Isaac Newton Vail

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Isaac Newton Vail, from his 1912 book The Earth's Annular System

Isaac Newton Vail (1840 – January 26, 1912) was an American

pseudoscientist supporting the theory of catastrophism. His ideas were taken up by creationists including Jehovah's Witnesses.[1]

Life

Isaac Newton Vail was born to John Vail and Abigail (nee Edgerton) in

1900 census records his occupation as a farmer.[2][3]

Vail argued that the

Noah's Flood, as he described in his 1874 book The Earth's Aqueous Ring: or The Deluge and its Cause.[8]

Vail died on 26 January 1912 in Pasadena, California.

Reception

Further information: Flood geology § Canopy theory
Isaac Newton Vail's diagram 'Earth Cooled From a Molten State' showing his supposed water ring system. In his theory, the rings collapsed to form Noah's flood.

The

Skeptic that the "Water Canopy Theory has long been a mainstay of creationists", who invoke it to account for both the conditions before the Genesis flood and the cause of the flood itself.[10][11]

The

historian of science Ronald Numbers, in his book on creationism, writes that the founders of the Jehovah's Witnesses "borrowed their geology" from Vail, as it was even referenced in their 1912 multi-media production The Photo Drama of Creation.[1] However, the Witnesses have in recent decades distanced themselves from creationist teachings on the basis that such are not in harmony with Scripture nor scientific truths.[12]

The Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience notes that, a century later, "members of the Fortean Society" support Vail's theory.[13] The mathematician and science writer Martin Gardner in his book Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science wrote that Vail's theories were still being popularized in the 20th century by the Annular World Association of Azusa, California.[14][15]

The engineer Jane Albright notes several scientific failings of the canopy theory. Among these are that enough water to create a flood of even 5 centimetres (2.0 in) of rain would form a vapor blanket thick enough to make the earth too hot for life, since water vapor is a greenhouse gas; the same blanket would effectively obscure all incoming starlight.[16]

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-0-520-08393-6
    .
  2. 1900 census
    . Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1900. T623, 1854 rolls.
  3. ISBN 978-0-7873-0905-3. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
  4. ^ Bowers, Stephen (1892). The Vailan or annular theory : a synopsis of Prof. I.N. Vail's argument in support of the claim that this earth once possessed a Saturn-like system of rings. The Observer Press Print.
  5. ^ Vail, Isaac (1912). The earth's annular system, or The waters above the firmament, the world record scientifically explained. Pasadena, Annular World.
  6. ^ Cardona, Dwardu (April 1996). "The Reflective Canopy Model and the Mytho-historical Record". Aeon. 4 (4).
  7. ^ Vail, Isaac N. (1902) [1874]. The Waters Above the Firmament, or The Earth's Annular System. The Mosaic Record Scientifically Explained (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: Ferris & Leach.
  8. ^ Vail, Isaac N. 1874. The Earth's Aqueous Ring: or The Deluge and its Cause, F. S. Hickman Publishers, West Chester, PA.
  9. ^ Wise, Donald U. (1998). "Creationist Geologic Time Scale: an attack strategy for the sciences". Tufts University. which is an expanded version of Wise, Donald U. (1998) "Creationism's Geologic Time Scale", American Scientist, v. 86, p. 160-173.
  10. Skeptic
    . 8 (4): 76.
  11. ISBN 978-0-8020-7973-2
    .
  12. ^ "Does Science Contradict the Genesis Account?". Awake!: 18–20. September 2006.
  13. ISBN 978-1-135-95529-8
    .
  14. ISBN 978-1-4899-6553-0
    .
  15. ^ Gardner, Martin (1957). Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. New York: Dover. p. 128.
  16. ^ Albright, Jane (22 July 2016). "Vapor Canopy and the Hydroplate Theory (Albright's Flood Models Controversy Series) (text and audio)". Real Science Radio.
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