Summations Only

This is peculiar. Do you not understand that accepting the existence of any unconformity means you are accepting that erosion occurred, something you have steadfastly insisted didn't happen.And I am still waiting for a justification of why the shape of the entire GC is irrelevant. You have made it clear that you don't want to address it because it doesn't prove your point (and in fact refutes it), but you haven't been able to explain how this is logically justified. And now that I have modified the tone of my posts your continued refusal to address them is evidence that it is the points you find objectionable, not the tone.

Hopefully you will respond to the scenario I asked you about in Message 590, but in the meantime I would like to point out once again that it is not intellectually honest to claim that one piece of evidence that could potentially but by no mean necessarily be explained by your model is sufficient grounds to ignore the myriad other points that your model fails to explain. Honestly, Faith, if someone proposed to you an idea that explained one particular detail but failed to explain basically everything else, would you think that idea was valid? I'm thinking the answer is no. I missed this part of your post. I see you edited your post a couple minutes before my response, so I was probably in the process of writing when this part appeared. But anyway, this point is pretty weak and has been addressed before. It's very simple. According to every observation, meandering channels are the result if rivers flowing across a flat landscape. According to all observations, large, catastrophic flows of water produce straight channels. You keep trying to say that the scale of the Flood means that we can't know what it did, but this is obviously false. If we know catastrophic flows produce straight channels, it is absurd to assert that an even large and more powerful flow will produce meanders. Your assertion that the Flood could have carved meanders is based on no observations whatsoever and in fact defies the laws of physics.I think you are not being honest, Faith. I think you know that the meanders are not a negligible detail and I think you know that it is absurd to say that the scale of the Flood means it would defy physical law. And I really hope you know that it is absolutely absurd to prefer an assertion based on no observations over an argument based on all the observations.

The upermost line is the unconformity and its presence proves that the layers were not deposited in one rapid, continuous process as you claim.An you're still not going to respond to my last couple posts eh? It is as I suspected; your complaint about my manners, while genuine I'm sure, was merely an attempt to evade the points I made. You have asserted that the meanders of the canyon are irrelevant and you have asserted that we don't know the Flood couldn't have caused them. But you have not once yet supported either of these assertions. Also we do in fact know, based on all observations of how large, high-energy flows work, that the Flood could not have produced meanders. I don't understand how you can honestly pretend this is a minor detail. The entire canyon can not honestly be considered a minor detail. You have said that you only want to focus on the points where you feel you can "make a case". As I pointed out to Coyote, this indicates to me that you know there is no way you can "make a case" that the meanders were caused by the Flood. If you know your model can't explain this, it is very intellectually dishonest to ignore it.Edited by Atheos canadensis, : added shtuff

This is a fairly weak excuse, Faith, particularly now that I am making an effort to be civil despite your evasiveness. It is not unreasonable or impolite to call you out on your logical inconsistency a evasiveness. You must understand that when you explicitly refuse to look at evidence then you are opening yourself up to suspicion of intellectual dishonesty (not to be conflated with actually lying or anything). That is after all what you have been implying all along about those of us who don't buy your theory. If we told you your point about the strata was irrelevant and refused to discuss it, do you deny that you would call us dishonest or blind? And I'm not sure how you can avoid me "all the more" when you're already refusing to address any point I make.I have challenged you several times now to explain why the structure of the entire GC is relevant where you think it supports your model but irrelevant where it clearly refutes it and you have refused to do so. I asked you how you would feel if you joined this discussion, posted your favourite point and then had it declared irrelevant and you have not responded. How can I help but suspect that it is because you know the answer would not paint your evasiveness in a favourable light?Please stop using the tone of my posts, which of late have been considerably more polite than many others to whom you are responding, as an excuse to avoid addressing the content. I am trying to get you to discuss a big-picture point, the kind of point you consider to be the most significant and you are refusing. Sorry if it hurts your feelings to hear, but that seems like willful blindness.The meanders of the GC cannot, under the laws of physics, have been produced by the event you claim they were. You have offered no counterargument to this, nor have you offered an explanation for why it should be considered irrelevant.

I know you don't want to deal with my posts. You are now pretending that I am still being rude as justification for not responding when I am in fact being entirely courteous. Again, I don't think it is reasonable for you to expect that I won't point out, on a forum for debate, your logical inconsistencies.The fact is, Faith, that I have let go of quite a number of points that you've refused to address. A quick mental count puts the total at 6 logical inconsistencies and physical impossibilities I have pointed out with your position that you have deemed irrelevant (isn't that an amusing coincidence; 6 ignored points, 6 reasons you don't want to deal with my posts). And you keep threatening to address my posts even less when you haven't answered a single question I've asked for many posts now. I would be perfectly content to let yet another point fall by the wayside if you gave any indication that you were willing to address it somewhere at some point. That fact that you are refusing to consider evidence after evidence at all is irksome though.Now I'm not even trying to get you to defend your theory on these matters. I'm asking you if you can honestly say you think your behaviour is reasonable.If the members of this forum told you your point was irrelevant and refused to discuss it, would you feel they were being reasonable, honest and logical? I'm thinking no. So I'm asking you to explain how you justify your behaviour. Edited by Atheos canadensis, : No reason given.Edited by Atheos canadensis, : missing wordEdited by Atheos canadensis, : deleted sentence frag

Merry Christmas to you too! Have a nice holiday. Perhaps you will come back feeling refreshed and ready to answer a question or two?

Basically, as you summarize, wet sand has a 45 degree angle of repose while dry sand has a 34 degree angle of repose. Therefore if we are finding crossbedded strata with a 34 degree angle of repose, it is evidence that those strata were deposited in an aeolian rather than aqueous environment. I can't find any specific information on how long it takes for the grains to become frosted and faceted, though if you consider the hardness of quartz then the faceting must take a while. And when you find strata that contain certain bedding angles, facetted and frosted grains and the coarsening upward sequence I mentioned, it seems illogical to assume that all the aeolian features were actually produced in an aqueous environment.The dinosaur is more straightforward. It was found sitting on its nest with no evidence of having been transported at all. This is in fact the common condition of fossils found at Ukhaa Tolgod:

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Like most specimens from Ukhaa Tolgod, the specimen shows no evidence of transportation after death, and is preserved in a facies hypothesized to be deposited by large sandstorms. (Norell et al., 1995)

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If you google it you can see a picture as well. The fact that this dinosaur is sitting undisturbed on its nest does not seem to fit with the interpretation that is was buried by a catastrophic deluge.I'm also hoping your current vigour will extend to addressing the meanders of the Grand Canyon.

I agree that its possible for terrestrially-deposited sand to be transported aqueously. I'm saying it is illogical to assume that when subaerially-weathered grains are found in conjunction with aeolian bedforms and with terrestrial fossil assemblages that the whole package is best interpreted as an aqueous deposit. That is indeed the fossil. It may be difficult to decipher to you, but I'm maybe you can find a labelled diagram somewhere. In the meantime, speaking as someone who is familiar with theropod morphology, you are seeing the bottom half of a crouching dinosaur with its arms wrapped around a clutch of eggs in the classic avian brooding pose. This undisturbed pose complete with eggs also answers your question about how we can infer that no transport took place. The eggs are not randomly strewn about but placed in an intentionally ordered pattern:

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

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I think you are getting ahead of yourself when you say that the process hypothesized to have buried these dinosaurs fits the Flood model "rather well". It fits the Flood model only insofar as that model has rain involved at some point. But these deposits are nowhere near the bottom of the rock record as would be required if they were the result of the initial rain at the beginning of the Flood. And the sand-flows described in that article are not something that would have happened subaqueously. Remember that the purpose of this dinosaur example is to demonstrate that the rock record contains evidence of aeolian deposition, something for which your model cannot account. Perhaps if you read this you will understand my point:

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Loope and colleagues suggest a new possibility. Sloping sand dunes in temperate, moist environments are easily destabilized by heavy rain. Unable to sink into the dune, the water saturates the surface, leading to the sandy equivalent of a mudslide. Large volumes of soggy sand slide rapidly down the dune's face to form an alluvial fan at the bottom. This would bury any recently dead animals before weather and scavengers had a chance to scatter their remains. It would also have drowned small mammals in their burrows, and perhaps have trapped nesting dinosaurs. http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/...yofLife/ukhaatolgod.html

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The Science Daily article was short on details; this explanation of the hypothesized mechanism makes it clear that it is the product of rain in a terrestrial environment. The proposed mechanism would not occur subaqueously. Researching how meanders form takes very little time at all. Unless you're looking for a source that says they can form as the result of catastrophic deluges. I think this should be a red flag for you. The fact that two seconds of googling produces innumerable hits on how meanders are formed but that nothing at all turns up (even from YEC sources) to support the possibility that meanders can form from a catastrophic deluge should be a strong indication that meanders do not form the way your Flood model requires.

There is very good reason indeed called the law of superposition. Newer strata are stacked atop older strata. Thus deposits from the opening stages of the Flood would be lower in section than those from the later stages. It seems pretty straightforward. I'm pretty sure you don't dispute this principle, but I await your reply for clarification on that point. Think about it though. How would this dinosaur end up near the top of the rock record if it was buried by events at the start of the Flood? Remember that we know it wasn't transported, so it couldn't have been deposited at the start of the Flood then reworked and deposited higher in section at a later stage. I'm not sure what you mean by this. I'm pretty sure we do know. One layer was deposited, then another layer, then another and another and so on. I have dealt with this above. You seem to accept that the proposed sand-slide mechanism is a terrestrial phenomenon. This means that to support your model you must argue that the Ukhaa Tolgod dinosaurs were buried at the beginning of the Flood, but to do this you must refute the law of superposition. When I say the GC itself meanders I mean just that. The Colorado river meanders, but if you look at the aerial shots RAZD posted (or this map) you can see that the canyon itself takes a meandering course across the landscape.This is consistent with it having been incised over time by a meandering river but inconsistent with the catastrophic deluge of water you believe is responsible for the canyon.

It really does. That is what the law of superposition tells us. You say you're aware of it, but do you dispute it or not? Because if you don't this... ...makes no sense. The order of the layering is the product of the order in which they were deposited. Very simple. Perhaps you could clarify your objections to the law of superposition if you have any (as the above quote implies). I don't see how the thickness of the rock record bears on the issue of their depositional order. The strata could be stacked to any height at all and it wouldn't alter the fact that the lower strata were deposited first.Unless you have some way of disproving the law of superposition, the fact that we find an untransported dinosaur sitting on its nest in a terrestrial environment (nowhere near the bottom of the record as it should be if t were buried at the start of the Flood) cannot be accounted for by your model. I think I have pointed this out elsewhere, but we see analogous situations with modern animals. Here you can read a rater florid description of a mass death of caribou crossing a flooded river in 1984.

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At least 9,604 caribou (by official count as of Sunday) and probably more than 10,000 died at Limestone Falls

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Note that while the scale of this disaster was unprecedented, large numbers of deaths were in fact common:

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Caribou have always died at Limestone Falls; perhaps 50 a year would perish there, maybe 100 or even 500 would drown when the summer rains had been particularly heavy.

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And similar mass deaths are common for herds of wildebeest crossing rivers in flood. Click through these images to see what happens when large numbers of otherwise competent swimmers try to cross together. When these mass death assemblages are buried by sediment, then you have the potential to get massive fossil bonebeds as seen in the fossil record. You have said at some point that you think the canyon was initially carved out by the catastrophic deluge from the Flood. Your phrasing here implies that at the beginning of the canyon's creation, the water was still part of a high-volume, high-energy flow. Please clarify what you think happened. Because the initial torrent you have said carved the canyon could not produce the meandering course. Meanders are the product of a river winding its way across a flattish landscape, not a raging torrent gradually slowing down and decreasing in volume. This description of events should mean that the majority of the GC should be a straight channel with meandering incision lower down. But of course we see that the whole canyon meanders from top to bottom.

I'm sure you will not persist in this preference if Jon provides evidence that he is unreliable. Perhaps you could provide a link to your Austin quote. So far all I can find is the bare assertion you quote. Well, that's not quite true. I also found this rebuttal that points out that the figures Austin uses refute his own point. That site doesn't actually include the figures, so I was hoping your source did. But from the description of those figures it seems that Austin's evidence that high-velocity flows create meanders is rather suspect. And as has been pointed out, the volume of water is not the issue here. The issue is that high-velocity flows can't create meanders.And I'm still curious to see how you address the issues raised in my previous posts regarding the fact that, without refuting the law of superposition, the presence of an untransported terrestrial dinosaur in a terrestrial environment is inconsistent with your model.Edited by Atheos canadensis, : link

Ah, excellent! Perhaps you would be willing to transcribe (or maybe even scan?) a somewhat fuller excerpt where Austin mentions some evidence for the assertion you quote. Ideally it would be nice to see figures 5.12 and 5.16 which the rebuttal I linked says are not at all alike and therefore cannot be used to support the conclusion that high-velocity flows produce meanders:

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The authors then mention the Palouse River in Washington. Look at Figure 5.12 of this riverwhat incised meanders are they talking about! It looks nothing like Figure 5.16. You don’t have the same degree of stream curvature that is shown in Figure 5.16, which proves that it formed quicker than the Goosenecks of the San Juan River. This proves that a cataclysmic flood model would tend to produce a straighter canyon, in contrast to the slow-forming Goosenecks.

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The link you provided to Austin's defense of his work includes a further rebuttal:

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Austin (1994) uses his discussion of Bretz's work to infer that, because flooding due to catastrophic draining of a large lake caused rapid scouring of the Channeled Scabland, similar catastrophic flooding formed the Grand Canyon during the waning stages of Noah's flood. However, as Heaton (1995) pointed out, Austin fails to take note of the radical differences between the geological formations in the Channeled Scablands and the Grand Canyon. Heaton (1995: 35) states, "The narrow inner gorge of the Grand Canyon and its equilibrium tributaries are the antithesis of the broad flood plain, multiple overflow channels, and gigantic 'ripple marks' of the Channeled Scabland. It would be hard to imagine two canyons more geomorphically dissimilar to one another."

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These two rebuttals both make the same point; the geologic features Austin is using to support the assertion you quote do not resemble each other and cannot therefore reasonably be used to draw the conclusion Austin draws.I hope you have not allowed this discussion of meanders (pleased though I am that you are addressing it) to distract you completely from our ongoing discussion about the brooding dinosaur. I await a clearer explanation of your objection to the law of superposition. If you cannot present evidence that the law superposition is in error, then I think you must logically concede that the Flood could not have deposited an in situ brooding dinosaur in terrestrial deposits near the top of the rock record. I'm finding the sudden shift away from this topic, just when a conclusion seemed to be within reach, to be rather jarring.

I shall, though it's rather disappointing to have you suddenly lose interest again just when the discussion of this point seemed to be coming to a head. I wish to avoid the acrimonious tone of some of my previous posts, but I don't think it is out of line to suggest that the timing is somewhat suspicious. Your phrasing also feels a bit sneaky as it implies that I may consider myself the winner but in reality you do not concede the point despite being so far unable to counter it. So while I do believe I have gotten the best of this argument, I hope that you will either come back to it at some point (perhaps after further research on the subject) to attempt a counterargument or properly concede that you have no counterargument to attempt. In the meantime, the substantial issues with your model presented by the brooding dinosaur and the meandering Grand Canyon await your consideration.

As I say, I am trying to play nice but I am acutely aware that Faith's renewed lack of interest coincides quite suspiciously with being backed into a corner on the points of the dinosaur and the meanders. Though I do feel the urge to bother her until she steps up to the plate, I am trying to avoid any vituperation in my posts. But I will be more than happy to pick up where she left off if at some point in the future she makes the same claims that I have just finished refuting.

While I think Faith is not being intellectually honest when she declares all the various pieces of evidence that utterly contradict her model to be irrelevant (particularly when the declaration comes hot on the heals of being backed into a corner) I agree that she could be a lot worse. Why, I recently encountered a fellow over at Christian Forums who confidently asserts that there is no evidence of the Flood on Earth because it actually happened on and destroyed a small, flat world housed within a firmament within a lake in Turkey.Anyway, Faith, I will put to you the same question I asked several posts ago. If you were just joining this thread and tried to discuss your point only to be told it was irrelevant and would not be discussed, wouldn't you think we were being dishonest with ourselves and with you? It seems particularly dishonest now that you have reengaged on certain points only to lose interest in them again when it becomes clear that your position is untenable. I'm pleased you chose to come back to the points you ignored for so long, but it is disappointing that you chose to abandon them again when they became too difficult to deal with.On the other hand, I am gratified to have achieved victory (however insincere I am advised Faith's concessions are) on the points whose discussion was my primary motivation in starting this thread. Not bad for my second thread ever and the only one to have gained any traction. I hope it's not too gauche to pat myself on the back thusly, but perhaps my indiscretion will be excused in light of my neophyte status. Great thanks to all the people who posted all the excellent information on this thread (and thanks in advance to those who keep doing more if this thread continues despite Faith's insistence that this is once again the end of the line).