Dr. Walt Brown on the Hydroplate Theory

[Jefferson]

Dr. Walt Brown on the Hydroplate Theory

This is the show from Tuesday January 9th, 2007.

SUMMARY:

* The Hydroplate Theory Explains:
-The continents do not fit together well against each other (unless you shrink Africa by 30%, etc.), but their jigsaw shape fits together against the mid-Atlantic Ridge!
- What formed the 46,000-mile long Mid-oceanic Ridge?
- Why is the Atlantic Ocean relatively shallow, and what formed the deep Pacific trenches, like the 36-thousand foot Mariana Trench?
- The Fountains of the Great Deep launched asteroids and comets.
- Mars is not the source of Antarctica meteorites, but they are from the Earth, as is the water on Mars!
- The debris launched from the Earth beat up the moon, especially its near-side.
- NASA has discovered the earth-like composition of comets, fulfilling Walt Brown's published prediction that they would find a most common mineral from Earth, olivine.

Today's Resource: Get an autographed copy of Dr. Walt Brown's fabulous book, In the Beginning! Order by clicking the link, or calling us at 800-8Enyart (800 836-9278)!

 

[Jukia]

I'm listening to this. Dr. Brown claims that when orbiting astronauts dump some waste overboard and it continues to orbit with the space craft it is a result of the attraction of the space craft's gravity on the waste. He claims to be a mechanical engineer? Has he never heard of Newton? Try Newton's First Law.
And I am supposed to buy his Hydroplate Theory which no other geologist on the face of the earth agrees with? And he is unaware of Newtonian physics? Well, what can I expect?

 

[Jukia]

Can Dr. Brown and/or Pastor Bob confirm this, Brown's theory is that the water that may have been on Mars was thrown there from the earth when the fountains of the deep erupted. Do I have that right?

 

[GuySmiley]

I'm listening to this. Dr. Brown claims that when orbiting astronauts dump some waste overboard and it continues to orbit with the space craft it is a result of the attraction of the space craft's gravity on the waste.

That is not at all what he is talking about. He is not refering to the waste continuing to orbit earth along with the spacecraft. He is talking about the waste orbiting the spacecraft itself. If the waste was ejected from the spacecraft, you might expect it to drift away slowly, but it didn't, as witnessed during the Apollo 13 mission.

He claims to be a mechanical engineer? Has he never heard of Newton? Try Newton's First Law.
And I am supposed to buy his Hydroplate Theory which no other geologist on the face of the earth agrees with? And he is unaware of Newtonian physics? Well, what can I expect?

Hopefully you'll call him Friday and bring this up. You should tell him about Newton.

 

[Johnny]

-The continents do not fit together well against each other (unless you shrink Africa by 30%, etc.)

False. I want to see a source.

- The Fountains of the Great Deep launched asteroids and comets.
- Mars is not the source of Antarctica meteorites, but they are from the Earth, as is the water on Mars!
- The debris launched from the Earth beat up the moon, especially its near-side.

I've come up with my own theory. A giant man who once roamed the Earth ate one too many burritos. This explains water on Mars, the craters on the moon, and comets and asteroids. Weee!

- NASA has discovered the earth-like composition of comets, fulfilling Walt Brown's published prediction that they would find a most common mineral from Earth, olivine.

Walt Brown's "prediction" was based on already published spectroscopic analysis of comets. In other words, he was just repeating what scientists had already discovered.

 

[GuySmiley]

False. I want to see a source.

Here. :ha:

 

[Nathon Detroit]

False. I want to see a source.

Try this.

 

[Johnny]

Try this.

There's no source there. "Details and evidence will be given later."

 

[Jukia]

And the asteroids and comets, especially the asteroids, are the result of the fountains of the deep exploding and taking water and rock away from the earth, are propelled away from the earth by "solar energy".

Ya just can't make this stuff up folks.

 

[Granite]

Actually, you can.:chuckle:

 

[aharvey]

-The continents do not fit together well against each other (unless you shrink Africa by 30%, etc.), but their jigsaw shape fits together against the mid-Atlantic Ridge!

Like Johnny, I found it hard to believe that Walt Brown would actually claim this, and (Knight, you'll be thrilled) I actually wasted a few minutes listening to the broadcast to see if Jefferson's version was inaccurate or oversimplified. It didn't appear to be.

Let me provide a quote from the text and reference book Biogeography (Lomolino, Riddle, and Brown, 2005):

From the first time Wegener proposed the supercontinent of Pangaea, his opponents criticized the liberties he took to achieve a "good fit." A good reconstruction was finally achieved when S. W. Carey (1955, 1958b), an Australian geologist, used plasticene shapes of landmasses sliding over a globe. Nonetheless, the fit was not widely accepted until three researchers (Bullard et al. 1965) combined computer mapping techniques and statistical analyeses to test continental fits. Their analyses showed that the continents do fit together if one uses submarine contours of the continental shelves to delineate the margins of continental plates (see also Hallam 1970).

So Walt is adopting an old position that was effectively dealt with 40 years ago. I should not have to mention, but will anyways, that these older studies were hardly the last word in the subject. Two good, but technical, discussions on the subject can be found in:

Voo, R. Van d. (1990). Phanerozoic paleomagnetic poles from Europe and North-America and comparisons with continental reconstructions. Rev. of Geophysics 28, 167-206.

McElhinny, M. & McFadden, P. (2000). Paleomagnetism: Continents and Oceans, Academic Press.

Is the fit "perfect"? No, but I can't believe that would be the standard of acceptance for Christians! In any case, tectonic theory would suggest that it is most unlikely that the moving, splitting, clanging together, and subducting of plates over the last several hundred million years would leave the margins of landmasses in exactly the same shape they were in at the initial split of Pangaea. Would Walt Brown or anyone else claim otherwise? In fact, even taking that into account, the fit is pretty impressive.

This illustrates an interesting aspect of Walt Brown's hydroplate theory and defense thereof. He consistently uses the lack of a perfect fit between a highly complex and detailed data set and a detailed mainstream (evolutionary, tectonic, etc.) hypothesis to cast that hypothesis into doubt, but keeps his own hypotheses and tests thereof vague and generalized enough that it's not actually possible to evaluate the fit of the data to his hypothesis. So who do you think "wins" in the choice between "lack of perfect fit in hypothesis A" and "absence of apparent contradictions in hypothesis B"?

 

[Jukia]

aharvey: thanks for the update. Somewhere I do sort of remember that the fit gets better when you use the continental shelf contours.

I am enthralled with the idea of all this water, rocks (I would guess people and plants, doggy, cat, dinosaur kinds etc) being thrown into the air at escape velocity and then forming asteroids, comets, craters on the moon, craters and/or evidence of water on Mars. What a spectacular theory. Awful shame it is a pure fabrication of Pastor Bob's favorite scientist.

 

[JoyfulRook]

False. I want to see a source.

Step 1: Get a map.
Step 2: Cut out the Continents.
Step 3: Try to fit them together.

 

[Jukia]

Step 1/2 (before step 1), learn some science.

 

[aharvey]

Step 1: Get a map.
Step 2: Cut out the Continents.
Step 3: Try to fit them together.

I wonder if that's what Walt did?

 

[Bob Enyart]

Obfuscation #3, Obfuscation #4, ...

Obfuscation #3, Obfuscation #4, ...

Dr. Brown claims that when orbiting astronauts dump some waste overboard and it continues to orbit with the space craft it is a result of the attraction of the space craft's gravity on the waste. He claims to be a mechanical engineer? Has he never heard of Newton? Try Newton's First Law.

Jukia, Walt wasn't an engineer with NASA, nor was he in the Apollo 13 craft, nor did the astronauts radio to ask his opinion of what might happened if they dumped their waste overboard, nor did his telling this story imply that mankind only then discovered gravity.

Like I said, you apparently have such a bad attitude, that you're not a good listener, and also, you prefer obfuscating on petty matters to dealing with substance.

And I am supposed to buy his Hydroplate Theory which no other geologist on the face of the earth agrees with? And he is unaware of Newtonian physics? Well, what can I expect?

By definition, the scientist to discover something has a world-full of scientists who are not yet convinced, regardless of the solid evidence for his theory. You could have made the same objection to the heliocentrism. Once again, Jukia prefers obfuscation to substance.

-Bob Enyart

 

[PKevman]

The problem with discussing the issues with Jukia is that Jukia says anyone who believes in a literal Genesis or that the flood was an event that did in fact occur has no knowledge of science. Jukia's real problem is not with science but with the Word of God.

 

[Servo]

Jukia's real problem is not with science but with the Word of God.

Amen.

 

[Jukia]

The problem with discussing the issues with Jukia is that Jukia says anyone who believes in a literal Genesis or that the flood was an event that did in fact occur has no knowledge of science. Jukia's real problem is not with science but with the Word of God.

First sentence is accurate, second is not.

 

[Jukia]

Questions on Dr. Brown's theory:
1. Before the flood were there oceans on the surface of the earth?
2. When the fountains opened and started throwing stuff up into the air, what was the speed at which, a rock, say, one of the ones that became an asteroid, going when it left the surface of the earth?
3. What is escape velocity at the surface of the earth? Would not the rocks have to be accelerated to that speed almost immediately?

Any one with any thoughts about this?