[[ Check out my Wordpress blog Context/Earth for environmental and energy topics tied together in a semantic web framework ]]

Monday, February 04, 2008

Wing Nut Oil

Abiotic oil exists as a mixture of substances. It contains equal parts of wingnut extraction -- one part of pinheaded writing, one part of fundie media, and the rest right-wing radio frothing. Jerome Corsi wrote the article, sure to become part of a book that will lose money. World Nut Daily publishes this crap because it fits their 'minionist world view. And a spewer by the name of Jim Quinn of the Quinn & Rose radio show broadcasts the news to a population of shut-ins because he clearly has nothing better to do (he admits that he gets no money from his satellite radio show).

Fossil fuels clearly come from a biological origin. The identification of unique markers in the deposits scientifically prove that only biological processes can generate the oil. Whatever methane exists can obviously come from a physical inorganic origin because the molecular structure has a simple basis. Thugs like Jim Quinn love this "controversy" because it allows them to mention Peak Oil, and call it a phony theory. Without abiotic oil "proof", they won't talk oil depletion because they immediately lose the debate.

22 Comments:

Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Wingnut extraction," "pinhead," and "fundie media," "right-wing radio frothing," "crap," and "minionist world view."

Six ad hominem attacks, name calling, before any logical arguments are given. That isn't convincing or scientific.

Please reference your previous post entitled, "Thy Name is Mud," and my anonymous comment, where I offer a brief scientific and logical argument for abiotic oil theory. Please respond to that comment's ideas and assertions in any answer you choose to make in regards to this comment.

In this post, you make the "bio-marker" argument against abiotic oil theory.

There is a logical explanation for bio-markers, which does not exclude abiotic oil theory.

Abiotic oil theory postulates that petroleum rises from the mantel into the sedimentary deposits. In this process, the oil passes through a microbial environment, which transfers the "bio-markers," you speak of, to the oil.

You have to do better than calling names to prove your case.

You are invested in "Peak Oil" theory. And, from the nature of your arguments, your position is political, rather than scientific.

Science does not rely on name calling.

Science relies on previously agreed chemical and physical laws, mathamatical computations that conform to chemical and physical laws, field observations, and lab experiments.

So far, abiotic oil theory conforms to all scientific constraints.

And, has been varified by various commericial oil developments: Russian deep-drilling oil finds, specifically the Donets basin drilling, and Vietnam, "White Tiger" deep-drilling commercial oil development.

Research the internet. Review both sides of the argument, as an open-minded scientist. There is definitely evidence on both sides of the argument, but when you get to brass tacks, there is more evidence for abiotic oil theory.

I hope your readers will take the time to do the research.

It is an important question.

Remember, Scientific inquiry isn't biased against one theory or the other, it follows the evidence, and as I wrote in your "Thy Name is Mud" post, the weight of the scientific proof is in favor of abiotic oil theory.

Please, proffer proof that I'm wrong, and I'll be glad to offer countervailing scientific evidence.

If this is a search for the scientific truth, and not a political agenda, you will be happy to engage in my friendly request.

I look forward to your response.

11:20 PM  
Professor Blogger @whut said...

A prime example of an Occan's pinhead.

One who doesn't understand the principle of Occam's razor.

3:28 PM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

Don't make a thing more complicated than it has to be.

Then there are people who hide behind snide remarks because they can't effectively respond on the merits.

Certainly, they don't want others in their circle to question the received "group think." Look at this post: Did WHT want anybody to think for themselves? Or was the name calling, a kind of preemptive smackdown to discourage critical thinking?

Is WHT a person interested in knowledge or closer to a cult leader, protecting his dogma?

Sounds like we got us, here, a Jim Jones browbeating everybody to drink his Kool-Aid.

Sure, I've seen Occam's razor held up before, "talk to the hand," when in reality it's just a dodge.

Truth is WTH doesn't have the stones to debate his own ideas.

Does anybody else?

5:12 PM  
Professor Blogger @whut said...

Knock knock, is anyone even reading these comments?

9:28 PM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

Quite possibly nobody is reading these comments. I have no way of knowing.

This post is the second most recent on this blog. So if no one is reading these comments, that's possibly because no one is reading this blog. And, if that's the case, who's fault is that? Why might that be? Could it be because your blog doesn't stimulate a free discussion of ideas? Could it be that regular readers -- if you have any -- don't want to get whacked over the head by offering constructive comments, to agree or disagree, or even point out flaws in my reasoning.

You give the comments an appellation of "professor." Even my comments are designated "professor anonymous."

So you have a pretense of having thoughtful people making comments, but in practice you discourage thoughtful comments by treating subjects with distain, and by extension anybody who disagrees with your premise.

That's a smart way to build readership. Yeah, you're a smart one alright.

Again, if no one is reading the comments on this blog, look in the mirror.

Smart people don't like being fed Kool-Aid. Frankly, smart, thoughtful people like discourse that challenges their assumptions.

Yes, Occam's razor, I'm sure the Flat Earth Society folks said, "It's way too complicated to think the Earth revolves around the sun, the Earth is flat, can't you tell, it explains all we need to know, any other ideas are simply an exercise in Occam's razor."

So I'm happy no one reads this blog, that way you can't stunt too many people's curiosity with your flat Earth mentality.

I feel sorry for you.

9:32 AM  
Professor Blogger @whut said...

Excellent discussion!

4:26 PM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

No, it's a monologue, I know. You have no interest to engage because your mind is made up on abiotic oil.

But the science is out there for people to study and evaluate for themselves.

It isn't the first time and it won't be the last, where one side or the other, has so much invested that they refuse to engage the subject. But failing to debate never settled a scientific question.

Why mention a subject if your only response is contempt?

8:17 PM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

I asked a stupid question. You mentioned the subject to let everybody know your complete contempt for the subject.

If true, it does put a stake in the heart of your "Peak Oil" belief.

In that sense, I understand why it's threatening.

But scientists should not be threatened by the quest for truth. Even less so if it's complete folly.

1:43 PM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

The "Turtle" defense of "Peak Oil."

When an aggressive advocate of abiotic oil theory will not be deterred, by contemptuous name calling into silence, and has demonstrated a knowledge base that can't easily be defeated, then one pulls in his legs and head into the "turtle's shell."

This is known as the turtle defense.

The aggressor like a "coyote" will knock the turtle's shell around, but will be unable to acquire any purchase, to get at the soft meat inside. Eventually, the "coyote" will tire, with nothing to push against, and wonder off.

Above all, don't allow "Peak Oil" theory to be held up to effective ridicule or defeat. Even if that means not making a defense.

In legal circles, it's known as the "default" defense. Don't allow or engage in "discovery" that could reveal embarrasing evidence, or facts (the judgment is less damaging than exposure of embarrasing evidence or facts).

The "turtle" then emerges from his shell and again pushes his "Peak oil" dogma in an environment free of effective rebuttal.

There is 1.2 TRILLION barrels of proven oil reserves, and growing.

And estimates of unproven, but potentially recoverable oil reach upwards toward over 4 TRILLION barrels of oil.

The above figures use conventional fossil fuel theory. At present consumption rates, that's about 140 years left of oil supply.

So even if abiotic oil theory is false, peak oil won't happen until everybody reading this blog, presently, is not around.

That's a long time to be hyping "Peak Oil."

Of course, if abiotic oil theory is correct, the day of reckoning will be even further off in the distant future, if at all.

So keep "turtling," either way time is on my side, because the longer you "turtle" or "Peak Oil" fails to arrive. The weaker your position looks.

1:07 PM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

People in their quest for knowledge regarding abiotic oil theory may reach this site.

I urge you, if you are interested in information on abiotic oil theory to google J.F. Kenney, Gas Resources Corp., Houston TX. His site will provide you with mathematical, chemical, and physical evidence of abiotic oil that can't be defeated by the "peakers" such as the author of this blog.

On that website you will find a detailed explanation that defeats this blog's bio-marker argument, and other points.

Good luck on your journey and quest for the truth.

5:12 PM  
Professor Blogger @whut said...

Occam says to look for the simplest explanation. Fossil fuels exhibit a continuum of forms. From the lowly peat to lignite coal to more concentrated energy anthracite coal and on to petroleum, biological matter produced this entire range. Different amounts of compression over different ranges of time transformed the organic matter into different types of hydrocarbon fractionated material. What are known as fossil fuels. And this is all that made sense when we learned about this in the 6th and 7tth grades AIR.

Can't have it both ways.

7:19 AM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

Junk-science relies on dogma.
Real science relies on mathematical formula, in conformity with physical and chemical laws.

"The language of nature is mathematics." as stated by Galileo, and has been reaffirmed time after time, most famously by Einstein, E=MC squared.

"Fossil" fuel theory is in essence junk-science because it can't be expressed in the mathematical language of nature.

Occam's razor is a 14th century maxim, first postulated by a monk.

You drag out this antiquated maxim to justify and excuse your simplistic non-scientific explanation.

Real science doesn't work that way.

Look at your example. There simply is no authority presented. None. Not mathematical or experimental.

Something is something is something. But You assume coal is biotic. No such proof has been made. You commit the fallacy of making a presupposition.

You rely on what made sense in 6th or 7th grade. You should know better than that.

Peat is clearly biological, but the continuum, you go on to assert is not there. Imprints of ferns and insects, while popularized, as proving coal's biological origin, simply suggest coal was a liquid at the surface, but hardened over time, possibly stripped of a large portion of it's hydrogen atoms, leaving mostly long-chain hydro-carbons and carbon.

In the absence of any actual scientific proof for the biological origin of complex hydro-carbons. It is more likely coal is the end of the contimuum of abiotic hydrocarbons.

Your "offer of proof," is in actuality an attempt to avoid the burden of rigorous scientific analysis.

Crude oil (heavy to light, even tar) comes to the surface and the lighter short-chain hydro-carbons, the alkane series, like butane, hexane, ethane, octane, propane, evaperate off in surface condidtions.

Under your hypothesis, coal is at the surface, and is, therefore, subject to less pressure and heat. But coal has a preponderance of long-chain hydro-carbons, as well as simple carbon (graphite). Long-chain hydro-carbons, require more pressure and heat to form than is present at the surface.

Again the iron second law of thermodynamics, proscibes coal forming at the surface as you would have it.

Abiotic theory makes more sense: Under the ultra high temperature and pressure, in the mantel, long-chain hydro-carbons are formed, as well as lighter, short-chain hydro-carbon molecules (the alkane series). As the petroleum comes to the surface, the aromatic hydro-carbons evaperate, leaving the long-chain molecules and simple carbon to harden into coal.

A real professor would know better than to present science as an antiquated axiom.

You are a charlatan.

1:43 PM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

To be far, further research has let me to believe, brown coal, lignite, may indeed, be residue of peat, and therefore, organic in nature.

A major destinction, that made me revise my opinion, is that brown coal has much less energy per weight than any of the black coals. Also, it has no alkanes (hydrogen-carbons, like octane, butane, hexane, and so on), which are a signature of petroleum. In contrast, most of the "black" coals have these long-chain, high chemical energy potential hyrdro-carbons present, which as I argued previously, are incompatable with organic detritus convertion.

11:11 AM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

But YOU DON'T, because the math doesn't work out for "fossil" fuel theory. It's simple, there is NO scientific explanation for "fossil" theory. There is no scientically recognized model that conforms to the laws of physics and chemistry.

That leaves YOU in a tough spot.

All you can do seethe in your spider hole.

And, undoubedly, your are right: You can run mathematical circles around me. The fact that you don't, is vivid testimony to the weakness of your case.

You are like a shaman called on to explain his magic. Since there is no answer (I'm sure you'd give it, if there was one -- just to shut me up), what does that make you?

Well, yes, a charlaton selling snake oil.

And what does that make me?

Since I freely admit I'm not a mathematician or even a scientist, but a person who is scientifically literate and respects scientific process, I guess that makes me:

The little boy pointing out the emperor has no clothes.

Are you cold?

8:57 AM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

In review, of this decidedly one sided dialogue, it is I, who has been running circles around YOU.

I have even revised my opinion (origin of 'brown' coal), on my own initiative, to reflect the evidence. Hard science follows the evidence.

Junk-science repeats the same shibboleths.

You are a broken record.

9:48 AM  
Professor Blogger @whut said...

"Since I freely admit I'm not a mathematician or even a scientist,.."

That is all that I really wanted to hear. What weird crap comes out of the uneducated mind ....

7:03 PM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

You are intellectually bankrupt.

Thomas Gold, a scientist who was well known of Cornell University, supported abiotic theory. He wrote a book.

And J.F. Kenney, along with three Russian scientists have supported this theory. They wrote several papers, at least one accepted and published in The proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.A.).

And 50 years during which many Russian scientists and mathematicians have worked on this theory.

You know, I understand why you mostly stay in your spider hole.

Everytime you open your mouth you sound stupider. What are you a high school math teacher?

4:08 PM  
Professor Blogger @whut said...

Thomas Gold thought the moon was covered with a thick layer of soft dust, and that the lunar module would sink out of sight. What a maroon ... much like yourself.

7:33 PM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

If a scientist was "worthless" because they had been wrong once, a good portion of scientists would be "worthless."

Also, to exaggerate or mischaracterize the inaccuracy is political.

Of course, you fail to deal with the 50 year Russian body of scientific work, or J.F. Kenney and the three Russian scientists who's paper was published in the Proceedings of the Academy of National Sciences.

Instead, you trash Gold, really just a distraction, since you don't argue the merits, but that's par for your course.

You have learned well from Mike Ruppert: Name calling and distraction.

You're pathetic.

8:52 AM  
Professor Blogger @whut said...

Thomas Gold:
"he started a long-range investigation of the lunar surface, offered technical
suggestions for the Apollo program and made the (category 3) prediction
of a deep layer of fine dust on the moon. With his occasional
overenthusiasm, Tommy exclaimed that “the Apollo astronauts will
sink in up to their bellybutton in dust” (this is a sanitized paraphrase).
"

... and the moon is made of cheese ... and the oil comes the cheese

3:55 PM  
Professor Anonymous Anonymous said...

You backed up your statement with documentation. Well done. I accept your offer of proof. Too bad, it took this long, and on a collateral matter.

6:24 PM  
Professor Blogger @whut said...

F.U. J.D.

8:58 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home


"Like strange bulldogs sniffing each other's butts, you could sense wariness from both sides"