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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:29
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quote:
Originally posted by beingofone
I have learned a valuable lesson by visiting and debating in this forum.
The lesson is - you cannot disagree with the accepted thought of being a crustacean that emerged out of the primordial swamp. You will be expelled from the good ole boy network instantly if you fail to repent of your ways. In fact, you should only want to talk with true heart felt believers. Anyone who disagrees is just not ready for the truth. They should take time to listen, ask questions and ponder the meaning. |
Really? Why then do Mr Nice Guy and The diplomat still here? Somehow they make it. Must be natural selection of creationists.
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It is perfectly fine to insult, cajol, and denegrate all such lower life forms who disagree. Obviously they have not considered the deep and vast thoughts of the true nature of existence. After all they are doomed to suffer a meaningless existence. Wandering about without the searing fire of powerful intellect that is not open to only your special truth. |
That's just standard behavior here with any disagreement of any kind. Your sport teams suck! You mouthbreather!
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Your religion is the most exclusive fundamentalist religion I have ever studied or experienced. You just stop talking to those who are not ready for your gospel. |
Its not a religion, as there are no rites nor acts to be performed with any regularity (the very meaning of religion). Its a belief.
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In fact you are not open to any new ideas except what promotes your already preconceived concept of existence. You have shown me that this is not open debate - it is mere recruiting for your religion. |
We are open to informed debate. That is the problem. If you give us non-literary evidence for creationist claims, fine. But that a book says so sadly is NOT informed debate. Other books disagree, so what?
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When a person has a cogent, well thought out line of reasoning that disagrees with yours - only a fool would ignore this person. I can only learn from a discusion that disagrees with my viewpoint.
Unless you have a religious belief system that is being threatened. |
While doctrine is open to discussion, religion by itself is a matter solely of faith, not reason. How do you argue faith? Faith is by definition beyond arguement.
The taughtology that only a scientific hypothesis can have any merit or truth is just another religion. Any other suggestion that may be true would be like a cat scratching a scrotum.
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Science at its apex is still just a guess - yet with enough faith it can become so real.
YES - I see the light. |
Science is not a religion, thought some make it a faith (a huge distinction). But at its very heart science is and can't be a faith- its the opposite of faith, it is seeking understanding through experimentation and complete skepticism unless adequate proof is given- it is inherently relativistic except on the one thing, the method by which acceptable evidence is gathered.
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:29
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quote:
Originally posted by beingofone
When a person has a cogent, well thought out line of reasoning that disagrees with yours - only a fool would ignore this person. I can only learn from a discusion that disagrees with my viewpoint.
Unless you have a religious belief system that is being threatened. |
This is the lynchpin and it causes the rest of your diatribe to fall apart. The entire point is that neither Creationism nor ID are "cogent, well though out" lines of reasoning. They boil down to a few logical fallacies that are gussied up with purty language. YOu can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.
Your assessment of the situation seems curiously at odds with the reality I see. One can read a history of the evolution/creation debate and easily see that the side that has cornered the market on insults, cajolery, strawmanism and outright falsehood is the Creationist side. Ever since Darwin published Origin, Creationists have come up frothing with accusations of atheism, hedonism, marxism, Nazism, and pretty much every negative -ism imaginable to describe people who accept evolution. I see no such zeal on the part of evolutionary biologists to demonize Creationists. Maybe that's because evolution is a matter of science, whereas Creationism is a matter of a religious/philosophical agenda?
I find the notion of a conspiratorial cabal of scientists seeking to exclude some sort of "cogent" Creationist scientific theory out of some atheistic crusade pretty amusing. Anyone who thinks this hasn't a clue how scientists work or what kind of people are scientists. First, a majority of scientists are people of religious faith. The false dichotomy that one is either a Creationist or an Atheist Evilutionist is the product of Creationists, not scientists. Second, scientists love alternative theories that challenge mainstream thought. If there were any scientific merit to Creationism, scientists would be beating a path to it. But they aren't, and it's not out of an exclusionary snobbery, it's because, simply put, there is no scientific validity to Creationism.
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The taughtology that only a scientific hypothesis can have any merit or truth is just another religion. Any other suggestion that may be true would be like a cat scratching a scrotum. |
First, I'd suggest looking up "tautology" for both correct spelling and correct meaning, as you got both wrong here.
Second, how else would you expect "science" to proceed except under the assumption that only "scientific" hypotheses should be considered "science?" Should scientists be investigating unicorns and elves and fairies?
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Science at its apex is still just a guess |
 You haven't a clue. 
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trev
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Adelaide, Australia
Feb 2003
time: 14:59
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quote:
The hardest seems to be the Question about Fish: |
As the world was relatively new at the time of Noahs flood, all water was relatively fresh and all fish were adapted to relatively saltfree water, the salt in the sea has mostly accumulated since the time of Noahs flood and fish have also gradually adapted to the increased salt level, but Noahs flood caused no survival problems for fish
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What happened to the Dinosaurs? |
The dinosaurs were in Noahs boat and continued to live after the flood for several thousand years. A very good poetic description of dinosaurs (one being a dragon - ie firebreathing) is given in the biblical book of Job chapters 40 ( 2nd half) and 41, a description so realistic that it would suggest the author had seen dinosaurs. There are also many reports of pterosaurs from the Indian tribes of America existing to recent times. If you can obtain these sources check them out The Piasa, or The Devil Among the Indians, E.B.Fletcher, p31, 1887, Clay, R., Indian Tribes of Guiana, Taylor and Son Printers, p375, 1868; Karns, H.J., Unknown Arizona and Sonora,1693-1721, Arizona Silhouttes, Arizona,pp105-106, 1954, This book is a translation of Manje's Luz De Tierra Incognita Also an essay by St John Damascene (c 675-749) titled 'On Dragons and Ghosts' has been recently translated into russian and describes dinosaurs, see 'The Works of St. John Damascene, Martis Publishing House, Moscow, 1997. He writes about animals he calls dragons whose description resembles dinosaurs as animals that lived at that time.
There is much more evidence in ancient myths, legends, writings, cave drawings etc that talk about or picture animals that resemble dinosuars that prove that although rare, they did exist to reasonably recent time. In fact Dio [Cassius] the Roman writes about a dragon being killed by a Roman army in the war against Carthage in 3rd century BC, and the skin being sent to the Roman Senate, a skin that was measured to be 120 feet long
Whether a person believes in Creation or Evolution, they should not dispute the evidence that dinosaurs lived until recently. It is because Evolutionists ignore a lot of real evidence about the recent existence of dinosaurs that gives creationism credibility
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:29
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quote:
Originally posted by trev
As the world was relatively new at the time of Noahs flood, all water was relatively fresh and all fish were adapted to relatively saltfree water, the salt in the sea has mostly accumulated since the time of Noahs flood and fish have also gradually adapted to the increased salt level, but Noahs flood caused no survival problems for fish |
Is any of this based on, you know, science, or is it just conjecture?
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH541.html
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Layering of the floodwaters contradicts the Flood model, which proposes that the Flood was turbulent enough to stir up sediments on an incredible scale. The model proposes that the floodwaters became the present oceans, so all the water flowing into the oceans would have ensured that they were well mixed. The freshwater fish would have had no place to find fresh water.
The fact that many fish can tolerate wide ranges in salinity does not mean that all can. Furthermore, the problem applies to more than fish. Freshwater invertebrates are commonly used as indicators of the health of streams. Even a tiny amount of pollution can cause many species to disappear from the stream.
Aquatic organisms would have more than salinity to worry about.
Heat. All mechanisms proposed to cause the Flood would have released enough heat to boil the oceans. The deposition of limestone would release enough heat to boil them again. Meteors and volcanoes which occurred during the Flood, as implied by their presence in layers attributed to the Flood by Flood geologists, would probably have boiled them again. [Isaak 1998] (Woodmorappe [1996, 140] dismisses the problem of volcanoes but ignores all the other sources of heat.)
Acid. The volcanoes which erupted during the Flood would also have produced sulfuric acid, enough to lower the pH of the ocean to 2.2, which would be fatal to almost all marine life. [Morton 1998b]
Substrate. Many freshwater and marine invertebrates rely on a substrate. They anchor themselves on the substrate and rely on currents to carry their food to them. During the Flood, substrates would have been uninhabitable at least part of the time, especially on land. Woodmorappe (p. 141) suggests floating pumice as a substrate, but it would float with the currents, so currents would not bring nutrients to animals on them.
Pressure. The Flood would have caused great fluctuation in sea pressures. Many deep-sea creatures invariably die from the decompression when brought to the surface. Other surface animals would die from too much pressure if forced deep underwater.
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I find it curious you would claim that fish could adapt so quickly to living in saltwater or freshwater. The level of adaptation needed to accomplish such a change in that amount of time far exceeds the speed at which evolution occurs. Isn't one of Creationists common complaints that there isn't enough time for evolution to happen?
Yours is nothing but a "Just-So" story: a fantastic explanation devoid of any scientific merit.
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The dinosaurs were in Noahs boat and continued to live after the flood for several thousand years. |
I'm all ears for how Noah fit tens of thousands of dinosaurs, in addition to hundreds of thousands of other species, all onto a wooden barge about 350 feet long. With one window, no less.
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A very good poetic description of dinosaurs (one being a dragon - ie firebreathing) is given in the biblical book of Job chapters 40 ( 2nd half) and 41, a description so realistic that it would suggest the author had seen dinosaurs. |
Realistic, but firebreathing? Pray tell, which dinosaur is it that was a firebreather?
I don't think the description in the Bible is like a dinosaur much at all, unless one does some very selective reading and squints real narrowly at the text.
http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Lev..._was_a_dinosaur
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Leviathan appears also in Ugaritic texts, where it is described as a twisting serpent (echoing language from Is. 7:1) with seven heads. It personifies the waters of the primeval chaos. The rousing of Leviathan in Job 3:8 implies an undoing of the process of creation. [Day, 1992]
It has also been suggested that Leviathan is a crocodile or whale, but its multiple heads (referred to also in Ps. 74:14) make it clear that it is a fantastic creature, such as appear in folklore from all times and places.
Leviathan is clearly described as a sea creature in the Bible. Parasaurolophus, Tyrannosaurus and Apatosaurus are terrestrial.
According to Job 41, Leviathan speaks (verse 3), wears clothes (verse 13), breathes fire (verses 19-21) and is impervious to weapons (verses 26-29). That is clearly not a description of a dinosaur.
The message of Job 41 is that part of nature is indomitable, that "no purpose of God's can be thwarted" [Job 42:2]. That message would lose its meaning if Leviathan was an ordinary animal that humans would be able to kill. The larger message of Job is that God's ways cannot always be understood. That message is best served by leaving Leviathan mythical.
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In fact Dio [Cassius] the Roman writes about a dragon being killed by a Roman army in the war against Carthage in 3rd century BC, and the skin being sent to the Roman Senate, a skin that was measured to be 120 feet long |
Interesting, but you'll note there is no shred of evidence for this claim. This claim comes from St. John Damascene, writing in the 8th century AD, well over a thousand years after the alleged incident. We have no information on what it was based, and there's nothing corraborrating it at all. Damascene also clearly describes the creature as a serpent--a large snake.
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Whether a person believes in Creation or Evolution, they should not dispute the evidence that dinosaurs lived until recently. It is because Evolutionists ignore a lot of real evidence about the recent existence of dinosaurs that gives creationism credibility |
What real evidence? There isn't a shred of paleontological evidence supporting the recent existence of dinosaurs. Ancient myths mentioning monsters is hardly a basis for thinking they were referring to dinosaurs. Ancient myths have all sorts of beasts in them. Should we take the Odyssey as fact and believe their are sentient whirlpools in the Aegean waiting to swallow up sailors?
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SnowFire
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New York City, NY
Jan 1970
time: 00:29
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I smell shenanagins. I'll play around with the program later, but isn't the whole point of irreducibly complex things that you cannot make them by such a process? I mean, if irreducibly complex things are really irreducible, than it should require direct programmer intervention in order to create one, so clearly the definition is too loose here. I mean, the whole "crashes if you remove any line" thing just doesn't sound like an accurate analogy for determining if something's really irreducibly complex. I can easily see life-forms that are provably evolvable rather simply (or programs) that evolve by changing lines rather than directly adding or removing them that will still fit the definition of "irreducibly complex" used by these people, i.e. crashing if any one line was removed.
The mental concept I get behind "irreducible complexity" is that if you were to imagine a map- stick it in two variables for a nice simple two dimensional map, easier to see in your head- where a dead zone exists surrounding an interior which features something "livable." Any evolution that tried to move towards it would- assuming that the diamter of the zone is larger than the space you can move in one generation- be eaten up by said zone, as their half-wing proved useless or whatever. If you think of it in this way, it's basically impossible to ever get inside there, short of having a lifeform start there, or for a programmer to fudge the rules and let the organism survive over the gap.
If all they proved is that something with locally sub-optimal features will occasionally randomly mutate toward something farther away that's more hospitable, that's hardly news, as it's how many genetic algorithms work. But that assumes that the locally sub-optimal feature isn't deadly, i.e. the "score" of the algorithm is greater than whatever score is deemed minimally necessary. All you have to do is make certain that any creature trying to evolve into a platypus must first stop by "dead weird mammal," and you'll have proven that the platypus was a victim of ID (although doing that in real life is easier said than done!)
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:29
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quote:
Originally posted by SnowFire
I smell shenanagins. I'll play around with the program later, but isn't the whole point of irreducibly complex things that you cannot make them by such a process? I mean, if irreducibly complex things are really irreducible, than it should require direct programmer intervention in order to create one, so clearly the definition is too loose here. I mean, the whole "crashes if you remove any line" thing just doesn't sound like an accurate analogy for determining if something's really irreducibly complex. |
No, what you describe would just be circular reasoning. The whole point of the ID hypothesis is to claim that systems in nature are so complex that they couldn't have evolved by chance is proof of a designer.
Irreducible Complexity means that there are systems whose workings are such that if one part failed to work, the whole system would stop working. The common analogy they use is a mousetrap. Take away one part, it ceases to work, so it couldn't evolve by chance, since the mechanisms would have had to all evolved at once to develop a working system.
The big gaping hole in this logic is that we see in evolution that organisms tend to adapt body parts to serve different means over time.
Another problem is the IDist assumption, which is utterly baseless, that "half" of what we know to be a working system would, for some reason, be useless. You mention the "half wing." Half a wing would be much more useful than no wing, as less-than-full wings can still be used for gliding, or catching yummy bugs as the ancestors to bats did. As Dawkins noted, 10% of an eye is better than no eye, as that 10% will still give that species a survival advantage over competitors.
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
Originally posted by trev
As the world was relatively new at the time of Noahs flood, all water was relatively fresh and all fish were adapted to relatively saltfree water, the salt in the sea has mostly accumulated since the time of Noahs flood and fish have also gradually adapted to the increased salt level, but Noahs flood caused no survival problems for fish |
There're two problems with this.
If you agree with the Creationists, fishes wouldn't evolve - at least they would not evolve into different species that are adapted to different environments. There have always been salt water, fresh water, and brickish water fishes.
As for the bit about salinity of sea water, it is a process that takes billions of years. Seeing how only Young Earth Creationists support the Noachian Flood thing, you cannot have both at the same time.
Besides, salinity is only a minor problem. Pressure is a much bigger one. Even if we only assume the Flood added 2000m to the sea level - far insufficient to cover the top of the mountains - there's another 200 atmospheric pressure crushing down on the fishes. All would be crushed utterly.
In fact, every living organisms would be crushed utterly, seeing how all that water was in the air to begin with.
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trev
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Adelaide, Australia
Feb 2003
time: 14:59
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As for the bit about salinity of sea water, it is a process that takes billions of years. |
Wrong, an analysis of the inflow of salts into the sea will reveal that relatively short periods are required to attain the current salinity levels, no more than 10 million years, and much less time for some types of salts. Using a global flood scenario, with its massive erosion, and therefore accumulation of salt along with inflows from rivers, the current saltiness can be achieved with a young earth. Evolutionist actually need to include unproven salt sinks into their equations to prove why the oceans are not saltier than they actually are.
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Besides, salinity is only a minor problem. Pressure is a much bigger one. Even if we only assume the Flood added 2000m to the sea level - far insufficient to cover the top of the mountains - there's another 200 atmospheric pressure crushing down on the fishes. All would be crushed utterly. |
.Absurd, illogical reasoning, flood built up over 40 days, any fish can swim to adjust its depth in that time
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trev
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Adelaide, Australia
Feb 2003
time: 14:59
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In fact, every living organisms would be crushed utterly, seeing how all that water was in the air to begin with. |
Most of the water probably came from the ground, the bible states that the fountains of the deep opened up, not from the air.
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trev
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Adelaide, Australia
Feb 2003
time: 14:59
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Where is the geological evidence of said "massive erosion?" Where is the geological evidence of a global flood? Where did the water come from? Where did it go? |
The water mostly came from undergound aquifers which broke open and burst to the surface, probably due to major earthquakes and added to by rain. The worldwide abundance of sedimentary rock, generally many kilometres thick, hundreds of layers of coal seams over a large area (latrobe valley, victoria, Australia) interpersed with clay,silt layers suggest the type of major deposition of sediments that could only be associated with a worldwide flood. There is no other plausible explanation for the many layers of coal seams in Victoria (They can not have been deposited over a long period of time because of the presence of massive numbers of tree trunks which individually penetrate through multiple layers of coal).
Movement of tectonic plates resulting in a deepening of the oceans will have allowed water to drain from the earth's surface, allowing the flood to end. In general today erosive processes occur quicker than sedimentation processes, so only a catastrophic event could account for the amount of sedimentation worldwide
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trev
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Adelaide, Australia
Feb 2003
time: 14:59
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Don't be ridiculous. If this were the case, the water that came up with have had to have been so hot that it would have boiled the Earth. Noah & Co. would have been poached. |
Most underground water is not hot, certainly in my experience in Australian farming (and we use a lot of underground water due to the dryness of the climate), this water is mostly around 15 - 20C, nowhere near boiling. That temperature water is only associated with volcanoes, not normal underground aquifers.
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Besides, water escaping in this manner would have to leave evidence by means of erosions of the sides of fissures where it escaped, and balsatic deposis shot everywhere. No such evidence exists. |
Extensive sedimentation occured during the flood, dig several kilometres under that sedimentation and you will probably find your evidence. Just because noone has looked does not mean it does not exist
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:29
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quote:
Originally posted by trev
Most underground water is not hot, certainly in my experience in Australian farming (and we use a lot of underground water due to the dryness of the climate), this water is mostly around 15 - 20C, nowhere near boiling. That temperature water is only associated with volcanoes, not normal underground aquifers.
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In order to contain the amount of water required to flood the entire Earth, the pressure it would have been under, by default, would have made it boiling hot. There would be no way to contain such an amount of water under the surface of the earth without it being that hot.
As for your second claim... "just 'cuz I can't prove it don't mean it t'aint true!"
The geologic layers and sediment layers of the earth categorically do NOT point to a global flood. Geologists have been pointing this out for years. Hell, they realized that even before Darwin wrote Origin! Hell, Da Vinci rejected the flood in 1500 because common sense told him seashells should be all mixed up due to the flood rather than in regular layers, as they are.
There's also the problem of where all that water went, because the Flood models certainly have no adequate explanation of that fits with geologic evidence.
Last edited by Boris Godunov on 22-01-2005 at 11:32
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:29
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Of course, another problem with this hypothesis is that rock doesn't float, so the water would have had to have been forced to the surface long before Noah's time. Or even Adam's.
All of these theories have been demolished long, long ago by geologists, physicists, paleontologists, biologists, etc. It's amusing to see such old canards recycled, I suppose, just to show you can't teach an old dog new tricks. 
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trev
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Adelaide, Australia
Feb 2003
time: 14:59
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The heat of the water is primarily dependent on the depth it resides underground, and only if most water was 10 kms or more underground would the water be that hot, most water expressed during the flood was probably at shallower levels, but some steaming water would have occured because the resultant steam and evaporation would be necessary to maintain rain for 40 days
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:29
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Here's a great page--six questions regarding the Flood they can't seem to answer.
http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/6flood.htm
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Six Flood Arguments Creationists Can't Answer
© 1982 by Robert J. Schadewald
Reprinted from Creation/Evolution IX (1982)
Some years ago, NASA released the first deep-space photographs of the beautiful cloud-swirled blue-green agate we call Earth. A reporter showed one of them to the late Samuel Shenton, then president of International Flat Earth Research Society. Shenton studied it for a moment and said, “It's easy to see how such a picture could fool the untrained eye.”
Well-trained eyes (and minds) are characteristic of pseudoscientists. Shenton rejected the spherical earth as conflicting with a literal interpretation of the Bible, and he trained his eyes and his mind to reject evidence which contradicted his view. Scientific creationists must similarly train their minds to reject the overwhelming evidence from geology, biology, physics and astronomy which contradicts their interpretation of the Bible. In a public forum, the best way to demonstrate that creationism is pseudoscience is to show just how well-trained creationist minds are.
Pseudoscience differs from science in several fundamental ways, but most notably in its attitude toward hypothesis testing. In science, hypotheses are ideas proposed to explain the facts, and they're not considered much good unless they can survive rigorous tests. In pseudoscience, hypotheses are erected as defenses against the facts. Pseudoscientists frequently offer hypotheses flatly contradicted by well-known facts which can be ignored only by well-trained minds. Therefore, to demonstrate that creationists are pseudoscientists, one need only carry some creationist hypotheses to their logical conclusions.
Fossils and Animals
Scientific creationists interpret the fossils found in the earth's rocks as the remains of animals which perished in the Noachian Deluge. Ironically, they often cite the sheer number of fossils in “fossil graveyards” as evidence for the Flood. In particular, creationists seem enamored of the Karroo Formation in Africa, which is estimated to contain the remains of 800 billion vertebrate animals (see Whitcomb and Morris, p. 160; Gish, p. 61). As pseudoscientists, creationists dare not test this major hypothesis that all of the fossilized animals died in the Flood.
Robert E. Sloan, a paleontologist at the University of Minnesota, has studied the Karroo Formation. He told me that the animals fossilized there range from the size of a small lizard to the size of a cow, with the average animal perhaps the size of a fox. A minute's work with a calculator shows that, if the 800 billion animals in the Karroo Formation could be resurrected, there would be 21 of them for every acre of land on earth. Suppose we assume (conservatively, I think) that the Karroo Formation contains 1% of the vertebrate fossils on earth. Then when the Flood began there must have been at least 2100 living animals per acre, ranging from tiny shrews to immense dinosaurs. To a noncreationist mind, that seems a bit crowded.
I sprang this argument on Duane Gish during a joint appearance on WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa, on October 21st, 1980. Gish did the only thing he could: he stonewalled by challenging my figures, in essence calling me a liar. I didn't have a calculator with me, but I duplicated the calculation with pencil and paper and hit him with it again. His reply? Creationists can't answer everything. It's been estimated that there are 100 billion billion herring in the sea. How did I account for that?! Later, I tried this number on a calculator and discovered that it amounts to about 27,000 herring per square foot of ocean surface. I concluded (a) that all of the herring are red, and (b) that they were created ex nihilo by Duane Gish on the evening of October 21st, 1980.
Marine Fossils
The continents are, on average, covered with sedimentary rock to a depth of about one mile. Some of the rock (chalk, for instance) is essentially 100% fossils and many limestones also contain high percentages of marine fossils. On the other hand, some rock is barren. Suppose that, on average, marine fossils comprise .1% of the volume of the rock. If all of the fossilized marine animals could be resurrected, they would cover the entire planet to a depth of at least 1.5 feet. What did they eat?
Creationists can't appeal to the tropical paradise they imagine existed below the pre- Flood canopy because the laws of thermodynamics prohibit the earth from supporting that much animal biomass. The first law says that energy can't be created, so the animals would have to get their energy from the sun. The second law limits the efficiency with which solar energy can be converted to food. The amount of solar energy available is not nearly sufficient.
Varves
The famous Green River formation covers tens of thousands of square miles. In places, it contains about 20 million varves, each varve consisting of a thin layer of fine light sediment and an even thinner layer of finer dark sediment. According to the conventional geologic interpretation, the layers are sediments laid down in a complex of ancient freshwater lakes. The coarser light sediments were laid down during the summer, when streams poured run-off water into the lake. The fine dark sediments were laid down in the winter, when there was less run-off. (The process can be observed in modern freshwater lakes.) If this interpretation is correct, the varves of the Green River formation must have formed over a period of 20 million years.
Creationists insist that the earth is no more than 10,000 years old, and that the geologic strata were laid down by the Flood. Whitcomb and Morris (p. 427) therefore attempt to attribute the Green River varves to “a complex of shallow turbidity currents ...” Turbidity currents, flows of mud-laden water, generally occur in the ocean, resulting from underwater landslides. If the Green River shales were laid down during the Flood, there must have been 40 million turbidity currents, alternately light and dark, over about 300 days. A simple calculation (which creationists have avoided for 20 years) shows that the layers must have formed at the rate of about three layers every two seconds. A sequence of 40 million turbidity currents covering tens of thousands of square miles every two-thirds of a second seems a bit unlikely.
Henry Morris apparently can't deal with these simple numbers. Biologist Kenneth Miller of Brown University dropped this bombshell on him during a debate in Tampa, Florida, on September 19th, 1981, and Morris didn't attempt a reply. Fred Edwords used essentially the same argument against Duane Gish in a debate on February 2, 1982. In rebuttal, Gish claimed that some of the fossilized fishes project through several layers of sediment, and therefore the layers can't be semiannual. As usual, Gish's argument ignores the main issue, which is the alleged formation of millions of distinct layers of sediment in less than a year. Furthermore, Gish's argument is false, according to American Museum of Natural History paleontologist R. Lance Grande, an authority on the Green River Formation. Grande says that while bones or fins of an individual fish may cut several layers, in general each fish is blanketed by a single layer of sediment.
Disease Germs
For numerous communicable diseases, the only known “reservoir” is man. That is, the germs or viruses which cause these diseases can survive only in living human bodies or well-equipped laboratories. Well-known examples include measles, pneumococcal pneumonia, leprosy, typhus, typhoid fever, small pox, poliomyelitis, syphilis and gonorrhea. Was it Adam or Eve who was created with gonorrhea? How about syphilis? The scientific creationists insist on a completed creation, where the creator worked but six days and has been resting ever since. Thus, between them, Adam and Eve had to have been created with every one of these diseases. Later, somebody must have carried them onto Noah's Ark.
Note that the argument covers every disease germ or virus which can survive only in a specific host. But even if the Ark was a floating pesthouse, few of these diseases could have survived. In most cases, only two animals of each “kind” are supposed to have been on the Ark. Suppose the male of such a pair came down with such a disease shortly after the Ark embarked. He recovered, but passed the disease to his mate. She recovered, too, but had no other animal to pass the disease to, for the male was now immune. Every disease for which this cycle lasts less than a year should therefore have become extinct!
Creationists can't pin the blame for germs on Satan. If they do, the immediate question is: How do we know Satan didn't create the rest of the universe? That has frequently been proposed, and if Satan can create one thing, he can create another. If a creationist tries to claim germs are mutations of otherwise benign organisms (degenerate forms, of course), he will actually be arguing for evolution. Such hypothetical mutations could only be considered favorable, since only the mutated forms survived.
Fossil Sequence
At all costs, creationists avoid discussing how fossils came to be stratified as they are. Out of perhaps thousands of pages Henry Morris has written on creationism, only a dozen or so are devoted to this critical subject, and he achieves that page count only by recycling three simple apologetics in several books. The mechanisms he offers might be called victim habitat, victim mobility, and hydraulic sorting. In practise, the victim habitat and mobility apologetics are generally combined. Creationists argue that the Flood would first engulf marine animals, then slow lowland creatures like reptiles, etc., while wily and speedy man escaped to the hilltops. To a creationist, this adequately explains the order in which fossils occur in the geologic column. A scientist might test these hypotheses by examining how well they explain the fact that flowering plants don't occur in the fossil record until early in the Cretaceous era. A scenario with magnolias (a primitive plant) heading for the hills, only to be overwhelmed along with early mammals, is unconvincing.
If explanations based on victim habitat and mobility are absurd, the hydraulic sorting apologetic is flatly contradicted by the fossil record. An object's hydrodynamic drag is directly proportional to its cross sectional area and its drag coefficient. Therefore when objects with the same density and the same drag coefficient move through a fluid, they are sorted according to size. (Mining engineers exploit this phenomena in some ore separation processes.) This means that all small trilobites should be found higher in the fossil record than large ones. That is not what we find, however, so the hydraulic sorting argument is immediately falsified. Indeed, one wonders how Henry Morris, a hydraulic engineer, could ever have offered it with a straight face.
Overturned Strata
Ever since George McCready Price, many creationists have pointed to overturned strata as evidence against conventional geology. Actually, geologists have a good explanation for overturned strata, where the normal order of fossils is precisely reversed. The evidence for folding is usually obvious, and where it's not, it can be inferred from the reversed fossil order. But creationists have no explanation for such strata. Could the Flood suddenly reverse the laws of hydrodynamics (or whatever)? All of the phenomena which characterize overturned strata are impossible for creationists to explain. Well-preserved trilobites, for instance, are usually found belly down in the rock. If rock strata containing trilobites are overturned, we would expect to find most of the trilobites belly up. Indeed, that is what we do find in overturned strata. Other things which show a geologist or paleontologist which way is up include worm and brachiopod burrows, footprints, fossilized mud cracks, raindrop craters, graded bedding, etc. Actually, it's not surprising that creationists can't explain these features when they're upside down; they can't explain them when they're right side up, either.
Each of the six preceding arguments subjects a well-known creationist hypothesis to an elementary and obvious test. In each case, the hypothesis fails miserably. In each case, the failure is obvious to anyone not protected from reality by a special kind of blindness.
Studying science doesn't make one a scientist any more than studying ethics makes one honest. The studies must be applied. Forming and testing hypotheses is the foundation of science, and those who refuse to test their hypotheses cannot be called scientists, no matter what their credentials. Most people who call themselves creationists have no scientific training, and they cannot be expected to know and apply the scientific method. But the professional creationists who flog the public with their doctorates (earned, honorary, or bogus) have no excuse. Because they fail to submit their hypotheses to the most elementary tests, they fully deserve the appellation of pseudoscientist.
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Boris Godunov
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Portland, OR
Aug 2001
time: 00:29
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And what we should see if a Flood occured, but don't:
http://www.creationism.ws/what_if_flood.htm
quote:
What Would We Expect to Find
if the World had Flooded?
We would expect to observe a uniform, worldwide blanket of randomly sorted boulders, cobbles, sand, and silt overlain by a layer of clay. But this worldwide blanket does not exist.
We would expect to see no sorting in regard to sediment type and size. No creationist has ever explained how the Flood could have deposited layers of heavy sediment on top of layers of lighter sediment.
There would be mega-ripples everywhere such as are seen along the Columbia River formed by the rapid movement of the waters off the land surface. No mega-ripples evident.
There would be no segregation of fossils. If all organisms lived at the same time, we would expect to see trilobites, brachiopods, ammonites, dinosaurs, and mammals (including humans) all randomly mixed together in the worldwide blanket described in point #1. This is not what is observed. The fossil record exhibits an order consistent with the theory of evolution (but inconsistent with creationism).
There are at least five major extinction events, a situation where fossils are abundant below a certain line within the geological layers, but totally absent above that line. There is no way to explain these geological features with a global flood.
Igneous (volcanic) rocks, if they existed at all in flood sediments, would all be in the form of pillow lava, which are extruded underwater. In reality, there are very clearly defined volcanic layers, from which radiometric dates are obtained. So how can we have flat layers of vocanic rock, compressed between other layers, occuring during an "ultramassive flood"?
Metamorphic rocks, as they are formed from previously existing rocks, would not exist in the post-Flood geological layers because the necessary heating and cooling require millions of years for large bodies. All radioactive isotopes which would not have completely decayed away in, say 10,000 years, would exist in nature because those with a moderately short half-life would not have had time to decay.
No varves, ice cores, tree ring ensembles, coral cores, or other examples of periodically accumulated accretion should not be found to extend back beyond the time of the Flood. But they do. Ice cores, drilled from stable ice plains, show 40,000 years of annual layers. Varves, which are mineral deposits, show millions of years of annual layers.
Because of the catastrophic force of the marine environment and the lack of exposure of the land during the flood, we would expect to find no examples at all in the geologic record of the following delicate fossils or evidence for land deposition
>>fossilized dinosaur nests ant nests termite nests bird nests (of a relative of the flamingo in the Green River Formation in Wyoming)
>>fragile wasp nests
>>complex rodent burrows
>>animal dung left in its original position of deposition as it hardened on dry, solid ground trackways of land animals
>>raindrop imprints fossilized mudcracks
>>fragile things preserved as fossils, such as bird feathers (Confuciusornis) ferns (adjacent to coal beds) insects (Oligocene lake beds near Florrisant, CO), oxidized rocks layers (redbeds) because there is insufficient oxygen in the water to oxidize (bring up) the iron present. All these fragile features are found deep in the geological record.
A catastrophic flood would have destroyed them. I would especially like you to consider how raindrop imprints and mudcracks could have become fossilized in a sudden, massive flood.
We would expect to find no thick subsurface evaporites (halite, sylvite, and gypsum). It would be impossible to precipitate them from a marine environment. There would be genetic evidence of a recent population bottleneck in all extant species. There is no such genetic bottleneck, dating from 6-10 thousand years ago.
There would be some remnant evidence of pre-Flood civilization(s) and obviously pre-Flood humans. The Institute for Creation Research has not established any criteria for what a pre-Flood human might be like (instead consigning all "degenerate" fossils like erectus and neanderthal to post-Flood).
There would just be one age from the top to the bottom of the geological column. In other words, whether you pick a rock from the top of the Grand Canyon or the very bottom, they both should be dated at 10,000 years old.In fact there are very real increases in age as one digs deeper down in the column. If the flood DID happen, then all the geological stratum were laid down in just one year, containing all those pesky bones. That evidence supports evolution.
We should expect that all mountain ranges (being all formed during or immediately after the Flood) should show similar, near equal amounts of erosion. They don't. If the flood occurred about 10,000 years ago, the polar ice caps should have no more than 5000 annual layers. Or, at the very least, there should be massive evidence of melting and salt water intrusion at that time. There is no evidence of massive melting.
Had a flood occurred, all plants alive today should have seeds which could remain viable in hot, humid conditions for a year, or which can survive prolonged submersion in sea water. All plants should be able to grow with little or no topsoil. In reality, most can't.
In regard to fossils, there are three very important predictions if the Global Flood really occurred, and is responsible for depositing fossils within the strata:
A) None of the marine fossils would be encrusted by other fossils, or show any sign of boring by organisms after death.
B) None of the vertebrate fossils should show signs of scavenging or prolonged weathering by exposure on the ground.
C) None of the vertebrate fossils should be encrusted by pedogenic carbonate, such as the fossils in the Karoo of South Africa and the Badlands of South Dakota are.
In other words, if the Flood happened, fossil vertebrates should consist only of freshly broken bone exhibiting no sign of scavenging or of having lain on the ground or sea bottom for a long period of time.
Zoogeography should show a dispersal pattern demonstrating that the point of origin of all species is in the Middle East (the disembarking point for Noah's ark). It doesn't. It shows different points of origins for different species.
The Hawaiian Islands and associated coral structures should all be found to be more recent than the Flood. They aren't.
There should be isotopes with half lives of less than 80 million years in the biosphere. The fact that there are none argues very strongly for an earth with an age far older than 10,000 years. (This point is not so much about the flood in particular, but presents an irrefutable argument in favor of an ancient earth. . This evidence has never been refuted by any creationist.(Click here to read a technical explanation: http:/www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/9917/isotopes.html
Fossilized plants should be represented equally throughout all the geological layers, with no sorting from 'primitive' to 'modern'. This is not the case-- there is clearly segregation of plant fossils from primitive to modern represented in the geological column. Plants have no means by which to "run to higher ground", the infantile method that creationists suggest was used by animals to sort themselves in order of intelligence.
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trev
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Adelaide, Australia
Feb 2003
time: 14:59
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quote:
If this interpretation is correct, the varves of the Green River formation must have formed over a period of 20 million years. |
This hypothesis is very unlikely to be true, lakes tend to have much shorter lives than this for 2 reasons, firstly because erosion of the outfeed channel the depth of the lake slowly diminishes, because it empties earlier, secondly the deposit of sedimentation in the floor of the lake raises the level of the lake floor. The combined effects of the two make it unlikely a series of lakes will exist for much more than 100 000 years, therefore alternative solutions should be proposed rather than this unlikely one.
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Proteus_MST
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quote:
Originally posted by trev
This hypothesis is very unlikely to be true, lakes tend to have much shorter lives than this for 2 reasons, firstly because erosion of the outfeed channel the depth of the lake slowly diminishes, because it empties earlier, secondly the deposit of sedimentation in the floor of the lake raises the level of the lake floor. The combined effects of the two make it unlikely a series of lakes will exist for much more than 100 000 years, therefore alternative solutions should be proposed rather than this unlikely one. |
Of course it seems to be very unlikely that this alternative solution would come from Noahs Flood:
quote:
If the Green River shales were laid down during the Flood, there must have been 40 million turbidity currents, alternately light and dark, over about 300 days. A simple calculation (which creationists have avoided for 20 years) shows that the layers must have formed at the rate of about three layers every two seconds. A sequence of 40 million turbidity currents covering tens of thousands of square miles every two-thirds of a second seems a bit unlikely.
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SnowFire
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New York City, NY
Jan 1970
time: 00:29
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quote:
Originally posted by Boris Godunov
No, what you describe would just be circular reasoning. The whole point of the ID hypothesis is to claim that systems in nature are so complex that they couldn't have evolved by chance is proof of a designer.
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Oh, I agree. By my definition, IC is basically a tautology, should it exist. IC is anything that can't possibly have evolved without the modifications to get there being deadly. So by my definition, there should be no way to possibly get IC in a lab short of meddling, and there shouldn't be anything with my-IC on Earth in a naturalist view.
I've heard of the mousetrap argument, and I thought/hoped that was a simplification for the masses. And yes, when I mentioned wings, I knew about the theories of bats using them as gliders or snatching insects. I mean, I can't think of anything off the top of my head in real life that really does qualify as my-IC, but if anything was found that did qualify, I'd buy that as automatic proof of some intelligence meddling (that, or it evolved in some cataclysmic earlier era where the rules / equations for determining fitness were different). The trick is finding that animal.
The big gaping hole in this logic is that we see in evolution that organisms tend to adapt body parts to serve different means over time.
Doesn't even have to be that. Sometimes, things just evolve fairly random differences due to mutations and riding on genes that have something else succesful going for them. Eventually, the proto-appendix finds a use quite accidentally, even if it happened to be useless but not particuarly harmful before.
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21-01-2005 20:56
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