So I end up on YouTube, not knowing really how I got there or why I’m browsing. Maybe I followed a link or maybe I browsed for Pangaea Timelapse Maps or something. I come across a video. It’s expertly made and fairly slick. In essence, it shows a CG globe turning while the sphere grows and shrinks in size, the continents and landmasses shuffling around visibly and forming an airtight, though smaller, planet roughly half the Earth’s size. The land seems to interlock East, West, and at both poles to form an unbroken solid landmass, no oceans. It then expands, the whole earth expanding, the continents remaining the same size, the various features falling into familiar shapes and patterns. The video continues this way: expanding, shrinking, expanding, shrinking, as a man’s voice explains his theory. Well he doesn’t much explain as he does ridicule any thoughts that this ISN’T the way it happened, and the man sounds an awful lot like the Hades character from Disney’s ‘Hercules’ movies.
Where did the water go or come from in the timelapse? What made the Earth expand like this in the first place? Who the hell cares! What a cool idea!, I thought. Why hadn’t I heard about this before?
I then found a rebuttal video. This second man refutes the very notion of the theory, quite aptly in fact, and with a healthy dose of humor. You can watch the video yourself, but his evidence (and he does provide evidence), is quite solid (unlike the landmasses 4 billion years ago).
My curiosity then leads me to the armpit of the internet: reading YouTube comments on said videos. The Like/Dislike bar had informed me that nearly everyone had Liked the second video, but the first video was evenly distributed. This is important in no explainable way, but I was curious what others thought. The comments section painted a strange and foreign picture to me. Godwin’s Law hadn’t taken effect yet. On the flip side, actually, there was intelligent, well-reasoned conversation taking place. Well, everyone except a single man, that is. Seemingly the whole forum had united in their like-minded quest to extract answers from a single poster, one who touted the validity of the Earth Expanding theory. They questioned him with sincerity and appealed to his scientific persona. They got nothing. The other man, ranting and raving about seeing proof of people’s credentials and spouting physio-babble nonsense about the earth channeling dark matter to its core, where it subsequently endures nuclear fusion (like our Sun) to grow at an alarming rate, was Neal Adams.
Like the theorist's cojones, our planet is expanding unreasonably.
Who is this guy? He’s the man relentlessly and tirelessly arguing with people on this and other forum boards, calling names and creating excuses for his lack of evidence or sound principles on the theory, using the word “conspiracy” with reckless abandon. He’s also the poster of the first video, the one absolutely convinced that this theory was right, without a shred of evidence other than that the pieces “kinda” go together. He’s also a comic book artist. With minimal digging, I was able to pull up that he had a hand in defining how Superman and even Batman look today. (His art is pretty decent.)
I also found that this theory isn’t new, that it was taken “seriously” maybe a century ago, but was subsequently overshadowed by a landslide (haha) of geological and oceanic findings. Facts. Theories are good and all, but you need those pesky facts to back them up. Well, you don’t HAVE to have them to throw out a theory, but if you’re going to be single-minded enough to call teenagers and accredited scientists names on YouTube in replacement of good reasons why you believe your theory, your scientific standing gets taken down a notch with me. The second guy, by contrast, is an actual man of science. He speaks his case, uses his bullet points, provides sources and, most importantly, encourages education and research on the topic. He even provides links for exploration.
A man can simultaneously draw Batman and be a proponent of scientific discovery, but he can not stead-fastedly shit on attempts at further scrutiny or take offense when people question his line of thought in defense of that theory. In fact, that’s the very basis of scientific discovery. Kudos to the YouTubers out there who didn’t buy into Neal Adams tirade and stuck to your scientific guns. Your tempered resolve and rational approach is expanding our world in one way or another. It’s still a fun idea regardless.
Expanding Earth Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kL7qDeI05U
Anti-Expanding Earth Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epwg6Od49e8&feature=related