?On 7 March 2010 Michael Sylvester wrote: > Darwin is in the news again about his speculations about > how the Andes mountains were formed.
Michael: It really would help if you could give us a link, or even just a clue where you get the information from. A quick search of Google didn't bring up any current reports. >.. .about his speculations about how the Andes mountains > were formed. He wrote about it while his research ship was > in Chile.He observed some dead crustacean and fish fossils > on a mountain and "speculated" that an earthquake must have >moved the land upwards.This may be plausible but to assume >that the peaks of the Andes mountain ranges emanated from >a series of earthquakes have created some skepticism >among geologists. It may have escaped your notice, Michael, that Darwin didn’t have the advantage of knowledge of plate tectonics at that time. He received Lyell's groundbreaking volumes on geology, sent to him by one of his sisters, while on the Beagle voyage, and immediately accepted his theory of uniformitarianism, against the prevalent theory of catastrophism. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0_0/history_12 I don't know the details of how Darwin saw the way that mountain ranges such as the Andes occurred, but having personally experienced a major earthquake near Concepcion in Chile in 1835, he saw that as one way in which large scale movement of the earth could build up over millions of years to produce mountain ranges. He deals with the Andes in "Geological Observations of South America", published 1846, in which Lyell gets frequent citations. (He was still publishing on his Beagle voyage observations a decade after arriving back!) http://tinyurl.com/yz6fk34 It would be of interest to know why geologists are discussing this currently. So, Michael, please supply some information so we can get some idea of what this is about. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London [email protected] http://www.esterson.org ------------------------------------------------ From: michael sylvester <[email protected]> Subject: Is Darwin getting special treatment? Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 17:02:34 -0500 Darwin is probably a scholar scholar I can think of whose speculations appear to generate deep interests among esearchers.Speculations are usually regarded within the scientific paradigm as snake oil without the snake ,but it seems that Darwin's speculations seem to excite depending on one's perspective.We often hear from some skeptics that evolution is not a fact ,only a theory. Darwin is in the news again about his speculations about how the Andes mountains were formed. He wrote about it while his research ship was in Chile.He observed some dead crustacean and fish fossils on a mountain and "speculated" that an earthquake must have moved the land upwards.This may be plausible but to assume that the peaks of the Andes mountain ranges emanated from a series of earthquakes have created some skepticism among geologists. If Darwin was a tipster( a group that deals not in speculations) he would be attacked by Green,Brandon.Black,Esterson ,Nostradamus and Michael "omnicentric" Sylvester,PhD Daytona Beach,Florida Please note that I stand corrected. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=1129 or send a blank email to leave-1129-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
