Fossil sorting for simple

Thanks good point Percy.

interesting version of history. Seems mainly that a way to leave a creator out was needed. Hence the delusion ('since they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, therefore stong delusion was given them) But you can call like you see'm

Can you prove there certainly were not?

There was no flood. in my view, so it is irrelevant. Right now it is impossible to "prove" anything about your flood since it is not a well formed, clear idea yet. We have no idea where the flood record is in the geology of the earth so we can't guess if grasses were before or after it. This is just a small example of why there is no science in what Walt is making up.It is your flood hypothosis. Where there grasses before the flood or not?But maybe I can help you.You think that the appearance of such a different species as grasses would be macro evolution right? So they must have been created in the creation week, right? So they must have been there for all time, right?[This message has been edited by NosyNed, 02-05-2004]

I must admit I havn't lost any sleep over it either. As I said I just found out about the little oddity a few folks brought up. What would concern me is what you might have as evidence that there was no flowerers possible if a flood occurred

You have a different version of history? If so start a thread on that when you have finished this one. I think if you actually knew something about the individuals involved you might find that your idea about "leaving a creator out" is wrong. But I would guess that you know exactly nothing about the history.

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Common sense isn't

So flowering plants have, in your view, been here since the creation week?If so you need to explain why the got sorted to the top only while other things of the same density etc. etc. got sorted underneath them.

It's your baby, do you have some indication flowering plants haven't been here since before a creationist? I would use what expertise I could find to reach a solid opinion on this little quirk.

with some exceptions, of course. But by and large I'm afraid, that's precisely the name of the game.

Simple, Message 81, please.Mark

Hi, All!Now that it's morning, I want to reiterate my comments from last night, plus I want to add a little more.To the evolutionists: Moose has mentioned many times the downside of piling on. This thread is a nearly perfect illustration of the problems inherent when that happens. Discussion became fragmented because many people made the same point, but each in their own way, and the original points often became lost as posts became shorter and shorter. I just traced Mark's post back to see what the original point was and had to go back at least six messages before discovering it concerned cladistic correlations. This is no way to conduct a debate.Some of the best points were made early on but were never comprehended, and now they've become lost. I think a return to the early simple points is a good idea. Evolutionists should procede gently but persistently with these points until they are understood.To the Creationists, mostly Simple: I appreciate that you acknowledged and understood my points about the way discussion takes place here at EvC Forum. This thread resides in one of the science forums, and so discussion here should seriously address the topic. It helps a lot if you understand a post before replying to it. Understanding a point is not the same as agreeing with it. In fact, it is essential to understand a point if you're to successfully rebut it. As you read above, I'm encouraging evolutionists to persist with a particular point until you give an indication of understanding it, and only then move on to the next point.It may seem to you that I'm singling you out for special criticism, since I'm criticizing you for not understanding the posts you're replying to while I'm not doing that to the evolutionists, and you may therefore perhaps conclude that I am biased. I *am* an evolutionist, and I *do* believe in God. Please trust that I am simply going by what I see, and that's that the evolutionists are piling on, and that you haven't comprehended most of what you've read, plus you don't have the necessary background in which to assess the information anyway. It's like you need hooks on which to hang all the hats, but since you haven't built the house yet you have no walls to which to nail the hooks, and so you're left with a mass of unorganized hats sitting useless on the ground. It takes time to build the house and hang the hooks and organize the hats. It takes time to learn, and I'm urging you to slow down.Please understand that just because you don't understand the positions of the evolutionists doesn't mean that they are right and you are wrong. It just means that the replies you're currently offering don't offer too many signs of you having understood what you're replying to, and so most of the discussion to this point has been of you and the evolutionists talking past each other. It's this situation that I'd like to bring to an end.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Administrator

In response to Admin's request I will not open a new thread to discuss this for now. If you want to bring it back up at a later date I will open a thread for you to show how much of the history you actually know.

You have been asked what you think. You've already been told that flowering plants have only been around for a few 10's of millions of years, very much later than the first plants.Why can't you answer this simple question? You seem to be claiming to know all about this. I even gave you what I would have thought would be creationist reasoning to come up with the answer. Was I wrong in that reasoning?It does begin to appear that you are stalling.You did, after all say, that 'experts' had the sorting thing all sorted out (pun intended) didn't you? I'm just asking for the details of that. Why is it taking so very long to get them?

Hi, Simple!I'm going to go way, way back all the way to...my post of last night, Message 47. Your reply didn't give any indication that you understood the contradictions inherent in Walt's proposals, and so I'd like to go over them again. You said in your reply: I didn't ignore any of the factors you mentioned, like density while living, decay gasses and so forth. You said that as evidence Walt described an experiment where a bird, a mammal, a reptile and an amphibian, all dead, were placed in a water tank and allowed ot find their level, and that, "This order of relative bouyancy correlates closely with 'the evolutionary order'".In case it isn't clear, this means that the bird found one level in the tank, the mammal found a different level, the reptile found yet another different level, and the amphibian a different level still. In Walt's words (by way of you), they ordered themselves in the tank. Walt is presenting this as an explanation for why birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians are all found in different levels.The problem is that they aren't all found in different levels. Birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians are all found in all layers of at least the last 100 million years of the fossil record.The idea that the fossil layer corresponds to the depth in the flood at which a dead animal eventually floated is actually fundamentally flawed, and this can be seen with just birds alone. If Walt's idea were true, then birds should only be found at one level. But birds are found at all levels back to about 125 million years ago. Not only that, but birds of all different sizes, shapes and types are found at all levels. Even if for the sake of argument we assume Noah's flood was real, floating level does not explain the distribution of fossils in the ground. Theory is supported by evidence, not by science. The evidence can gradually be described for you over the course of this discussion.--Percy

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Apparently [hydraulic sorting] seems to have worked pretty good. But seems there's lots of variation in the 'very clear structure' on the planet, as one would expect! Out of place fossils, polystrate tree fossils, and all sorts of variety. The trick is to figure out the best of your limited ability, what processes were at work in the flood, like Walt.

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Walt's theory is what we call ad hoc. It means that a situation is given a special theory to fit just that situation. Not only that, but an ad hoc hypothesis is usually made to do away with counter evidence and is inherently unrepeatable. A quick example of another ad hoc hypothesis from the Skeptic's Dictionary (found here): "ESP researchers have been known to blame the hostile thoughts of onlookers for unconsciously influencing pointer readings on sensitive instruments. The hostile vibes, they say, made it impossible for them to duplicate a positive ESP experiment. Being able to duplicate an experiment is essential to confirming its validity. Of course, if this objection is taken seriously, then no experiment on ESP can ever fail."My ad hoc theory was the Fear theory. In this theory, grass pollen was frightened by the gigantic dinosaurs buried in the sediments. This caused the grass pollen to move up in the sediments. Fern pollen was not afraid of dinosaurs, maybe because they shared more habitat with dinosaurs as some posters are hypothesising, so that the fern pollen did not move away from the dinosaurs.I could just as easily say that MY FEAR THEORY works just as well as Walt's since the proof is in the pudding (or sediments). Grass pollen is, in fact, above the dinosaurs and fern pollen is in the same strata as dinosaurs.My question to you, simple, is what experiments do we run to differentiate between the three hypotheses: Walt's Hydraulic sorting, my Fear theory, and Evolutionary theory.This question is very important. Your answer will determine what you understand about scientific inquiry. Hopefully, through this process of experimental design you will understand the weakness of an ad hoc hypothesis whose only support are the results under question.Added in Edit: If Admin thinks that the above post is leading the discussion astray, please let me know and I will withold this post until later.[This message has been edited by Loudmouth, 02-06-2004]