Geology in Pop Culture - Happy St Patrick's Day

Geology in Pop Culture

Since I am mostly Irish I figured I would provide a link to the the Yahoo! article explaining some of the Irish myths surrounding St Patrick's Day.

http://events.yahoo.com/stpatricksday/2009/

There is one that says that St Patrick was not born in Ireland, which I thought was common knowledge.

But an interesting thing that makes sense, although I never thought of it, was that St Patrick never drove the snakes out of Ireland. They were never there in the first place. Evolutionarily speaking this makes perfect sense, but again I had never thought of it before. The other stuff is pretty interesting as well and you should take a gander at it.

Scientific Discussion - Darwinism

Scientific Discussion

So I just read this article from the New York Times called "Darwinism must die so that evolution may live" And it is an interesting article about how Darwin's theories of evolution are basically what the majority of people today believe what evolution is. Now I have read The Origin of Species about a year and a half ago and since it is on my 100 Greatest Books list I wrote a little blurb about it.

I should preface this review with the fact that I am a paleontologist and I have been studying geology and paleontology for over 20 years. I came into reading The Origin of Species knowing full well that the text was written over 150 years ago and the science of paleontology and evolution has progressed at a lightening pace since then. That being said, I still was not sure what I was getting into when I read it. To quote my former evolutionary biology teacher "Don't read The Origin of Species unless you have to." This is a science textbook and that is how it reads. The science itself is severely out of date and the text is rather dull to boot. Since the science is not current, I recommend that someone reading this should have a basic scientific background so that they can understand where the science is questionable or not. The main problem I have with The Origin of Species is that instead of doing science experiments, Darwin typically takes observations and makes large leaps of logic to explain why his observations are the way they are. Granted this is a seminal and often interesting work of scientific history, but it is too much of a difficult read for me to recommend it.

Pretty much this is what the article states. The science is severely out of date. To the point where it is just wrong in many cases. Darwin's way of solving problems is also in question (by me). He looks at things (like giraffe neck lengths) and just assumes they evolved into longer necks. He does no science experiments or presents no theories, he just assumes. It is basically a religious view of science (again as I see it).

The main problem I have with Darwin is not his theories, it is how he is presented. I have seen countless scientists flaunting over him as if he created the world while he was just another step in the ladder of science. Great, he brought evolution to the forefront of society, but many others before and since have done a lot more work and should deserve the same amount, if not more, credit.

Travel - High Point Meme

I saw this one over at Dinochick Blogs and thought it intersting so I thought I would join in.

It appears that Callan over at NOVA Geoblog started this one. I like mountain climbing (although I am not a high pointer as you will see) but I thought I would play anyway. Here's the tallest points in each of the 50 United States, with Puerto Rico's and Washington, DC's highest points thrown in for good measure. Elevations are in feet above mean sea level. I've bolded the ones I have personally stood atop:

Cheaha Mt., Alabama 2,405'
Mt. McKinley (Denali), Alaska 20,320'
Humphreys Peak, Arizona 12,633'
Magazine Mt., Arkansas 2,753'
Mt. Whitney, California 14,494'
Mt. Elbert, Colorado 14,433'
Mt. Frissell, Connecticut 2,380'
Fort Reno, Washington, DC 429'
Ebright Azimuth, Delaware 448'
Britton Hill, Florida 345'
Brasstown Bald, Georgia 4,784'
Mauna Kea, Hawai'i 13,796'
Borah Peak, Idaho 12,662'
Charles Mound, Illinois, 1,235'
Hoosier Hill Point, Indiana 1,257'
Hawkeye Point, Iowa 1,670'
Mt. Sunflower, Kansas 4,039'
Black Mt., Kentucky 4,139'
Driskill Mt., Louisiana 535'
Mt. Katahdin, Maine 5,267'
Backbone Mt., Maryland 3,360'
Mt. Greylock, Massachusetts 3,487'
Mt. Arvon, Michigan 1,979'
Eagle Mt., Minnesota 2,301'
Woodall Mt., Mississippi 806'
Taum Sauk Mt., Missouri 1,772'
Granite Peak, Montana 12,799'
Panorama Point, Nebraska 5,424'
Boundary Peak, Nevada 13,140'
Mt. Washington, New Hampshire 6,288'
High Point, New Jersey 1,803'
Wheeler Peak, New Mexico 13,161'
Mt. Marcy, New York 5,344' (and almost died)
Mt. Mitchell, North Carolina 6,684'
White Butte, North Dakota 3,506'
Campbell Hill, Ohio 1,549'
Black Mesa, Oklahoma 4,973'
Mt. Hood, Oregon 11,239'
Mt. Davis, Pennsylvania 3,213'
Cerro de Punta, Puerto Rico 4390'J
erimoth Hill, Rhode Island 812'
Sassafras Mt., South Carolina 3,560'
Harney Peak, South Dakota 7,242'
Clingmans Dome, Tennessee 6,643'
Guadalupe Peak, Texas 8,749'
Kings Peak, Utah 13,528'
Mt. Mansfield, Vermont 4,393'
Mt. Rogers, Virginia 5,729'
Mt Rainier, Washington 14,410'
Spruce Knob, West Virginia 4,861'
Timms Hill, Wisconsin 1,951'
Gannett Peak, Wyoming 13,804'

Ok so I did one. But now I have to hunt down the Utah one like ReBecca.
A good map and comprehensive list of these high points can be found at geology.com. Which ones have you visited?

In the News: Global Change vs. the Economy

In the News

Obama pushing stronger fuel-efficiency standard

Obama has hit the ground running. He has already managed to get praise and piss off people in one fell swoop. He recently proposed changes to the way the auto industry makes their cars to make them more environmentally friendly (AKA green). To do this the auto industry would need to make billions of dollars in changes in an already weakened, possibly dying industry.

Now here is where we have the problem. The auto industry in the first place is one of the most corrupt industries in America today. Chopping off the head may be the only way to save them. They made this blatantly clear when they all flew to DC in their private jets to asks for money from congress. The money from the flight alone could have been used to pay several employees for years, not to mention the cost of just maintaining the jets to be ready on a moments notice. I am all in favor of just letting them sort it out themselves. But the problem again is the American people. For the most part they did nothing wrong but they are the one's getting punished. Even with all the money Congress gave to the auto giants they are still laying off tons of people (I'm sure so they don't have to lose as much, better them than us). And they are still in threats of failure. What did the hard working line worker do to deserve this? It is probably all his fault to end up in a declining job market and be put on the butcher's block because some individuals desire to do whatever they please.

But if they fail, others will. We are a country and a society that is built upon itself, so much so that like Jenga, if you take out the wrong block, the whole thing could fail. I was just told that if AIG went under, then I would not have been able to come into work since they supply my company's insurance. It's insane that a company I had nothing to do with would hinder my being able to get a paycheck. The same could be said for almost all the mega-companies. Unfortunately they need to stay afloat - but at what cost to the "little man"?

To finish, I can just say that I commend Obama for enforcing greater restrictions, unfortunately it may be at an inopportune time. And I can say for certain, I will likely never buy an American car again, at least not until they clean up their act.

Dino Pic of the Week

This image comes courtesy of my mom, who purchased this soap embedded with a dinosaur. It reminded me so much of a bug in amber I had to take a picture of it. This was also the inspiration for my Dino Pic of the Week that I have been doing and I finally got the chance to put this one up.