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Originally Posted by Elphaba
Where does your certainty come from, ustwo? Was Geology another of your many majors?
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One of my major fields of study as an undergrad was evolution.
Evolution often deals with 'deep time', 100's of millions of years, enough time for continental drift.
Part of what caused that evolution are changing environments, from ice ages to mountain ranges.
More to the point, anyone who studied evolutionary biology beyond a bio 101 level would know about things such as the Burgess Shale. This rich fossil bed just happens to be located, wait for it, in the rocky mountains, which are not volcanic in nature.
This is of course just an example, I have found trilobite fossils in the rocks exposed by a creek in the back of my house as a child (about 20 miles from where I live currently) as well as other shells and animal tracks in sandstone, this would also be an example which would be contradictory to the expanding earth theory but less pronounced so I chose to not bother with it.
But still while my formal education more than covers this topic, I've learned perhaps more informally on my own. The formal education gave me the needed background in such matters that I can continue to expand my knowledge beyond what I learned, and focus on what I find interesting.
Since you seem so interested my last three books I read for pleasure were, The God Delusion, The Ancestors Tale, and Genome. While not 'expert' level books, they do keep your mind focused on the biological side of life. The Ancestors Tale happened to get into plate tectonics as it is key for understanding how some species evolved.
So my certainty comes from a life time of knowledge, not just at the institutional level but my own studies as well. I am not a geologist but I know the principles better than most people. I might not be able to tell you what level of seismic activity would indicate an impending volcanic eruption without looking it up, I do know enough that when some crackpot a few years ago predicted an earthquake for the Midwest based on the moon, that he was full of shit. Didn't happen and he was of course.
This theory is even more full of shit. You couldn't cram more shit in it without adding magic unicorns with intestinal issues. It doesn't fit easily observed data, it doesn't fit the measured tectonic movements, it requires giant leaps in logic in terms of mass and density, its just plain silly.
When the theory of plate tectonics was introduced it did meet a lot of resistance it shook the very foundations of geology. The idea that entire continents moved seemed to many absurd. The difference here though is that it answered SO many questions, it filled in so many gaps, that despite being an earth shattering theory it was very quickly and pretty much universally adapted.
The expanding earth theory, for a time, was used to explain why the shapes of the continents were so similar but that idea was quickly squashed under a mountain of evidence in favor of plate tectonics and a lack of evidence or explanation for an expanded earth theory.
Belief in this is the equivalent of thinking the earth is flat.