Thursday, March 27, 2014

#974: Lawrence S. Myers


No one should doubt that Stuart Murray et al. are promoters of absolutely breathtaking nonsense (such as this), but they are also primarily Canadians and hence disqualified.

Lawrence S. Myers qualifies on all counts, however. Myers is an internet kook and defender of the hilariously silly Expanding Earth hypothesis. He defends his view on his website expanding-earth.org, which is characterized by the usual internet kook’s peculiar affection for unusual color schemes, font combinations, and unorthodox capitalization. According to Myers, he has “PROOF of Earth’s growth and expansion.” The proof in question is a map of the Earth 200 million years ago that Myers has interpreted himself (he also has to reject the generally accepted age of the earth to make his hypothesis work). At least his sentences are generally grammatical and semantically coherent, which is a step up from the usual standards achieved for this brand of pseudoscience.

There is a fine deconstruction of the expanding earth hypothesis, or subduction denialism, in three parts here, here, and here, showing pretty well how absolutely stunningly crazy the idea actually is. And no – although Myers has some cherry-picked quotes and assertions, he has of course not attempted to develop a unified theory that even begins to explain any of the phenomena such a theory would need to explain. But we’re not really waiting.

Diagnosis: Babbling internet kook. Probably harmless.

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