Irony is when you're running a symposium about a Victorian clergyman whose fossil interpretations challenged biblical literalism and, whilst you are out doing this, some 6-day creationists come round to your house and try to save your family from heathenism. Morissettian irony is when you - a heathen - follow this by giving a Sunday afternoon reading of the reverend's inflammatory paper from the pulpit of an ancient minster.
 |
| A shrine where all Earth scientists should worship: Delegates of the Lost Beasts of the North fieldtrip admire Kirkdale Cave. |
Saturday March 12th 2022 was the 238th birthday of Professor Reverend William Buckland. On that day, we held a Lost Beasts of the North symposium at Ryedale School, celebrating the bicentenary of Buckland's announcement that Kirkdale Cave, near Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire, was a hyaena den, and that the animals had lived in the area prior to the Great Flood.
Buckland's interpretation led to all manner of religious controversy, with Whitby's Reverend George Young remaining a stickler for the literal Biblical story of the 6 days of Creation, and crowbarring all the local geology into it (Professor Pete Rawson will give a Rotunda Geology Group talk about this on Thursday April 7th). Rev. Buckland, and many other theo-geologists, argued otherwise, and - especially from the pulpit of an ancient minster - the debates raged furiously.
In some places they still do.
Comments