those theories incorrectly, how can they possibly make any informed decision about such a thing? Can you at least accept that someone like me might have significant insights about whether you are fairly describing MY paradigm?
“Have you asked yourself what if there really is no magma inside the Earth? What if the liquid really is water instead of magma? As you know, no one, including yourself, has ever observed magma. What if this subterranean water (which scientists themselves now acknowledge exists in quantities far beyond what is found in our oceans above the crust), was the same water which covered the Earth in a Universal Flood 4,362 years ago? What if this event really happened? What does this mean to all of modern science and to every human being now that not one or two, but hundreds of empirical evidences for the Flood actually demonstrate it happened and are found in the UM?”
Sure I have asked that. And I looked at the evidence you presented and found it wanting. Therefore, even if your conclusions are true, some of your arguments are faulty. Will you deal with those criticisms, or not?
For instance, when you talk about scientists acknowledging that vast quantities of water exist in, for example, the mantle, do you realize that they are not talking about liquid water, or even ice? (See this LiveScience article.) They are talking about minerals which have small amounts of the elements H and O in their crystal structures, and which will undergo chemical reactions to release water vapor when they are heated at low pressures. Once again, misinterpreting scientific sources like those you mention does not make a good argument for your case, whether or not your conclusions are correct.
“We will address some of your specific criticisms regarding UM and Heat Flow after addressing some of the subchapters you left out of your review of Chapter 5, the Magma Pseudotheory. First we note that you evidently chose to ignore the first subchapter, 5.1 Magma Defined, wherein geologists are quoted saying that “Magmas properly belong to the realm of theoretical petrology.” You seem to have ignored the quotes of the professionals who state that “geologists infer” because no one has ever seen magma or observed direct evidence for it. You leave unaddressed the expert’s statement, “The question of where the magma comes from and how it is generated are the most speculative in all of volcanology.” ”
I actually haven’t done a “review of Chapter 5”. Instead, I’ve written several articles about specific issues covered in Chapter 5–and I’m not done, yet! These articles are on my blog, and I have tried linking to them on your forum in the past, but those posts were always deleted by your moderator. It would be a lot more convenient for everyone if you would just let me link them.
Anyway, I did reference some of those quotations in my article, “Does Magma Exist?” And guess what? I have absolutely no problem with the idea that magma (at least the stuff that is too deep in the Earth to drill into and observe directly) is “theoretical,” and that we have to “infer” the existence of things we can’t directly observe, and that “inference” always involves some degree of speculation. The real question, for me, is why you think this is so significant. I mean, if nobody can drill to the center of the Earth, then how do UMers come to the conclusion that there is a ball of ice down there? Presumably you “infer” it based on something other than direct observation, and it is a “theoretical” construct. Explanations always go beyond the facts around which one constructs them. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be explanations.
“The next subchapter, 5.2 the Magmaplanet Belief, is also absent from your review posted in this forum. We concur that belief is not science, yet one can only believe in magma because it has never been observed. This subchapter clearly shows that modern geology’s claim of a magmaplanet is only a belief, as one blue quote in the subchapter asks, “Why is the Earth’s core so Hot” and “How do we know the temperature? The answer is that we really don’t … As a result, scientists must infer the temperature in the earth’s deep interior indirectly” (p75 in UM). It is this little word “infer” that has gotten every major field of science into trouble. ”
See what I mean? Alternatively, please show me how Dean Sessions observed the Earth’s deep interior directly.
“Geology has never demonstrated an empirical heat source for magma, especially radioactive magma which would of course, mean that all lava would be radioactive that came from radioactively melted magma. Not trace amounts of normally occurring radioactive material, but bonafide radioactivity. Those of us who have been to Hawaii, a lava island, have never seen signs warning about radioactive lava. Modern geology has been mis-queued by modern chemistry into thinking that very hot (hot enough to melt rock) natural radioactive minerals actually exist – when in fact they don’t. Thus both magma and its heat source have never been demonstrated and thus remain only a belief.”
As I explained in another article, “Facepalm: The Universal Model and Radioactive Lava”, geologists do not, in fact, think that there are local concentrations of radioactivity in the Earth’s interior concentrated enough to melt the rock around it. Once again, you are arguing against a straw man. (Do you see why you need a geologist to at least comb through the UM and point out ridiculous claims like that? Remember that the claim is about what WE think, not what you think, or what actually is the case.)
“You also seem to have completely skipped subchapter 5.3, the Lava-Friction Model, where, for the first time, lava is demonstrated to arise from the frictional heat generated by fault movement within the crust. You also seemed to skip past the two new natural laws presented in this subchapter and the direct evidence for the Earthquake-Lava Connection. You have left out the important geological discovery known as Earthtide, the daily tidal movement of the Earth’s crust, (which was not discovered until the first GPS satellites were put into orbit) and how this is directly connected to Earthquakes, lava eruptions and Moonquakes. There are pages and pages of evidence for these new natural laws which you have apparently chosen to ignore.”
Don’t worry, I’m getting to that. In the meantime, supposing your frictional melting idea is a good argument, how does that demonstrate that your bad arguments (like claiming geologists believe things they really don’t or acting like it’s not necessary to “infer” the existence of things you can’t directly observe) aren’t really bad? It doesn’t.
“Moving on to subchapter 5.4, Magma Theory Defies Heat Flow Physics, clearly delineates that the Magma Pseudotheory goes directly against the demonstrable laws of heat flow. The quote you took from p92 of the UM “Geophysicists have not been able to explain why heat flow through the thin oceanic crust is less than the heat flow through the thick continental crust,” is actually correct and consistent with peer-reviewed literature, it is not an “odd statement” as you noted. The geophysicists’ current estimate you used from Wikipedia to make your point about the heat flow is from a older 1993 article than the newer 1996 article found in Scientific American which we refer to in the UM (p93) that clearly states the oceanic crust “rises about 15 degrees C per Kilometer of depth” whereas the continental crust, “increases by about 25 degrees per kilometer.” Why did you leave the newer quoted article out of your critique?”
You didn’t read my critique carefully, and once again it would have been helpful if you had read the full article. Here’s where you are going wrong. (In the following paragraphs I use a lot of ALL CAPS, which is not meant to come off as internet “yelling”. I’m just trying to get you to focus on those words so that you can make sure not to miss some main points.)
On Figure 5.4.5 you show the USGS heat flow map, and on the bottom it has a color bar to indicate what the different colors mean. Note that units given are mW/m^2 (milliwatts per square meter), and that if you eyeball the colors on the ocean floor and continents, the average seems like it must be in the ballpark of the 101 mW/m^2 and 65 mW/m^2 that I cited. Note also that a “milliwatt” is a unit of energy flow (energy divided by time), so mW/m^2 expresses units of energy flow per square meter of the Earth’s surface. Now look at Figure 5.4.7, where you list the “actual heat flow” of the continents as 25 °C/km, and that of the ocean floor as 15 °C/km. Notice anything different? How about the fact that °C/km ARE NOT HEAT FLOW UNITS. They are units of temperature change over distance, which means they are describing THERMAL GRADIENT, NOT HEAT FLOW. The reason Dean Sessions mixes up the two is because the Fourier Law indicates that heat flow DUE TO CONDUCTION is proportional to the thermal gradient. Therefore, if the heat flow going on were ONLY DUE TO CONDUCTION, then it would be proportional to the local thermal gradient. But if BOTH CONDUCTION AND CONVECTION are going on to varying degrees in the different localities, then the non-conductive heat flow doesn’t follow the Fourier Law, and when comparing different localities the heat flow WOULD NOT BE PROPORTIONAL TO THE THERMAL GRADIENT.
Please read that last paragraph over until it sinks in. I tried to explain all that before, but here you are telling me that I should accept the “heat flow” numbers from your Scientific American article over those in the source I cited. But the fact is that your Sci-Am “heat flow” figures ARE NOT ACTUAL HEAT FLOWS. Instead, they are THERMAL GRADIENTS that are COMPLETELY CONSISTENT with the ACTUAL HEAT FLOWS I cited, as well as the ones you have mapped on Fig. 5.4.5, AS LONG AS CONVECTION IS GOING ON.
Can you begin to see why scientists would typically find interactions with you to be frustrating, UM Team? The thermal gradient issue I brought up is a very common rookie mistake that would have been beaten out of Dean Sessions after taking a single course in thermodynamics. But Dean never took such a class, nor did he even learn the math and terminology he would need to follow along in a textbook on his own. But here he is using thermodynamic arguments to lecture the world’s scientists about how they could see their theories were wrong if they only understood heat flow.
“The following sentence in the Wiki article you quoted from actually says “[The Earth’s heat] is much more concentratedin areas where thermal energy is transported toward the crust by convection such as along mid-ocean ridges and mantle plumes.” This statement begs the question, what do we find occurring along mid-ocean ridges? Earthquakes. Thus, Fig 5.4.5 in the UM shows that “the heat flow from the ocean floor is higher”, but only on the “mid-ocean ridges” where earthquakes are more prevalent as the Wiki article states, not as you state the “average heat flow from the ocean floor is higher.” Fig 5.4.5 clearly shows that the thinnest crustal areas of the Earth (all along the deep trenches of the ocean) do not contain the greatest heat flow, but where we find the highest heat flow is exactly where the description below the Figure says, “on plate boundaries where gravitational frictional heating is highest.” The black lines in the image that separate crustal plate boundaries are actually individual seismic events found in most geological maps. ”
Yes. According to REAL plate tectonic theory, as well as the UM, you should get extra heat flow around mid-ocean ridges. Therefore, the fact that the greatest heat flows are around the ridges doesn’t do anything to distinguish between the two ideas. That was my point.
However, if the UM is correct, then I have to wonder why you don’t get a bunch of volcanoes and extra heat flow around, for instance, the Himalayas or the San Andreas fault. Plate tectonic theory explains this. If the UM does, I haven’t seen it.
“The simple point we are trying to make here is that the average continental crust is six times thicker than the average oceanic crust and numerous geology textbooks state that these crusts are floating on a liquid substance. What is that liquid substance? Is it magma? If so, we would see much more heat coming from the entire ocean floor than from the continental crust because the oceanic crust is so much thinner – but we don’t. It is a well known fact that the mean temperature gradient across ocean waters does not increase as you go deeper towards the ocean floor – rather it decreases.”
The standard geological viewpoint has been, for quite a few decades, that the lithospheric plates (which include the crust and the uppermost part of the mantle) are sitting on top of the “asthenosphere,” which is a part of the mantle that is almost all solid, but heated and pressurized to a degree that the solids deform plastically. Once again, you could have gotten this much information from the Wikipedia article on the asthenosphere. “The asthenosphere is generally solid, although some of its regions could be melted (e.g., below mid-ocean ridges).” Incidentally, you could have also gotten this from geophysicist O.M. Phillips’ 1968 book, The Heart of the Earth, which Dean Sessions cites in the UM. Check out pp. 167-168, in particular. Phillips also explains why they have known for a very long time that the crust isn’t floating on a giant pool of magma. “Yet the mantle is capable of transmitting S waves, and these cannot travel through a fluid” (The Heart of the Earth, p. 167).
So whatever you read in all those geology textbooks, you are misinterpreting it badly. Again.
“One of the quotes you use states that: “…water circulation might be an important form of heat transport near the ocean ridges. This has now been verified by the discovery of vents of very hot water near ridges and large amounts of heat are being transported by this convection or hydrothermal circulation as it is called.” This is a great quote showing exactly what the UM is saying, that on the ocean ridges where there are the most earthquakes and frictional heating taking place, we find direct evidence for not just “hydrothermal” circulation, but Hyprethermal environments, meaning heated water under pressure. Both physics and chemistry do not frequently use any word to describe this most important environment which is required to dissolve and create minerals (hy-hydro, pre-pressure, and thermal-heat). We find this environment described in Fig 8.9.2 at TAG Mound, where only 338 degrees C is needed to create Basalt, Quartz, Pyrite, Anhydrite and Surface Chalcedony (see Fig 8.14.7), when you are beneath 3,700 meters of ocean water. You need about five times this much heat to MELT these minerals without water. This is the same hyprethermal environment replicated in our autoclave (high-pressure vessel) to duplicate mineral formation, precisely as they were made in Nature (see Fig 7.4.13 p266 in UM).”
Regular geologists also think some minerals form from hydrothermal solutions under pressure. I fail to see how this shows that your false statements about heat flow are not false… especially since you seem to agree that convection of hot water is transporting heat around in the ocean crust.
“You state in your review that, “Dean Sessions says the heat flow from the oceanic crust is less than that from the continents. FALSE. He says the temperature gradients contradict the standard theory about how hot the Earth’s interior is. FALSE.” Our response to this, as any of your students can easily see from Fig 5.4.5, the actual heat flow from the Earth is not coming from the thinnest areas of the crust as Fig 5.4.4 would indicate from current geological theory, but to a greater degree from the vertical plate areas along the equator where we find the most gravitational movement and therefore the most frictional heating from the daily Earthtide movement taking place. We find it rather curious that you chose to ignore Note 5.4b (p93), which comes from the second deepest borehole in the world, the KTB German borehole, where the heat gradient was found to be 27 degrees C/km, much higher than any average oceanic crust? We also must ask if you accidently ignored, on the same page, the quote from Bib 125 p398, a highly used geology textbook in its day which states that, “Rocks such as granite are extremely poor conductors of heat. Therefore, if temperature at depth of several miles should be high, say 1000 degrees C, heat would flow out very slowly and the change in temperature for each 100 feet would be considerable.” But as additional evidence in subchapter 5.10, the Drilling Evidence, demonstrates this is NOT the case. So both your charges against Dean are incorrect; the standard geological theory of temperature gradient fails at every possible turn.”
Once again, °C/km is not a heat flow. It’s a thermal gradient. See above.
Also, are you seriously going to quote a 1939 geology textbook to illustrate current “problems” with geological theory?
“The deepest borehole in the world, on the Kola Peninsula in Russia, demonstrated that current modern geological ideas failed the most expensive drilling test ever (over a billion dollars). Don’t take our word for it read what the researchers themselves said: “Direct measurement of the temperatures in the well compels revision of ideas about the distribution and flow of heat in the earth’s interior.” (p 94, Note 5.4e) This is a nice way of saying their theoretical heat flow theories failed. Have you read all these studies on the deepest boreholes in the world? We have spent years studying them. They do not confirm the pseudotheory you are teaching in class, they contradict it. There are pages and pages of evidence against the existence of magma that you have ignored in subchapter 5.4, Magma theory Defies Heat Flow Physics, but this should be enough for the typical reader who is encouraged to read for themselves all of the actual evidence found to demonstrate that magma heat flow does not exist.”
I actually did address your “too hot too fast” argument in my article. SPOILER: Sessions forgot to factor in convection again. He also forgot to mention HOW the geologists he quoted thought they had to revise their ideas about the distribution and flow of heat inside the Earth. (My guess is that they didn’t think they had to hypothesize an ice ball in the center. They just had to figure out why the thermal gradient flattened out more in the interior. Answer: more convection than they thought.)
“Subchapter 5.5, the Accretion Theory also missed your critique, perhaps because you found it so compelling? Researchers in Scientific American (UM p97, Note 5.5c p54) state that the underlying science of impacts and impact cratering is uncertain because of its ambiguity: “The ambiguity is a sign that the underlying science is uncertain.” Uncertain? Read pages 305-470 of the UM for the most in depth, detailed and comprehensive discussion on impacting, cratering and meteorites ever assembled. Dozens of new discoveries confirm that not only does modern science not understand the cratering and meteorite making processes, but most of today’s assumptions come from the incorrect Accretion Theory, making them invalid. We are interested to hear what you have to say about the Arizona ‘Meteor’ Crater actually being the Arizona Hydrocrater. The evidence is unequivocal for any honest scientist who cannot fail to acknowledge that this crater has a diatreme beneath it (p402 in UM) – and was formed in a phreatic (steam) explosion from beneath the crater, not from a high-speed impact from above which would have resulted in a glass-lined crater with no origin for the diatreme (funnel shaped cracked rock area under the crater.)”
You mean there is “uncertainty” in the details of scientific theories about things that are supposed to have happened over 4 billion years ago at a scale that can’t be recreated in a laboratory? Anyone who would be scandalized by this doesn’t know the first thing about science. Yawn.
Oh, I almost forgot. You don’t seem to have mentioned how any of the above shows that your false statements about heat flow are not false.
“In another forum discussion on heat flow, “Another Heat Flow Gaffe for the UM,” you state that the UM says most of the “radioactive elements are most concentrated in the crust. This is wrong.” Then you say, “It’s true that the most abundant radioactive isotopes tend to concentrate most in the crust of the Earth, but that really doesn’t matter.” Yes it does matter! Your theoretical example of hot spots in the mantle has no geological reality. Only where we find fractures in the crust do we find increased temperatures as we descend in depth in the crust and this is demonstrated in many of the UM book’s chapters. The reality is that no naturally radioactive rock is hot – period! Have you held natural radioactive uranium ore as seen in Fig 5.6.1 or been to a uranium mine? There are some not far from where you live and the rocks are NOT hot. Even when uranium is artificially separated from the ore, it is NOT hot, only warm to the touch. There is ZERO evidence that any radioactive mineral could melt ANY rock in the Earth let alone the entire insides of the Earth.”
Yep, we have a whole cabinet full of uranium ore downstairs at work. Are you suggesting that radioactive decay doesn’t release heat? Because that’s how nuclear reactors work, you know. And that’s all standard geological theory requires.
Did you not understand my explanation about how an object would heat up from the outside? Because I didn’t say anything about “hot spots in the mantle,” and I specifically addressed the other stuff you say. If anything in my explanation was unclear, let me know what it is.
“Despite your claims to the contrary you have not actually explained why it is “true” that the most abundant radioactive isotopes (the supposedly heaviest) are found in the crust, and not found settling to the core of the Earth when it was molten? Why is this? Because the only easily understood answer comes from p635 in the UM, the Ore Mark, where for the first time we find direct evidence of how and why these radioactive minerals are found not deep in the crust or core of the Earth, but in diatremes, and why they were made in the Universal Flood. UM scientists have put much thought into the heat flow found in the crust of the Earth and just as there is no physical evidence for, as you say, “black hole sucking” there is also no evidence for heat or a radioactive heat source in the center of the Earth.”
I actually explained why all the uranium wouldn’t just sink to the core to Russ on your YouTube channel, but he didn’t seem to get it. But never fear! That’s actually going to be the subject of my next article, which will feature yet another example of Dean Sessions quote mining a geology book and ignoring all the surrounding text that contradicts his interpretation! Stay tuned.
[BRAIN TEASER: If you mix together some water (made of H and O) with some oil (made of C, H, and O), will all the H rise to the top because it’s the lightest element there, and all the O sink to the bottom because it’s the heaviest?]
“We will answer your “Quartz CAN Form in a Melt!” and “Earth’s Magnetic Field” posts in a later post. We do want to truly thank you for your vigorous analysis of the UM, and feel you are providing an important appraisal of the UM by helping the public see how professional geologists answer some of the most basic questions about their field of study.”
I look forward to your explanation of why you repeatedly say quartz can’t form from a melt when your sources clearly say that it can.
“One final note. On your own blog, you list “12 Bickmore Laws” which includes Bickmore’s First Law of the Box which states:</span>
“‘Thinking outside the box’ requires being capable of recognizing ‘the box.’”
“Therein lies the rub. Do you or can you realize that you are speaking to us from inside the scientific establishment box? When one such as yourself recognizes that he or she is inside ‘the box’, and that the UM offers scientific truths outside of the scientific establishment box, one will see the UM in a new light. It is the same light in which all new scientific discoveries are made – one where old worn-out paradigms are let go as new, more correct ways of seeing the Universe are revealed.”
Maybe it would be easier for me to reach that blessed state of enlightenment if you guys would stop telling untruths about modern geological theory. You know–if you could actually recognize “the box.”
ParticipantP.S. The UM Team has been pretty quiet for a while, now. Why? I don’t feel like I’m persecuting you, or anything, so why not engage with someone willing to give you competent critiques?
ParticipantThe UM (p. 97) says that radioactivity can’t be keeping the center of the Earth hotter than the surface, because radioactive elements are most concentrated in the crust. This is wrong.
It’s true that the most abundant radioactive isotopes tend to concentrate most in the crust of the Earth, but that really doesn’t matter. Suppose you have a sphere with heat sources spread throughout, but especially near the surface. Heat energy is generated, and spreads out. Some of it flows toward the surface and is radiated out into space, and some of it flows toward the center, because heat tends to flow, on average, in the direction of colder temperatures. When the heat energy gets to the center, where does it go? The only way to flow is toward the surface, but if the temperature is still warmer on the outside of the sphere, the net heat flow will still be toward the center. Therefore, the center will keep heating up until it is hotter than the outside of the sphere and heat can flow back the other way.
Think about this, UMers. If the Earth is actually colder in the center, then there must be some kind of black hole sucking heat out of there.
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