|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
Thread ▼ Details |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: The Great Creationist Fossil Failure | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4
|
quote: Rejecting obvious facts is not usually considered a sign of sanity.
quote: So if a stratum was said to have formed in a lake you would reject the idea because other strata are a lot bigger. That doesn't really make much sense.
quote: It's weird. First you argue that we don't have the landscape, only evidence which we use to infer it (and you try to pretend that most of that doesn't exist). Now you are trying to say otherwise. Now obviously the effects of compaction and lithification and sometimes erosion are going to change what was there. That's why we find fossil tree stumps rather than living trees.
quote: Again, not all strata are so extensive and making foolish generalisations hardly helps your case. You've yet to demonstrate any serious problems for the scientific view - which should surprise nobody. Creationist explanations for the order of the fossil record fail miserably - but I invite you to argue otherwise since it actually is on topic.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4 |
quote: Reading in context the statement you rejected claimed that the rocks contained evidence of past environments. This is a fact. That you reject the interpretation of the evidence - even though the interpretation is eminently sensible - with such vehemence is not good either - but that isn't what you said.
quote: Oh, this is one of those arguments where you rely on your own mistaken definitions of words. A stratum is just a layer. It is still a stratum if it has a quite limited extent. And the strata attributed to (individual) lakes do. As I said. And yes you would get a layer. Why wouldn't you ?
quote: That is sort of confusing when I, certainly, am arguing that things have changed enough that we cannot truly say that we have the landscape, but that we do have evidence of it.So you certainly weren't accurately characterising my position when you say that the rock is the landscape. Moreover, I took it as a reference to your idea that the landscape would have been rock when there are creatures living on it. And that is certainly not a view that any of your opponents (or geology) takes at all.
quote: Perhaps the explanation of my position above makes it clearer.
quote: The point in question was that some strata do not cover large areas. And since you make the same mistake above either you didn't know that - or you used an argument you know to be false. Take your pick.
quote: And the usual nastiness from Faith, the sore loser.
quote: The first is just false bluster. For the second, William Smithnand two centuries worth of geology after him say that you are dead wrong.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4 |
It is funny that someone who claims to be honest has such a negative view of telling the truth.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4 |
quote: Not really. There are periods of non-deposition and erosion. Local geological columns rarely even contain rock from every geological period.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4
|
If you think about it, that is the way it must be. You would have to abstract most of the geology out of the column if you wished to reduce everything to a single diagram. Even the most massive volcanic events do not cover the planet, and it would be foolish to expect everywhere to receive the same sediment.
And this leads back to the topic. While the rocks taken alone are not a good guide to the order of the strata (except for radiometric dating, where applicable) the fossil contents of the rock - where present - often are. As William Smith discovered. The fact is not based in any assumptions contrary to YEC belief. The usual false accusation of "brainwashing" hardly applies - if it were not a fact it would easily be disproved (and how could it have been discovered in the first place ?). And so it stands, a clear refutation of flood geology.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4 |
It isn't amazing to us because we accept the scientific view. It should be amazing to you that it is the case that the lowest rocks are so short of fossils.
However, this particular formation is home to some of the strangest fossils known - the Ediacaran fauna.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4 |
It's rather simple really. The Cambrian was defined, and the Precambrian is everything older. Writing it as "pre-Cambrian" might be a little more obvious.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4 |
quote: I don't think so. Lifespan is an odd concept with bacteria anyway, but how long does it take a stromatolite to grow ? And aren't many trilobite fossils cast-off exoskeletons ?What about land life ? And why so few recognisably modern creatures at all ?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4 |
quote: Since bacteria don't die of old age, and since the most famous pre-Cambrian fossils are stromatolites rather than individual bacterial cells it is certainly not obvious.
quote: I don't know why you think that. Especially as you claim that the order of the fossil record indicates deaths rather than creation. The fact that early representatives of the phyla don't necessarily look an awful lot like later forms is another issue. And isn't the late appearance of the Bryozoa rather a big problem for you ?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4 |
quote: You are going to have to offer more than assertion if you expect me to believe that.
quote: Since, as I pointed out, bacteria do not die of old age, and since you need the stromatolite to form before it could "die" it is hardly obvious that you are correct. Does it really take less time for a stromatolite - of the size found in the Precambrian - to form than it does for a trilobite to reach a size where it needs to moult ? It certainly is not obvious.
quote: So you actually do assume that bacteria have short lifespans and die of old age ? That's not obvious - it is just ignorant.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4 |
quote: Since there shouldn't be a layer of dead bacterial cells at all (you haven't even mentioned anything killing them), nor is there such a layer in the fossil record that pretty much leaves your claim dead in the water.
quote: You don't get stromatolites by fossilising dead bacteria.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4 |
Why couldn't a stromatolite grow over a discarded exoskeleton ? Why couldn't a discarded exoskeleton be around near a stromatolite? Why is there such a huge gap between the oldest stromatolites and the Cambrian explosion ?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4 |
quote:In terms of time frames the gap is believed to be huge because the evidence leads us to that conclusion. And I would remind you that there are Old Earth Creationists who accept the evidence of age. Also, if you are going to deal with the ages - and you just brought it up - any alternative explanation (if you ever come up with one) is going to need to explain why there is such a massive gap at that point.
quote: It isn't so simple. Relative dating is based on the relationships between the rock strata - and I would maintain that this is closely connected to the order. Height would be hugely variable, given erosion and uplift. So the "gap" would actually be revealed by relative dating, or the order of deposition. I don't think it unreasonable, given the fact that relative dating and radiometric dating largely agree to conclude that there is an awful lot of deposition between the earliest stromatolite fossils and the Cambrian explosion - and you have yet to offer any reason to expect a gap at all.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4 |
Two points in this.
First, we do have evidence if transitional fossils before the Cambrian explosion (and good reasons why they should be rare). Creationists have no evidence, and the same reasons do not apply. Second, the fact that one (and only one) family of trilobites is specialised for low-oxygen conditions is hardly evidence that such conditions were so common that we should not expect to see fossils of modern Crustacea - or close relatives - from that period. Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.4 |
quote: Put barely like that it is hardly a reason at all - and as I have already pointed out there is no good reason to expect it to be true. Nor is it a reason to expect any significant gap. Or really any gap - if a stromatolite is growing on the sea floor it would hardly be difficult for an exoskeleton to be deposited nearby or even in a stratum with a similar relative date.
quote: In other words you are assuming that quite large stromatolites can form much quicker than trilobites can grow. To the point where every Precambrian stromatolite that we have found had been completely formed long before there were any significant number of moulted exoskeletons. I think that is implausible, and needs more evidence.
quote: No, it isn't. There is a huge difference between finding incomplete fossils and finding no fossils.
quote: The quoted material refers to fossils found in the Latham Shale which is Cambrian, not Precambrian.
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024