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Embedded -> RE: My two cents. (7/21/2008 12:35:25 PM)
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ORIGINAL: drmark
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Is anyone suggesting that asteroid impacts, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc. are acting in a different manner or with a different intensity in the past as in the present? Apparently not, since not a single one of you ever answered my question about the temporal relationship of cataclysmic events to uniformity. Your silence confirms 2 Peter 3:4!
The reason it hasn't been answered is that it is a foolish question.
If, as you say:
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So I ask you the same question, Embedded - how many and how often do cataclysmic events occur to maintain "uniformity"?
It appears you are confusing "uniformity" with "continuity" or "smoothness". As usual, either intentionally or by ignorance, you do not understand what uniformity or uniformitarianism mean in the scientific sense. You might want to study up on it here is a clear definition.
I shall quote parts of the article:
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Four main forms of uniformitarianism
Uniformitarianism, though often treated as a single idea, is in fact a family of four related (but not identical) propositions. Paleontologist and evolutionary theorist Stephen Jay Gould usefully characterized them, in a 1965 paper [2] , as:
1. Uniformity of law;
2. Uniformity of kind;
3. Uniformity of degree; and
4. Uniformity of result.
The first sense of uniformity was almost universally accepted and quickly became part of the scientific consensus; the fourth was almost universally rejected by Western scientists from the mid-19th century onward. The second and particularly the third senses remained controversial and (though more increasingly accepted in the 20th century) have been occasionally challenged by scientists who believe the presumption of uniformity (in the second and third senses) is unwarranted
Basically we use the form: Uniformity of Law.
Uniformity of Law is the basic assumption that the physical laws that we see and that apply here also apply elsewhere in the universe. That the laws are uniform throughout the universe. We feel this is a warranted assumption because that is all we have observed so far. We assume that an electron, an atom, a molecule, gravity, matter, electromagnetism, and nuclear pheomenon behaves the same on the far side of the universe as well as here.
This assumption does not deny catastrophies.
This assumption does not claim to know ALL the physical laws. There may be some we have not yet discovered.
This assumption does not claim to know everything about the laws we know of. There may be aspects of the known laws that we have not yet discovered.
The assumptions of scientific uniformitarianism are arrived at and agreed upon by concensus.
Is what we mean by scientific uniformitarianism now clear to you?
If you keep insisting that scientific uniformitarianism means something else then there isn't much point. If you keep insisting that what we define as green is really red that is you problem. By insisting that scientific uniformitarianism is something other than what has been arrived at via concensus in the scientific community you only succeed in creating strawman arguments and confusing the discussion. Is that your intent?
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