Landslide Troubles for a Lawyer
While the word landslide is popular in elections, let's get more down to Earth (heh!) with the original meaning. Charles Lyell was a lawyer by trade and went into geology. His most famous book was Principles of Geology, which was published in three volumes in the early 1800s. It expanded on James Hutton's uniformitarianism (simplified as "the present is the key to the past"). Lyell, who lied about the recession rate of Niagara Falls, was a strong influence on Charles Darwin (whose only formal degree was in theology, not science), and Darwin read the first volume of Lyell's Principles on the voyage of the Beagle. Lyell's uniformitarianism was gleefully accepted by secular scientists as a means to deny the Genesis Flood, catastrophism, and the Creator God of the Bible. The fact that compromising Christians ceded science to secularists didn't help matters any.
Long-age dating techniques and assumptions are constantly being assaulted by hard evidence, and shown to be far less reliable than many scientists want to admit. Landslides catastrophically change the landscape and you can't expect much warning before one occurs. Some landslides that were dated to have happened in the distant past occurred much more recently. They can happen without warning, and some areas that were considered safe are not so safe after all. In addition, astronomers were surprised to find landslide occurrences way out yonder in our solar system. Major geological changes can happen in minutes, causing fits for Lyell and Darwin supporters because it means Earth may very well be younger than they thought, and evolution requires long ages according to their paradigm.
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| 2013 landslide in Colorado, image credit: US Geological Survey / Rex Baum, no endorsement of this site implied |
Landslides are turning geological votes away from Lyell’s uniformitarianism toward catastrophism.To finish reading, rock on over to "Lyell Loses in a Landslide". Also recommended, "Analogy and geology—the ‘science’ of Charles Lyell".
Landslides can cause monumental changes in just minutes.
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Two recent papers reveal some of the changes in geological thinking about landslides. They don’t necessarily need a high slope to get going. Long-runout slides can cover much more distance than previously believed. And dating landslides can be tricky business. The following observations underscore the catastrophic potential of sudden, large-scale events, in contrast to Charles Lyell’s picture of a world in slow and gradual “uniformitarian” change.