Expanding Earth Theory - WTF???

This doesn't quite fit, but the topic reminds me of an idea Scott Adams fooled around with in The Dilbert Future. He noted that some (all? I don't remember exactly) of gravity could be explained by an alternative: that all matter in the universe was constantly increasing in mass and volume at the same rate. It holds up well for most simple tests, but I'm pretty sure it falls apart, especially when it comes to interplanetary/interstellar effects.
 
quarky said:
if everything was expanding, even subatomic bits, would we have any refernce point from which to meaure the expansion?

it feels bigger to me.
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Yeah, well if you use a smaller meter-stick every day, you sure will notice that everything expands.
 
I hate to play devil's advocate on this, but uh, where did water come from in our mainstream understanding?

I also wouldn't necessarily call this "obviously stupid" - assuming that animation is somewhat accurate, it looks like stuff fits together. I think that's enough to warrant a little investigation in to it just as much as someone saying "Hey, South America and Africa look like they fit together" was enough for someone to investigate and find evidence for the Plate Techtonics theory.

Not that I'm supporting this theory - it cracks me up how this guy thinks there is some crazy conspiracy to squelch it - but I want to make sure we are debunking it for the right reasons.
 
wasn't there an ancient scientist (in egypt maybe?) who used length of shadows in different cities to come up with a measurement of the circumference of the earth that's very close to what we measure it today?

ETA: Yes, it was Eratosthenes. Wouldn't the fact that the size of the earth not changing in over 2000 years invalidate this?
 
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SeanDamnit said:
I hate to play devil's advocate on this, but uh, where did water come from in our mainstream understanding?

I also wouldn't necessarily call this "obviously stupid" - assuming that animation is somewhat accurate, it looks like stuff fits together. I think that's enough to warrant a little investigation in to it just as much as someone saying "Hey, South America and Africa look like they fit together" was enough for someone to investigate and find evidence for the Plate Techtonics theory.

Not that I'm supporting this theory - it cracks me up how this guy thinks there is some crazy conspiracy to squelch it - but I want to make sure we are debunking it for the right reasons.
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The mainstream consensus is that the orgin of the water on Earth is result of several source. See Wikipedia: Origin of water on Earth.

Neal Adams' video does not show one aspect of his theory - that at the beginning (when there were no ocean basins) the water covered the land to a depth of some kilometers.

The fossil record shows that all of the continents were joined together in one landmass (Pangaea) about 250 million years ago. Expanding Earth theory means that we can ignore any evidence of previous supercontinents (Rodinia) since there would not be enough surface area for them. This gives around 4 billion years during which the Earth was covered by kilometers of water. But the fossil record includes stromatolites which are layered accretionary structures formed in shallow water by the trapping, binding, and cementation of sedimentary grains by biofilms of microorganisms. These date back to 2.7 billion years ago. This disproves his theory.
 
You can always tell woo when the guy says that all scientists know this but deny it. By the way, didn't he forget to speed up the rotation as the earth contracts? Conservation of angular momentum.
 
Here's a (long) thread in another forum about a very similar subject. As you can see, Novagaea had a very... interesting theory:

The Big Puzzle.

Jerome, the reason we can dismiss these theories as crackpot and bogus is that they contradict everything we already know about the subject. Here's a handy-dandy Crackpot Index rating scheme to help you decide.
 
arthwollipot said:
Jerome, the reason we can dismiss these theories as crackpot and bogus is that they contradict everything we already know about the subject. Here's a handy-dandy Crackpot Index rating scheme to help you decide.
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I do like number 31 on that index, especially the bit I've put in bold :D

30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).
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JEROME DA GNOME said:
Thanks for the link.

It is refreshing to read both sides of an idea sans dismissive insults.

:gnome:
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The CreationTalk and DarwinTalk forums are where I cut my teeth in forum debate. They're not very busy (in fact there's been no posts on DarwinTalk for months now), but they're my old home before I moved here.
 
Actually, I gather there are some professional Ph.D. geologists that are giving the theory some serious consideration. It nicely explains a number of puzzling facts like how come the oldest rock on earth is at the tops of mountains, with evidence of having once been underwater. If the whole earth was covered in water when it was smaller, that fits. The sea floor is the youngest crust, being quite surprizingly young all over. And one geologist claimed to be able to plot a circumpherence around the earth that contained no subduction zones.

Now, I'm not a geologist, so I can't really assess the truth of those claims. Assuming those claims are correct, it certainly makes the theory more appealing.
 
Well, let me just say I'm skeptical. We already have a perfectly good explanation for why marine fossils can be found at the tops of mountains, and that explanation agrees with the facts as we can observe them. Is there an explanation for how or why the earth has expanded?
 
arthwollipot said:
Well, let me just say I'm skeptical. We already have a perfectly good explanation for why marine fossils can be found at the tops of mountains, and that explanation agrees with the facts as we can observe them. Is there an explanation for how or why the earth has expanded?
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Please, what is that explanation?


:gnome:
 
Beth said:
Actually, I gather there are some professional Ph.D. geologists that are giving the theory some serious consideration. It nicely explains a number of puzzling facts like how come the oldest rock on earth is at the tops of mountains, with evidence of having once been underwater. If the whole earth was covered in water when it was smaller, that fits. The sea floor is the youngest crust, being quite surprizingly young all over. And one geologist claimed to be able to plot a circumpherence around the earth that contained no subduction zones.

Now, I'm not a geologist, so I can't really assess the truth of those claims. Assuming those claims are correct, it certainly makes the theory more appealing.
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If the Earth was covered with deep (kilometers) water until a few hundred million years ago then none of the marine fossils that form in shallow water would exist. They do and so the Earth has not totally covered with deep water until a few hundred million years ago.

Another problem:
Shrinking the Earth increases its density and gravity. So a 50% size about 250 million years ago means that gravity is 4 times greater. But there is no sign of this in the fossil record or in astronomy (e.g. the same mechanism should apply to all of the planets and the stars).

Another problem:
An expanding Earth means that all of the continents move at the same rate (the rate of expansion). But that is not the case - India has just about raced across the Indian Sea to crash into Asia and form the Himalayas.

Another problem:
Have a look at list of supercontinents. Rodinia, Pangaea and Gondwana have plenty of evidence for their existence (some of the others are hypothetical).
 
Just to throw a little factoid into the debate, the question of "where did all the water come from?" is relatively minor. A simple calculation:

Diameter of the earth at the equator:7926 miles
Average ocean depth: roughly 2.5 miles

Ratio: 3170 to 1

In other words, if the earth was a ball 12 inches in diameter, the average depth of the ocean would be about 1/10th of a millimeter.

So the question of "where did all the water come from?" is relatively minor compared to " where did all the size come from?".
 
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