Uniformitarianism, A Piss Poor Science Assumption
Scientists make a lot of assumptions to come to the conclusions they do. Stephen Hawking calls some of his assumptions "ideological". In order to come to the conclusions scientists do they have to make assumptions to fill in holes. Some of these assumptions may be perfectly valid but there are some that are piss poor, like uniformitarianism. Let me try to explain why....
What is Uniformitarianism?
In order for me to explain what I think this is a piss poor assumption I need to explain what it is. According to Yahoo! Education uniformitarianism is, "in geology, doctrine holding that changes in the earth's surface that occurred in past geologic time are referable to the same causes as changes now being produced upon the earth's surface." What does this mean? According to Yahoo, "It required an immensely long period of time for the consummation of geological processes..."
Basically, this says that over long periods the same processes that cause change in the Earth today did the same in the past. This is the opposite of catastrophism where there are huge events (e.g., floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions) that shaped the Earth.
Why Is Uniformitarianism Piss Poor?
Uniformitarianism is a piss poor assumption because the evidence does not support it. There is both scientific and historical evidence against it. There are Earth changing events that have happened in the past and still happen these days that show this to be wrong. Let me try to give an example to illustrate this.
Let's look at Surtsey Island. This is a volcanic Island that started popping up in 1963. In 1964 Sigurdur Thorarinsson, the official Icelandic geologist, wrote:
‘An Icelander who has studied geology and geomorphology at foreign universities is later taught by experience in his own homeland that the time scale he had been trained to attach to geological developments is misleading when assessments are made of the forces—constructive and destructive—which have molded and are still molding the face of Iceland. What elsewhere may take thousands of years may be accomplished here in one century. All the same he is amazed whenever he comes to Surtsey, because the same development may take a few weeks or even days here.
‘On Surtsey, only a few months sufficed for a landscape to be created which was so varied and mature that it was almost beyond belief. During the summer of 1964 and the following winter we not only had a lava dome with a glowing lava lake in a summit crater and red-hot lava flows rushing down the slopes, increasing the height of the dome and transforming the configuration of the island from one day to another. Here we could also see wide sandy beaches and precipitous crags lashed by the breakers of the sea. There were gravel banks and lagoons, impressive cliffs … There were hollows, glens and soft undulating land. There were fractures and faultscarps, channels and screes … You might come to a beach covered with flowing lava on its way to the sea with white balls of smoke rising high up in the air. Three weeks later you might come back to the same place and be literally confounded by what met your eye. Now, there were precipitous lava cliffs of considerable height, and below them you would see boulders worn by the surf, some of which were almost round, on an abrasion platform cut into the cliff, and further out there was a sandy beach where you could walk at low tide without getting wet.’
These days there are over 30 species of plant life on the island, birds, and marine life like seals residing there. This goes against uniformitarianism because according to uniformitarianism this would have taken a very long times yet we see it happening in a very short time. Observation shows a much shorter time line than
uniformitarianism allows.
Why Is This Important?
This is important to understand because uniformitarianism is one of the assumptions of the sciences that study the past. Sciences like geology, astronomy, and paleontology. If uniformitarianism isn't how things happened then we need to reevaluate some of our scientific beliefs. As wikipedia puts it, "Uniformitarianism is one of the most basic principles of modern geology..." If it's this is not the case then many conclusions put out by geologists are not the truth.
We need to not just look at what the scientists are reporting but look at their ideals and assumptions. Some, like this one, are not proven but assumptions that shape the conclusions they report to us. Do we agree with their conclusions? Do we agree with their assumptions that formed their conclusions? If we don't agree with their assumptions we most certainly cannot agree with their conclusions based on those assumptions.
Comments
#1 At first, I thought perhaps
At first, I thought perhaps your problem was relying on Yahoo!Education for your info - but no, Yahoo gave a perfectly adequate description of uniformitarianism. Very simply, it's the idea that the landscape we see today was created via the same processes we see today.
You seemed to have a handle on it, right up until you said: "This is the opposite of catastrophism where there are huge events (e.g., floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions) that shaped the Earth."
I'm sure you've been busy living in your bubble, but I thought you should know that we see floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions occurring today - making them part of uniformitarianism, not evidence against.
For further reference, this is the SAME BASIC PATTERN to a number of religious stabs at science: you are making fallacious logical jumps ('uniformitarianism implies long periods of time were required to create modern landscapes, therefore anything that can be proven to have occurred quickly refutes uniformitarianism') then using those incorrect assumptions (you know, the things you're rallying against?) to make equally incorrect and funnily hypocritical conclusions (like: "Uniformitarianism, A Piss Poor Science Assumption.")
#2 uniformitarianism isn't the truth
Uniformitarianism isn't the truth. There are major events that happen which reshape the landscape. Now, I am not saying there are periods of slow change with periodic large scale events. But, periods of slow change with large scale events periodically happening is not uniformitarianism.
Lets take a look at 2 things. Go back to the example I gave. According to uniformitarianism what took a few years as we viewed it happen should have taken hundreds under the idea of uniformitarianism.
Then, we have the idea of volcanos erupting, floods happening, and earth quakes on a large scale. How do we reconcile historically recorded events with uniformitarianism? We don't. We say they are myth. How about a world wide flood. It is recorded in the history of China, India, the Greeks, Hebrews, Babylonians, Aztec, Inca, Mayan, and over 100 other tribes/civilizations around the world. On every populated continent there is the history of the great flood.
Yet, it doesn't hold with uniformitarianism so we call it myth.
Now, I am not taking religious stabs against science. The idea the Christianity and science are incompatible is not true. We approach science with certain ideologies. Some with the idea there is not God and others with the idea there is a creator. These ideologies point us in our view of the information and evidence at hand. If we look at geology with the idea there was a flood and if we look at it saying there was no catastrophic event like that the information will direct us to very different conclusions.
I would like to see science look at things from alternative ideologies and talk about it from more than one point of view more often. There are scientists who study flood geology, for example. To examine it and talk about it from just the popular ideology closes the door on other conclusions that might just be the truth. Isn't science the search for the truth? Not a justification of our ideologies.
#3 A Canyon in 6 Days
I was digging around for other fast geological things that formed in a short time and came across Burlingame Canyon near Walla Walla, Washington. It was formed in 6 days.
More at: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v24/i4/canyon.asp. Some may debate the conclusions made in the article but the canyon being made in 6 days is something historically record.
#4 Fair warning, I wrote a
Fair warning, I wrote a whole NOVEL in response - and I didn't even get to address Surtsey, Burlingame, Niagra Falls, or that HUGE claim you made about the Great Flood evidence. If you're interested, I'll novelize on them tomorrow =P
The post can be summed up pretty quickly: You had an incorrect interpretation of uniformitarianism, so all your conclusions were wrong, including/especially the ones where you accuse scientists of ignoring evidence of the great flood because they "look at it saying there was no catastrophic event like that."
The long version follows =)
#5 I obviously didn't do a good
I obviously didn't do a good job of getting my point across last time - but your reply emphasized the problem nicely.
"But, periods of slow change with large scale events periodically happening is not uniformitarianism," is not a true statement That IS uniformitarianism. I'm not sure where you got the idea that uniformitarianism fails to incorporate large-scale catastrophic events. The Yahoo! site isn't as clear as it perhaps ought to be, but it does conclude that modern scientists support the idea that the modern landscape was created by the same forces we see in the present (erosion, sediment transport, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and the like.)
For a better article, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism_(science) - there's a line that addresses this exact misperception: "Note, however, that many "catastrophic" events are perfectly compatible with uniformitarianism. For example, Charles Lyell thought that ordinary geological processes would cause Niagara Falls to move upstream to Lake Erie within 10000 years, leading to catastrophic flooding of a large part of North America."
Taking as much geogeek out of it as possible, think of it like this: catastrophism was the idea that the current landscape was formed in big jumps by big events like earthquakes and floods - but that doesn't mean that they didn't 'believe' that rivers carried sediment. Similarly, uniformitarianism implies a long period of time during which current processes formed many of the landscapes features, but that doesn't in any way ignore or eliminate the occurrance of large-scale short-term catastrophies like floods, earthquakes, and meteor impacts - hell, we've even gotten to watch the latter on our home TVs!
Anyway, your chief complaint was that we use this as an assumption - but I should be able to take a little weight off your back. As it is actually used in geology (except for internet debating, anyway) the principle of uniformitarianism is better summed up as "The present is the key to the past." It keeps us looking for processes we know actually happen, and knowing how the processes work in the present help us find patterns that explain evidence from the past. It's no big evil, and it doesn't rule anything out - it just reminds us to look for that simple answer.
I find it interesting that you latched onto the same erroneous complaint - that uniformitarianism sounds like it discounts events like the Biblical flood - as people did when discounting the initial theory two hundred years ago. I also think it's interesting that you held onto that inaccurate interpretation even after I said "we see floods, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions occurring today - making them part of uniformitarianism, not evidence against." I was especially amused that you followed that up with what sounded like an accusation that I was just 'justifying my ideology.'
For the record, if you actually want to hear folks debate the parts of geology that aren't set in stone (pardon the pun) stop in at a bar near a geology conference. If you want to see people come to blows over their particular theories, try a paleo conference.
Scientists debate evidence all the time - but real scientists don't normally bother to debate stuff like this, because it's not really debate, it's just education, and they'd much rather do real research or drink beer than try to educate folks who are just fishing for ways to feed their confirmation bias.
I'm proud. I didn't once call any of your assumptions piss poor. ::sigh:: Well, I almost didn't anyway.
#6 history
Thank you for your comments. Maybe I didn't explain my thinking well enough before. So, this might be a little long but I hope it clears things up.
You are right when you say that the current view is uniformitarianism allows for large scale events. But, that hasn't always been the case. In order to understand uniformitarianism we need to look at the history of it. Going back to the wikipedia article you quoted it says, "In recent decades, the theory of uniformitarianism has been modified to reflect the discovery that catastrophic events occur today and have occurred in the Earth's past." Catastrophic events have not always been taken into account. When geology work was being done as the foundation of our modern geology work 50, 100, and more years in the past when they looked at things thought uniformitarianism eyes were not allowing for catastrophic events. The view I was taught in school, not to long ago, did not allow for catastrophic events.
Looking at a definition is one thing. Looking at the history, how it's taught to people, and what the belief was when the geology work was done tells us a much different story than just the definition.
You described it better than me when you said it means, "The present is the key to the past." Yet, I can't signup for this ideal. Not it the way we use it. For example, the Earths magnetic field used to be much stronger than it is now. Even a century ago it was stronger. The Earths magnetic field protects us from solar radiation. If it were near nothing or many times stronger the environment on the Earth would be very different and change would not happen as it does today. Our view of the outputs from the process happening on the planet would be different than they are now because inputs to those processes would be different.
Now, I said not in the way we use them because when we think about the same processes we think about the same things happening. That temperature, erosion, and other factors are the same or similar to how they are now. This is how I constantly see it taught in writing and on science TV shows. This is how it was taught to me in school. The present may give us insight to the past but calling it the "key" is giving to it much credit in how it gets used.
I know that scientists at bars around conferences debate a lot of science. I have been at the bar with scientists when they are debating. It can be fun to watch. I have not had the luxury of doing this with geologists. But, the one thing I don't hear very often in the conversations of scientists is ideology. Our ideologies shape the ideas we have about what we view. The evidence doesn't speak for itself. It speaks to us in light of our ideologies. Our ideologies is something they should debate. Changing ideological assumptions changes the conclusions drawn about the same information. We should look at everything from more than one view and see what it gives us. Sadly, these discussions don't happen often enough and when people challenge the ideological view that's popular with the group rather than honestly re-evaluation the info based on a changed ideology they defend their own.
We need to continue our discussions on science but we also need to include ideological views with them.
#7 One more time...
Dang...I was just hoping you were gonna write "piss poor" one more time. It would have set a world record!
#8 Well, we're moving towards
Well, we're moving towards that middle ground - my apologies for my wordiness.
I think you're still missing the point - since its conception, the ONLY people who purported that uniformitarianism did not incorporate catostrophic events were religious folks MISINTERPRETING the principle. Over the years, as scientific evidence acrued for huge periods of volcanism, impacts, climatic instability, those complaints quieted because even folks who wanted to cling to that "Godless Scientist" view had to admit that they were obviously incorporating catastrophies into their theories.
"...what the belief was when the geology work was done tells us a much different story than just the definition." Well, as I have now said three different times, uniformitarianism as it was used in science has NEVER DISCOUNTED the occurrance of catastrophic events. As I bolded above, one of the original Uniformitarianists, Lyell, believed that North America would 'soon' be catastrophically flooded.
Regardless, I think you also have a skewed understanding of how scientific research occurs - it's not as though there was work done in the 18th century, and then work done in the 19th century, and work done in the 20th century, and that all we look at now are rocks discovered in the past 6 years. You can look at particular papers and see how their historical perspective colored their conclusions - but we don't just use their conclusions, we use their DATA. Of course they believed things we know better than to believe now! That's been the case since the beginning of things! That doesn't make their observations any less valid. It means we need to use their data, along with all the other data since, and put out our own conclusions. Next generation, scientists will use ours to do the same.
I would like to know where you went to school and when. I find it completely unbelievable that your earth science and similar classes taught that geologic history was devoid of catastrophic events. That has NEVER, EVER been an accepted idea. Seriously. Please, tell me the years you went to school and your state, and I'll see if I have any of the textbooks used. I'm calling bullshit.
I agree that ideologies should be discussed - but not that they have any role in the scienctific process. I have had some very religious instructors and colleagues, and there have been other agnostics like me. We've had some interesting campfire discussions, but it doesn't play into our scientific research, because part of the scientific method is limiting your inputs to data, rather than ideology.
#9 please stop
This in in reference to not just this comment but your following 2 after this one. Please stop with the insults, bashing, name calling, and belittling. They add nothing to the conversation, are rude, disrespectful, and reflect poorly on your character. If you continue with that attitude I will stop this conversation.
My college was Michigan State. I, also, learned a bunch in High School which is the equivalent education that most of America has on this. I am attempting to talk to what people learn as of high school as that is where most people are on this.
I have seen this in videos, know a couple teachers who represent it this way (high school level), and seen it on TV (I saw something a few days ago with a geologist that represented the rock layers based on the view I wrote about. I have over 300 channels and I can't tell you what channel hardly anything is on anymore).
As for views on this your agnostic view gives just as much bias on the conclusion of the information as my God view. You have agnostic goggles and I have God goggles. Both give a bias of equal level on the information. If anyone says they have no bias they are not being honest. We all have a bias. The atheists, the agnostics, the Christians, the Hindus, the Muslims, and the deists all have a bias on how they view science. No one is capable of removing themselves from the biases they have. So, when we view the information thought just one set of goggles we are associating all of those biases with the conclusion that comes out. We cannot escape our biases and that's ok. But, we have to admit them. Hawking, for example, admits some of the assumptions he makes are ideological. He has biases based on his ideology that directly affect what comes out in his theories. But, he admits them.
#10 one last bit for the morning
Also, for the record, the idea "The present is the key to the past" does not mean that we don't think certain things (like the magnetic field - there is a whole FIELD in geology dedicated to looking at how it's changed over time and how we can use that to wring additional information out of rocks) have changed over time - you keep attributing things to the principle that I think you've just pulled out of your arse!
I think you'd be best off thinking of uniformitarianism as just the acknowledgement that not everything we see can be explained by catastrophic events, as had been the prevailing theory up to that point. We're not talking about black and white, all or nothing - scientists never were, even if folks like you have always thought so.
#11 perhaps not one last bit
I hadn't noticed this line before, but I re-read your last post and saw, "That temperature, erosion, and other factors are the same or similar to how they are now. This is how I constantly see it taught in writing and on science TV shows."
I ask again, where did you go to school? What TV shows are you watching? These things you treat as facts just AREN'T! We have LOTS of evidence that temperature has changed quite a lot over Earth's history - did they really never talk about ice ages in ANY of your classes or on ANY of your TV shows? Do you not watch Pixar? There are MANY variables that change erosion rates, and many of THOSE variables have always been changing as well.
At first, I thought you'd be a fun person to explain this stuff to, because I don't get to talk about rocks nearly enough, and I figured you couldn't be a total idiot, being an electrical engineer and all. Unfortunately, you seem to have a really, really thick set of God Goggles, and I think maybe all the IQ points in the world can't make you see things that you don't want to see.
#12 I will stop, but I hope you
I will stop, but I hope you realize that you are being willfully ignorant of scientific facts because you WANT to be. You apparently listen to scientific discussion and only carry away the parts that don't interfere with your ideologies.
There are lots of things up for debate in science - they are continually being debated. occasionally new evidence crops up that doesn't match our predictions, and the theories have to accommodate those new observations. The things you wish to debate ARE ideological - you are attacking a strawman of one of our basic scientific principles, as many have done before you. I made the mistake of thinking you wanted the truth. I'll trouble you no more.
#13 I am not...
Karen,
I did not ask you to stop commenting but to stop being disrespectful. You are welcome to comment and as long as you can show respect.
I am not ignorant of science and what it says. What I accept are the assumptions and ideologies that go along with that. They shape and form the conclusions that comes from scientists. And, there are many I don't agree with. When you change the ideologies you change the assumptions based on the ideologies. With changed assumptions the conclusions that fall out are not the same. I accept this. I know this. And when we don't accept this we are missing valuable insight into science, the conclusions drawn by scientists, and the world around us.
#14 Soap Oprea Much?
Soap Oprea Much?