Summations Only

For those who would want to watch the film in order to respond in detail, it is currently available on Netflix. I added it to my list, but my school homework and project take priority at present.I looked through reviews of it on Netflix. Predictably, it was largely either praised by YECs or panned by skeptics. Some skeptics gave it high marks for presenting the creationist position (even though they don't agree with it) and a number of Christians objected to it for presenting YEC as the only alternative to the standard scientific view. It smells like a standard piece of creationist propaganda -- one reviewer said that he grew up under Communism and this film is exactly like the propaganda films that they had to watch, the only difference being that at least they all knew that those films were lies, whereas the creationists don't.There's a Wikipedia entry for the movie at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_Genesis_History%3F. My digging before that find revealed that Dr. Del Tackett, DM (Doctor of Management?), had produced The Truth Project for Dobson's Focus on the Family, an educational series instructing you how to be a biblical Christian -- it's inspiration was a Barna Group poll which found that only 8% of Christians were living biblically. Since The Truth Project was created solely for the indoctrination of people who were already Christians and not for proselytizing purposes, I was cool with that. However, if this movie was also created by the ironically-named "Truth Project", then its distribution on Netflix would certainly appear to be a foray into proselytizing.According to Wikipedia, there is no connection with The Truth Project except for the person of Del Tackett, who is only the narrator.I see that Dr. Steve Austin, PhD Geology, is in it. I remember him from back when he was Stuart Nevins writing geology articles for the Creation Research Society Quarterly. You see, he was being paid by a creationist organization, the ICR as I recall though it could have been the CRS, to earn an actual PhD in geology from an actual accredited university (Pennsylvania State University, 1979, according to a creationist site). The problem for creationists at the time that they needed to solve was that they had virtually nobody with an actual doctorate in the hard sciences that they were making claims about -- add to that the huge problem that many creationists claiming advanced degrees had gotten them from diploma mills (eg, Kent Hovind, though his bogus degrees weren't even in any kind of science but he insisted on parading them about even to the point of insisting that he be listed as "Dr Hovind" in the phone book) or else they were honorary degrees (eg, Harold Slusher with an honorary doctorate while the only actual highest degree he had earned was a Masters of Science -- he has been teaching at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he was first listed as "Dr. Slusher", but that has since been corrected).So the creationists desperately needed an actual PhD Geology, so they hired one by putting Steve Austin through school. While he was working on his degree, he wrote several creationist geology articles, such as the ones that I encountered in the Creation Research Society Quarterly. During that time, he used a pseudonym, Stuart Nevins, a rough anagram of his real name (an e and t of his real name are not used, plus there is no source for the r in Stuart), for the purpose of hiding his identity so that what he was writing could not leak back to his professors. Which was a necessary move, because in those articles he, as a graduate student, was writing nonsense that even lower-division geology students (ie, the freshman and sophomore levels, the very first two years of university) would know was utterly false.It's been three decades, but one example I remember was that he pointed to a formation of strata over a hundred feet thick that were supposed to have formed over so many millions of years. Therefore, he concluded in the article (even though he had to have known better), geologists were claiming that that formation had to have formed at an absolutely uniform rate of a very small fraction of an inch every single year. Complete and utter nonsense and something that any geology student with one or two semesters of geology under her belt would instantly know not to say. Steve Austin knew better. You cannot complete a doctorate program and be a complete clueless idiot -- Clifford Stoll's oral exam for his doctorate alone is evidence of that. In writing those articles, Steve Austin knew that what he was writing was false, yet he wrote it anyway, in article after article. That makes him a deliberate liar.OK, so he was like a local newsperson in a Sinclair-owned station having to read that "fake news" denouncement announcement written by a Russian (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PlTDeTrELk). He "had to write all that nonsense in order to please his masters". Bullshit! He was a willing participant.So then, in the film does Dr. Steve Austin (he earned it, so he can fly it; Mr. Kent Hovind is an entirely different matter altogether) bring up the ICR's Grand Canyon Dating Project? I cannot imagine that he wouldn't have. It turns out that he was deceiving you in that. But a little background first.Just about every dating method (or any method for anything at all for that matter) is based on certain assumptions which are based on certain conditions. In comparison, the real world can be very messy and things can happen which can throw off some of those assumptions and hence yield false dates. Knowing that, scientists have taken the approach of discovering the situations which can throw off their dating methods and compensating for them -- that is opposed to the standard creationist approach of just throwing their hands in the air and proclaiming "goddidit". As a result, scientists have accumulated quite a library of things and situations that could throw a particular dating method off and produce a false date. Just where exactly do you think that creationists have gotten their "false ages" from? Did they do their own original research? HELL NO! They just researched through standard geological research and misrepresented what they found. Duh?Although most of my work with "creation science" dates back to 1981, my very first exposure to it was around 1970 when I was a Jesus Freak fellow traveller. At that time I heard a lot of indistinct claims about science actually supporting the Bible (meaning their own particular interpretation of what the Bible must mean, not the actual Bible itself), but I was only presented with two specific claims.The second claim was a particularly hoary one: in the mid-1960's a NASA computer working with lunar orbit calculations discovered Joshua's "Lost Day" -- when he had commanded the sun to stop in its orbit about the earth. A Christian and a physicist, Dr. Allan H. Harvey, AKA "Steam Doc" (since some of his research was on the properties of water), wrote a number of remarkable essays, which he posted at http://steamdoc.itgo.com/writings.htm, with the "Thoughts on "Joshua's Long Day"Basically, NASA was supposed to have this program to predict the location of the moon, so they ran it back through time into prehistory, before there were any kind of records of the moon's position (so what the frak for? what possible purpose?), but the program abruptly stopped around 4004 BCE stating that there was nothing before that time. Then as they ran it back forward towards the present, it came up one day short. Nobody there could understand why, until a Christian engineer (yes, they do exist, but that's a completely different discussion) pulled out his Bible and pointed out when Joshua had commanded the sun to stand still so that they could complete the slaughter of that particular battle before the sun had set.My source, Thoughts on "Joshua's Long Day is a good one. In 2002, Answers in Genesis included it in their list of claims that they wished creationists would stop using (which was opposed by that convicted fraud, Kent Hovind, since most of the bad claims listed were ones that he still used). If you Google on that claim, I feel that I can safely predict that most of your hits will be Christian sites that debunk that claim. It is truly thoroughly bogus.The thing is that even in 1970, nearly a full decade before anyone actually had any kind of access to a computer, I knew that what that claim was saying about computers was complete and utter bullshit. Even then, I knew that computers were not magical and could not possibly know anything outside of what they were programmed for. No computer could ever possibly know that nothing existed before 4004 BCE, though some human could write a computer program to look for a date before 4004 BCE and display an arbitrary message, chosen by that human programmer, to say whatever the hell he wanted it to say.What really surprised me happened later. Our local newspaper's Sunday edition included an 10-page magazine insert which I guess was used by many newspapers. Around 1990, that magazine repeated that NASA computer claim, a full decade after a helluva lot of people had had a chance to learn what computers are and how to work with them.Anyway, that is the claim that in 1970 told me that creationism was not true. The first claim was that living fresh water clams were radio-dated to be thousands of years old. My natural skepticism was augmented greatly by the complete and utter bullshit of the NASA computer claim, so I rejected that claim without knowing anything about it.A decade later, I learned to my surprise that the creationists were still around, so I looked into their claims, actually expecting to find some kind of there there, and found absolutely nothing except for lies and deception.I finally found a reference for that fresh-water mollusc claim, so I did the unthinkable: I went to the university library and I looked it up. Yes indeed, those fresh-water clams did indeed yield anomalous ages according to radio-carbon dating. However, the article said things that the creationists decided to not mention at all. The article mentioned that the clams' main source of carbon to build their shells was from the dissolved limestone form their stream's source, a spring from limestone strata. This "reservoir effect " is very well-known (except to deceiving creationists), in which the carbon intake into the organisms under examination comes form old sources. Another example would be marine mammals feeding on organisms who in turn feed on organisms from a deeper depth.Think about it. Carbon-dating is based on atmospheric nitrogen being converted to C-14 through cosmic ray bombardment. Being chemically identical to C-12, C-14 gets incorporated into organic material and thus can be used to date organic matter.A few problems here. First problem: what about animals? Do animals take in C-14 from the atmosphere and incorporate it into their body tissues? No! We animals breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon-dioxide. Well, how do we ever take carbon into our tissues? By eating. Plants taking carbon-dioxide and use it to create carbo-hydrates which we then eat either directly or indirectly (ie, by eating an animal who had eaten a plant). In short, a plant takes in C-14 just by being a plant, but an animal takes in C-14 only by being in a food chain that involves plants.A great number of creationist claims against radiocarbon dating completely ignore the reservoir effect. Therefore, those claims are lies.

Back to Dr. Steve Austin and the ICR's Grand Canyon Dating Project.As you will recall, Steve Austin has never hesitated to lie about anything. I guess that lying at the drop of a hat is a particularly Christian trait. Kind of like that truism that the difference between a computer expert and a novice is that the novice will hesitate before doing something stupid.Think about this for a moment. When you have gained a lot of knowledge about gathering samples, you should be able to tell the difference between samples that will yield valid results and samples that will yield invalid results. If your goal is to learn the truth, then you will naturally want to use the results that should yield the valid results. But if your only goal is to support a false position which opposes the truth, then if the invalid results appear to support your claim you will choose it.One of the things that Dr. Steve Austin has learned is what conditions will yield false results.There is a troubling practice among creationists. They will find some kind of fossil that they will submit to laboratories for inappropriate testing. For example, there was one Youtube video in which Mr. Kent Hovind had submitted a dinosaur skull for radio-carbon dating and faked surprise that it was dated at about 50,000 years. Hovind kept going on and on about this anomalous age while the video's producer kept superimposing, "There's no f***ing carbon!"Dr. Steve Austin knows from his extensive education which conditions will produce bad results. So he seeks out those very conditions that will produce bad results, just in order to "debunk" the methodologies of science. The very goal of creationism, to destroy science.Regarding the Grand Canyon, Dr. Steve Austin had used his education to identify conditions under which the samples collected would give false dates. Knowing that, he actively sought out such samples.Reference:
talkorigins.org: A Criticism of the
ICR's Grand Canyon Dating Project

I mentioned that in the first sentence of Message 1453. I figured that that way others who want to comment on it will be able to watch it. I also mentioned the Wikipedia article which supplies a lot more background information on the movie as well as its reception, including the complaint by philosopher Paul Nelson, who was interviewed in the film, that the film distorted his arguments and presented "a false dichotomy" between naturalistic evolution and young Earth creationism while omitting other viewpoints. Other complaints came from those other view points, OECs, that the film presented YEC as the only alternative to the scientific view. I followed the links but couldn't find any discussion, just more exposition and a link to the segment of the movie. ABE:I just found a review of the movie on biologos by a former YEC: A Former Young-Earth Creationist Responds to Is Genesis History? by Mike Beidler. His main complaint is that the movie ignores the existence of all other views, creating a false dichotomy in which YEC is the only alternative.Share and enjoy!Edited by dwise1, : ABE

Yes, as I pointed out. In fact, I specifically cited a skeptic's review on Netflix who gave it high marks specifically for that reason. So since you aren't responding to what I wrote, then just what do you think that you're responding to?Another good documentary that presents the creationist side is the 2014 HBO documentary, Questioning Darwin (link is to the video on YouTube). Most of the footage is of creationists, many of them pastors, expressing their reasons for rejecting and opposing evolution and the rest is of non-creationist scholars and scientists and some biographical information on Charles Darwin. Which is what I wrote, so just what are you imagining to be responding to? Were you confused because I presented facts and an honest description of how I had arrived at those facts?At first it appeared that the movie was part of the Truth Project, which didn't seem right because the Truth Project was created as an educational resource for use by Christians; ie, intended for internal consumption. Of course, that is not to say that some Christians who buy it won't try to use it for proselytizing, but that was not the stated intention of the producers of the Truth Project."Creation science" is an entirely different beast. The anti-evolution movement created it as a deliberate deception intended to fool the court system, state governments, school boards, and the public into allowing them to remove evolution from the schools. The anti-evolution movement needed to create their deception because the striking down of their precious "monkey laws" in the wake of Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) meant that any attempt to bar the teaching of evolution because of religious beliefs would likewise be struck down in court (something they learned the hard way in court in the late-60's/early-70's)."Creation science" is used for internal consumption by YECs, but is also used heavily to proselytize non-YECs and non-Christians. If a "creation science" movie is only viewed by YEC audiences, then it is not being used to proselytize (even though it might motivate some members of the audience to use it to proselytize), but if that movie is presented to the general public then the spectre of proselytizing rears its ugly head. Expanding the movie's distribution by placing it on Netflix does just that.It would go against the Truth Project's stated raison d'tre for them to engage in proselytizing by distributing a creationist movie on a medium like Netflix, which is what such a move puzzled me. But then I researched further and found that "Is Genesis History?" is not connected with the Truth Project -- the only connection is in the person of Del Tackett, who served only as the narrator and apparently wasn't involved in the production of the film.So what was your problem? Absolutely no problem with an honest factual presentation. Definite problems with a propaganda piece filled with lies and deliberate attempts to deceive and manipulate the audience. Most presentations fall somewhere on the spectrum between those two extremes. Given the nature of "creation science" and its claims, "creation science" presentations tend to cluster close to the negative pole; that's just the nature of the beast. Yes, though it would be nice for you to use valid reasons for disagreeing. Plus, we have a right to disagree with your disagreement, especially with how you do it. Yeah, right, I'm supposed to have committed to memory an article I read in 1991, one of a great many that I during my research at that time, just so I could quote it to you verbatim 27 years later. Sheesh!And my personal taste has nothing whatsoever to do with what he had written. He presented that extremely strict uniform-rate-of-accumulation model as the standard model used by geologists. IOW, he was misrepresenting what geologist thought. Now you might try to claim that he simply didn't know any better, but that would be wrong because he most certainly did know better. Here is a list of Steve Austin's degrees taken from creation.com:

quote:

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B.S. (Geology), University of Washington, Seattle, WA,1970
M.S. (Geology), San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, 1971
Ph.D. (Geology), Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 1979

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That article was dated from the 1970's, when he was working on his doctorate, so he had gotten very far in his education in geology. Those are all secular universities, so it was standard geology that he was learning.He knew exactly what geologists thought about how the layers of that formation would have formed and that it most definitely would not have been at a strictly uniform and unvarying rate over millions of years.That means that he knew full well that he was misrepresenting geological thought and that he was doing so deliberately. Hence, he deliberately lied. There is no other conclusion we can arrive at ... except for extreme stupidity, but we know that's not the case because a person that stupid could not have survived a doctoral program.So then, the only possible conclusion is that he deliberately lied.There have been other cases. For example a CompuServe creationist cited Austin on polystrate trees having cited another article about polystrate trees with their root systems extending through the coal seam under them. When I looked up that article (Broadhurst, F. M., 1964, Some aspects of the paleoecology of non-marine fauas and rates of sedimentation in the Lancashire coal measures: American Journal of Science, vol. 262, pp.858-869.), it stated in no uncertain terms that those trees' roots did not extend through the coal seams.As has been pointed out many times before, there are many conditions and events that can cause a radiometric date to be invalid; eg, contamination, partial melting, applying an inappropriate test (eg, radiocarbon testing something inorganic that's older than 50,000 years). A lot of the geochronology literature is devoted to reporting such cases -- that is where creationists have been getting their examples of anomalous ages (eg, Woodramparre's list of more than 300 bad dates, though ironically most of the bad dates are too young, which invalidates his objection -- reposted at https://morton-yec-archive.blogspot.com/...age-of-earth.html).One creationist activity which has become popular is to use the methods of spotting a sample that would give an invalid date to find a sample to take in for radiometric dating, then publish how that radiometric dating method was flawed and all radiometric dating is false, etc. Those who follow Austin more closely have reported him engaging in that kind of activity. One example is cited in that article I cited as a reference: A Criticism of the ICR's Grand Canyon Dating Project.Dr. Austin has displayed too much dishonesty for us to trust everything he says. Again, I don't have time to watch the film yet, so I wouldn't know yet. Since he was in the film at the Grand Canyon, as I've heard, my mind made that connection. If results from that project are presented in the film, there's no reason to assume that the project would be named, nor would it need to be Austin presenting those results. For that matter, the creationist being interviewed would not be expected to provide any kind of bibliography for any claims or figures he presents -- that's just in the nature of the medium, ie film, that things will be said without citing the sources. And unless you can go to their source in order to verify their claim, you have no way of knowing whether what they just said is true.Three quick examples of that:

• Duane Gish lying on national TV by claiming a fictitious bullfrog protein which shows humans to be more closely related to bullfrogs. Besides the initial lie, Gish went on with lie after lie claiming that he did indeed have documentation and he promised to provide it, but of course never could -- see The Bullfrog Affair
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• Henry Morris in debate claiming that a 1976 NASA document shows that if the moon were indeed ancient it should be covered by a layer of dust more than 200 feet thick. I found that document, but it was actually printed in 1967 and it did not support Morris' claim. Instead, Morris' claim came from his actual source, creationist Harold Slusher, who had created a formula that had extraneous factors which inflated his results by a factor of 10,000, such that when we correct for that we get a dust layer a third of an inch thick for a 4.5 billion year old moon. This started out with Morris just not knowing that his claim was bogus, but then he and Gish engaged in a cover-up in which they were both lying out of their asses -- see Moon Dust
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• Mr. Kent Hovind, from various sources including his seminar videos, claiming that at the rate that the sun is losing mass as it "burns up its fuel" that 5 billion years ago the sun would have been so extremely large and massive that it would have sucked the earth in. But if you do the math instead of a lot of hand-waving, you find that the sun's mass would have been marginally greater 5 billion years ago, by a few hundredths of one percent. When I asked him for his source and calculations, he stonewalled me, doing everything he could to avoid any discussion of his claim while claiming that he did have the calculations. Again, the lying started in the cover-up -- see Kent Hovind's Solar Mass Loss Claim
  

In the first case, Gish had to be asked for his source and he never provided it (actually, he did, when he said it was from a joke he had overheard). In the second, I wrote the ICR for the source and took my research from there. In the third, I had to do the math to find the truth, getting nothing from Hovind except for his original claims.The key point in those three cases is that the creationists made false claims to the public, most of whom undoubtedly took them at face value and believed what they were told. But when we try to verify them we find that they are false. And frankly, that's what I've been finding with every creationist claim so far ... well, at least for the past 36 years.So then, everything that those creationists say in that film, what will happen when we try to verify them? Based on 36 years of experience, I have a very good idea.

Again, I have not seen the film yet and probably won't be able to until June, what with a lot of school work followed by being out of the country.And when somebody has demonstrated a history of dishonesty, pointing that out is not ad hominem. Rather, it is a warning that you cannot take everything he says at face value. Ignoring that warning would be like believing everything (or anything) that Trump says or thinking that you're actually going to get anything Mitch McConnell has promised to you. Looking through the notes at the film's site, it looked like "the basic felid kind" was covered. I especially like that one, since it was while discussing it that we got you to think through the process of how all these different kinds of "cat" descended from that original "basic felid kind". In that process, you showed entirely on your own that continued micro-evolution results in macro-evolution. Of course, the instant we pointed out to you what you had done, you panicked and started redefining the world (which only works in law and in theology). Too bad, you nearly woke up there. You have got to be kidding! Having you learned anything at all after all these years of having everything explained to you?Here is what you appear to be replying to in my Message 1454: OK, the dating system we are talking about is carbon-14, AKA radiocarbon. It can only be used to date organic material up to 50,000 years old. Organic material because it's based on the carbon-14 taken in by the organism from the atmosphere, something that inorganic material would not do. The limit of 50,000 years is because with a half-life of 5,730 40 years, virtually all of the C-14 in a sample would have decayed away into nitrogen-14, leaving no more C-14 in the sample. A zero amount of C-14 would give an age of 50,000 years, regardless of how many millions of years ago that sample had reached the point of zero C-14.Faith, I know that radiocarbon dating has been explained to you many times. Why do you still not understand any part of it? Why are you so incapable of learning anything?Here's an analogy that might help, even though you have more than proven yourself to be a lost cause (at least somebody else reading this might learn something).You have something that you want to weigh, a car. How would we weigh it? With a scale. Now, making a simple assumption that whatever scale we use does not break the scale, what scale would we use to measure the weight of our car: a kitchen scale (range 0 to 6.6 lb), a bathroom scale (0 to 400 lb), or a truck scale (0 to 15,000 lb)? Now, if you place a weight on a scale that is more than its maximum weight, then the scale displays its maximum weight -- we are assuming a regular mechanical scale, not an electronic one).So, let's choose the kitchen scale. We put our car on it and it gives the car's weight as 6.6 pounds. Well, that's obviously not right!Now let's choose the bathroom scale. It gives the car's weight as 400 pounds, which also obviously not right.Therefore, you assume with your messed up logic that weighing things with scales does not work and that you have falsified that method.But did you really falsify the method? Or did you only succeed in demonstrating how incredibly stupid you were for using the wrong scales?You say that it's reasonable to use radiocarbon dating to date the fossil of a dinosaur skull, but I say that it is sheer idiocy. Here are the reasons why it cannot work:

1. The fossil is much older than the 50,000 year limit. It's like sticking a one-ton car on a scale that can only measure up to 6.6 pounds; the highest weight that the scale can give you is 6.6 pounds. The maximum age that radiocarbon dating can possibly give you is 50,000 years, so if you use it on something billions of years old, it's still only going to be able to come up with 50,000 years.
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2. There's no f***ing carbon! All organic material in the skull has been replace with minerals. That means that whatever C-14 that was in there is gone, both through decay but also through replacement by minerals. If there is no C-14 to be detected, then you get the maximum age which is 50,000 years.

Obviously, it is extremely unreasonable to use radiocarbon dating to date a dinosaur skull. Choosing to use the wrong dating test does not invalidate that test, but rather it invalidates you! You did an incredibly stupid thing, so you are that one who is defective, not the test.Now, obviously you are just too ignorant to realize what you're doing, as you have demonstrated. But these professional creationists who submit samples for dating that they know will yield wrong dates are doing so with the knowledge of what they are doing, with the knowledge that they are creating a lie in order to practice deception.OK, maybe not Kent Hovind. He might be too stupid to know what he's doing.

And here I thought that your support for using radiocarbon dating on a dinosaur skull was the stupidest thing I'd heard you say. This is just unbelievable.Now, I could see how you could not know what a geology student had learned if he were in a Christian college, especially a creationist one. For example, in the late 1980's the ICR was offering a post-graduate masters of science degree, but then they lost their state accreditation and there was a big legal battle over that. Later the ICR moved to Texas thinking that it would be easier there, but it wasn't.Part of the process in California was that a visiting committee would tour the ICR's facilities and report on their findings; I obtained a copy of that report. The committee observed a microbiology class and their guide pointed out that they used the exact same textbook as secular universities use. But what they observed was that the entire class was going through their books with a black felt marker and under the direction of their teacher they were marking over the parts that they don't believe. They were literally redacting their own textbooks, censoring out the parts that their teacher decided they don't believe.On a side note, Glenn R. Morton and his fellow creationist geologists learned their geology from the ICR. The main thing that they were taught was geological facts that did not exist and could not exist if Scripture were to have any meaning, basically the same approach in that microbiology class. Of course, those geological facts do actually exist, so being faced with them day after day with no way to resolve them with their creationist training which had left them completely unprepared for handling the truth, of course they suffered crises of faith.So, if someone learned a science at a "true Christian" college, then it's anybody's guess what they had learned and not learned and mislearned.Not so in a secular university -- please note that all of Austin's degrees are from secular universities. Especially in the sciences, they all teach essentially the same thing, in part because they use a lot of the same textbooks and in part because they are accredited, meaning that they must teach essentially the same things (otherwise, transferring credits between schools would be impossible). Your excuse of "maybe they didn't teach him that stuff" is absolute nonsense.If somebody has earned a degree from an accredited secular university (had to specify, since there are Christian school accrediting services who would doubtless have different standards than secular accrediters), then you have a very good idea what he's been taught.If it's a math degree, then you know that he had to have had algebra, calculus, and analytic geometry. It would be quite reasonable to expect him to know exponents and logarithms and much more.If it's an electrical engineering degree, then it would be quite reasonable to expect him to know math at least up through calculus and fundamental physics (not physics for poets, but rather the real stuff that uses calculus). You would also expect him to know circuit analysis, time-domain analysis, frequency-domain analysis, and electronics.If it's a geology degree (not from a creationist institute), especially a post-graduate degree (eg, MS Geology), then it would be quite reasonable to expect him to know geology: geological processes for erosion, sedimentation, strata formation, etc, on both physical and chemical levels. In either the first or second class, he should have learned what uniformitarianism really is (HINT: it has nothing to do with things happening gradually at a uniform rate). He would also learn the properties of the different kinds of strata and how they form -- some are indeed slow and gradual as fine particulate matter settles (obviously impossible during a raging flood), while others form more rapidly and episodically.The idea that an entire formation comprised of different kinds of strata would have formed in the manner that Stuart Nevins described is not part of current geological thought. Not only would it not be taught to new students, but it would be un-taught; ie, they would be taught that it is a mistaken idea. That should happen in their first year, most likely in their first class. Therefore, somebody who has earned his MS Geology would have known that for at least six years.I repeat, it is very reasonable to expect someone with a proper geology degree to know what current geological thought is. Your claim that they wouldn't is nothing but nonsense.Stuart Nevins, MS Geology, knew full well what current geological thought was so when he mispresented that idea as part of current geological thought when he knew full well that it wasn't, then, yes, he was deliberately lying.Yes, he was just feeding his readers with the misinformation that they already believed. But that was an opportunity for him to teach them the truth, yet he opted for the lie. The universities would teach how layers are actually deposited, including how formations of different strata form. Stuart Nevins' slow accumulation of the entire formation idea would have buried in the first year, so it would not interfere with them learning the actual geological processes involved in actual stratum formation.As for the problem that you outside of academia do not know how layers are deposited, it's not like it's some kind of big secret that they're keeping from you.
Learn it! Seek that knowledge; it's not going to come to you, so you have to go to it. Get a university level textbook that describes geological processes. Contact a geologist (eg, call or email the geology department of a college or university) and ask for recommendations. There might even be some other educational materials.I know that keeping yourself ignorant is part of your religion, but I still think it's a bad idea. And if you start to learn how geological processes work, then that should improve your own musings and keep you from writing so much stupid stuff about geology. It's a win-win! What's not to like?

Do you really think that university geology classes do not teach geology? And do you really think that the entire geology degree programs for a BS and an MS do not teach the students what current geology thought is? That is the most bat-shit crazy nonsense I've ever heard!You are the one claiming that Steve Austin did not know what current geology thought was, so the burden of proof is on you! You have to present the proof that he was either too ignorant or too stupid to have known that he was presenting a nonsensical claim. And you have to present your proof that university geology departments do not teach current geology thought.Your position is that he made that false claim because he was too ignorant and/or too stupid. My position is that his ability to have complete two non-trivial degrees and get into a doctorate program requiring non-trivial work precludes the possibility that he was as ignorant and/or stupid as your position requires.My position makes sense, whereas yours does not. You need to provide the proof for your position. Then you've been reading the wrong books. That you persist in displaying abject ignorance of geological processes support the idea that you've been reading the wrong books.That is why I recommend that you talk to a geologist. A geologist would be able to recommend the right books to you, as well as the right keywords to search for it on-line. And please don't start screaming at me hysterically like you did for an extended period of time (days) the first time I suggested that you talk with a geologist. And just how am I supposed to access such information. You're using that typical Christian dirty trick of "unanswerable question/impossible task". Why is honesty so foreign to Christians?But rather, you are claiming that universities do not teach how layers are actually deposited. I find your claim to be mind-bogglingly unlikely, since no geology program would have any valid reason to leave such an appalling gap in their students' education -- unlike Christian education in which appalling gaps in education is a feature instead of a bug. Show us your proof that universities do not teach that!And yet again, talk to a geologist! A geologist would be able to tell you what is taught.And yet talking to an actual geologist is the last thing you want to do. Why is that? Is it because then you'd know the truth and could no longer play these doubting games?

Agreed. The date of igneous rock is the last time it solidified from having been completely melted -- if you melt it completely and then let it solidify, then you have just "reset its clock." It is that solidifying from a complete melt which traps the isotopes in its crystals which we can then examine in a dating test.The talk.origins article, Isochron Dating, does a good job of explaining the method, what it's based on, and what problems could arise and how to detect those problems (eg, a partial melt, the xenoliths, chunks of older rock in a molten mix but which did not melt, mentioned by JonF in Message 1442). For one thing, it dispels the old creationist canard that we use nothing more than the simple decay formula, in which case not knowing the pre-existing amount of daughter element would be a problem; the isochron method eliminates that problem. The isochron method also has its own built-in test for detecting invalid results. A reply on this forum had stated that the isochron method is an old method which has been replaced by something better, but I don't remember what that new method is supposed to be.Since sedimentary rock is mostly just the physical recycling and relocation of older rock, radiometric methods cannot be used on it. Instead, we look for igneous intrusions into those layers and igneous layers bracketing the sedimentary layers with which we can establish a range of ages for the sedimentary layers. We discussed that extensively on this forum with a creationist a few years ago.Fossil bone is typically mineralized. That means that the organic material in the bone was replaced with minerals. There was no complete melt to "reset the fossil's clock", besides which such a melt would have destroyed the fossil anyway. The age of the minerals themselves would be problematic as well and undoubtedly indeterminate. Radiometric dating methods that depend on a complete melt to "reset the clock" clearly cannot be used. For fossil bone, the best dating method is to note which layer it was found in in situ, so that the age of that layer would be the age of the fossil -- the same applies to archaeological artifacts, which is why paleontologists and archaeologists tend to become angry when you bring them a fossil or an artifact that you had removed from its in situ location.There may be other dating methods that don't require a complete melt, but as I understand they would use lighter isotopes, such as C-14 or berylium, whose half-lives are far too short to date anything older than thousands of years (eg, 50,000 years for C-14). It should be noted that those lighter isotopes are present in the ground, but they disappear as you go to deeper rock.Besides not being able to date something as old as a fossil, C-14 would be unsuitable since all of the fossil's organic material would have been replaced by minerals, hence no C-14 left to measure.Therefore, most if not all radiometric dating methods could not be applied directly to a fossil. Instead, the location where it was found would need to be dated, something that radiometric dating methods can do.Of course you know that already, but others may not have understood why tests would not reasonably apply to fossil bone.

You mean like where I had said in the part of Message 1454 that you were replying to (bold added for your benefit): I posted that again for your edification and to provide context for readers in my Message 1465 reply to your Message 1456. The fact that Hovind had that fossil radio-carbon dated was clearly presented from the start.I would hope that at least now you have learned something about radio-carbon dating, though I doubt that you even bothered to read any of it thus preserving your precious ignorance, the refuge of all creationists. You mean you still don't understand radio-carbon dating? Typical! Yes, it would, but as PaulK pointed out, who's going to pay for those further tests? It ain't cheap, you know.These labs normally work for scientists and other skilled professionals who know what they are doing. They depend on their customers having already done their own due diligence in obtaining a proper uncontaminated sample and determining which test or tests would be the appropriate one(s). The labs are not prepared for any ignorant yahoo walking in off the street ordering a specific test with no clue whether it's the appropriate one or not. And the labs are definitely not prepared for a creationist huckster bent on rigging the test by ordering an inappropriate test on samples that are probably contaminated or otherwise unsuitable for testing, just so he can get a lab result of a "bad date" with which to spin yet another lie that he can use to further deceive his audience. Read JonF's Message 1475 immediately above your message that I'm replying to right now for yet another example of creationists practicing deception at every step of obtaining contaminate sample and ordering an inappropriate test, just so they could spin yet another creationist lie. Well, that should be a wake-up call for you that you do need to learn about dating issues. The reason why Mr. Kent Hovind's malfeasance sound straightforward to you is precisely because you are ignorant of dating methods. Furthermore, your ignorance of dating methods leaves you open and vulnerable to countless other creationist lies about radiometric dating.You need to learn enough about radiometric dating to have a basic understanding of it so that you can be equipped to evaluate the claims that you hear. You have already tried ignorance and found that it doesn't work. It's time you try something far better than ignorance, like learning something.It's really not that hard to understand and the math is pretty basic, assuming you understand exponents and logarithms.Here is a short list of recommended books, sites, etc:

1. Critique of Radiometric Dating, Harold S. Slusher, MS, ICR Technical Monograph No. 2, June 1973. In a collection of reviews of creationist literature, this one got surprisingly high marks for having the best description of half-lives and decay rates that the reviewer had seen, though he does go off the rails and into the ravine with what he does with that information. Another benefit of this book would be learning what the bases for creationist arguments against radiometric dating are -- even though it's nearly half a century old, creationist claims don't change much (a lot of current young-earth claims date back to that same time, even though they have been repeatedly refuted soundly long ago). Most such arguments falsely claim that scientists only use the simplest formula which is invalidated by their not knowing how much daughter element was already present. Of course, that is not true and is a misrepresentation -- see #4 below.
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   If you cannot find this one, then Wikipedia articles on the subject should suffice. Basically he covered the concept of half-lives and how that can be used to determine how much of the parent isotope you should expect to find after a given amount of time. He also examined the decay chains of three isotopes: Uranium-Thorium-Lead, Potassium-Argon, and Rubidium-Strontium. It should be noted that the parent isotope does not decay directly to the final daughter, but rather through a series of daughter isotopes, each of which has its own half-life.
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   So whatever alternative resource you end up using, at the least it should explain half-lives and how to work with them and decay chains.
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2. The Age of the Earth, G. Brent Dalrymple, Stanford University Press, 1991. A definitive treatment of the methods for determining the age of the earth. Comprehensive, yet still very accessible.
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   An added bonus is the preface in which he describes when in 1975 Duane Gish and Henry Morris visited the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park to give their seminar on "creation science". Most of the discussion with them for the rest of the weekend was the scientists trying to correct Gish and Morris' gross misunderstanding of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. I believe it was at that time that Gish and Morris decided to avoid ever talking with scientists.
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   If nothing else, this book should inform you of how scientists actually determine the age of the earth, so that when you reject that you will at least have something more than abject ignorance to go by.
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3. Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective by Dr. Roger C. Wiens, PhD Physics, 1994 (revised 2002). He is a Christian and his article has been widely recommended ever since it was first published. Here is the abstract:

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   Radiometric dating--the process of determining the age of rocks from the decay of their radioactive elements--has been in widespread use for over half a century. There are over forty such techniques, each using a different radioactive element or a different way of measuring them. It has become increasingly clear that these radiometric dating techniques agree with each other and as a whole, present a coherent picture in which the Earth was created a very long time ago. Further evidence comes from the complete agreement between radiometric dates and other dating methods such as counting tree rings or glacier ice core layers. Many Christians have been led to distrust radiometric dating and are completely unaware of the great number of laboratory measurements that have shown these methods to be consistent. Many are also unaware that Bible-believing Christians are among those actively involved in radiometric dating.

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   This paper describes in relatively simple terms how a number of the dating techniques work, how accurately the half-lives of the radioactive elements and the rock dates themselves are known, and how dates are checked with one another. In the process the paper refutes a number of misconceptions prevalent among Christians today. This paper is available on the web via the American Scientific Affiliation and related sites to promote greater understanding and wisdom on this issue, particularly within the Christian community.

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   Half-lives are known with a margin of error of about 3 to 5 percent. The half-lives of heavier isotopes have proven quite immune to outside influences, though some of the lighter isotopes (eg, beryllium) can be affect, however the lighter isotopes are far too short-lived to be used in dating ancient rock. In all the wild creationist speculation that something could have affected the rate of radioactive decay, the greatest theoretical effect that any of them could have would be less than one percent. Given that the margin or error is already at 3 to 5 percent, that less than one percent figure is insignificant.
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4. Isochron Dating by Chris Stassen, 1994 - 1998, Talk.Origins Archive. This is a fairly complete web article. First it covers generic dating (what creationists typically try to saddle geologists with) so you get some treatment of the simple formula for deriving an age from a half-life, plus it examines problems that can arise in generic dating. Then he presents what geologists actually use, the isochron method, and describes how it works, what conditions it depends on, and how it solves the problems of generic dating. Later he also describes what happens when those conditions are not met and other problems that can arise and how the method detects them.

Those are my recommendations, though there are many other sources. I would generally advise you to steer clear of creationist treatments, because their main purpose is to deceive you. Learn what scientists actually have to say on this subject first before you go anywhere near a creationist source.

He's a creationist. He was writing for creationists. He was expected to feed them the same lies that they've been fed for years.Because creationists have no evidence, all they have to use are lies. And because reality exposes their lies, their only refuge is their ignorance.Like the deliberate lies created by those creationist hucksters deliberately creating bogus radiometric dating results.Like the deliberate lies about genetics and protein comparisons, such as Gish's bullfrog protein lie.Like the deliberate lies about astronomy, including the moon dust claims, the solar mass loss claims, the shrinking sun claims, the "changing speed of light" claims (I heard that that one is in your movie), the geo-magnetic field claim.Like your own lies about having proof for a young earth, which you refuse to present.I have been studying "creation science" since 1981 and in all that time all that I have ever seen coming from creationists has been lies.And since the most devout believers in your religion believe so strongly that they can only support it with lies, that tells us all that we would ever need to know about your religion. Thank you for your witness. No, the evidence clearly points to billions of years. What is nonsensical is how you persist in denying reality.What is also nonsensical is to tie your faith to a young earth, such that you believe that if the earth is indeed billions of years old then that destroys your god. There is no reason to hold such a belief outside of extreme stupidity. And the earth is indeed old.What is wrong with you?

The hell you have!And your claim was to have proof of a young earth. Which you have never presented.If you do actually have that proof, then present it!If you do not have that proof, then stop lying about it! Complete and utter bullshit!Besides which, you are demonstrably abjectly ignorant of radiometric dating, so just exactly how could you be such a expert on it to be able to dismiss it?You are not deceiving anyone with your bullshit, except for yourself. Except that case after case after case has involved creationists engaging in deliberate lying. So that's just more of your nonsensical bullshit. Says the one who has posted so much blithering nonsense that nobody can ever take anything you say seriously. You are a very bad joke. And you're not even funny.

The benefit to him would be that he would be doing his creationist duty of misrepresenting science. Because creationists believe that by disproving science or denigrating science in any way, they automatically prove creationism and their entire intricate theology.Part and parcel of the "creation science" deliberate deception was the ICR's infamous Two Model Approach (TMA). Even though it is now rarely mentioned by name, along with "creation science" following its exposure as a purely religious deception by Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) (after which the anti-evolution movement abandoned "creation science", AKA the game of "Hide the Bible", and adopted "intelligent design" as their new smokescreen, AKA the game of "Hide the Creationism"), the TMA formed the basis of all creationist activity and still does.The basic idea is that there are two and only two mutually exclusive models for origins: the "creation model" and the "evolution model". We should note that in every debate or public appearance by the ICR's Duane Gish and/or Henry Morris, the ICR's stars and master debaters (those who want to have fun with that last, do feel free), the very first thing that they did was to invoke the TMA. The TMA is presented as a dichotomy, but it is a false dichotomy. The strategy, which informs all their actions, was that, given a dichotomy (ie, "it's either this or that; there is no other choice."), if you can disprove the "evolution model", then you have proven the "creation model". Furthermore, you have proven the "creation model" without ever having to present any evidence or arguments for it, ever having to discuss or defend it, or even ever having to actually present it.Of course, the TMA is a false dichotomy and false dichotomies are routinely used by demagogues and other deceivers of all stripes, including creationists. Around the time that I had written to Henry Morris, I also wrote to the ICR asking why they never ever present any actual evidence for creation, but only so-called "evidence against evolution." Henry Morris' reply in his letter to me was that "evidence against evolution" does indeed constitute evidence for creation. He went on to write (I'm certain that the emphasis is mine, since the letter was typewritten):

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The evolution model, in general terms, is not just Darwinism, but any naturalistic concept of origins (including most of the world's religions, ancient and modern). The creation model, in general terms, is not just the Biblical record, but any cosmogony which postulates a transcendent personal Creator to account for the universe and its basic components. Evolution says one CAN explain the origin and development of all things in terms of continuing, natural processes. Creation says one CANNOT so explain them.

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Now, the big problem with the TMA is in its formulation. Officially to the outsiders, the "creation model" is expressed in extremely general terms as per the game of "Hide the Bible". In reality, the "creation model" can and will only accept a strict YEC interpretation. If you doubt me, then read what Wendell Bird wrote in Acts & Facts, the official ICR newsletter:

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I. Special creation of the universe and earth (by a Creator), on the basis of scientific evidence.
II. Application of the entropy law to produce deterioration in the earth and life, on the basis of scientific evidence.
III. Special creation of life (by a Creator), on the basis of scientific evidence.
V. Distinct ancestry of man and apes, on the basis of scientific evidence. VI. Explanation of much of the earth's geology by a worldwide deluge, on the basis of scientific evidence.
VII. Relatively recent origin of the earth and living kinds (in comparison with several billion years), on the basis of scientific evidence

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If you visit that page, which quotes the ICR article very faithfully as you can verify for yourself, you will see that Wendell Bird was comparing the "scientific" and the biblical creation models. They are absolutely identical except for very superficial rewording, which proves that the ICR's "scientific creation model" is nothing more than pure religion, in complete contradiction with "creation science's" fundamental claim that its objections to evolution are purely scientific.Do please track down the original ICR article to confirm what I had posted. On that page I have given you have everything you need to know to do so. That is the difference between creationists and normals: we normals have nothing to hide, whereas creationists have everything to hide.OK, the fundamental problems with the TMA. Basically it gives us two different "models": the "creation model" and the "evolution model". Furthermore, I have seen the "evolution model" described by creationists as "atheistic" (eg, in the "balanced treatment" "educational" materials prepared for "public school balanced treat classes." However, the "creation model" very strictly restricts itself to YEC, while, as per Henry Morris' letter to me, all other theistic are consigned to the atheistic "evolution model."Once they actually start to talk to their base, we find that the "creation model" can only mean nothing else than the full YEC theology. Every other god, every other idea of origins, and other Christian idea is consigned to the atheistic evolution model! Really? All other Christians who do not follow your idiotic creationist ideas are all ATHEISTS????? Do you really believe that? Then in that case, what a complete idiot you are!Back to the basic creationist deception.According to the TMA, any disproving of any aspect of science is supposed to be proof of YEC and young earth and the complete fundamentalist bullshit theology in all its details. Bullshit! But that is their entire argument: "prove" creationism solely by "disproving" the "evolution model" without ever having to ever present what creationism is. What a complete con-job that is! What a complete deception!In order to have a true dichotomy, all possible options must be presented so that they can be properly eliminated from consideration. In the case of the false dichotomy of the TMA (and of your movie, as per interviewee Paul Nelson in his complaints of how the movie had misrepresented him), all other options to their very narrow "creation model" have been lumped into their "atheistic evolution model". All ideas about evolution, including all the ones that were disproven and discarded long ago, all the misconceptions about evolution as well. All other non-evolution ideas of origins, especially from "most of the world's religions, ancient and modern" as per Dr. Henry Morris, PhD Hydraulic Engineering (I kid thee not). Therefore, the vastly major portion of creationism's "atheistic evolution model" is overwhelmingly theistic. And one of the stickiest problems about purely theistic claims is that they are virtually impossible to disprove. Since the supernatural cannot be observed nor tested, it is impossible to disprove the existence of God ... only the creationists have been successful in disproving God, but only if you accept their fallacious premises (eg, "If the earth is more than 10,000 years old then Scripture has no meaning.", John Morris, current President of the ICR).In order to "prove" their "creation model" solely by fully disproving their "evolution model", creationists must fully disprove their "evolution model" (as well as establishing that their TMA is actually valid, which it is not, but that's a side issue). Since the vast majority of ideas in their "evolution model" are theistic and theistic ideas are fundamentally immune to examination and disproof, it is clearly impossible to ever disprove their "evolution model". Even if it were possible to disprove any supernatural claim, the breadth of the "evolution model" is so vast as to render the problem intractable (ie, an intractable problem is theoretically possible to solve, but is so vast or complicated that it proves to be impossible to solve practically; eg, trying to guess all possible passwords).Given that it is virtually impossible to "prove" the "creation model" solely by "disproving the evolution model", why take that approach? If your goal is to prove the "creation model", then why not just simply present the evidence for the "creation model" so that you can prove it? In nearly half a century, I have never ever seen that approach attempted by creationists. The obvious reason for that is that there is no evidence for YEC creationism and they know it! All that creationists can do is lie about everything that they can and even about things that they cannot lie about because their faithful are blind to those lies, whether through pig ignorance or piety (or self-imposed pig ignorance, such as yours, Faith). 
So what we have as the creationist model is that they strive to "prove" creationism solely by "disproving" science. The way in which they "disprove" science is by grossly misrepresenting science and what science says. Ideally, they will misrepresent science in a manner in which they misrepresent the scientific idea or explanation as something that is so completely ridiculous even though that is nothing like what any scientist would actually say (eg, Stuart Nevins (AKA Steve Austin) about that that rock formation accumulating over millions of year at a strictly uniform rate of hundredths of an inch per year). Back to Stuart Nevins' lie and " how would it benefit him to misrepresent that".The very basic and fundamental goal of creationist claims is to "disprove evolution". Prove creation by disproving evolution without ever presenting any evidence for creation. That's the name of the game, dude.That is exactly what Stuart Nevins was doing. He presented a strawman caricature of what geologists actually thought in order to show that that strawman was completely ridiculous and hence that geology was ridiculous. In a letter to the editor, I used the analogy of shadow boxing. You shadow box against an imaginary opponent, which can be a valid training tool, but the actual test of your boxing skills will be in the ring. Creationists only engage in shadow boxing; in the actual ring they are always defeated. What Stuart Nevins was doing in those articles was misrepresenting the current state of geological thought. edge (Message 1490) has already verified what that current geological thought was and the fact that it is indeed taught to all students of geology -- so just where the fuck is your own evidence to the contrary?. Stuart Nevins' obvious intention was to falsely present the scientific position as something ridiculous. Typical creationist lying.

And intact fossilized turtle poop (AKA coprolites)!We all know what mildly moving water does to feces. It breaks them up, they fail to hold them together, they dissolve.Glenn R. Morton (https://morton-yec-archive.blogspot.com/...global-flood.html):

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Consider the turtle coprolite shown below which is from Betsiboka, Madagascar.

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This coprolite, from my personal fossil collection, was deposited by a turtle in Eocene rocks. Geology says these rocks are 38-55 million years old. The coprolite today is rock-hard and has no smell. It is the mineralized poop from an Eocene turtle. How do we know it is turtle poop? Because even today, in Betsiboka, Madagascar where this was found, turtles come ashore to lay their eggs, they leave such deposits (only a wee-bit fresher) than what you see above.

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Now, how do we know that this feces was not deposited during a global flood? Any guesses from the young-earth creationists? It is easy. The coprolite, which today is petrified rock, dried out prior to when it was fossilized. You can see the cracks which formed in the soft poop when it dried out. One can see this phenomenon occasionally in dog feces as they dry but not when the feces are fresh.

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Now, the real question for the young-earth creationists is, what were turtles doing coming ashore during the global flood, when there wasn't supposed to be any land? If the feces were deposited in the ocean, it would not have the desiccation cracks in it because it couldn't have dried out. The turbulence of the flood waters would most likely have distorted or even dissolved the feces as it was swept against rocks and other objects by the flood currents. The fact that this feces simply dried out and was then petrified argues strongly against the global flood being responsible for these rocks.

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For these turtle-fouled Eocene rocks and younger rocks which lie above them, these facts require that they are at least post flood. One can follow the Eocene rocks from Madagascar around Africa and Eurasia and across to India. In the Ocean the link is unbroken.. The thickness of the rocks equal in age or younger (Post Paleocene) offshore India reaches 15 kilometers in thickness (see Curiale et al, AAPG86(2002):4:636). Thus the young-earth creationist, if he/she decides that the sediments I am speaking of are post-flood, must then account for 15 kilometers of post flood sediments offshore India. This is 50,000 feet of sediment. The young-earth creationist must ask himself how it is possible to non-catastrophically erode and deposit that much sediment within the past few thousand years. Clearly this is a difficulty. On the other hand if the young-earth creationist thinks that the sediments are flood sediments, they must explain how the turtles found dry land in the middle of the flood, so that lots of feces could be deposited and then have the time to dry out.

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And that is the real poop on the Global Flood.

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Well, as usual your guess is complete bollocks. Pity you cannot realize that because of your willfull ignorance.In Message 1611 edge pointed out that the Lance Formation is from the Cretaceous, late Cretaceous actually (dating about 69 - 66 Ma (mega-anni, AKA "million years")). You see, dinosaurs first appeared in the Triassic period (dating about 243 - 231 Ma) and continued on through two more periods, the Jurassic (201.3 - 145 Ma) and of course the Cretaceous (dating about 69 - 66 Ma).Specific dinosaurs are found in specific periods. Going through edge's list: stegosaurs (Jurassic and early Cretaceous), apatosaurs (Late Jurassic), allosaurs (Middle Jurassic). None of them are late Cretaceous.The simplest and best explanation is that those dinosaurs simply no longer existed at the Late Cretaceous when the Lance Formation was formed. Obviously, for any plant or animal to be buried in sediment, it must be present at the time of burial -- if you want to deny that simple fact, then you have a helluva lot of 'splainin' to do.So what old silly creationist canards will you use? Hydrodynamic sorting? Habitat? Fleetness of foot (especially effective in explaining the distribution of plant fossils). All while the entire surface of the earth is being re-arranged. You should have added, "Pardon my French", but there is no excuse for French, n'est pas?

Far more interestingly, where are those three formations: Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. Dinosaurs' distribution is not so much geographical as it is temporal, which is the point here. Where are Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous formations found and where are they in the same location? No, creationists have come up with all kind of silly ad-hoc excuses for their absolutely stupid ideas.Different habitats? The ones that your magic flood destroyed wholesale as it completely reconfigured the entire face of the entire world? What kind of a fucking idiot are you? And what kind of fucking idiots do you think we are?What you describe is absolute idiocy. And your excuses are absolutely ludicrous.Nobody could ever take your blatherings seriously. But some will continue to do so just for the intellectual exercise of demonstrating just how ludicrous it is.Edited by dwise1, : getting the [/qs] tag right