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Author Topic:   Why is uniformitarianim still taught?
PaulK
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Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 11 of 89 (87552)
02-19-2004 3:15 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Tamara
02-19-2004 1:55 PM


Re: a theory? sheesh!
By the same token "catastophism" seems to be largely limited to "Flood Geology" and strange Velikovskyan ideas (Saturn hypothesis anyone ?). It doesn't take much to see that uniformitarianism - especially as actually applied by geologists -is more reasonable than either .
And the only place where I ever see strict uniformitarianism (constancy of rate) is in YEC Young Earth arguments (magnetic field decay, recession of the moon, solar contraction....)

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 13 of 89 (87560)
02-19-2004 3:43 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by MrHambre
02-19-2004 3:33 PM


Re: Cat-astrophism
While full Ice Ages are quite rare, we have had other periods of global cooling. So glaciers are probably more "uniformitarian" than, say, earthquakes. And if uniformitaranism can live with huge volcanic eruptions like those that formed the Deccan and Siberian Traps (imagine including BOTH of those in a single year as some YECs would have to !) then glaciation - even to the extent of the Snowball Earth hypothesis is no problem.

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 30 of 89 (87699)
02-20-2004 10:34 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by Tamara
02-20-2004 10:15 AM


Re: what is kind?
The principle of attempting to explain an observation in terms of known processes rather than appealing to unique events is one of the basic principles of science (parsimony aka Occam's Razor).
So if this is your objection to uniformitarianism as it actually applies to modern geology then your objection applies to all science, not just geology.

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