Summations Only

Okay Faith, it seems very straightforward to me so perhaps I am misinterpreting your position at some stage. Allow me to explicitly state my assumptions about your position.1. You believe that the entire rock record (or maybe just everything from the Paleozoic onward) is the product of the Flood. Is this correct? If not, what portion of the rock record do you consider to be the product of the Flood?2. You understand that the deposit is terrestrial. I made this assumption because you already conceded this point: Message 806. If you've forgotten why, it's because the brooding dinosaur is a terrestrial dinosaur sitting undisturbed on its nest (Message 743). Therefore it could not have been deposited in an aqueous environment; it would have had to have been transported.3. Knowing that the dinosaur was deposited in a terrestrial environment, you think that it must have been buried in the early stages of the Flood (Message 746).Okay, do I have that right? Please point out any errors. So anyway, this is where superposition becomes a problem for you. You accept the dinosaur was deposited in a terrestrial environment (or at least you did) so it must have been buried in the early stages of the flood, "before the water level was that high" as you say.If the various strata in the rock record were deposited by the Flood then the strata appearing at the bottom of the record should be those deposited by the earliest stages of the Flood in accordance with the law of superposition. Still make sense? Older stuff gets deposited first.The problem is that the brooding dinosaur is not near the bottom of the rock record. Let's visualize it: The brooding dinosaur should (having been buried near the start of the Flood) appear near the base of the record, indicated by the white arrow (Note: I have conservatively placed the arrow at the base of the Paleozoic rather than the Precambrian. If you think the entire rock record is the product of the Flood then it should be at the base of the Precambrian). The yellow arrow indicates where it actually appears, not at all near the bottom of the record.Given that the brooding dinosaur is an in situ terrestrial deposit, it only fits into your model if it was buried near the start of the Flood. But its position nearer the top means it can't have been deposited at the start of the Flood unless it violates the law of superposition. It makes perfect sense from the conventional view however.

So for the record you actually think the earliest stages of the Flood are represented by the lower parts of the Precambrian. In other words, you believe that the white arrow should be even lower down in the rock record. But I guess the same point is made either way. I think I did, but here it is anyway: The dinosaurs comes from Ukha Tolgod, a Late Cretaceous (Campanian) site in Mongolia. This doesn't really make sense, certainly not in this context. You seem to be making the hydrodynamic sorting argument which has been thoroughly debunked on the basis that the fossil record does not conform to a hydrodynamically-sorted pattern. Plus, as we have seen, the dinosaur has not been disturbed, so it can't very well have been suspended in water and deposited only at the end of the Flood. See, this should be a red flag to a person who exercises critical thought. You are saying that for your model to be correct, the dinosaur "HAD" to have been transported when in fact I have conclusively shown that it was not. From Message 743:

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The eggs in the nest are arranged in a circular pattern, with the broad end of the egg pointing towards the centre of the nest...Furthermore, the neat systematic arrangement of this and other oviraptorid nests implies that the eggs were manipulated by the parents into a specific configuration after laying as in living birds. (Norell et al. 1995)

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The distinctive brooding posture and systematically arranged eggs prove that neither the dinosaur nor its nest was transported. If transportation is the only explanation that fits with your model and that explanation has been ruled out, then there is a problem with your model. And given that we know it was not transported, the fact that it is a terrestrial dinosaur proves it wasn't deposited by a "great wave". Your model doesn't fit the data, Faith. So you do understand that this is a problem. Good. The only way to resolve it in the context of your model is to refute the law of superposition. That is the only way and you rightly recognize that you can't do this. But instead of reassessing your position you have chosen to ignore the evidence, which is disappointing, and declare that you have to be right anyway. You are reduced to arguing that this fossil was deposited by the Flood because it was deposited by the Flood. I don't think I need to point out the logical fallacy there. As I have said, Faith, if you want to take the Bible as THE record of the past, then do so. But don't pretend that the evidence fits. You have just admitted that it doesn't.I would also like to point out that this is the second time you have conceded this point; there should only have been one time. I trust I will not see you making the same arguments I have just refuted until such time as you produce that refutation of the law of superposition.Remember that the point of this argument is to demonstrate that there are in fact terrestrial deposits in the rock record, and not just at the bottom where your model says they should be. Having demonstrated this beyond your ability to refute, the conclusion is that the rock record is not the product of the Flood. Unless you can refute the law of superposition, your claims to the contrary carry no weight. Without a rebuttal to this argument, you have nothing but raw belief that you are right; this is fine, but don't claim that the evidence supports your position.

That doesn't make sense. How would burial preserve the posture and layout of the eggs as they are being transported by the catastrophic Floodwaters bursting from the "fountains of the deep" and whatnot? This means that you are conceding that there are terrestrial deposits in the rock record which is according to you produced entirely by the Flood. That is a pretty major problem for your model. Don't be so sensitive, Faith, especially not when you so recently spent several posts screaming vitriol in caps lock accompanied by petulant cartoons. I have been entirely courteous for some time now and it is hardly unfair to question the critical reasoning behind an obvious logical failure. You claim that, according to your Flood model, the dinosaur "HAD" to have been transported, but I have shown that it wasn't. The only explanation that fits your model has been ruled out, which logically means there is a problem with your model, but instead you have concluded that you must be right despite this. You are arguing that the fossil must have been deposited by the Flood because you believe it to have been deposited by the Flood. You can't expect to exhibit such an obvious logical fallacy and receive no criticism.But you have now twice conceded that the rock record contains terrestrial deposits. This means that your argument that there was never any surface exposure is falsified. Also you have conceded by extension that the footprints in the fossil record don't fit your explanation (they present the exact same problem you just conceded with the brooding dinosaur).Edited by Atheos canadensis, : footprints

Hi Faith. Your claim to have proven the Flood is not consistent with the evidence I have provided that shows terrestrial deposition occurring when the Flood was supposedly in effect. You have conceded that the brooding dinosaur was deposited in a terrestrial environment (or at least that all the available evidence says it was) and its position high in the rock record means your Flood model is wrong unless you can disprove the law of superposition. You maintain that, despite evidence to the contrary, you are actually right and the Flood "HAD" to have deposited that dinosaur. You don't seem to understand the weakness of such a position. You say there is only one possible explanation that fits your model, but that explanation has been ruled out. That means your model doesn't fit the evidence. But instead of rethinking your model to fit the evidence, you are insisting that the evidence must fit your model even if it doesn't appear to. Again, if you want to use the Bible as the authority on Earth's past then do so, but don't try to argue that the observable evidence supports you.

Heh, you definitely seem to have called that one. But perhaps if I do my best to remain kind she will be convinced to either support her assertion that the Flood is responsible for evidence like the brooding dinosaur or admit that she really is just adhering to that belief in spite of the evidence. You never know. It only took a few weeks to get her to concede that the evidence presented by the brooding dinosaur was not consistent with it having been deposited in the Flood (despite maintaining that it must somehow have been deposited by the Flood).Edited by Atheos canadensis, : added the last bit.

I am satisfied with getting a Floodist to concede that I have presented evidence that is not consistent with the Flood. I think it is irrational to maintain that it must be explained by the Flood anyway, but if you accept that the evidence I have presented doesn't support that then you are running on faith and it would not be productive to argue with that. If you believe the Flood account in the Bible then that is your prerogative. Although I would like you to answer this question:If you or others did work at the problem and were unable to come up with a Flood-based explanation for how that brooding dinosaur got there, would you alter your beliefs about the Flood?

So you accept on faith that the Flood unquestionably happened, but you think there is an approximately 5% chance that the rock record was not the product of that Flood. The next obvious question I guess is what sort of evidence from the rock record would convince you that it was not the product of the Flood? I would have thought unambiguous evidence of a terrestrial environment would be an example, but I would like to hear what you would consider to be such an example. A couple things. First, that the Flood would be conducive to preserving fossils does not mean that it must necessarily have caused their preservation. A regular flood would be perfectly capable of providing conditions conducive to fossil preservation, as would various other ecological settings. Ukhaa Tolgod, the terrestrially-deposited area where the brooding dinosaur was found, is described as being

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one of the richest fossil sites ever found from the age of the dinosaurs ...More than 100 dinosaur skeletons include several specimens of the strange flightless bird Mononykus; an embryo of a theropod dinosaur; fossils of dinosaurs incubating their eggs, and there are many skulls and skeletons of otherwise rare mammals. More than 500 skulls of mammals, lizards and dinosaurs have been identified. http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/...yofLife/ukhaatolgod.html

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And of course I have already shown you examples of mass drownings among modern animals (Message 776). I'm also assuming you are not of the erroneous opinion that preservation can only occur as the result of rapid burial, a contention some Floodists maintain despite the obvious evidence of prolonged exposure represented by scavenged remains that were nevertheless preserved in the fossil record.As I have said, the only solution I can see to the problem presented to your model by the brooding dinosaur is to refute the law of superposition. There are no signs that this is likely to happen. And I am compelled to point out that the fossil record can definitely not be attributed to the Flood. There is the fairly inconvenient fact that, apart from examples of unambiguously terrestrial deposits like the brooding dinosaur, the organization of the fossil record is not consistent with what we would expect from a global Flood. And when I say "we" I am including Floodists; the various mechanisms they propose (i.e. ecological zonation, hydrodynamic sorting, differential escape) predict certain patterns that simply do not appear in the fossil record. But, while I think this line of discussion is of course pertinent in a thread about discussing evidence supporting or refuting the Flood, I think I would be correct in assuming that it is one of the topics you have consider to be a distraction from your preferred line of discussion.To summarize, while maintaining on faith that the Flood happened you accept that the evidence I have presented is not consistent with the Flood as far as can be currently discerned. Yes?

You have asserted at various points that only the Flood could bury so many animals. But I have linked you to modern examples of mass drownings. Approximately 10 000 caribou drowned in a single event. I also linked you to examples of wildebeest drowning en mass. Clearly mass deaths occur today without any global Flood. These events have been occurring for millions of years. I know you don't accept such ages, but if you are going to use the young age of the earth as an argument then you should be prepared to support it. And as I mentioned, it is not only flood settings that produce large numbers of fossils, Ukhaa Tolgod being a good example (don't know why the link doesn't work, but just Google it; it's the first hit). Ukhaa Tolgod is where the brooding dinosaur comes from. That means we have already established that it is a terrestrial environment. Ukhaa Tolgod is a terrestrially-deposited locality and yet it is one of the richest single fossil sites to be found anywhereYou forgot to answer my question, by the way. If you reserve a 5% possibility that the rock record is not the product of the Flood, what evidence would convince you that this is the case?And given that you didn't object, I'm assuming I was correct in saying that you don't subscribe to the belief that fossils can only be preserved as the result of rapid burial. Is this assumption correct?

Mass drownings show how thousands of animals can appear in one bonebed. And scavenging doesn't preclude preservation in the fossil record as I have previously mentioned and as I discuss again below. That's the thing, Faith, rapid burial isn't required. I have already shown you this, but I guess we should hash it out a bit more explicitly. But first I will point out again that I have given you evidence that various circumstances can produce a rich fossil record including terrestrial environments as evinced by the incredibly fossil-rich Ukhaa Tolgod.Anyway, on to the rapid burial thing. Let's take an Edmontosaurus bonebed for example. We'll start with these pictures:Hadrosaur teethNote the flat occlusal surface. I bring this up just in case you might be tempted (as other creationists have been) to interpret the bite marks on the bones as being the result of the hadrosaurs gnawing each other in panic.Tyrannosaur teeth: Note the pointed tips and the configuration of teeth in the jaw.Toothmarks:Here we see a series of parallel, v-shaped marks in the bone, exactly consistent with the arrangement of teeth in the theropod jaw.So lets review the evidence:-large hadrosaur bonebeds full of bones covered with toothmarks
-the bonebeds also contain shed teeth from the tyrannosaurs and other theropods, but not their actual bones
-the toothmarks are entirely consistent with what would be caused by the sharp-toothed theropods
-the bones also show evidence of being trampledConclusion:The hadrosaur carcasses were being scavenged by theropods and were therefore exposed at the surface for extended periods. The fact that they still ended up in the fossil record disproves the assertion that only rapid burial can preserve bones for fossilization.How do you explain the unambiguous evidence of scavenging and prolonged surface exposure in the fossil record if you think that fossils can only be preserved if rapid burial occurs?