Tsunami Hit New York City Region In 300 BC 147
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientists say that sedimentary deposits from more than 20 cores in New York and New Jersey indicate a huge wave crashed into the New York City region 2,300 years ago, dumping sediment and shells across Long Island and New Jersey and casting wood debris far up the Hudson River. Steven Goodbred, an Earth scientist at Vanderbilt University, says that size and distribution of material would require a high velocity wave and strong currents to move it, and it is unlikely that short bursts produced in a storm would suffice. 'If we're wrong, it was one heck of a storm,' says Goodbred. An Atlantic tsunami is rare but not inconceivable, says Neal Driscoll, a geologist from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who is not associated with the research. The 1929 Grand Banks tsunami in Newfoundland killed more than two dozen people and snapped many transatlantic cables, and was set in motion by a submarine landslide set off by an earthquake."
Re:Good news for the young earthers.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Even though I am an atheist, I still don't find this funny. Even if you don't believe, you should have enough knowledge of history to know that 300 BC is concurrent with Ancient Greece and the Roman Republic, and there was certainly no worldwide flood at that time. I guess I shouldn't be surprised you don't know your history, being your a product of the government school system, whose goal is to propagate ignorant and easily-malleable voters.
Second virtually every culture in the world has a record of a flood circa 8000 BC, from the Jews to the Eqyptians the Iraqis, Indians, and Chinese. Apparently *something* happened that year... perhaps a side effect of the melting ice flows after the previous glaciation. Again I guess I shouldn't be surprised you didn't know this.
Furthermore, and I'm guessing here, you're probably a member of the Democrats. Even if you're not a member you still should listen to their founder who said, "Whether my neighbor worships one god, many gods, or no gods, matter not to me. His belief does not harm my body, my property, nor my rights. I will allow my neighbor the liberty to worship as he pleases." Mr. Jefferson had enough intelligence to respect religious freedom, even if he did not agree with them. It's called tolerance. You might want to try emulating him instead of emulating a donkey's anus.
Re:Good news for the young earthers.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe this is why Commander Data doesn't use contractions. If you consistently say "you are" then there's no confusion.
Re:Good news for the young earthers.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Missed the point. I'm not debating theology; I'm debating tolerance. I find it rather annoying that I hear certain "liberals" preach tolerance and then 5 minutes later they slam religious people like Jews, Christians, or Muslims.
A true liberal doesn't give a damn what his neighbor believes, and he supports tolerance in ALL cases.
Re:Good news for the young earthers.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Your analogy is REALLY flawed. Being Black doesn't imply a certain rational framework, or adherence to a certain theory. As far as I know, no ethnicity has a defining body of theory, that once they change their minds, they change their race.
I just stopped believing that the Earth Revolves around the Sun, therefor I ceased to be white.
Your statement is rather silly, since basically your saying that no group that holds a view contrary to science, reason, or evidence, should be discredited, even if this opens a very large can of worms, since there are so many contradictory views. This is especially true when you make a statement of an ontic nature, which is falsifiable such as the claims of the young earthers. Either the world is 3000 years old, or it isn't, and proof would exist that would prove or disprove one or the other claim. Faith never plays into it.
Intolerance would be saying "never tolerate religious group x", which is almost as bad as racism, even if it is much more prevalent than racism. Though oddly religious groups seem much less tolerant than anyone else, since your are a bad bad person if you don't align with their sexual, social, or ideological mores.
I have nothing against religion, or the religious as long as they don't try to muck with my life, or tell me what do based on what their supreme deity of choice told them, since that argument has no bearing on my life. If they keep their ideas away from me, I'll happily ignore them. UNTIL, that is, they try to pass of faith for reason because of religious arguments. The second they say something disprovable, it is fair game, and they shouldn't complain when someone attacks it with evidence, science, and reason.
I cannot scientifically disprove God or gods, but I can easily disprove the world being 3000 years old, or similar claims.
There is no right to be wrong, especially when you try to spread falsehood as unassailable truth (there is no such thing as an unassailable truth, truth should be attacked at every chance we have, just to make sure truth is REALLY truth, and some some pleasing falsehood that makes us happy).
Re:Good news for the young earthers.. (Score:3, Insightful)
it depends on what your definition of tolerance is.
To me tolerance is simply having the maturity to agree to disagree, acknowledging there is one correct and are many incorrect answers to a question, be it is there a flying spaghetti monster, the answer to 2+2, or whether we evolved.
Tolerance to some liberals means that everyone should agree that there are no absolutes (which ironcically is an absolute statement) and libel, slander, or persecute anyone who disagrees with their idea. They speak with a forked tongue.
Neocons don't do tolerance, period.
Others think that tolerance means that everyone should agree that all statements are equally valid.
FWIW, I'm a conservative (libertarian is closest to my world view) and I think tolerance means having the maturity to agree to disagree without forcing my world view on you. I do believe in god but I don't condemn those who don't.
*shrug*
Re:Could happen again (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't remember the name of it, but I read about an island somewhere off the coast of Africa. It's a giant chunk of rock that's split in such a way that its eventual collapse into the ocean is near certain.
Well, there's one scientist who thinks its near certain, and a BBC documentary that focused on his points of view and made them sound like fact. Doesn't mean it couldn't happen, but it's not the certainty that the documentary made it sound.
If I recall correctly, other scientist are far from convinced that his assumptions are right. I believe some theories predict slow land slides instead, which wouldn't cause tsunamis.
Re:This isn't a new worry (Score:3, Insightful)
Umm, sorry you got the math wrong.
It is the tsunami WAVE that travels at 1000km/h. There is no way the water itself travels at that speed. (It is almost the speed of sound. Do you really believe tsunami waves cause ocean to fly hypersonic?)
Think of the sound: it travels at 340m/s, which does NOT mean that the medium (air) travels at that speed.
The correct way to estimate tsunami's energy, I believe, is to calculate its *potential* energy. I.e., (200km*pi*1m^2)*1000kg/m^3 * 9.8m/s^2 * (roughly) 0.5m = 3*10^9 J.
Multiply by 2, because waves tend to have 50:50 mix of potential & kinetic energy, if my memory of classical mechanics is correct.
Re:This isn't a new worry (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Could happen again (Score:1, Insightful)
IIRC there is a volconology station on that island that is constantly monitoring it.