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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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Van Inwagen "is a self-servingly selective modal skeptic who makes demands of the atheologian that he does not of the theist. Theism makes many modal claims, for example that it is possible for an immaterial being to create worldly things ex nihilo by the mere act of willing them, that it is possible that certain purported defenses are true, but one does not find van Inwagen extending his modal 'modesty' to them."
Richard M. Gale, "Some Difficulties in Theistic Treatments of Evil" The Evidential Argument from Evil (ed. Daniel Howard-Snyder, Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), p. 212-13.
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Category: Weirdness
Posted on: February 15, 2007 9:43 AM, by PZ Myers
At least that's the case according to some bad movie geology.
This is what happens when movies get made with no dogs involved—all the common sense is stripped right out of them.
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Comments
I read through the whole thread, but it seems like the punchline must be in the YouTube link that I studiously avoided to follow (I don't even have sound on this computer).
I miss the days when people used to communicate in writing. I suppose it's only going to get worse.
Posted by: PaulC | February 15, 2007 10:05 AM
OK, the video: some geologists are in the cone of a volcano. They dig around a little, and find...a fossil ammonite. From the Devonian or whatever.
Posted by: PZ Myers | February 15, 2007 10:10 AM
Writing, eh? I'll have to try some of that sometime.
Posted by: Chris Clarke | February 15, 2007 10:12 AM
Sounds like the location scout and production designer won the argument over the science consultant.
"Finding fossils in a volcano is both impossible and stupid"
"So, it looks freaking cool! Makes a great gimbal shot."
"ok, get props to bring the fossil in... let's put them near the steaming vent"
Posted by: Steve_C | February 15, 2007 10:37 AM
You also don't usually find oil around active volcanoes (in a stupid flick that a bunch of well-known respected actors should have been ashamed to appear in).
And the less said about this turkey, the better...but its earlier version has the redeeming features (for Trek fans, at least) of seeing Wil Wheaton get deep-fried in magma, and Terry Farrell without the spots.
Posted by: Steve Watson | February 15, 2007 10:49 AM
Now we know how ammonites went extinct: by threwing themselves in boiling lava. They had sensed, thanks to all their tiny furry tentacles, that the future had nothing more to offer but silly TV shows.
Posted by: Quentin S. | February 15, 2007 10:52 AM
Wow. I've always held that The Core is the worst geology movie ever made, but now I have to see this one. The Core could still win for overwhelming numbers of errors, but that one scene wins for sheerest stupidity of the sort a kid coming out of 8th grade science wouldn't commit.
Posted by: Carlie | February 15, 2007 11:01 AM
Well, Carlie, I only saw the first few minutes of this one, and I left out stuff like the first volcano erupting catastrophically with no warnng until moments before the eruption.
And given that the plot involves The End Of Humanity, I bet there's more.
Posted by: Chris Clarke | February 15, 2007 11:08 AM
[...] Terry Farrell without the spots.
But I liked her spots! It was a huge disappointment to me that she airbrushed them out in "Trials and Tribblations"... ;)
Posted by: Dunc | February 15, 2007 11:23 AM
I can't trust you guys on whether or not it is truly bad until Phil Plait has reviewed it.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich | February 15, 2007 11:40 AM
Ow, my brain hurts. Ow.
On the bright side, now I get to pull my kids in here and see who can spot the science goof first... the 5YO or the 7YO? (My money's on the 5YO. He's been into geology lately.)
Posted by: RedMolly | February 15, 2007 12:29 PM
Ugh, just reading the comments lets me know that it was one of the Sci-Fi channel groaners, wasn't it. [peeks at link] Yup.
This is one reason, back when I was in the science fiction club at our public library we HATED the term 'sci-fi'. It always connoted something really cheesy and horribly made.
"Eureka" is ok, though, any show that celebrates nerd-dom like that is cool in MY book!
Posted by: BruceJ | February 15, 2007 2:03 PM
The worst science movie of all time is "Special Report: Journey to Mars" starring Judge Reinhold.
"When the worlds first spaceship is close to its goal, Mars, the TV-network GNN begins it's live coverage of the last two hours. Then the problems starts. The landing-computer malfunctions, the captain Eugene Slader gets very sick and back on Earth it is discovered that big financial corporations have an interest in the failure of the mission - and we, the viewers, can see it all live on televison."
Posted by: craig | February 15, 2007 3:04 PM
The fossil is a problem on oh-so-many levels:
A) Fossils are exceedingly rare in igneous rocks, and most especially in those which form the cone of a volcano!!
B) Yes, ammonites are from the Mesozoic and the Devonian, but also from the intervening Carboniferous and Permian.
C) Most importantly of all: ICELAND IS TOO YOUNG FOR AMMONITES!!! Iceland sits atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, in the middle of oceanic crust. Geologically, the rocks down its middle are extremely young, and even the oldest parts of emergent Iceland are only a few million years old. To find Mesozoic rocks in the Atlantic ocean basin you'd have to fly hundreds of miles east or west (although if you went to continental masses like Greenland or Scotland you could find them well enough).
Posted by: Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. | February 15, 2007 3:32 PM
It seems everyone has forgotten Jules Verne recorded an entire biome of prehistoric critters deep within the bowels of a volcano in Iceland. So why not a lone Ammonite?
(Did anyone else get the feeling Verne was trying to poke fun at paleontologists in Journey to the Center of the Earth? )
Posted by: llewelly | February 15, 2007 3:52 PM
Dunc @9: Well, how would they explain a Trill appearing on Kirk's Enterprise a hundred or so years before anyone knew they existed?
I was sad she left DS9, but really, the new Dax was almost equal in fanservice (but a total drag in personality and usefulness, of course).[/trekkie]
PaulC: Yeah, it kinda sucks, but that is the direction of things. It'd be nice if people would include a text summary or transcript or something, though.
Posted by: stogoe | February 15, 2007 4:19 PM
You're not giving the writers enough credit. Obviously, this was a laccolith, and the fossils come from the sedimentary layers pushed to the side. Mt. Elden in Flagstaff is a perfect example; I've pulled Mississipian crinoids, worm burrows and scallops off the slopes of this volcano, and there's a notable Devonian placoderm quarry on its slopes as well.
The Iceland part is a bit tougher to explain away ....
Posted by: Leszek Pawlowicz | February 15, 2007 4:26 PM
Now you know how I, a horse trainer, feel watching ANY movie that has a horse in it. So many errors on so many levels. Yeesh.
Posted by: folderol | February 15, 2007 5:08 PM
Mt. Elden's inside the caldera?
Posted by: Chris Clarke | February 15, 2007 6:08 PM
Posted by: Steve Watson | February 15, 2007 8:10 PM
I'm confused. You see, from the Young Earth Creationists, I *know* that ammonites didn't run as fast as snails. So how'd it get so high?
Posted by: elissa | February 16, 2007 12:38 AM
I watched the clip. The badness that most jumped out at me was that they called Verne's novel "VOYAGE to the Center of the Earth."
Posted by: corydalus | February 16, 2007 10:03 PM
Folderol, I feel your pain. For me it is damn near anything dealing with SCUBA diving. Except Jacqueline Bisset, of course.
Posted by: cory | February 17, 2007 11:59 AM