Questioning the Geologic Column. Mind over Matter

I think it's important to add this essay to December's collection.  I like how it reads.  Nothing fancy, all based on a century and more of scientists and other experts accumulating evidence, then engaging in careful study and learned debate - that evolves as more evidence accumulates.  The results of which they (and some intrepid reporters) have then explained to the general public, well, those interested in learning about Earth and keeping up on the latest findings.  In this essay I describe what the Geologic Column is to a faith-shackled character that simply can't bring himself to accept the evidence.  So he ran away to hide from this essay.  

Could you do a better job of connecting?    How would you go about challenging someone who thinks 'I Know "God's Will" for certain'?  What if giving up on trump's 40% is not an option?  If we aren't changing minds, we are losing.  Thoughtful, suggestion and opinions are welcome.

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The following appears in the July 2018 issue of the Four Corners Free Press

Working title was: Explaining the Geologic Column to Psalm1Tree. 

Colorado's Grand Staircase's Geologic Column - Wayne Ranney

(click on image for a better view)

https://earthly-musings.blogspot.com/2013/08/ancient-landscapes-of-colorado-plateau.html
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Saying No To Reality
Four Corners Free Press, July 2018

Recently, I was minding my own business listening to a fascinating talk on YouTube titled, “Rooted in Earth History: the Devonian transition to a forested planet.”  It was about strategies that Earth’s first ground-hugging plants adapted to escape the confines of Earth’s surface.  They did this in order to reach closer to our sun and further away from plant-eaters. 

This led to Earth’s first forests, which in turn led to an explosion of new environmental niches for life to radiate into. 

I learned some fascinating details regarding questions I’d been wondering about for a long time.  The lecture increased my understanding of evolution on this fantastic planet of ours, which has been a lifelong passion for me.

But my pleasant reverie was shattered by a YouTube comment that blind-sided me.  One ‘Psalm1Tree’ wrote in all seriousness: 

“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.”

Besides avoiding the topic of the video, the comment is such an ignorant statement on so many levels that most who know anything about geology and evolution would simply clamp on the head-vise and back away. 

Unfortunately, decades of ignoring such belligerent ignorance about important aspects of our life and planet have led to its becoming so insidious and commonplace that our government is controlled by Republicans who disregard obvious physical realities on personal whim.   Justified only by a hubristic conceit that they are doing “God’s duty,” they are in fact all about pursuing their own EGO’s bidding.

I decided to engage Psalm with a short video that rationally explains what the geologic column is all about.  Then came my second shock.

b) Saying No To Reality. Questioning the Geologic Column.

Since, 2018 was the climax of a decade long crescendo in my decades long effort to network with rationalists, scientists and science communicators, in what I fancied was our communal struggle to confront the nonsense that corporate funded science contrarians and select politicians were so successfully peddling to an under-informed and mostly disinterested public - and since New Year's Eve is upon us, I'm collecting some of my favorite essays in an effort to summarize my perspective.  

Here's another look at the importance of understanding evolutionary reality.

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The following appears in the July issue of the Four Corners Free Press
Working title was: Explaining the Geologic Column to the Faith Blinded Psalm1Tree. 

Colorado's Grand Staircase's Geologic Column - Wayne Ranney

(click on image for a better view)

https://earthly-musings.blogspot.com/2013/08/ancient-landscapes-of-colorado-plateau.html
___________________________________________________________

Recently, I was minding my own business listening to a fascinating talk on YouTube titled, “Rooted in Earth History: the Devonian transition to a forested planet.”  It was about strategies that Earth’s first ground-hugging plants adapted to escape the confines of Earth’s surface.  They did this in order to reach closer to our sun and further away from plant-eaters. 

This led to Earth’s first forests, which in turn led to an explosion of new environmental niches for life to radiate into. 

I learned some fascinating details regarding questions I’d been wondering about for a long time.  The lecture increased my understanding of evolution on this fantastic planet of ours, which has been a lifelong passion for me.

But my pleasant reverie was shattered by a YouTube comment that blind-sided me.  One ‘Psalm1Tree’ wrote in all seriousness: 

“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.”

Besides avoiding the topic of the video, the comment is such an ignorant statement on so many levels that most who know anything about geology and evolution would simply clamp on the head-vise and back away. 

Unfortunately, decades of ignoring such belligerent ignorance about important aspects of our life and planet have led to its becoming so insidious and commonplace that our government is controlled by Republicans who disregard obvious physical realities on personal whim.   Justified only by a hubristic conceit that they are doing “God’s duty,” they are in fact all about pursuing their own EGO’s bidding.

I decided to engage Psalm with a short video that rationally explains what the geologic column is all about.  Then came my second shock.

6/7 Sorting out God, Science, Earth, Learning and Truthfulness.

The Situation:

The disconnected-from-physical-reality GOP attacks on climate science (a.i.) have reached horrifying levels with the Trump Administration.  Yet science loving rationalists, pluralists, progressives, liberals, Democrats still haven’t developed effective messaging for directly confronting the most childish of Republican arguments.  Why?  Seems to me, mainly because rationalists rather sidestep that Me First driven willful ignorance.  This acquiescence to nonsense has been a fatal error for the national dialogue.

Engaging and arguing with contrarians should not be seen as an exercise in futility, they are teaching moments.  Air the false claim, explain why its wrong.  Dissect deceptions, expose them, how else can we break the power these childishly contrived memes have held over political action? (continued at ...) 

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I am an Earth Centrist.

https://confrontingsciencecontrarians.blogspot.com/2018/07/i-am-earth-centrist.html

Saying No To Reality (Four Corners Free Press column)

https://confrontingsciencecontrarians.blogspot.com/2018/07/explaining-geologic-column-to-psalm1tree.html

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I am an Earth Centrist !

Meaning that Earth and her physical processes and the pageant of her evolution are my touchstones.  Understanding evolution and the biosphere I'm part of and how we got here is the foundation of all my reality. 

Religions, God, political beliefs, they are all products of the human mindscape, generations of imaginings built upon previous generations of imaginings, all the way down.  

Something real and to be reckoned with, yet in the end, it's only our mindscapes at work.  While the real creation keeps on unfolding outside of our heads regardless and we're left to hang on for dear life. …

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Then there's the God v Science question.

Knowledge of God is the ultimate in personal intimate relationship, your experience can not be transferred to, or replicated for, others.  

Religions are human constructs for enabling people to reconcile themselves with the seasons and hardships of their lives and to enable human societies to function in a civil organized manner. 

A God if there be one is All Things to All People, well beyond all human* understanding as the Holy Books warn us (* read petty, fearful, greedy, self-serving humans) individuals.  

If you are fortunate enough to be touched by God, that is your gift alone, something for you in your unique life.  It is not a recipe for your neighbors or the world.

Science on the other hand is humanity’s recipe for learning about the physical world and its processes as honestly as possible.

Science is:

Learning is the goal.

Fidelity to physical facts is the gold standard.  

Free Speech doesn’t mean it’s okay to lie and slander with malicious intent.  

Informed constructive skepticism is the rule.

Mistakes are for learning.   

Dishonest bluster and bullying is a crime.

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Saying No To Reality (Four Corners Free Press column)

https://confrontingsciencecontrarians.blogspot.com/2018/07/explaining-geologic-column-to-psalm1tree.html

The following appears in the July issue of the Four Corners Free Press

Colorado's Grand Staircase's Geologic Column - Wayne Ranney

(click on image for a better view)

https://earthly-musings.blogspot.com/2013/08/ancient-landscapes-of-colorado-plateau.html
___________________________________________________________

Recently, I was minding my own business listening to a fascinating talk on YouTube titled, “Rooted in Earth History: the Devonian transition to a forested planet.”  It was about strategies that Earth’s first ground-hugging plants adapted to escape the confines of Earth’s surface.  They did this in order to reach closer to our sun and further away from plant-eaters. 

Saying No To Reality (Four Corners Free Press)

The following appears in the July issue of the Four Corners Free Press
Working title was: Explaining the Geologic Column to the Faith Blinded Psalm1Tree. 

Colorado's Grand Staircase's Geologic Column - Wayne Ranney

(click on image for a better view)

https://earthly-musings.blogspot.com/2013/08/ancient-landscapes-of-colorado-plateau.html
___________________________________________________________

Recently, I was minding my own business listening to a fascinating talk on YouTube titled, “Rooted in Earth History: the Devonian transition to a forested planet.”  It was about strategies that Earth’s first ground-hugging plants adapted to escape the confines of Earth’s surface.  They did this in order to reach closer to our sun and further away from plant-eaters. 

This led to Earth’s first forests, which in turn led to an explosion of new environmental niches for life to radiate into. 

I learned some fascinating details regarding questions I’d been wondering about for a long time.  The lecture increased my understanding of evolution on this fantastic planet of ours, which has been a lifelong passion for me.

But my pleasant reverie was shattered by a YouTube comment that blind-sided me.  One ‘Psalm1Tree’ wrote in all seriousness: 

“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.”

Besides avoiding the topic of the video, the comment is such an ignorant statement on so many levels that most who know anything about geology and evolution would simply clamp on the head-vise and back away. 

Unfortunately, decades of ignoring such belligerent ignorance about important aspects of our life and planet have led to its becoming so insidious and commonplace that our government is controlled by Republicans who disregard obvious physical realities on personal whim.   Justified only by a hubristic conceit that they are doing “God’s duty,” they are in fact all about pursuing their own EGO’s bidding.

I decided to engage Psalm with a short video that rationally explains what the geologic column is all about.  Then came my second shock.

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.