Off Topic Posts aka Rabbit Trail Thread - Mostly YEC Geology

Yes and I will tell you why. I believe that every stratigraphic layer known on earth has its own unique collection of fossils. I also believe that each of those stratigraphic layers had been dated by something like potassium/argon at some location on the planet at one time. When you find these layers stacked on top of each other at some locale, you will always find the oldest at the bottom and the youngest at the top with a continuum in between and no reversals of age( all progressively getting younger as you go to the top). You can do the exact same thing no matter which locale you choose all over the globe with two exceptions. Those exceptions are as follows: Igneous sills and recumbent folds. An igneous sill forms when liquid magma rises through layers of rock and then flow horizontally between two layers. These sills will be younger than the layers above them. A recumbent fold is where all the layers of rock in an area are folded and the top of the fold is pointed horizontally. The layers on the bottom half of the fold will be aged in the exactly opposite way in which they were formed( Oldest at the top, youngest at the bottom).
If radiometric dating methods like potassium/argon are not reliiable, how could every stratigraphic layer that has a unique set of fossils always get the exact radiometric date no matter where you find it on the globe? How can you get all the stratigraphic layers in a particular area to ALWAYS have a perfect sequence from oldest to youngest as you go up a sequence from bottom to top based on known radiometric dates given for those layers?If radiometric dating is unreliable then getting those two phenomena to occur like that is sheer magic. Do you have a better explanation other than sheer magic for it? If not, why not accept that it is an accurate method of dating rocks?

Faith says: I want to make this as gentle as I can. You seem like a very nice person, you don't use vulgar language, you are not driven away in fulminating anger. You have a spirit of fighting. BUT:Sometimes I wonder why you are here. The premise at the opening doorway into this place has put you in a bad spot. You have none of the weapons that you are allowed to carry in the debates here. This gets back to the basic agreement of joining this forum - you have to present scientific evidence to support your argument. It's a stacked deck against you. Your unscientific weapons are no good here. They are useless. You are entering an environment that runs counter to your worldview, where you are in over your head.There basically are two courses of action you could take here, well maybe three, but the 3rd is not what I would want to see. The 1st might be to consign your contributions only to a very peripheral region of the discussions (such as a description of how you became a YEC) and that would be to just posit that God put everything the way it appears and magically created what we see (such as your strange construction of the origin of the Grand Canyon). The 2nd might be to retain your fervent and completely okay belief in the Christ, etc., and join the OEC folk who have no problem with scientific evidence on their level. The 3rd would be to leave. Which would be sad.There is a 4th option as well - LEARN SCIENCE, but you just may not be able to do that. Some people cannot understand complex differential equations or some of the weird tensor math used in cosmology - no matter how hard they try to learn it - and they quietly close that door. So no big deal here, but take it to heart.

Of course real geology can explain vast areas of sedimentary rock, because real geology is actualist, and there are actually vast areas of sediment being deposited.For example, here is a map of how marine sediments are being deposited today, right now. They stretch thousands of miles. A couple of them go right round the world.So when you write: "sediments being laid down today occur at nowhere near that range", you are, as usual, writing about things you know nothing about, and have never tried to know anything about. This is why you keep saying such dumb things.

It's a curious fact about YECs that although they deny that mutation plus natural selection can produce order, they are happy to believe that order, in fact the same order, can be produced by a lot of water sloshing about.

This is one of the many ways in which you are different from geologists. Oh, it's not necessarily beyond you. You might understand it if you studied it, rather than watching videos full of creationist lies.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Yes there is. You, for example, are a creationist but not a geologist.

Basically then, your model consists of "it exists where we find it." Awesome model. OEC geologist do all the legwork by publishing their years of hard work and YECs say, "HERE IT IS!"So what are the YEC mechanisms for the deposition of each of the following:arenite
greywacke
arkose
mudstone
carbonaceous shale
limestone
dolomite
chert
oolite
conglomerate
salt
basaltWithin the context of YECism (10,000 years???), I also want to know how the gold deposits on the Carlin Trend formed and how copper porphyry systems develop.

Is there a legend somewhere explaining which sediments are being deposited on that map? Where is the website from which that map came from? I would be interested in how they determined the map.

Fine, but before you do let's keep in mind that nothing anybody has said to this point has actually given evidence that AGE matters in the finding of oil or ores etc., all they've done is assert that their overall OE theory that explains how rocks got where they are means age is relevant, along with gratuitous objections to bizarre straw man notions about YEC arguments. And apparently geologists DO work with the whole bag of ideas at once, facts plus theory all interwoven together in something like a Gordian knot, as Rox's posts demonstrate. You know, I don't doubt that it WORKS -- or at least mostly works, nobody's said just how reliable these methods are at finding what you want to find -- I just don't see from anything anyone has said here that the old earth theory is necessary to the methodolgy.But, fire away: YECs also take this for granted, although I wonder how perfectly predicable this is in reality. This I wouldn't know and it wouldn't convince me of much even if so. Of course, this is standard logic, the question is how MUCH younger from one to the one above. Also taken for granted by YECs. However, Dr. A objected some time ago to my describing the existence of these strata as "all over the globe" so you might take that up with him some time. Yup, as I've many times noted myself, especially as it bears upon my presumptuous cheeky theory about how the Great Unconformity at the base of the Grand Canyon formed after all the strata were already in place. Elementary my dear Watson. 1. No idea.
2. Does it really?
3. Have you really accounted for all possible ways the readings could be deceptive?
4. I've many times acknowledged that radiometric dating is the ONLY true objective measure you guys have for your age claims, and I don't spend time on it. I don't know, FEY, and neither do you. Because there are OTHER considerations that call the whole OE scenario into question that you guys NEVER address, and I don't mean my Biblical YEC belief about the Flood.You all have to completely ignore or give some kind of ridiculous rubegoldbergish explanation for the fact that all those strata all over the world are so NEAT, so neatly horizontal, even with knife-edge interfaces between some of them, like they HAD to have been laid down in a massive Flood and couldn't possibly have formed over millions of years or sat there for a billion years while strata slowly formed above them.They all LOOK the same as far as AGE goes, and higher ones have no more or less erosion between them than lower ones if there is any erosion to speak of. The idea that ANY of these strata were ever at the SURFACE of the earth is RIDICULOUS. Sorry, it is. Just a month of being exposed at the surface would have cut all kinds of erosive effects into them that CLEARLY DID NOT OCCUR.I keep saying GO LOOK AT THE STRATA IN THE WALLS OF THE GRAND CANYON. Well, unfortunately apparently that is an impossible request because once you are used to "seeing" through your OE lenses you can't actually SEE the strata there in their simple physical form.Go look at the erosion between the Great Unconformity and the Tapeats Sandstone. THAT is what you expect from a few million years of sitting on the surface of the earth? Not to mention that you expect a huge block of upthrust strata to have eroded down anywhere near FLAT? On what planet?NOT TO MENTION that the only REAL "erosion" that occurred to the area was the CUTTING OF THE CANYON ITSELF which didn't happen until the so-called "Permian" period, while presumably the whole stack just sat there quietly for that billion and a half years before the tectonic event that cut the canyon happened. Why will NOBODY acknowledge this OBVIOUS fact as calling OE into question? And I haven't even mentioned how the same timing obviously formed ALL the interesting sculpted strata of the American Southwest. The hoodoos, the buttes, the stairs, the other canyons etc. etc. etc.Now all these considerations and many more, some considered by Garner on that video I've mentioned here, are to me open and shut evidence that the old earth scenarios for the formation of the strata are sheer nonsense, but all they get is ridicule because the OE explanations are so ingrained.Certainly it's an interesting fact that the fossils DID get sorted in such an orderly way, so you can put that on the OE side of the dispute as long as you put what I've said above on the YE side. But another thing nobody really addresses is the fact that the collections of fossils found in the various strata are so oddly grouped together in their own families. Why should that be if they supposedly died normal deaths over normal lifespans?Also the collections are oddly homogeneous, I mean such specific groupings are SO predictably found in particular strata around the world as you agree. But shouldn't there be a whole spectrum of life forms in any particular era, why just the peculiar ones that happen to suit the idea of evolution from one to another up the strata? Why nothing but nautiloids in a layer in the Grand Canyon area? {ABE: Oh somebody is going to take my "nothing but" too literally, so please, let me correct it to "MOSTLY" nautiloids -- I mean it looks like just about the entire population of those creatures in that area ended up in that layer.} Why one family of trilobites in one layer, and another closely related family in the layer above?If all this is hard to explain on the Flood model, I would think it ought to be even harder to explain on the OE model.Again, all this seems open and shut to me against the Old Earth.Did you watch the video about the Grand Canyon I've mentioned a number of times? The "scientific" response to it here has been on the level of calling the man an idiot. Just LOVE how EvC prides itself on such deeply scientific thought.That's my answer to you, FEY, but I have no illusions it will rock you off your happy embrace of OE geology.So now I can just sit back and watch the EvC hounds ignore the main points, pick on the little points, change the subject / raise completely other issues, come up with outlandish rubegoldbergish ways to explain away anything they want to explain away, scream ad hominems against me, ndulge in extravagant creative insults, vulgar invectives, anything but take seriously anything I've said.Cheers.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I realize now just how deluded I was when I was a YEC. However, my delusion could not light a candle to your level of current delusion. When I give you impeccable logic and ask you to account for a phenomena that cannot be explained with YEC theory you simply say you don't know and you don't care. You want to believe what you want regardless of the facts. If you cannot deal with the facts and the irrefutable logic, why not just declare that God did it all with magic, and did it in such a way as to deceive us? God does not ask you to deny what you see with your own eyes. God asks us to believe he created us and the universe; he does not ask us to believe the exact mechanism he used to do so. God does not ask you to believe the sky is green when it is blue. It is not a compromise of faith to believe the earth is 4.56 billion years old and that all life evolved from a set of common ancestors who were all the same species in the beginning. There is plenty of miracles to believe in that science has not ruled impossible: the virgin birth, the resurrection, the miracle of the loaves and fishes, holding back the red sea etc..While it is true that you cannot replicate any of these miracles in a scientific experiment; it does not rule of the fact that they can happen supernaturally. Just don't try to pass off supernatural phenomena as something that actually happened within the realm of natural laws.

I answered you with good reasons -- GOOD reasons -- why I don't take what you said as the final word, and you won't address what I said but just call me deluded. Just like a good little OE convert, SO deluded yourself you even indulge in their straw man talking points. Nothing I said invoked anything supernatural, you're just having a typical OE straw man fit. Bye bye.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

From this website, actually --- I drew it myself for my Introduction to Geology thread, because I hope one day to give my articles a wider circulation and didn't want to run into difficulties with copyright. Obviously the data is from existing maps produced by Real Proper Geologists.The legend would be:* Blue: glacial sediment.
* Yellow: calcareous ooze.
* Orange: terragenic sediment (from rivers, mostly).
* Brown: pelagic clay (a.k.a. "brown clay" or "red clay").
* Green: siliceous ooze. Well, by taking samples from the ocean floor and then, so to speak, joining the dots.---If you haven't looked at the Introduction To Geology thread, I'd be grateful if you did. It is true that I've had it scrutinized by people with more expertise than you have, but the trouble with experts is that over time they forget why the subject was initially hard to understand. They find all my explanations crystal clear, because what I'm explaining has become second nature to them. Someone relatively new to the field may not be so well-qualified to criticize the content, but will probably be much better equipped to criticize the exposition.

Ignoring and dismissing observational scientific facts in favor of a 2000 year old religious text is, in fact, invoking the supernatural.

Except of course that is not what I did. But Happy New Year to you, too, Roxy.Added later:
Not that I WOULDN'T of course but in this case I didn't. And it's a 3500 year old text by the way, started by Moses, not that its age matters since it speaks today just as God speaks today. Really really bad idea to listen to mere human beings when God is speaking all the time, really really sad that mere "science" gets a hearing when the God who made it all gets ignored.But anyway, I DIDN'T invoke the supernatural at all in the discussion with FEY, and again, Happy 2013.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Outside of YEC? Doubtful. Why do you persist in this fraud? It is perfectly clear that you have never taken the time to actually look at rocks -- you know, those hard things on the side of the road, that which forms the foundation of your home -- much less been able to observe and study "strata all over the world."While rocks are certainly COOL, rocks are certainly not "NEAT." They may appear to be "NEAT" on your computer screen and from 5 miles away, but get up close and personal with those rocks, and you see things that cannot be explained in terms of your farcical YEC theory, which is nothing more than a confused agglomeration of intellectually bankrupt absurdness. Like tiny little reptile tracks in sandstone, or mud cracks, or impressions of rain drops, or ripple marks, or basalt flows, or sand dunes. But that's okay. You just keep on pretending all those nasty little details don't exist so you can keep on believing your juvenile fairytale.And please, show us all how ANY flood, large or small, lays down neat layers of rock composed of limestone, shale, sand, chert, basalt. Show me the scientific research that shows this sort of deposition is happening RIGHT NOW as a result of a flood. We have floods every year on every continent so this should not pose any problem to you whatsoever. Again with the rampant hucksterism and blatant fraud? You've actually looked at every single rock unit on the planet? Really? Oh wait, you're just referring to the Grand Canyon again, aren't you, because it is perfectly reasonable to assume the Grand Canyon is representative of the geology of the entire planet.I bet I could show you two rocks and you couldn't tell me their names or even what minerals comprise them. In fact, I'm fairly certain you couldn't even identify quartz, the most common mineral on the planet, much less recognize an unconformity.And yet you expect us all to believe and trust that you actually know what the Hell you're talking about? My God, the hubris is strong with this one. Back to these erosions you can't actually identify or recognize unless, of course, they are the size of the Grand Canyon???The only thing that is OBVIOUS here is that you don't know: 1) that the Permian was not 5 to 6 million years ago (when the canyon was actually thought to have been carved); and 2) that, in fact, the only unit present 1.5 billion years ago, was the Vishnu Schist, because the rest of the "stack," which encompasses the Grand Canyon Supergroup to the Kaibab, hadn't been deposited yet. It was deposited between 1.2 Ga and 270 Ma. Well golly gee. The fact that you've displayed such depth of knowledge and understanding of all things geology, must obviously mean we can totally trust your highly regarded judgment with respect to Garner. An "entire population" of nautiloids? Really? How many nautiloids does it take to qualify as an "entire population?" Because it sounds like "billions" or something like that.Without a good description of the surrounding rock, no reasonable interpretation is possible. As the Creationists like it, as it turns out. Yes, because your baseless assertions presented without substantive documentation of evidence are oh-so-compelling.Edited by roxrkool, : No reason given.Edited by roxrkool, : No reason given.