The Flood, fossils, & the geologic evidence

Calypsis wishes to pretend that the fossil record has been produced by an impossible magical event which we know did not happen and could not possibly have produced the fossil record if it did.Opposed to that are the people who have studied the fossil record and thoroughly understand the processes that produced it.But, to counter that, Calypsis has one trump card up his sleeve. It is this. He believes in magic. He really believes in magic. No, don't laugh, because he really, really, REALLY believes in magic. And his belief in magic destroys every single fact about the fossil record that is relevant to this discussion.To quote Calypsis: "The word of Moses on the Genesis flood, and still more that of the Lord Jesus Christ, who confirmed that everything that Moses said was the truth is not a 'myth'."Of course, Calypsis is wrong about everything, but since he claims that what he's saying is "the word [...] of the Lord Jesus Christ", who we may notice has not actually taken part in this debate, then in the magical kingdom of Calypsis's mind he can fantasize that what he's saying is true.Of course his beliefs are a load of stinking garbage, but he doesn't have to deal with this fact if he can pretend that every dumb stupid thing he makes up in his head is "confirmed" by "the Lord Jesus Christ". So long as he can pretend that his messiah agrees with him, then facts don't matter.

His real name is not "John Woodmorappe", and looking at his article, I note that even he is not dishonest enough to pretend that he has a PhD. The name "John Woodmorappe" is his invention; giving him the title "Dr" appears to be yours.I prefer that appellation to be reserved to those of us who have earned it.As for the content of the link you've given us, it does appear that Morton has been honest and accurate, and that "Woodmorappe" is screaming and whining because his dishonesty has been exposed.

You mean there's a fold in the Alps?Damn, this will destroy geology. Or not.

Ah yes. Well in that case I would remind our dear moderators of message 112 from our dear moderators.I see that I have actually done a summation, as requested. But the thread has not been closed, and whatsisname is using this as an opportunity to post random errors about geology on this thread.In which case I might as well post answers.---ETA: I started writing this before Percy posted his post above. Apparently I could have saved my breath.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Made links message specific.

Well you're clearly in denial. How can you look at something like this ... ... and deny that this cottonwood tree must have been buried by a magical impossible flood that killed everyone?I guess you're one of those atheists who thinks that it was buried by real processes which actually happen. Heck, I bet you think that you're still alive right now. But we know that the only way this tree could have been buried is by a magical act of global genocide. (Photograph from Earth Science World Image Bank.)

I am at a loss to know why that sentence began with the word "but".

Why, this is very true.For example, consider the photograph you yourself just posted. [thumb=300]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h106/Martyrs5/0004.jpg[/thumb=300]See the one in the top right?Now, either Noah made use of color photography, or what we are looking at there is the result of a real process and not a magic flood.I have seen no evidence that Noah owned a camera, and also I have the feeling that floods, even magic ones, usually involve more water.<!--AB--><span class="szs f-link"><i>Edited by Dr Adequate, <script>if (getCookie('UseUserTimeZone')) {printDateTime(1255337760000, 'US', '-', 4, 'AMPM');} else {document.write('10/12/09 4:56 AM');}</script>: No reason given.</i></span><!--AE-->

Maintain away. I for my part maintain that the sediment was transported by real processes. Unlike you, I shall offer an argument, which is that observation teaches us non-magical processes that actually happen are commoner than magical processes that don't.

If that was your point, it would have been wiser of you to have made it.You do not, of course, explain in what sense they are "living fossils". Can you tell us what species they are?My point remains: this is a mass death caused by a real event of the sort that actually happens, not by the miraculous act of a bloodthirsty tribal god committing a petulant act of genocide. Please try to lie less often.No-one in this thread, has advanced the proposition that "the belief that nature made all things by itself and the world we live in is purely accidental". We have, on the other hand, been discussing a flood which is attributed to the miraculous intervention of a deity.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I was just getting that idea, yes. Though with creationists it's hard to tell whether it's deliberate dishonesty, massive ignorance, or just drooling, shambling stupidity.I don't know who wrote that article, but I'm willing to bet it wasn't a geologist.A few references to the scientific literature would have been nice.

I notice that you have copy-and-pasted a mishmash of random creationist crap. Let's take a look at it. Here we see creationists making stuff up, as usual.Hilariously, his "reference" for this made-up "fact" is to a video on a creationist website aimed at children!We do of course sometimes see cases where bodies have been deposited in the same orientation. Consider, for example, the image top right below. [thumb=300]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h106/Martyrs5/0004.jpg[/thumb=300]Note that this was caused by a real event and not a magic flood. [qs]Another very startling finding that demonstrates the sudden/catastrophic burial of very large creatures is a 1971 finding in Southern Mongolia of a perfectly articulated Protoceratops and a Velociraptor frozen in a life and death struggle with each other. Obviously these two creatures were buried suddenly by a huge catastrophe of magnificent proportions.[/qs]A fine example of a creationist substituting the word "obviously" for the production of evidence. What is "obvious" is that they were killed by a catastrophe big enough to bury two dinosaurs. [qs]Quote:Explanation 1
A collapsing sand dune.3
Problem: Sand dunes do not contain the water needed to replace the minerals in bones for fossilization on such a large scale.
Remember, the many other specimens found in the Gobi Desert were also covered by sandy sediment. Were they all from sand dunes, too?
Besides, we haven’t seen any conclusive evidence that this is a viable explanation.[/qs]Wow, what a mess of nonsense this is.The fact that things do get buried in sand show that it is a viable explanation.The fact that lots of other things were buried in sand too does not seem to present any problem. There's a lot of sand in the Gobi Desert.As for the claim of insufficient water for mineralization, let us grant that the specimens <i>are</i> mineralized (he produces no evidence), let us grant that much water would have been required for mineralization, let us grant that the Gobi Desert is very dry, and let us grant hhim (he supplies no evidence) his unspoken conjecture that the climate of the Gobi desert has always been exactly the same since the dinosaurs were buried.Very well. Now consider that the annual rainfall in the Gobi Desert is approximately 200 millimeters, and that the dinosaurs are dated to 80 million years ago. This gives enough time for <i>sixteen thousand kilometers</i> of rain to fall on the Gobi Desert, a quantity of water that makes your imaginary magic flood look like a damp trickle. [qs]The Wollemi Pine of Australia. Said by evolutionists to have been extinct.[/qs]Another of those "living fossils" that Darwin was so keen to find, brought to light by evolutionists when everyone (including all those dumbass creationists, of course) thought that it was extinct. Hooray!Why do creationists never discover anything interesting like that? It seems that all <i>they</i> ever do is sit around waiting for evolutionists to spoon-feed them facts, and then whine because they don't like the facts.<!--AB--><span class="szs f-link"><i>Edited by Dr Adequate, <script>if (getCookie('UseUserTimeZone')) {printDateTime(1255397399000, 'US', '-', 4, 'AMPM');} else {document.write('10/12/09 9:29 PM');}</script>: No reason given.</i></span><!--AE-->

That was your entire post?One has to wonder what you were talking about. You know, because you've been disgraced and humiliated and proved wrong about every subject you've lied about.I mean, you could at least tell a few lies, and at least pretend that there was one thing ... anything ... even a halfwitted lie, as usual ... that supported your froth of lies.No? You've got nothing?Then that is a fact that maybe you should think about.You can't even think of a lie that would support your lies.This may be the point at which you should think about not lying.

Could you be more precise about what you mean by "caused the world to change greatly"? If you can say what effects you think the Flood had, one might begin to think whether or not a flood would in fact have done that.Myself, I don't see how a mere forty days and forty nights of rain would have done much to the geological record. That's 960 hours of rain, or, to put it into perspective, slightly more than falls in Sydney, Australia every year.But let's be generous, and suppose that the rainfall during the Flood produced a hundred years' worth of rain in those forty days and nights. Well, what has the last hundred years' worth of rain done to the geology of the planet? Not much that I know of. And during the Flood, it would have done even less, since rainfall has no appreciable erosional effect on areas which are covered with water. However, if the flood story was true, then there would have been significant impact on biogeography and genetics. And we can easily rule it out on those grounds.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This would require the Flood to tilt the Earth's axis by 23.4 degrees. If there are any physicists reading this, perhaps they could calculate how much force it would take to do this. Whatever the answer, it is clearly not the force exerted by forty days' and nights' worth of rainfall, or we'd notice something similar happening today. The animals went in two by two (hurrah! hurrah!) If this had happened within the last few thousand years (as per Biblical chronology) there'd be evidence of all terrestrial species undergoing a genetic bottleneck at that time. I don't see how it could be. What do you have in mind, natural gas falling out of the sky and burying itself in the ground? Along with oil, which floats in water? Please explain yourself further. If you're going to identify the P-T boundary as marking the Flood event, then what were all the other extinction events? And why weren't there any modern mammals living at that time? (or dinosaurs, for that matter?) Did they all evolve since the Flood?You're not painting a very clear picture here.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

It would be rash to say that it's absolutely impossible that dinosaur bones could survive unmineralized. On the other hand, we can say that it would take a ludicrously rare combination of geological circumstances to bring it about --- because none have in fact been found.(I've just been looking at creationist claims that they have been found. This seems to be based on a single absurd blunder --- see if you can spot it.)