Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jayjay · 05-09-2003, 09:10 PM

The following was posted by Socrates at TheologyWeb:

Quote:

Yes, JB [Joseph Baumgartner] is great -- both honest and a fine researcher who has developed the important Catastrophic Plate Tectonics theory. His supercomputer model is regarded as top notch even by secular geophysicists. He has also developed a cogent probability argument against chemical evolution (see his chapter in In Six Days).

So, who is Joseph Baumgartner and what is this "important catastrophic plate tectonics theory" of his? What do real scientists think of him? Is there a concise rebuttal (i.e. one that a layman like myself might get a hang of) of his computer models and theories somewhere?

NonHomogenized · 05-09-2003, 11:21 PM

no one special. The person to whom you refer is actually named John Baumgardner. I notice you got the first name right in the thread title, but the last name is spelled with a 'd', not a 't'. I found out when I tried to google it. Can't help you with a rebuttal, at the moment. I'll continue to look around, and let you know if I find anything.

faust · 05-09-2003, 11:32 PM

Yet another "highly respected, even by secular peers" guy who seems to be full of it.
No one seems to have heard of him except pissed off geologists and rabid xians.
refutation 1

These guys did all the heavy lifting
another forum thread about this nut
John R. Baumgardner, (Adjunct Faculty for ICR)

Ok, i did some more research (i have no life.) Google seems to think no one has heard of this guy except God's people.
He doesn't even seem notable enough to have been formally discredited by the real geologists.
Ask Socratism to show proof of this guy's creds and "respect by the secular geophysicists" first. He has no pubs, he has a blurb in newsweek, which doesn't happen to be peer reviewed. He's not even a major diety much less a major Godidiot.
Socratism, once again, is full of shit. No one agrees with this guy other than the godpeople.

Dr.GH · 05-10-2003, 10:20 AM

Baumgardner has a doctorate in geophysics and works at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is basically a computer programer. He works on computational models of mantle structure and thermochemical convection. This is an interest of the nuclear defence crowd as these models are used to detect and evaluate underground nuclear bomb tests.

Baumgardner is as YECy as they come. His big claim to YEC fame is a proposal that during the "Flood" the earths crust broke into continents that then dashed around the globe in hours to days, and then were magically stopped in place. This, he claims, explains mountains of marine sedimentry origin in merely 4,000 years.

Valentine Pontifex · 05-10-2003, 04:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by faust
Yet another "highly respected, even by secular peers" guy who seems to be full of it.
No one seems to have heard of him except pissed off geologists and rabid xians.
refutation 1

These guys did all the heavy lifting
another forum thread about this nut
John R. Baumgardner, (Adjunct Faculty for ICR)

Ok, i did some more research (i have no life.) Google seems to think no one has heard of this guy except God's people.
He doesn't even seem notable enough to have been formally discredited by the real geologists.
Ask Socratism to show proof of this guy's creds and "respect by the secular geophysicists" first. He has no pubs, he has a blurb in newsweek, which doesn't happen to be peer reviewed. He's not even a major diety much less a major Godidiot.
Socratism, once again, is full of shit. No one agrees with this guy other than the godpeople.

This is not quite correct. He does have a very small handful of papers in the peer-reviewed literature and he gotten a VERY small number of papers citing him. Of course a real researcher who is considered top-notch by his peers will have many many papers citing him.

Anyone with online access to the Science Citation Index want to give this thread some hard numbers on this?

Wounded King · 05-11-2003, 08:19 AM

Here is an ICR page with a list of references.

http://www.icr.org/creationscientists/baumgardner.html

I looked up Baumgardner JR on the WOS citation service and he has few well cited papers, up in the 30-60 range. Very few of these papers seem to be anything other than straightforward geophysics however, and many are based on the assumptions of an old Earth model.

So Baumgardner certainly seems to be established in his field but not due to the work the creationists cite. And I can't find anything in any of the biology journals or Nature and Science regarding abiogenesis from him.

ps418 · 05-11-2003, 08:42 AM

Baumgardner's known for his Terra modelling program. The program itself is fine, but it won't produce his runaway subduction model unless you input a bunch of unsupportable parameters (GIGO). The following quote is from an OE Christian creationist that I saved from a message board a long time ago. It sums up the relationship of Terra to RS quite well, I think. Basically, JB inputs lighter than air pigs into his model, and then says his model shows how pigs can fly:

Quote:

"The Terra model will only produce results of rapid crustal motion if one inserts completely non-physical constants into the simulation. For example he uses properties of rock in terms of specific heat, thermal conduction, thermal gradients, tensile strength, shear strength, compressive failure, dynamic loading and mass density profiles that have NO relation to the actual values for these properties of basalt and granite (the two basic types of crustal rock). Some of the values he uses for these constants of nature differ by more than an order of magnitude from reality. When he uses values for these properties of nature that are correct for such materials, his model produces exactly the type of slow motion for the continents consistent with the rest of geological data. Furthermore, his own model shows that if the continents were to move at such rates, the surface destruction would be so great and so prolonged that the earth would STILL be uninhabitable for all the massive earthquakes which would STILL be happening if runaway subduction happened only a few thousand years back. So which part of the model's results do you want to keep for your presuppositions."

"As it happens, computer simulation and finite element modeling is something I do myself in my professional work. Anyone who works with such tools knows that a computer model can be made to produce any result at all simply by changing the model and/or using inputs that produce the desired results. For example, in a model of a satellite flying around the earth, I can easily produce a model that indicates such a satellite can orbit the earth at only ten kilometers altitude. All I have to do is give the atmospheric portion of standard, high-fidelity models constants for the density of air that are off by a factor of 10. But surely everyone understands that satellites cannot orbit at ten kilometers altitude just because a computer model with bad data says so, even if its a really good community-standard computer model that produces high-precision results for orbital mechanics when used with correct data. Computer models can be great. But it is never fair to input a lighter-than-air pig into one and then claim pigs really can fly"

Hill Roberts, Age of the Earth Forum, Accessed 3/18/01

Patrick

Dr.GH · 05-11-2003, 11:52 AM

Good call on models. Thanks.

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05-09-2003, 11:21 PM	#2
NonHomogenized Veteran Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: no longer at IIDB Posts: 1,644	no one special. The person to whom you refer is actually named John Baumgardner. I notice you got the first name right in the thread title, but the last name is spelled with a 'd', not a 't'. I found out when I tried to google it. Can't help you with a rebuttal, at the moment. I'll continue to look around, and let you know if I find anything.

05-09-2003, 11:32 PM	#3
faust Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: baton rouge, la Posts: 539	Yet another "highly respected, even by secular peers" guy who seems to be full of it. No one seems to have heard of him except pissed off geologists and rabid xians. refutation 1 These guys did all the heavy lifting another forum thread about this nut John R. Baumgardner, (Adjunct Faculty for ICR) Ok, i did some more research (i have no life.) Google seems to think no one has heard of this guy except God's people. He doesn't even seem notable enough to have been formally discredited by the real geologists. Ask Socratism to show proof of this guy's creds and "respect by the secular geophysicists" first. He has no pubs, he has a blurb in newsweek, which doesn't happen to be peer reviewed. He's not even a major diety much less a major Godidiot. Socratism, once again, is full of shit. No one agrees with this guy other than the godpeople.

05-10-2003, 10:20 AM	#4
Dr.GH Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Dana Point, Ca, USA Posts: 2,115	Baumgardner has a doctorate in geophysics and works at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is basically a computer programer. He works on computational models of mantle structure and thermochemical convection. This is an interest of the nuclear defence crowd as these models are used to detect and evaluate underground nuclear bomb tests. Baumgardner is as YECy as they come. His big claim to YEC fame is a proposal that during the "Flood" the earths crust broke into continents that then dashed around the globe in hours to days, and then were magically stopped in place. This, he claims, explains mountains of marine sedimentry origin in merely 4,000 years.

05-11-2003, 08:19 AM	#6
Wounded King Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Edinburgh Posts: 1,211	Here is an ICR page with a list of references. http://www.icr.org/creationscientists/baumgardner.html I looked up Baumgardner JR on the WOS citation service and he has few well cited papers, up in the 30-60 range. Very few of these papers seem to be anything other than straightforward geophysics however, and many are based on the assumptions of an old Earth model. So Baumgardner certainly seems to be established in his field but not due to the work the creationists cite. And I can't find anything in any of the biology journals or Nature and Science regarding abiogenesis from him.

05-11-2003, 11:52 AM	#8
Dr.GH Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Dana Point, Ca, USA Posts: 2,115	Good call on models. Thanks.

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