Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Underground Rivers
of thermodynamics. Geographers might prefer a topographic map. Scholars of the humanities
might look to literary portrayal.
Science involves the perception of patterns that exist. Superstition involves the perception of
patterns that do not. We tend to be good at perceiving patterns, but weak in discerning the
veracity aspect. Science and superstition thus aren't as distinct as we prefer to believe.
In that light, let's imagine that Hollywood has recently entertained us with a blockbuster involving
dragons. The animated creatures seemed, in fact, quite alive. Our hypothesis is that
subterranean water is propelled from sea to springhead by a dutifully-belching reptile. We prefer
our dragon theory over, say, one utilizing a hose, because in blasting the water upward, our great
beast also consumes the salt.
To wit,
We wish to explain springflow.
We do so by means of a dragon.
We'll express our model as a graphic.
Springs
Ocean
The boxes represent water; the upward arrow, transport. What's between is the means. It might
seem silly to bother with a drawing, but we may be thankful for such visuals in Chapter 8.
An errant hypothesis can be a useful step in the scientific process. A dragon would tire of a salt
diet and our sonar device yields no belching. After a bit of reflection and observation, we'll
perhaps dismiss the dragon model. We'd prefer a mechanism more satisfactory in terms of
realism, precision, generality and/or intellectual manipulability.
How about, say, we replace the dragon with a giant magnet? After all, everyone knows that
there's iron in the earth.
DRAFT 1122//66//22001122
Uppddaatteess aatt hhttttpp::////www. .uunnm. .eedduu//~rrhheeggggeenn//UnnddeerrggrroouunnddRi ivveerrss. .hhttml l
iii