Why is evolution so controversial?

Just one of those bald assertions geologists like to make and treat as fact without evidence and then they get all pushed out of shape if anyone questions it.

But the placement of these things seems to suggest a different order. For the Vishnu to be older seems a bit odd considering that it occupies the space which the strata of the Supergroup must have occupied in that same area originally by the look of it. Those strata still exist at that same level after all, though broken and tilted in that small part of the area we get to see on the diagrams. You'd think they couldn't form at all if the area was already occupied by formerly metamorphosed sedimentary rock. Of course your dating methods will trump anything I have to say, but from the look of it I'd guess that the strata were laid down continuously with the strata above, and probably a lot deeper than we can see on the diagrams. And then we got that tectonic disruption, along with the release of magma from beneath the crust, the strata at that lower level were broken, shoved, displaced, tilted, metamorphosed in part due to the volcanic heat and the pressure above; the magma also rose to form the granite which also occupies the same level beneath the Tapeats, the whole disturbance raising the entire stack above the Tapeats which brought about quite the cataclysmic effects above the Kaibab, and there you have it. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Percy said: The geologic column is presented to us hapless laypersons as a continuous upward stacking of sediments, which upward stacking is the basis on which the Geologic Timetable was formed. The column only exists in part in many regions of the world but it nevertheless is always interpreted in terms of the Timetable, so that you can identify a particular layer as a particular time period that occurred at a certain level in the column. If the column is not layers built one on top of another it is hard to see how the Timetable with its supposed upwardly evolving life forms occupying upwardly building "time periods" makes any sense at all. HOWEVER, if the situation is that you do correlate layering in the oceans with specific time periods such that the fossil life found in those time periods elsewhere is also found in the corresponding layers in the oceans, perhaps that makes some kind of sense: some of the continental strata do continue across the oceans, such as the Redwall Limestone. But if the layering in the oceans is supposed to represent more recent time periods, especially more recent than any found on land, I can't make any sense out of that at all.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Hmmm. This must not be as obvious a point as I thought. Let me try again.Take sandstone. The sand that makes up sandstone is created in a shoreline environment. But in Faith's scenario there is no shoreline manufacturing the sand. In Faith's scenario the sand was washed off the land and deposited by the flood. So what is the source of this much sand on the antediluvian landscape, and of the marine fossils deposited with it by the flood?The situation's even worse with limestone. Limestone sediments accumulate in warm, shallow seas. There's no source of limestone on land. It's impossible that the limestone in the layers Faith claims were deposited by the flood was washed off the antediluvian landscape. Agreed. I've mentioned deltas, too.--Percy

Not necessarily. We know what lacustrine limestones look like. We also know what hot-springs carbonate deposits look like, it really isn't to much of an assumption that most limestones are marine.As to them being formed on that exact spot, no. That is not an assumption in the age of modern plate tectonics theory.

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Then if the layer above that one contains land fossils they declare that the sea had receded for the duration of that land deposition. And it goes on up the strata back and forth like that depending on what sort of sediment is involved with what sort of fossil contents.

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Actually, we see this in modern environments like Florida and we can be pretty certain what's going on.

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By the time we get to the Permian, a mile above the Precambrian in the GC area anyway, we have a deep water formation according to a website about the GC that I suppose I can dig up if I have to. So at that level the ocean has risen to an enormous depth, even deeper than the Flood rose I would guess, which means it has done so all over the globe of course, but this doesn't bother anybody for some reason.

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No, we know from various types of data, that the crust can actually subside to accommodate very thick sediments. We can discuss this further if you want.

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Risings and fallings of sea level to such enormous heights seems to them to be normal geology.

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And they are. The other effect of plate tectonics is the formation of huge foldbelts and uplifts of the mountains. We have a pretty good idea that this happens.

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But they always complain that the Flood couldn't have done that even once, and where would that water have gone anyway?

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There is no evidence that such a flood happened.

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SO with all the mixing of the sediments and ocean water in the Flood there is no necessary problem with interspersing some marine layers with some land layers.

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Why would you have 'land layers' in the middle of a global flood?Edited by Admin, : Fix quote.Edited by edge, : No reason given.

It's the only view that makes any sense at all.When it comes to deeply buried strata beneath the ocean we can only compare fossils brought up in drill cores, in other words, only small fossils. There's no such thing as a paleontological dig underneath the sea.--Percy

Well, first, the separate "time periods" are often described in terms that imply that the fossil contents of that particular layer lived in that "time period" which is represented by particular rock. Not above/later, and not below/earlier. Yet this is nothing but a slab of rock with dead things buried in it.Second, as usual I'm thinking about the strata in the Grand Canyon area because I know how neatly parallel they are to a great depth, so that if any of those layers had been moved by tectonic force from one place to another we should expect distortion of that layer, shouldn't we? Perhaps you can elaborate on how tectonic movement created any of those tightly stacked parallel layers separately from the others? So, let me try to get this clear: what you are saying you SEE is the building of different layers by rising and falling of the sea? In that case you are seeing 1) something happening on a much much faster time scale than the building of the geologic column is supposed to have taken, which would be more consistent with something like a worldwide Flood, and 2) also on a much much smaller geographic scale: you are of course not seeing it to any greater depth than the highest tide or possibly tsunami could produce, not anything on the scale of the formation of strata to enormous thicknesses that span entire continents and even cross the ocean. The principles involved are there I'm sure, but the scale of the geo column is beyond anything being formed today. Alrighty, so you've got this mile deep stack of sediments now sinking into the crust, allowing the water to be as deep as needed to create the Kaibab (Permian) limestone without raising the sea level? Okay, so does the land rise again for the deposition of land type sediments and fossils above the Permian? The Claron formation in the Grand Staircase is the uppermost sedimentary layer and it is also limestone, so did the whole stack, now over two miles deep, have to sink again for that to be formed? How deep into the crust is it possible for the land to sink?Anyway, it does seem like you have either sea level rising and falling or land rising and falling because of the different kinds of sediments and fossils up the column. If not, please explain.Also, do you or do you not regard each of the "time periods" that are attached to various levels of the strata as former landscapes during which the particular life forms fossilized in those layers dominated? Of course, but how does such tectonic phenomena raise or lower sea level? There's a ton of evidence. It's called the Geologic Column. I don't get the problem. If sediments washed off the land along with all the living creatures on the land, that would all have been redeposited as strata by the Flood waters as well as the marine sediments and creatures.ABE: About the tectonic point, I can see how serious raising of the land could lower sea level, by how much though? But I can't see what could raise it. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm not sure why this is so hard. If the land is uplifted, sedimenation there stops, but continues in low areas filled with water.

To the untrained and disinterested observer, yes. Is there a point to this? This is not necessarily so. There are several unconformities in the GC and some are angular. In other words, the Vishnu is not parrallel to the Chuar which is not paralle to the Unkar which is not parallel to the Tapeats. Thinks only stabilized in the Cambrian Period. Of course, and we do see changes. However, the changes are not necessarily movement so much as deformation, which we see, i.e. tilting of beds. I'm not sure what you mean by 'tightly stacked parallel layers'. Compaction and dewatering during lithification would make them 'tightly packed', I guess. No we see different layers occurring with sedimentation. As the depositional environment changed, so did the characteristic rocks of that area. Why is that? I have no idea what you are trying to say here. What is wrong with a smaller geographic area? What would the tides or tsunamis have to do with it? Why should thick bed take less time to deposit? And not the formations are not continuous across oceans.

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The principles involved are there I'm sure, but the scale of the geo column is beyond anything being formed today.

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You are confusing the Geological time scale with the geological column. Every point on earth has its own geological column, whereas the timetable is the same everywhere. Rising sea level is not necessary, yes. The Mississippi Delta sedimentary package is over 7 miles deep. At this location we are not talking about much over a couple thousand feet of relief at any give time. I have not problem with that. Again, your wording is fuzzy. If I understand, yes. The time periods would be approximately isochronous. Several ways, but the most important are thermal fluctuations in the mantle which locally raise large parts of the crust. Then you need to explain all of the things that happened during the flood, such as the entire age of the dinosaurs. How do you wash evaporites into an ocean basin? How does the age of dinosaurs fit into the middle of a flood? What about limestones? How do they form in the middle of a global flood that is washing off the continents?

Um have you considered that the landmass dropped under the sea instead of the sea rising above it.I think the highest sea levels where some 500 million years ago about 400 meters above today's levels.p.s. i know why you are having trouble with the rising and falling of landmass'es and continents, the time issue you need to cram it all in a period of 6000 years even thoughDendrochronology
Human Y-chromosomal ancestry
Oxidizable Carbon Ratio dating
Rock varnish
Thermoluminescence datingsay its more then 10 000 years minimum.Coral
Fission track dating
Ice layering
Lack of DNA in fossils
Permafrost
Weathering rindsSay its 100 000 years old minimumAmino acid racemization
Baptistina asteroid family
Continental drift
Cosmogenic nuclide dating
Erosion
Geomagnetic reversals
Impact craters
Iron-manganese nodules
Length of the prehistoric day
Naica megacrystals
Nitrogen in diamonds
Petrified wood
Relativistic jets
Sedimentary varves
Stalactites
Space weatheringPush the minimal age of the earth to 1 000 000 yearsDistant starlight
Helioseismology
Lunar retreat
Radioactive decaypush the date to a minimum of 1 000 000 000 years. If you want to make the claim that the flood deposited the strata layers you haveto come up with a reason how the flood could layer the strata the way its layered.Normally when you mix different stuff in water it layers itself from the heaviest on the bottom to the lightest on top. We don't see this pattern anywhere on earth why??the top layers in the grand canyon:kg/m3
Limestone 2371
gypsum 2787
sandstone 2323
shale 2675If it where deposited by a giant flood i would expect to see them in this ordersandstone
limestone
shale
gypsumIf there was a flood why did it not produce this pattern?

Well, then you need to explain why the Vishnu is metamorphosed by the granite but the 'older' GCSg escaped thermal metamorphism.You also need to explain why the Vishnu is intruded by the granite but the Unkar Group is not.Keep in mind that the Cardenas intrusives cross-cut all of these units (Vishnu, Zoroaster Granite, and Unkar) so is later than all of them.This is pretty basic Geology 101. No.Look closely at your diagram. The Zoraster includes pieces of the Vishnu, that means that it is younger than the Vishnu. Then you can see pieces of the Zoroaster in the Unkar, so the Unkar must be younger than the granite. Connecting these together, we have the following sequence Vishnu -> Zoroaster -> Chuar -> Cardenas, all followed by the Unkar, Tapeats, etc....They may be at the same elevation, but they are definitely not of the same age. That would be 'tectonics' in action. That's because the rocks have been uplifted, metamorphosed and deformed. Happens all the time. Even as we speak. Well, they may trump what you say, but field relationships always trump radiometric ages. More Geology 101. No.Both the Zoroaster and Cardenas were emplaced before the Tapeats (see above). It is much more robust to say that the deformation occurred before the Tapeats, because we can see from the geometry of the Cardenas intrusives that they were also deformed along with the BCSg before the Tapeats.In fact, your diagram shows that there was erosion and deformation in between the Chuar and the Unkar as well. Not likely.In this case, as I've said before, you need to have a major discontinuity between the Tapeats and all underlying rocks. We see such things elsewhere, but not here. They are called ovethrusts or decollements. They are quite well known and recognizable by even novice geologists.Do you want to know more about ovethrusts?Edited by edge, : No reason given.

No it isn't, you asinine buffoon.

How could there ever have been a Geologic Timescale at all then, or a Geologic Column to the depth of what we see in the GC-GS area? That is, how could there have ever been an actual COLUMN, a STACK of sediments that so reliably seems to show the sequence of time periods from one to another? That is, you seem to believe that there were many risings and fallings of land and/or sea during the laying down of the whole thing, and yet the deposition seems to have continued quite consistently through that whole three miles of depth or more, or in other words through those hundreds of millions of years from Precambrian to most Recent time.I'm still trying to get this said so don't jump on any word problem you may find in it.

* sighs deeply *Next time you pretend to have read and understood my book, I shall remind you of this. Read. Bollocks.

Umm,... you do know that there are rocks in other parts of the world, don't you? Correlation and mapping from area to area. Well, I don't know that it's 'many', but there are quite a few examples. And we can document them.Is this a problem? I'm not sure why this is a problem. In some places it wasn't quite so consistent.

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I'm still trying to get this said so don't jump on any word problem you may find in it.

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Well, sometimes you need to work out the 'word problems' before there is communication.added by edit:
You seem pretty skeptical of anything related to mainstream science. Do you apply this same skepticism to you own story?Edited by edge, : No reason given.