You seem to have missed my earlier post. I Can understand that, given the rather large dogpile you're experiencing at the moment. Despite the fact that this is a Free For All thread, I'm trying to refrain from flaming or being unnecessarily disrespectful. In fact, as I suggested, you started from the right place in this thread: you looked for things that would
notbe explained by your personal Flood scenario, and listed those things you felt would be falsifications of your "model."
However, as I tried to point out, you didn't give any sort of reasoning for your potential falsifications. You didn't describe any mechanisms for any of your predicted effects, no predictions to confirm or falsify your vapor canopy, no numbers or calculations or bits of observable or reproducible evidence, such that your list is
itself essentially collection of unsupported assertions.
You've suggested that any evidence you do try to use will simply be ignored. However, you've used this as an excuse to simply avoid the subject of evidence altogether. I think that your real issue is that you want to consider text from the Bible to be evidence, and you're well aware that we'll dismiss that as simply the contents of a book. Do you understand the reason for that, Buz? Your assertions make claims about the Earth around us, and we can very easily (and already have, in fact) make observations and perform experiments to test your assertions. We can determine how much water there is on the Earth. We can determine how old the Earth is. We can determine whether individual species experienced genetic bottlenecks. We can detect ancient mass-extinctions. We can determine the age and basic history of ancient civilizations. We can look for logical inconsistencies in your claims.
All of that is independent of your textual evidence. You're more than welcome to use the Bible to construct what you consider to be a plausible scenario for the Flood; since the Bible is the source of the very
idea of a global Flood, that's perfectly reasonable and you won;t hear any argument from me. However, when it comes to
test your hypothetical scenario, you have to use evidence from the real world,
not simply additional claims. You need to show a global sediment layer, or other evidence that would be expected from a global Flood (since we can detect smaller and older Floods in the geological record, we should be able to detect the same evidence on a global scale for the Genesis event). You need to show evidence of a universal genetic bottleneck consistent with every species on Earth being reduced to between one and a few dozen breeding pairs (since we can detect bottlenecks of much less severity, this should be easy and in fact stick out like a giant red flag to any geneticist). Simply listing additional claims is not evidence of any sort, and it should be obvious why this is the case.
I'm going to re-post my earlier comments below, as I'd very much like to see a response from you.
I am often asked questions in the threads regarding implications of a flood the magnitude of the Genesis Noaic flood. Usually these questions pertain to some aspect of the topic. This thread is proposed in order that different implications of such a deludge may be debated and discussed.
Perhaps this will enable members to better understand what the Genesis record actually says and implies relative to that alleged event. Hopefully corroborating all of the implications will also help members to understand why such an event would skew data applied in current dating methodology.
You're starting from a good place, Buz: falsification.
Any hypothetical model must be falsifiable, and in fact it is those bits of evidence that a given model
cannot explain that are far more important than what it
can explain. If a hypothesis can equally explain
everything, then you haven't actually explained
anything. There must be some bit of evidence that, if found or found to be absent, would
not be explained.
However, while you seem to be starting from a position of establishing what would falsify the Flood, your list here is little more than a collection of sometimes-absurd unsupported assertions. You don;t explain
why the Flood would or would not produce any given bit of evidence. What you appear to be doing (and what I'm guessing is in fact the truth) is looking at the world as it is, and suggesting that a global Flood would
notproduce the opposite.
1. It would not produce a climate as warm as pre-flood.
Why? In what way would a global Flood produce a cooler climate than pre-Flood? What mechanism do you propose for the global cooling effect?
Given that your hypothesis also includes a massive vapor layer in the atmosphere, I can think of one quite readily, but I'm curious to see if
you understand why removing a thick layer of water vapor from the atmosphere or flooding the Earth would cool things down. Especially since the mechanism I'm thinking of would have turned the pre-Flood Earth under your model into a runaway greenhouse - see Venus for an example.
2. It would not produce the same atmosphere, given the volumn of water to accomodate a flood of this magnitude.
The "same atmosphere" as what, Buz, and how would it be different, specifically? I assume you are referring to the Flood making the atmosphere different post-deluge from pre-deluge, but you haven't explained how and in what way. Would the mix of gasses we breathe be different? Which layers of the atmosphere would be affected, and why? Would only the biosphere feel the effects? The troposphere? Stratosphere?
3. It would not produce the same elements in the atmosphere of a pre-flood planet which is implicatied due to the volumn of H2O in play
By what mechanism would "the volume of H2O in play" modify the chemical composition of the atmosphere? How would rain, even a
lot of rain, fundamentally alter the proportion of O2, N2, H2, CO2, and other gasses in the atmosphere, particularly given that water is basically chemically neutral in this instance (as in, water doesn't react chemically with the gasses in our atmosphere, which is why we still have those gasses and water vapor at all; if water was reactive with our atmospheric mix, the gasses and water would chemically react into some different compound).
4. It would not produce the same sun rays on the planet as post flood.
I presume you are referring to a thick global layer of water vapor, like a giant global cloud, filtering out the Sun's rays?
How does your Sun-blocking vapor layer explain the fact that Genesis also records being able to see the Sun, Moon, and stars
before the Flood? Any global vapor layer capable of filtering the Sun (not to mention warming the atmosphere and storing the water that will later be used in a global deluge) should also "filter" the light from those sources, shouldn't it? Wouldn't that make the moon and especially the stars invisible, blocked by the global cloud? If not, why not? Describe the properties of the vapor layer. If it wasn't thick enough to form a giant cloud, how could it contain enough water to Flood the Earth? If it was thick enough to "filter" the Sun's rays, how could pre-Flood people see the stars?
5. It would not produce relative uniformity in calculating dating methodology nor would it produce acurate dating data of present dating methodology used.
Why? By what mechanism would radioactive decay be made irregular? Note that this isn;t only Carbon dating - you have to explain
every single radioisotope or the mechanism behind radioactive decay itself and why a global Flood would make all testing for that age unreliable. You'll have to further explain why it seems perfectly reliable for all other ages, including older ages than the supposed Flood. You'll also have to explain why
other dating methods (yearly sediment deposits, tree rings, etc) would
also be made unreliable.
6. It would not produce similar weather as pre-flood.
Why? In what way? Would the water cycle of evaporation and precipitation not work pre-Flood? If not, why not? If precipitation didn't exist, how did water get to plants that were distant from rivers and lakes and oceans? Was the pre-Flood Earth a gigantic desert with fertile regions only on shorelines?
7. It would not produce a rainbow-less atmosphere.
Your double-negative here suggests that there were no rainbows
before the Flood, and that the Flood's changes to the atmosphere (which you have neither defined nor supported) would create the conditions that allow rainbows today. By what mechanism would the pre-Flood prevent water vapor from refracting light and creating rainbows?
8. It would not produce as long a life as that of a warmer uniform atmosphere which filtered out less healthy sun rays.
Why? What specific wavelengths do you believe would be filtered out? Why would the absence of those wavelengths result in longer lifespans? Why would an overall warmer climate support longer lifespans? Define "longer?" What would you expect the average lifespan to be pre-Flood, and upon what data do you base that expectation? Do you have some data that shows people living in tropical climates live longer than those in colder areas? What about extremely low elevations, like by the Dead Sea, where most of the UV light from the Sun is filtered out? Once again, this is a set of unsupported and not even clearly defined assertions.
9. It would not produce as level a planet surface as pre-flood.
Define this. Would the pre-Flood Earth have been flat? Or simply of uniform elevation? Did geological processes simply not work before the Flood? What made volcanoes and earthquakes and erosion all start working only
after the Flood? Without mountains and varied elevations, how would rivers form? Genesis clearly mentions rivers existing; without variances in elevation, you could not have rivers (which are themselves lower areas of elevation containing water), and the water would not flow anywhere (rivers are driven by gravity from higher elevations to the ocean; without mountains or at least hills, rivers would just be pools of standing water).
How would the Flood
start the geological processes we see today? By what mechanism would a global Flood kick-start volcanism and earthquakes? How would, over the course of the Flood year, all of the major geological features we see today be formed, and then all of the activity
stop (or at least slow down to modern rates, which are vastly slower than the kind of cataclysm required to change the face of the Earth in a single year) just in time for the water to recede?
10. It would not produce small shallower oceans as would be pre-flood.
Why? What data suggests that a global Flood would increase the depth of oceans? What mechanism would cause this?
11. It would not produce warm polar regions void of ice.
Why not? Honestly, I know why we have polar ice - but I'd like you to support this assertion, like the others. Why would a global Flood not result in warm, ice-free poles? Conversely,
without a Flood, would there then
be warm, ice-free poles? Why or why not? If both a Flood and no-Flood would produce polar ice caps, why is this relevant?
12. It would not produce large continents compared to pre-flood.
Why? By what mechanism would a global Flood produce smaller continents than you suggest existed before the Flood? Why is your Flood-cataclysm a more accurate explanation than the widely accepted geological model of plate tectonics and the slow motion of continents over time? What data makes you think this?
13. It would not produce nearly (by far) as little carbon on the planet and it's atmosphere, due to volcanic eruptions, etc.
How much atmospheric carbon
would the Flood produce? By what mechanism would this carbon be released into the atmosphere? If you suggest the mechanism is "volcanic eruptions," what mechanism allows a global Flood to cause excessive volcanic activity? What data makes you think this? Do you have ice cores showing significantly lower CO2 or CO content before the Flood year as compared to afterward? Does this tie in to your assertion about radiometric dating? How do you account for the fact that atmospheric carbon data from ice cores helps us
calibrate carbon dating, as well as the fact that carbon dating relies on the proportion of a specific isotope of Carbon and its radioactive decay product,
not the specific
amount of Carbon in teh sample? How do you account for the fact that Carbon dating also calibrates perfectly with other dating methods, including other radioisotopes with overlapping dating ranges and even dating methods like tree rings that do not rely on radioactive decay at all?
14. It would not produce the same sub-terrain as pre-flood.
Define what you mean by "sub-terrain." This seems to be a meaningless term. How do you think the "sub-terrain" looked before the Flood, and how does it look afterward? By what mechanism do you think the Flood caused these changes? What data supports this model? Do you have observations of modern "sub-terrain?" Are you using modern local floods as models for your global Flood? If not, what
are you basing your conclusions on?
The above list is what comes to mind off the top of my head. There are others which may be proposed.
The above list is little more than a collection of outright absurdities. You give no data. You don;t support anything. You don;t explain
why a global Flood would not cause these things. You don't explain
whya global Flood
would cause their opposites where appropriate. You don't define the specifics of the differences you mention, you give absolutely no mechanisms, and you have zero data.
I can give a much better list.
1) The global Flood described in Genesis would result in a genetic bottleneck for every existing species around the same time due to the reduction in populations to single or double-digit numbers of individuals. Since we can readily point to genetic bottlenecks in several species that are older and where the population reduction was far less significant than the proposed Flood story, this universal bottleneck should be easily apparent. The bottleneck should be consistent with reducing the entire population of a species down to just a few individuals (in most cases down to a single breeding couple), followed by re-population. Absence of the bottleneck in even one species (particularly a species specifically mentioned in the Flood story) should serve as falsification. Existence of a modern population greater than an acceptable range consistent with re-population from just a few individuals in the time since the Flood should also serve as falsification.
2) The global Flood described in Genesis would require enough water to be present and available on Earth to cover the entire planet. Insufficient free-flowing or ice water to accomplish that feat should serve as falsification of the Flood.
3) The global Flood described in Genesis should completely destroy any and all human civilizations other than the few individuals contained in the Ark. The existence of even a single culture that predates the Flood and continues past the Flood without interruption should serve as a falsification for the total annihilation of human civilization described in Genesis.
Those three are easy. Easy to explain, easy to check for.
As RAZD would say, "curiously," the evidence we see today fits the
falsifications of the Flood myth far better than it supports the Flood having ever happened.
Now, I understand that this is the Free For All forum, but really - if you cannot address these things, Buz, I'm afraid your half-constructed "model" falls apart, whether the Admin staff will force you to support yourself or not.
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