[meteorite-list] Cox's Crater Wrongs

[Dennis Cox]

Hello list,

Actually, I really hope the craters in New Mexico can be proven to be of non 
impact origin. The idea of a cave system big enough to produce thousands of 
sports stadium sized sinkholes in a single hundred square mile cluster seems 
pretty darned exciting to me. My complaint is that no one has done any real 
science on them to prove anything, one way or another.

But it's true that I think Ed Grondine is a Liar and a fraud.  Velikovsky 
came first. The wannabe is Ed.  And V didn't get the truth out of ancient 
myth, and legend, either.

His latest lie is that I said the scaling laws did not exist. I said no such 
thing. I said they did not apply to that particular conversation.  And when 
I demanded peer reviewed reference to support his claims, he came back with:

"Dennis, I think you're leaving out of your list of contacts some people 
from Arizona, Morrison's allies.
The immediate PNAS link and your demand for references from refereed 
literature are their usual tactic."

What? Are we supposed to take his word for it? Is that the way science 
should be conducted? Since when did an amateur researcher, without academic 
credentials, become the unquestioned dean of impact science?

At the time, I knew damn well no one had done any work to apply scaling laws 
to airburst phenomena. Yet Ed came at me like I must be some kind of idiot 
for not knowing about the amazing (and non-existent) science he just pulled 
out of his butt. Mark Boslough, at Sandia Labs, had only recently pointed 
out that simulations suggested very large airbursts might have efficient 
geo-ablative properties. The work to determine how a geo-ablative airburst 
might scale up from smallest, to largest, or what the largest example of 
such an event might be, has not been done.

Ed assumes many things. He claims that oral traditions contain accurate 
memories more than 13,000 years old. But he cannot present proof. And we all 
know that memories less than half as old from the bronze age, and that were 
written down, can't be relied upon. If 5,000 year old written memories 
aren't reliable, how can oral histories more than twice as old be expected 
to do any better?

It's pretty darn clear why Ed hates me. I've repeatedly called him a liar, 
and a fraud, in public forums. There's no mystery there. He has to discredit 
that claim. But I was curious what the hell Dave Morrison ever did to get on 
his bad side. So I asked him.

Here's what Dave had to say about it:

"I do my best to ignore Grondine. He is not reliable. For more than a decade 
he has consistently written that I favor the Nemesis hypotheses, and he 
sticks to this unfounded belief no matter how many times I correct him. He 
used to show up at scientific meetings to ask weird questions, but he 
doesn't seem to travel any more. As you note, however, his rejections by 
scientists have no effect on his vast self-confidence.

I have no idea who he refers to as "some people from Arizona".  He has had 
run-Ins with my colleagues from California, Colorado, and New Mexico more 
than Arizona. But it doesn't matter, as we all now ignore him."

And in spite of the being corrected "many times", Ed persists in repeating 
that lie publically.

Dave was nicer than I would've been when he used, "vast self-confidence". I 
would have used 'delusions of grandeur'. While Ed sees himself as the grand 
ole man of impact science. He is in fact just another an amateur researcher 
without academic credentials, and with a hard spot for anyone who's 
skeptical of his views.  He is desperate to tear down anyone who disagrees 
with him. And he will not hesitate to use falsehood to do so.

Regards,
Dennis Cox
http://craterhunter.wordpress.com/


--------------------------------------------------
From: "E.P. Grondine" <epgrondine at yahoo.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2011 2:03 PM
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Subject: [meteorite-list] Cox's Crater Wrongs

> Hi Sterling, Paul -
>
> Telling Dennis Cox he has a crater wrong and you get the same response as 
> when you tell some people they have a meteor wrong.
>
> When I told Dennis that he needed to study scaling laws over at the Cosmic 
> Tusk, I was treated to a stream of abuse, wherein he claimed that they did 
> not exist, and then later claimed that I had been incapable of applying 
> them before my stroke, as I had no degree in physics.
>
> That was followed by a lecture on airbursts, in which he claimed I did not 
> understand them either.
>
> When I told Dennis that his "features" were not likely they were from the 
> YD event, I got with more of the same.
>
> When I told Dennis that the features he was seeing via Google earth had to 
> be checked out on the ground, he repeatedly called me a liar for stating 
> that Dave Morrison supported Muller's Nemesis Hypothesis (and David 
> naturally encourage him in this - a number of you here know how that goes. 
> Me, I'm still waiting for Morrison to publicly simply state that the 
> Nemesis Hypothesis is wrong.)
>
> And then Dennis compared my work to Velikovsky's, the ultimate insult.
> Cox does not realize that Velikovsky was simply an E.P. wannabe.
>
> Dennis clearly does not understand the difference that the Earth's 
> atmosphere makes in impact processes.
>
> I tried to point Dennis towards the upcoming Meteor Crater field school, 
> but it appears that he would rather continue to vent his frustrations.
>
> Paul, Sterling, keep it up.
>
> :P)
> E.P. Grondine
> Man and Impact in the Americas
>
>
>
>