Talk:Creation geophysics/Catastrophic plate tectonics archive

This Article needs more depth
This article addresses the topic and describes problems with the theory but never really discusses the topic in any detail to give the reader a definition of what the Catastrophic Plate Tectonics really is. Fortunately there is a website link for anyone interested in information on the topic further.

Psuedoscience?
"Catastrophic plate tectonics is a pseudoscientific theory..." According to the Psuedoscience article, it says that the theory must not be of the scientific method. How is a theory like this not of the scientific method? Nothing is mentioned about this. -(unsigned, by Sega01)


 * Well, these are the elements listed as essential on the Scientific method article:

 The essential elements  of a scientific method are iterations, recursions , interleavings, and orderings of the following:
 * Characterizations (Quantifications, observations, and measurements)
 * Hypotheses (theoretical, hypothetical explanations of observations and measurements)
 * Predictions (reasoning including logical deduction from hypothesis and theory)
 * Experiments (tests of all of the above)


 * Trying to fit CPT into this, you could make a very weak argument for "characterizations" (by using accounts from the Bible as your observations), and from that, the CPT could be considered a hypothesis. But beyond those two elements, CPT doesn't fit the scientific method at all. What does CPT predict? Can we test the theory? Not directly. Certainly some of the evidence used to support the theory can be tested, but without specific predictions, the hypothesis itself cannot.


 * All of that aside, the biggest indicator that we're dealing with pseudoscience is the motivation of the hypothesis. With true science, the scientist looks at empirical data and then seeks a theory which fits the data. For CPT, on the other hand, Baumgardner has looked at the empirical data and then sought a theory which fits the Bible. This is in stark contrast to the scientific method. Furthermore, by attempting to fit his theory to this non-empirical source, Baumgardner emerges with a decidedly convoluted model. Or, as it's put in the pseudoscience article, he fails "to make reasonable use of the principle of parsimony".

Mistercow 21:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)