Earth Centrism = Geocentrism. Seriously ?

This was inspired by a conversation I had at CFI forum.

"Since you still sound confused about what I’m trying to enunciate, allow me to review what the term “Earth Centrism” actually means.

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That video is almost a year old, the following post started over at the Center For Inquiry discussion Forum but since it provides me such a splendid opportunity to try and get through, I'm using it as a seed for the following clarification.  If you’re still confused please leave a question or serious comment, I’ll be happy to respond. 

W4U remarks:  “You may want to be careful with that analogy.  I’m not certain what you mean by that. And here is the reason why. “Geocentrism - Crackpot Theory?” ”  

{Playing Devil’s Advocate my long time CFI pal offers up this bizarre YouTube video, “Geocentrism - Crackpot Theory?” between a fatima.org guy, Chris Ferrara interviewing Robert Sungenis, whom I had to look up.  He’s known for being into “Catholic apologetics”.  

In others, words a god fearing religious guy - ergo, someone consumed within his Mindscape.  

Pageant of Earth's Evolution (in 24hr) part two

Since my introduction was so long I posted it separately.

FourCornersFreePress, December 2019

In the first half of this look at Earth’s 4.6 billion year old pageant of Evolution, scaled down to 24 hours, Earth’s first enduring Life took about 4 hours to claw together an existence within very tiny, very simple, very protective sacks, against an extremely harsh environment.

After that, Evolution progressed very slowly.  Why?  Because Earth’s hostile environment provided limited means, this stifled further development.  Which brings us to a key early scientific breakthrough in perspective, namely that an organism cannot be understood without also understanding the environment it lives within.

Pageant of Earth's Evolution (in 24hr) part one

A nice thing about having my own blog is that I get to do what I want and since I've finally completed the big project I assigned myself this past summer - I'm going to repost the first half of my Pageant of Evolution in 24 hours before sharing the finale in the next post.  

Four Corners Free Press, August 2019

In last month’s celebration of Earth’s Pageant of Evolution I touched on the interplay of tectonics, geochemistry and archaic life. The intimate love-making of Earth's geology and biology - to put it poetically rather than scientifically. 

Getting back to the science, scientists have learned about the why and how of various ocean bottom structures that provide the catalyst between geochemistry and biochemistry, by helping bind basic molecules into complex organic building blocks of life.

This month to convey the immensity of Deep Time I’m scaling down Earth’s 4.6 billion years to 24 hours. A billion years take 5 hours plus change, 3.2 million years tick by every minute. Our human story fits into Earth’s past 4-5 seconds. Imagine that. 

Pageant of Earth's Evo part two... TAKE ONE

I've got this lit it up like a Christmas tree with hotlinks to a variety of relevant articles, videos and such.  All of it accessible to any interested person without much previous understanding, while offering some great information to the initiated as well. For a look at part one link here.

I'm happy to report I regrouped and revisited the challenge and after some more work, I  finished a version that I'm satisfied with and that comes in <1,000 words.  I'll be posting it early December

Four Corners Free Press, December 2019

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In the first part of this look at Earth’s 4.6 billion year old pageant of Evolution, scaled down to 24 hours, Earth’s first enduring Life took 4 hours to claw together an existence within very tiny, very simple, very protective sacks, against an extremely hostile environment.  

It took another 17 hours worth of Earth’s geology and biology combining forces to process and tame Earth’s raw materials to the point that descendants of those simple cells, which had been evolving new skills all along, had an environment with the proper conditions (ocean, atmosphere, chemistry, nutrients, climatic conditions, tectonics), to enable spectacular expansion and innovations.

Pageant of Earth's Evolution (in 24hr) part one

Four Corners Free Press, August 2019

In last month’s celebration of Earth’s Pageant of Evolution I touched on the interplay of tectonics, geochemistry and archaic life. The intimate love-making of Earth's geology and biology - to put it poetically rather than scientifically. 

Getting back to the science, scientists have learned about the why and how of various ocean bottom structures that provide the catalyst between geochemistry and biochemistry, by helping bind basic molecules into complex organic building blocks of life.

This month to convey the immensity of Deep Time I’m scaling down Earth’s 4.6 billion years to 24 hours. A billion years take 5 hours plus change, 3.2 million years tick by every minute. Our human story fits into Earth’s past 4-5 seconds. Imagine that. 

Pageant of Evolution (3), Earth's Evolution in 24 hours (#a)

Here’s my third Pageant of Evolution, Four Corners Free Press column, again I couldn’t avoid starting back at the beginning, but this time it feels like I’ve gotten the solid footing that was evading me previously.  I admit I don’t feel particularly pleased with the first and second, but I do like this third essay and look forward to seeing how well I manage to finish the story of our Earth’s Pageant of Evolution.

My next column will continue into the Metazoic and Cenozoic when Life started utilizing all the resources and potential that Earth had spent all those billions of years processing and developing.  The period that highlights how much environment and climate dictates how Life evolves and who thrives or dies.

Four Corners Free Press, August 2019

In last month’s celebration of Earth’s Pageant of Evolution I touched on the interplay of tectonics, geochemistry and archaic life. The intimate love-making of Earth's geology and biology - to put it poetically rather than scientifically. 

Getting back to the science, scientists have learned about the why and how of various ocean bottom structures that provide the catalyst between geochemistry and biochemistry, by helping bind basic molecules into complex organic building blocks of life.

This month to convey the immensity of Deep Time I’m scaling down Earth’s 4.6 billion years to 24 hours. A billion years take 5 hours plus change, 3.2 million years tick by every minute. Our human story fits into Earth’s past 4-5 seconds. Imagine that. 

Pageant of Evolution (2), geological rearranging.

Here's my second Pageant of Evolution column, of course as I've said before I never finish projects I simply meet deadlines.  So it is that the version I'm sharing has gone through some more edits since the one that appeared at the Four Corners Free Press.  I'll be following this post with more highlighted video lectures by real sciences who will supply real substance behind this enthusiast's overview of Earth's magnificent Evolution.

(click image for better view)

Last month’s Four Corners Free Press column left off with Earth looking like a snowball roughly seven hundred million years ago.  In fact, there were a number of snowball epochs in Earth’s past, though most didn’t actually have glaciers growing all the way to the equator.  For this column those specifics make little difference since my point is mainly to introduce folks to the marvelous dynamics of Earth’s Evolution.  More exacting details are easy to find on the internet.

Pageant of Evolution (1), the warm up.

(click for better view)

A couple month's ago I was feeling guilty for not submitted anything to the Four Corners Free Press in a while.  Also I'd been all involved in that filthy downer job of sorting through Jim Steele's "What's Natural?" deceptions and I needed something positive.

So, with days to go before deadline, I decided to write about the Pageant of Evolution.  I cheated by rewriting the evolution pitch off this blog.  I though it would be a cinch since I think about Evolution a lot anyways.

During those days (and since) I tapped into a wonderful vain of scientific lectures on YouTube regarding latest findings in "origins" research, as well as the Evolution process in general to help refresh my memory and to get my creative juices flowing.

Instead I wound up chagrined and annoyed by how out of date I'd allowed myself to get.  But as they say, the project is never finished you only meet deadlines.  So even as I was summiting this column, I knew I had to give it another shot.  I'm sharing this Pageant of Evolution #1 because I want to explore my own learning process and the development, dare I say evolution, of my understanding.  Sharing the agony of defeat, along with the joy of victory and constructive learning.

Besides being chagrined, I was thinking of times I'd referred to myself as a student of climate science and now feeling mighty silly about that conceit.  I may be a genuine "Student of Life" but I'm no scholar, no "Student" - I come to realize, to appreciate, that I'm a self-taught "Enthusiast," a lover, a poet, Earth and life are a stage and experiencing it is my game - with science being my clearest path to better understanding my observations.

A real student of science possesses a discipline, a focus and sticktoitiveness I can't muster.  I'm like a happy puppy dog were every new scent is a fascinating adventure.  Though at 64, a creakier puppy for sure, oh but what a collection of experiences and learning.

Psalm1Tree, no Geologic Column??? William Smith

Psalm1Tree: "Fossils are jumbled, in no pattern whatsoever.”

 Have you met William Smith?

William Smith's Map, completed 1815, decades in the making.

https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/8000/8733/strata_england_wales_1815.jpg

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This post is my 2nd 'footnote' for an upcoming essay inspired by Psalm1Tree on YouTube, who possesses a fervent rejection of evolution and who preaches that the "Geologic Column" doesn't exist.  But who won't stick around to hear the answers to his challenges.  The first post was about James Hutton.

“There never was a Devonian period, just as there never was a Cambrian, Jurassic, Triassic etc. period.  That's because there never was a Geologic Column.  That is a 19th century construct that has no data whatsoever to support it."

No data?  Seriously?  Has Psalm ever looked?  I ask because it’s easy to track down when our understanding started in the late 1700s. That’s when a handful of curious observant individuals struggled to make sense of what they saw laid out across their country.  In my previous post I shared James Hutton's legacy.  Here I introduce another leading pioneer, William Smith a colorful mapper of coal mines, a canal, railway and road surveyor, a man who spent a life time dedicated to comprehending the landscape and creating the first modern geologic map that visually distilled hundreds (soon to be thousands) of land surveys into a form all could learn to read and comprehend at a glance.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoUf1-_Lp54

British Geological Survey

From all I've read, William Smith was a might saltier than this nice gent. Still a good summation.

Psalm1Tree, no Geologic Column??? James Hutton

Have you met James Hutton?

James Hutton: 1726-1797 - Discovery of Deep-Time 

Theory of the Earth (1785)

This post is my 1st 'footnote' for an upcoming essay inspired by Psalm1Tree on YouTube, who possesses a fervent rejection of evolution and who foolishly preaches that the "Geologic Column" doesn't exist.

“There never was a Devonian period, just as there never was a Cambrian, Jurassic, Triassic etc. period.  That's because there never was a Geologic Column.  That is a 19th century construct that has no data whatsoever to support it. ... Fossils are jumbled, in no pattern whatsoever.”

No data?  Seriously?  Has Psalm ever looked?  I ask because it’s easy to track down when our understanding started in the late 1700s. That’s when a handful of curious observant individuals struggled to make sense of what they saw laid out across their country.  In particular there was James Hutton the geologist, physician, farmer, canal builder who spent decades trying to understand the varied, sometimes downright bizarre rock exposures and landscapes throughout England and beyond.  

Open University BBC S236 Ep 1 of 16 James Hutton

Pruitt - life and mineral co-evolution made our atmosphere, Dr. Hazen

I mentioned this talk at the end of my previous post and have decided to share the entire talk followed by notes, since (besides being fascinating) it provides more depth to our understanding of Earth's evolution - a necessary ingredient for appreciating today's geophysical processes, and their transformation over time.  Here we look at the intimate relationship between life and mineral and geological evolution.  It provides an essential prerequisite for a clear understanding of our atmosphere and the Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine that sustains our lives.  

Dr. Robert Hazen, Carnegie Institution for Science, Geophysical Laboratory

Published on Jul 29, 2014 - CarnegieInstitution - 57:29 minutes 

The story of Earth is a 4.5-billion-year saga of dramatic transformations, driven by physical, chemical, and—based on a fascinating growing body of evidence—biological processes. The co-evolution of life and rocks, the new paradigm that frames this lecture, unfolds in an irreversible sequence of evolutionary stages. Each stage re-sculpted our planet's surface, each introduced new planetary processes and phenomena, and each inexorably paved the way for the next. This grand and intertwined tale of Earth's living and non-living spheres is only now coming into focus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08EaPC0zetw

Pruitt about our atmosphere. In the beginning.

At the root of Republican (and Pruitt’s) inability to understand our global climate engine and what we are doing to it, is their shallow perception of our planet.  To them our “environment” and “biosphere” are abstract concepts with the depth of a post card to their minds.

It requires a serious understanding of and appreciation for these past four and half billion years of dynamic evolution unfolding one day after another before you can hope to understand what’s happening to our atmosphere and what it promises for our future.

Here we consider very deep-time, the first four billion years of Earth’s evolution.  Earth, birth of the global ocean, fundamental geo-physical mechanisms falling into place, such as the geomagnetic field, plate tectonics, continent formations, dim sun, near moon, massive global tides, the dance between mineral evolution and primitive life, the dance between life and our evolving atmosphere.  

These are prerequisites for understanding our global heat and moisture distribution engine. 

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I start with a short video that helps put the notion of deep time into perspective.  Then a lucid introductory lecture from an excellent speaker, Professor Julie Ferguson, discussing our atmosphere’s evolving composition.

This is followed by Co-evolution of Minerals and Life | Dr Robert Hazen.  Along with some further thoughts and links to many more relevant resources written by experts and other authoritative science communicators.

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4.6 Billion Years in the making. Our wonderful world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ra9lwKn75s

yumorganics

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UCIrvine OpenCourseWare

Published on Apr 3, 2014 - University of California at Irvine

ESS 5. Lec 01. The Atmosphere: Composition and Evolution of the Atmosphere

Professor Julie Ferguson, Ph.D.  -  Earth System Science