Nexus - 0602 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

that usurped the tranquility of the planet in brief episodes of Let me illustrate my case by analogy. The working of a chaos. Different as these views are, we might conclude that clock is a model of uniform action. Good timekeeping means they found their origins in worlds apart. But how could they? uniformity of action. But the striking of a clock is essentially They all must have used the same data bank of geological catastrophe. and fossil evidences...after all, there is but one! Then how The hammer might be made to blow up a barrel of gun - did they separate in view and come to opposite conclusions? powder or turn on a deluge of water, and by proper arrange - In answer, Bowles quotes R. J. Campbell: ment the clock, instead of marking the hours, might strike all If the intellect were thoroughly reliable there ought to be no sorts of irregular intervals, never twice alike in the intervals, room for differences. But unfortunately it is not, so two indi - force or numbers of its blows. viduals, both intelligent and both conscientious, may form Nevertheless, all these irregular and apparently lawless diametrically opposite judgements from exactly the same catastrophes would be the result of an absolutely evidence. Uniformitarian action, and we might have two schools of If Campbell is right, and instinct assures me that he is, then per- clock theorists, one studying the hammer and the other the haps the philosophic difference between the proponents of gradual pendulum. evolution, a theory modernly coupled with Uniformitarianism, So, if uniformity and catastrophe, rather than being the antago- and those of the catastrophic Earth-changes camp, or nists that perception has separated into evolutionist and creationist Catastrophism, though seemingly worlds apart, may not be one so camps, became the new paradigm of agreement instead, what spe- much of fact as perception. Initial accep- cific action would it take to bring the tance of this as a rudimentary truth could metaphorical hammer and pendulum into ring us to a point of agreement, on one issue synchronous motion so that the pendulum, at least, that being that it should be outside of in laying out the passage of geological time, the realm of debate (as this author reminds ' is coordinated with the striking of the geo - us), there is but a single set of cultural, geo- Why, when we re graphical patterned hammer? A unification ogic and fossil evidences in existence for confronted with the theory perhaps? any of us to explore (or exploit)! There have been various attempts at unifi- That accepted as a basic truth, we can rea- overwhelming cation, but each has failed—largely, I sug- sly ak the next sep and tnd esd | geological evidence | Ss. bea natin considrsin hs remise, this being that the philosophic dif- that this insidious laws are in control of the motions of the ies sess Uniormraninn ad | galamity has destroyed | Mnnsran!kc madam. Bu conse one of interpretation. our ancestral where to look, or where to go, or what of agreement on these two issues, per civilisations on more day. theve laws remain andetined. haps we could consider a third point. than one occasion, The hammer and the pendulum para- haven't we learned the cause? For instance, isn't it true that the secur- ble that we have been discussing here, able evidences, once limited by geo- so that we keep it fresh in our minds, is graphical barriers and the austere nature about the Earth sciences. We are talk- of the investigative tools, have changed ing about the formation of continents, dramatically since geological investiga- of mountains, of the re-establishment tions turned serious in the 18th century, of stagnant rivers to their primeval a time when Uniformitarianism was heights. We are talking about earth- born? If we concede this point, would- quakes, volcanoes and the Earth's mag- n't it then be incumbent upon us to take netic field. We are talking about cata- on the proverbial reptilian character of shedding old coats that are strophic episodes that have churned the crust into a menagerie of no longer useful? Shouldn't we begin to give serious considera- the dead. We are noting the fact that nothing is original; every tion to closing the drawer on old scientific paradigms and move particle of the Earth's crust has been recycled. The evidence is so on in favour of new ones that better explain the evidence? pervasive that its very presence is proof in itself of catastrophe. These 'facts' or ‘perception queries’ are not new to this article. There can be but scant debate on this issue, for the entire They were originally submitted by the most noted of all authori- expanse of the crust's upper layers, top to bottom, side to side, is ties on this matter, the very same British biologist who gave up one huge graveyard. The remains, which number in the tens of his own biological research to champion Darwin's theory of evo- millions, are interspersed in the tundras of the North, the caves lution: Professor Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1879). So, in and fissures of the mid-latitudes, and the sedimentary rock of the acknowledging the impeccable credentials of this most noted sci- continental and ocean basins—fossilised and unfossilised, bone entist, I humbly submit that few modern-day biologists or Earth and tissue, human and animal. There are seashells buried on science researchers would likely withhold agreement with the pro- mountain-tops and trees standing upright on the ocean floor. fessor, who, in 1869, addressed the Geological Society with the There have been crustal fissure openings of such dimension that proposition that catastrophe was part and parcel with uniformity. the hot magmas flowed so freely as to cover thousands of square Huxley wrote: miles of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in the United States with To my mind there appears to be no sort of theoretical antago - lava hundreds of feet thick, in a region called Columbia Plateau. nism between Catastrophism and Uniformitarianism; on the The lava floods of India, known as the Deccan Traps, spilled an contrary, it is very conceivable that catastrophes may be a incredible 480,000 cubic miles of lava across the Earth. Another, part and parcel of uniformity. twice the size of Alaska and over 25 miles thick, called the Why, when we're confronted with the overwhelming geological evidence that this insidious calamity has destroyed __our ancestral than one occasion, haven't we learned the cause? NEXUS - 45 civilisations on more FEBRUARY — MARCH 1999