I have absolutely no theoretical dog in this fight. I just wanted to say that this discussion is, hands-down, one of the most interesting I’ve read on this board. Discussions such as this (on a larger scale), and the research that inspires them, are critical to the future of our planet. Informed discussion on fuels, both fossil and alternative, seems to be sorely lacking among the general population.
No, I’m saying that citing Gold just because he’s old and respected is no more meaningful than citing a young newcomer.
This is the correct question. The correct answer is that it is not reasonable.
What are the problems with conventional theory? It works in all cases investigated. Abiogenic theories, OTOH, do not work at all. That is the real world difference.
You don’t understand the underlying assumptions or you’d understand why simplistic linear predictions based on current pricing and technology have always failed and will always fail. This is not a problem with theory.
As I said, questioning is a basic part of the scientific culture. So is promoting alternate theories. The problems that arise from this stem from non-scientists who do not understand enough about the basic issues to make an intelligent decision among the competing theories yet decide to champion an alternate just because it sounds better in some way or is more to their liking for whatever reason.
Science is not a popularity contest, nor is it a democracy that we get to vote in the results we choose. Theories either work or do not. At the present time the abiogenic theory does not work. It may be refined, so to speak, in the future, but it is not being ignored because of ideological reasons. Everyone would love to have virtually infinite amounts of available oil just underfoot, but the odds are that these pools are simply imaginary no matter what true believers think.
But everybody in this thread has cited Gold for exactly the opposite reason.
Gold was cited as being respected because John W. Kennedy made the ridiculous and ignorant claim that anybody who supported this theory was a tinfoil-hatter, and that all respected scientists had abandoned the theory long ago.
When someone makes a stament like that it is hardly meaningless to cite Gold as a respected scientist to demonstrate that the statement is ignorant.
Actually, it isn’t. Both “fossil fuels” and “fossil remains” derive their names from the same root, the Latin word “fossa” - meaning “ditch”, reflecting the fact that these things are found in the ground.
Gold was indeed a “tinfoil hatter” on some subjects. History is replete with respected scientists putting forth total nonsense when commenting on fields, even scientific fields, outside their expertise.
Citing him on petroleum because he was respected as a scientist in a different field is exactly as meaningless as I said it was.
You seemed to be perfectly aware of this in this related thread. It’s just as true here.
Doubtless, but there is no evidence he was on this one aside form the fact that he disagreed withyou. And that of courseis simply an ad hominem.
But it isn’t a different field.
Gold was a respected geoscientist and "widely celebrated as a … geophysicist. Geophysics involves the application of physical laws and principles to a study of the Earth and other astronomical bodies while geoscience incorporates environmental science, meteorology, and oceanography [and] Solid-Earth geoscience… (Geology and Geophysics)
Can you please explain to us why the origins of petroleum are a different field to geoscience and geophysics?
This seems like total nonsense to me.
History is just as replete with multidisciplinary scientists and innovators who are quite comfortable in multiple fields.
Just because someone hasn’t been certified in a particular field doesn’t mean their scientific reasoning suddenly flies out the window when they happen to become involved in that field.
Being too quick to dismiss an informed party out of hand, just because their PhD isn’t in geology, is just as ignorant, if not more so, as dismissing Dr. Gold.
You have license to dismiss only after examining what they have to say.
Quite aside from the gratuitous personal insults, you are lying outright about what I said, which can be established by simply reading the earlier postings in this very topic.
I have a policy of not participating in threads in which my postings have been lied about. Therefore, I will be neither posting nor reading any further in this topic.
Oh please, Blake. Gold was an astronomer/cosmologist his entire professional life until he took on abiogenic oil after his retirement.
See this obituary.
For that matter, see your own obituary link, which says the same thing although not as directly.
If I disagree with him, it puts me in the company of all petroleum geologists. I’m comfortable there.
Name them. Stick to scientists who are working today or whose work was in the very recent past, as was Gold’s. But name them.
A point of clarification, if I may? Many posters in this thread are referring to the “abiogenic theory” of oil production. There is no such theory. There is an abiogenic hypothesis, which I believe is what folks meant to say. However, for a hypothesis to become a theory, it must pass tests, which this hypothesis has not.
Actually, that last sentence is completely untrue; Hubbert’s theory was very controversial at the time, and many people questioned his assumptions. One of his most prominent enemies became the head of USGS, but later was forced to resign.
Hubbert correctly predicted the US peak within a year, which I think was an amazing feat. It’s looking like the worldwide peak may be happening now, which means he was off by about 6 years; probably attributable to the demand destruction accompanying the 1970s oil shocks.
Nobody ever predicted we would be “out of oil by now.” We won’t be “out of oil” for many decades, if ever. The whole issue is about rate, not quantity. Up to now increasing demands have always been met by increasing supply. After the peak, that will no longer be possible, and I know of no plausible arguments to the contrary. When supply cannot meet demand, price goes up until demand is reduced. The timing and mechanisms of demand reduction are the real issues with peak oil.
Whether the oil is biogenic or abiogenic is completely irrelevant: the point is that we cannot continuously and indefinitely increase production, therefore at some point demand has to decrease. That will not be done easily or painlessly.
I’d sure like to see these “facts” that don’t fit the Hubbert peak theory. All the factual evidence I have seen certainly supports it - the only questions people argue about are the timing and magnitude (i.e. when and how much).
Such testing would include meausuring the C12/C13 ratio of oil deposits throughout the world and comparing them to the C12/C13 ratio of CH4 that is definiely produce abiogenically - such as that which comes from mid-ocean ridges, or methane seeps in the Red Sea. Unfortunately, this has been done and the two are nor the same.
People I’ve worked with personally:
Dr. Anthony Aveni, Archaeoastronomy
Dr. Gary Urton, MacArthur Foundation fellow, Anthropology, Astronomy
Dr. Jeffrey Buboltz, Biophysics
Dr. C. Mohan, Bioinformatics
Further examples:
Many, many Shuttle astronauts/payload specialists: Aerospace Engineering + another scientific field, http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/
Any biophysicist
Any quantum computing scientist
Any of these people: http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.1301971/k.688B/Fellows_by_Domain_and_Area.htm
Thank you for showing that you are approaching this on a serious basis.
I can’t find any information in a quick search to see whether the people you named actually changed careers and did serious research in a different field, but perhaps I can find some scientific biographies to check them.
You are ridiculously overreaching at the end, which hurts your case - I know some MacArthur recipients and they do not meet the definition in any way - and makes me wonder whether you understand what a change of scientific field is. That’s a common problem around here, though. People too often try to make their arguments so big they can’t be refuted, not realizing that this undercuts their position rather than reinforces it.
Chronos, you’re right, of course, but fortunately there aren’t that many Creationists around these parts to make us be that careful about our language. 
Thank you, I look forward to continuing this serious discussion.
But hold on, when did we go from “multidisciplinary scientists and innovators who are quite comfortable in multiple fields” to “people (who) actually changed careers and did serious research in a different field”?
The MacArthur fellowship is given to “Recipients chosen for their potential to make exceptionally creative contributions to their respective fields”. Creativity that involves innovation in reaching beyond their existing field to others.
I stand by the statement that any biophysicist, quantum computer scientist, or astronaut with multiple degrees is multidisciplinary.
We were talking about people who made scientific pronouncements outside their fields of expertise. This is the very opposite of multidisciplinary.
At the risk of sounding simple-minded, the answer is fairly simple. If abiogenesis were producing sufficient oil to overcome Hubbert’s Curve, it would be showing up in the reserves. Since it ain’t, the hypothesis, even if true, describes a process much too slow to be of comfort.
We’re not necessarily disagreeing here, but it is difficult to become multidisciplinary without starting in one field and branching out into another.
Particularly in emerging fields like biophysics and quantum computing, current members of each field started in one or the other of their combined fields and eventually moved to the new one (e.g. biologist becoming interested in physics, creating/moving to biophysics).
A scientist making a pronouncement outside their current field must have some stake in, or intermediate knowledge about, the other field to bother making that pronouncement. (unless they [hypothetically] have lost their minds/scientific rigor)
Whether it’s because they intend to migrate to or merge the two fields, or because the result will impact their own work, it is very difficult to demarcate where their field ends and another begins.
The closest convenient example I have would be the aforementioned Dr. Aveni, who started in Astronomy, became interested in Archaeology, and eventually was intrumental in creating Archaeoastronomy, for which he still teaches and conducts field studies.
I can’t see this simple thread title without thinking “The Young Ones”…
Well, that is the accusation against Gold, after all…