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There should be no recourse for asking questions like these. It seems like many people forget that science is about what can be observed. Hutton's ideas are sp

There should be no recourse for asking questions like these. It seems like many people forget that science is about what can be observed. Hutton's ideas are speculation. He can no more prove that is what happened than you or I can prove that the grand canyon took millions of years to get to the way that it currently is. To say that this in any way proves or lends credence to "deep time" simply exposes the worldview of the individual who espouses the view.

arethuza 9y ago
Unlike in maths, the concept of "proof" in a the context of something like geology isn't a clear cut concept, as Popper wrote: "In the empirical sciences, which alone can furnish us with information about the world we live in, proofs do not occur, if we mean by 'proof' an argument which establishes once and for ever the truth of a theory,"
- posterboy 9y ago
  Which is a convenient argument to make, because it can be applied to the argument itself. But by extension, all we know would be that we don't know anything. Which is a good starting point, but not really satisfactory. The word em-piri-cal is related to ex-peri-ance and ex-peri-ment, so ... the idea is what isn't broken doesn't need fixing. And by a stretch, imperial is related, though the latter is from latin whereas the former is from greek; Both go back to "* per", which still exists on its own and in "perform", e.g. ... so I guess the idea is proof by construction. A program is isomorphic to a proof, according to the Curry Howard Correspondence, this is well known around here. As a student of Physics and CompSci I had to defend the "pure math" perspective. Anyway, the circular reasoning of the quote is just the way the mind works. Still, the certainty can be quantified with Bayesian reasoning, but there has to be a threshold of what's transmitted.
empath75 9y ago
There is no 'proof' in science. You only have theories which can explain all currently known observations, and those which don't. And the theories which explain all known observations tend to have _predictive power_, which means that you can predict the outcome of some experiment or event using the theory and then verify the prediction through observation. Even a prediction, however, doesn't "prove" the theory. Even a thousand or a million predictions don't. There's always a possibility, no matter how slight, that it was all one giant coincidence, and some future observation will throw everything into chaos. All of that said -- the preponderance of the evidence-- and not just Hutton's observations but carbon dating and biology and chemistry, etc, etc, all strongly suggest the same interpretation, and one would have to have an astoundingly good reason for believing anything else. Everything about the impossibility of proof that applies to our current understanding of "deep time" applies a million fold for any other theory which almost certainly lacks any explanatory or predictive power at all.
- woodandsteel 9y ago
  >There is no 'proof' in science. Like many linguistic terms, the word "proof" has a number of different meanings. In science it has a different meaning than in logic or mathematics. As a consequence, scientists talk all the time about something being proved. For instance, a new chemical material is created, and a simple experiment is done to prove (= determine with certainty) how well it conducts electricity at room temperature. As for theories, well-established ones usually never get disproved, they only are shown to be particular cases of larger ones. That is why physicists still study and make use of newtonian physics.
zentiggr 9y ago
You are correct to the degree that science begins from observations. However, dismissing one person's contribution to the body of knowledge in isolation ignores the vast amount of work in many different times, locations, amounts of detail, techniques used. These interlock to lend incredibly strong support to one main interpretation, that the Earth is billions of years old and has had many different processes work on different parts over all that time. To contradict all of that evidence at once is rather a bit more of a hurdle, and not so easily dismissed.
woodandsteel 9y ago
>Hutton's ideas are speculation No, they are not. They produced empirical predictions that could be tested. That is how science in general works. In fact, that is how you and everyone else operates in ordinary life. And let me ask you, what about belief in a particular religion, is that provable?
- nvahalik 9y ago
  > "we know the oceanic greywacke rock was formed some 435 million years ago" You do not have data from 435 million years ago. You have a series of data that _seem_ to fit a model that you believe to be true. The only "fact" is what can be observed, but you were not there nor do you have testimony from people who were there 435 million years ago. That's speculation in my book. > "But it was another 65 million years before the sandstone was formed." Again, no hard data. This is speculative. > “Hutton realised that the formation and movement of these rocks to create the coastline we see at Siccar Point couldn’t happen in sudden cataclysms over years or decades,” Why not? There are other formations that don't make sense but were formed in much more rapid timeframe? Why not this one? > And let me ask you, what about belief in a particular religion, is that provable? Beliefs/worldviews can be based on any number of things: unsubstantiated tradition (whether right or wrong), widely attested-to eye witness testimony, or lies. And yes, I do believe "science" falls into this category as well.

arethuza 9y ago

Unlike in maths, the concept of "proof" in a the context of something like geology isn't a clear cut concept, as Popper wrote: "In the empirical sciences, which alone can furnish us with information about the world we live in, proofs do not occur, if we mean by 'proof' an argument which establishes once and for ever the truth of a theory,"

posterboy 9y ago
Which is a convenient argument to make, because it can be applied to the argument itself. But by extension, all we know would be that we don't know anything. Which is a good starting point, but not really satisfactory. The word em-piri-cal is related to ex-peri-ance and ex-peri-ment, so ... the idea is what isn't broken doesn't need fixing. And by a stretch, imperial is related, though the latter is from latin whereas the former is from greek; Both go back to "* per", which still exists on its own and in "perform", e.g. ... so I guess the idea is proof by construction. A program is isomorphic to a proof, according to the Curry Howard Correspondence, this is well known around here. As a student of Physics and CompSci I had to defend the "pure math" perspective. Anyway, the circular reasoning of the quote is just the way the mind works. Still, the certainty can be quantified with Bayesian reasoning, but there has to be a threshold of what's transmitted.

empath75 9y ago

There is no 'proof' in science. You only have theories which can explain all currently known observations, and those which don't. And the theories which explain all known observations tend to have _predictive power_, which means that you can predict the outcome of some experiment or event using the theory and then verify the prediction through observation. Even a prediction, however, doesn't "prove" the theory. Even a thousand or a million predictions don't. There's always a possibility, no matter how slight, that it was all one giant coincidence, and some future observation will throw everything into chaos. All of that said -- the preponderance of the evidence-- and not just Hutton's observations but carbon dating and biology and chemistry, etc, etc, all strongly suggest the same interpretation, and one would have to have an astoundingly good reason for believing anything else. Everything about the impossibility of proof that applies to our current understanding of "deep time" applies a million fold for any other theory which almost certainly lacks any explanatory or predictive power at all.

woodandsteel 9y ago
>There is no 'proof' in science. Like many linguistic terms, the word "proof" has a number of different meanings. In science it has a different meaning than in logic or mathematics. As a consequence, scientists talk all the time about something being proved. For instance, a new chemical material is created, and a simple experiment is done to prove (= determine with certainty) how well it conducts electricity at room temperature. As for theories, well-established ones usually never get disproved, they only are shown to be particular cases of larger ones. That is why physicists still study and make use of newtonian physics.

zentiggr 9y ago

You are correct to the degree that science begins from observations. However, dismissing one person's contribution to the body of knowledge in isolation ignores the vast amount of work in many different times, locations, amounts of detail, techniques used. These interlock to lend incredibly strong support to one main interpretation, that the Earth is billions of years old and has had many different processes work on different parts over all that time. To contradict all of that evidence at once is rather a bit more of a hurdle, and not so easily dismissed.

woodandsteel 9y ago

>Hutton's ideas are speculation No, they are not. They produced empirical predictions that could be tested. That is how science in general works. In fact, that is how you and everyone else operates in ordinary life. And let me ask you, what about belief in a particular religion, is that provable?

nvahalik 9y ago
> "we know the oceanic greywacke rock was formed some 435 million years ago" You do not have data from 435 million years ago. You have a series of data that _seem_ to fit a model that you believe to be true. The only "fact" is what can be observed, but you were not there nor do you have testimony from people who were there 435 million years ago. That's speculation in my book. > "But it was another 65 million years before the sandstone was formed." Again, no hard data. This is speculative. > “Hutton realised that the formation and movement of these rocks to create the coastline we see at Siccar Point couldn’t happen in sudden cataclysms over years or decades,” Why not? There are other formations that don't make sense but were formed in much more rapid timeframe? Why not this one? > And let me ask you, what about belief in a particular religion, is that provable? Beliefs/worldviews can be based on any number of things: unsubstantiated tradition (whether right or wrong), widely attested-to eye witness testimony, or lies. And yes, I do believe "science" falls into this category as well.