The Avali Nexus

@RyuujinZERO , didn't you say something about delaying the fix for the fix for the avali-set1 sets for the next update? It seems their color previews were broke because the palette was replaced with a default looking template.

 

I normally don't get involved in discussions like this (I prefer not to get my head cut off)... but...

From where I am standing, this is how I see it: there's no such thing as 'not religious'. A religion is a set of beliefs. Whether you believe life was crafted by a superior being or it crawled out of a primodial chemical slurry, you are believeing something. And, for that matter, I find one no more believeable from the other. You can do the maths, you can apply all the scientific theories, laws, and principles, but any concrete, solid, undeniable, unshakable evidence for either has been lost to the uncertainty of time. Did Earth's rock strata form over eons of accumulation, or did they form quickly by settling in the waters of a worldwide flood? Melt the ice caps and purge the ground water from Earth's aquifers... that's a lot of water. All we can do is speculate and make educated guesses. Living memory only goes back so far, and even for matters where living memory is present we demand proof.

So, that's my two cents; make of it what you will. *throws two cents in a jar and walks out*

 

There's a LOT of very robust evidence that it was laid down over long periods of time. Radiocarbon dating, fossils, orogenies, uplifts, faults, and other geological structures that takes long timeframes to form. Together they corroborate with each other that strata is (typically) laid down over millions of years.

 

Orogenies?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orogeny

Contrary to common experience, the structure of the ground is far more complex than you might immediatly think:


Forces can fault and bend the strata, creating loops, curves, or flipping the ground "on it's side" almost. Weathering then occurs in a top-down fashion and possible more deposition occurring over that. This makes rock strata much more complex to decipher, but it also tells a more complete history - how the material has moved, what forces have shaped it and what environments it has existed in during different time frames. All of these processes take millions of years, and this is one of many reasons we can be pretty darn sure the Earth's surface has been formed over eons, not days in a titanic flood.

Incidentally if the ground was simply laid down in a top-down fashion, there'd be no hills or mountains; asides from the occasionally former volcano

 

This is so much more handy than the powerpoint presentations the science teachers used to play. Quite interesting too.

 

I heard Toribash!

 

I infinitely suck at it.

 

*slaps with turned off electric flyswatter*
Look, topic.
*points at geology post*

 

I know geology is a thing.

But yeah, Toribash is hard. Also, I've sometimes wanted to make Thera (a drider) in it. Not that I've ever bothered.

 

OCD_Suppression.exe has stopped working

This is driving me up a wall. (and notice that among all those guns a grappler isn't one of them)

 

I'm fully aware that the icons do not colour properly... but alas your OCD will have to wait til next patch

 

...
Fine
I'll figure SOMETHING out.

 

Even so, evidence is just that: Evidence. Not proof. That being said, also consider that these explainations are nowadays considered fact. Who is questioning them? Are there alternative theories? What we have is based on what we can presently observe. These things you listed are all very well thought, but to say that they are exactly how it happened or that there is no other possible way is a bit of a stretch to me. Think of it this way:

You find a broken egg on the floor of a chicken coop. How did it break? Did it do it by itself? Most likely not. Did one of the hens knock it over? Did the farmer accidentally drop it? Was it Halloween and the famer had no treats, so one of the trick-or-treaters accidentally missed the house and the egg landed in the coop, which the farmer may or may not have left open that night?

Given this is a hypothetical situation (and a simplistic one at that), it's a poor analog for something as complex as how land formations can form or how life came to be... but it illustrates the gist of my argument.

 

If we go down this chain of thought, a lot of things will need some re thinking...

 

Some would argue it's better to rethink things than follow a possibly incorrect belief.

 

Except that the one trying to figure out how the egg broke could buy hundreds of eggs.
He could throw a bunch of them on the ground.
He could drop a bunch of them from different heights.
He could knock a couple from places similar to where a chicken could be.
So on and so forth.
He does this so many times that by observing all these hundreds of broken eggs he would get a very good understanding of HOW eggs crack in different situations, and then he goes back to the original egg.
Yep. It has that main fault along the half-axis that happen exclusively when a great deal of momentary force is applied. It also has a tetrical spike splat pattern that happens when the egg spins before collision.
He finds it safe to conclude that it was a kid throwing the egg in a curve-ball fashion.
Also, it was holloween yesterday.
I dunno. The egg didn't scream "This kid murdered me!", but we can be pretty damn sure that's what happened.
Whoah what's that? It WASN'T somebody smashing the egg? Well what was it- oooooh. That makes sense. Yeah. I think I get it. Wow what a great discovery! This changes everything! Let's fix our theory on egg-cracking to make it more accurate.

 

[1] Scientific textbooks - especially at undergraduate level, typically provide students with the tools to analyse a theory and encourage them to check for themselves that the concept works in practice and makes sense. The scientific method is not taught by rote. "X is true", but by self example, "You know A, B and C to be true, in context, does this mean X is true?". Remember, science is there to provide a useful framework, if something in that framework is broken and does not actually make work, then it HAS to be re-thought, and rethinking it makes the scientific model stronger. This is perhaps why you anology of science as a religion breaks down, religion feels weakened when challenged (If religious scripture flies in the face of current knowledge, then how can both be true? Which arguement has solid evidence to support it?), when Science grows stronger, the more it is challenged, the more certain we can be in it which is why science students are encouraged to question everything from the first lesson.

[2] Given time and resources, it is likely this problem could be properly resolved. (Testing the egg for fingerprints or DNA, checking the egg is that of one of the chickens and not from an outside source, making forensic analysis of the pattern in which the egg broke all offer clues. Shrugging and saying "this problem is too hard, guess we'll never know" is something that scientists have said exactly never.

[3] The jist of your argument seems to be simply an argument from personal incredulity.

 

Firstly, thanks for turning it off.
Secondly, isn't this the fuck-around thread anyway? =p
I am not that interested in geology, so it didn't catch my attention.

 

You think geology 101 belongs in the Avali thread?