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off the Yucatén Peninsula, Mexico, i.e., 65 million years old, is in close proximity to an oil-producing region; * the Indonesian Archipelago, which is one of the most mobile zones of the Earth; oil is produced in many parts. None of the above-listed regions has significant sedimentary formations which could act as "source rocks" or even "host rocks". What they do have in common is the fact that they are highly mobile parts of the Earth's crust or are close to structures which penetrate deep into the inner parts of the globe. It would seem reasonable to assume that these structures provide for channelways along which oil, which is forming constantly in the equilibration of the inner parts of the Earth, escapes to the surface. The "connection" of crude oil with life, it seems reasonable to argue in this light, is entirely different from what is currently assumed: oil does not form from life, but the hydrocarbons from the inner parts of the globe support life in the deep, hot biosphere! Real scientists use terminology in order to define precisely the more fickle aspects of their work, while the "cash and carry" scientific enterprise of modern times uses terminology to exclude unwanted outsiders who could possibly upset the paradigms. Peer review of academic publications used to be self-censoring to exclude methodologically unsound research from the literature. Of late it ensures that the paradigms are adhered to, and this introduces an entirely different kind of censorship. The consensus of the learned elders of whatever scientific discipline regarding the permitted results of research stifles the progress of science. A case in point: rapid progress "happens" in fields like information technology or genetic engineering—disciplines so new that they have neither a paradigm nor ethical guidelines to keep them sliding from bottomless immorality into criminality. Seieteditea debi hydrocarbons from the inner parts of the globe support life in THE END OF OIL? the deep, hot biosphere! At this point, this essay comes full circle. By calling oil "fossil fuel", a "macro" is working on the cognitive faculties of people BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE who are "empowered" by the combustion of hydrocarbons. As a "hard-rock" exploration geologist for over a quarter of a Anything "fossil" is by definition finite, and when the oil industry century, the author has worked on five continents and has had continues to presage "the End of Oil" it surreptitiously massages innumerable opportunities to discuss the mind of the "power-hungry" per- the matter with oil geologists over son on the street. The closer the distilled hydrocarbons. Most of these "finite" resource of "fossil fuel" gets discussions ended in shouting The presently en vogue to its predicted "end", the easier it is matches and ad hominem attacks. Not paradigm of "oil formation" is to justify a turning of the price spi- one of the above-cited arguments has ral. In this way, the individual is ever been considered as relevant to little more than an apodictic tricked into unquestioningly accept- the matter under discussion. This is religious dogma. The voicing of ing any price at the pump, while reminiscent of the line which the Pope entire nations see nothing wrong in followed when it came to "the Passion any doubt as to its veracity IS simply going on the warpath to of the Christ": "It was as it was"! tantamount to professional ensure they remain "powerful". The presently en vogue paradigm of oo "8 The history of the 20th century "oil formation" is little more than an suicide for oil industry could be rewritten in terms of all the apodictic religious dogma. The professionals... wars having been simply the means voicing of any doubt as to its veracity to the end of getting at the quantities is tantamount to professional suicide of oil required to keep "develop- for oil industry professionals; ridicule ment" of the world going at the most is dished out to other scientists and distasteful remarks are profitable pace. My article titled "Big Oil and the War on Drugs reserved for all those who have no "special knowledge". and Terrorism" [NEXUS, vol. 11, no. 4] outlined an alternative This is reminiscent of the tactics of the Propaganda Minister of | way of stringing together the military conflicts of the last century. the Third Reich, Dr Josef Goebbels, who elevated the working While the high and mighty were simply ordering their subjects nowledge of bricklayers to an art form: "The harder you throw —_ into World War I, the Second World War was the result of mass: the plaster, the better it will stick!" As regards the paradigm of oil hysteria and brutal manipulation. After the first round of whole- formation this then reads: "The bolder the lie, the more credible it sale mass slaughter, the world said "Never again!", but 20 years is!" later the "Fuehrers" of mankind proved to have the historical German philosopher Professor Jiirgen Habermas demands all memory capacity of the common fruit fly. As "effective" as the articipants in intellectual discourse to possess "participant League of Nations was after World War I in assuring that there nowledge".” In doing so, he deprives the majority of mankind would be no next global war, the United Nations organisation of one of its most fundamental rights: to have a say in formed at the end of World War II was similarly useless. What it existentially important matters. When Thomas Kuhn (cf. endnote achieved in effect was that the founders of both these institutions 15) "installed" the concept of paradigms by way of a "macro" (a were able to retain their economy on a war footing continuously materialised algorithm) into the software of modern thinking, he by "regulating" the arms (usage) industry. effectively did for academia what Habermas did for mankind in When entire nations get herded into the boxcars of trains head- general: issue everybody with a "gag order"! ing for oblivion in modern times, as always there is "sound scien- In this way, academia is dumbed down, just like the general tific evidence" produced to justify even the most outrageous public is said to be too stupid to possibly be able to understand _actions. In 1956, Shell geologist M. King Hubbert predicted (cor- "science". By telling everybody to mind their own business, rectly as it turned out) that US oil production would peak in the academia is just as brutally divided into mental cages as mankind early 1970s and then begin to decline. Was the political reality a so flies in the face of the democratic principles. coincidence? The 1973 war over Palestine let the oil price climb ists (the ones "in the know") advise elected into the lofty regions that made the exploitation of the recently officials on policy. In effect, many existentially fundamental discovered vast oil reserves in the North Sea a viable proposition. matters are decided totally undemocratically. * K. S. Deffeyes did similar work to that of Hubbert on global oil The presently en vogue paradigm of "oil formation" is little more than an apodictic religious dogma. The voicing of any doubt as to its veracity is tantamount to professional suicide for oil industry a Se oe be NEXUS = 37 professionals... AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2004 www.nexusmagazine.com