Hmmm. Fringe science has that problem. It is on the fringe and if you want to play there, you have to take your licks. The problem is 1% of the time it is right. I will not defend ridicule - it is wrong. But in my Earth History class (which was open to outside students) the instructor started ( I paraphrase):
We will not debate Creation vs. Evolution. This is a Geology course and the dominant and best supported theory is Evolution in the opinion of Geologists and the volume of data in the rock record. Many things Creationist say are just wrong. There are some who believe in Creationism but Geologists study the rock record. If you want to debate Evolution, you should take ...
The class that he suggested was an upper division elective I believe that was jointly taught by Geography Department and the Religious Studies department. You couldn't use it for a geology major (other than your general ed requirement). AND RIGHTLY SO!!! This topic is fine for comparative purposes, but it is not Geology.
Carl Sagan was both human and an astronomer, but not a geologist. If Velikovsky had his astronomy and his geology wrong (I know his geology had problems because there were scientific advances since his initial work in the 50's), well he should be called on it. It is always embarrassing to be wrong. Sagan, a human, probably was not as nice as he should have been.
Sedimentary geology is perhaps one of the best understood aspects of geology. Oil companies paid billions to drill holes and some of the best work came from U of T, Austin where many of their talents came from. I was fortunate to have an instructor who was world class (from UTA), but had sunk 2 dry holes. That is entirely understandable if your understand how tough it was to make oil predictions before seismic tomography , but basically, it will end your career in the oil industry. He became an academic. A very good one.
As for the comeback? Well, in 20 years that I know of, it never left!! |
