Summations Only

Faith, why does the fossil order seem to show 5 major and many minor extinctions, in which there is a sudden decrease in numbers of species , followed by diversification of the survivors to fill empty niches? This applies to little critters as well as big.How did the Flood sort pollens, so that there are no angiosperms low in the record, and grasses not till even higher?Why do we see consistent radiometric dates around the world for fossils of different eras with appropriate dates for igneous layers above and below fossil layers? Rapid decay rates during the Flood which would be required for the consistent dates have been acknowledged by the RATE project to cause an immense heat problem, which so far they have not solved.

I am sure it has been pointed out before that the early geologists went out looking for evidence for the Flood and recent creation, and realised as the evidence accumulated that the only conclusion they could reach was that long ages were involved.
The major periods - Devonian, Silurian etc were worked out quite early because it could be seen that similar fossils occurred in the same order in different areas. These periods were soon subdivided into stages, again based on the appearance and/or disappearance of particular fossils. There are now about 100 of these stages, many worked out by 1850 and nearly all by 1900.The fossils in these stages are of all sizes and include plants.That long ages had to be involved was concluded from looking at the evidence, and not by imposing presuppositions on it. When radiometric dating became available, numbers could be applied to the years involved.The Flood being able to do this sorting, AND to nicely sort the igneous layers used in dating, defies belief.Somewhat off topic, but when you throw volcanism into the mix, with chains of volcanoes getting older as you go along them, at a rate consistent with tectonic plate movement, and try to fit in literally more than 100,000,000 cubic kilometres of volcanic products in Large Igneous Provinces into the Flood, it becomes more than a little harder to explain.

The early geologists came to believe in long ages in spite of their pre-conceived ideas, which were to look for evidence of the Flood and recent creation. They changed because of what they found. They were not trying to disprove God. One early thing was seeing the lack of erosion of the rocks of Hadrian's wall over nearly 2000 years, compared to the nearby hills.

There is abundant evidence for the validity of current dating methods, with a lot in RAZD's excellent thread.Toba is a volcano in Indonesia which had a mega-eruption dated at about 74,000 years ago. This produced about 3000 cubic kilometres of volcanic product - i.e. 100+ Krakatoas . A layer of its ash in India has human artefacts above and below it.
Over in Africa in Lake Malawi, a core taken from it shows a linear increase in C14 date with depth to C14 limit at 50,000 years. Toba ash is found half as far again below, just as you would expect, at 42 metres.
There is a further 500m of sediment in the core, with sedimentary rock at the base.
Greenland ice cores show a marked spike of volcanic gases (though no ash) at the expected count of 74,000 years.So three different methods give the same date for Toba.If most ancient volcanism occurred with the Flood, more than 100,000,000 cubic km being erupted in a short time should leave some specific evidence, not smaller amounts through the fossil
record with the range of dates seen for them.Edited by Pollux, : remove surplus words

Faith, you are wonderful!
What the early geologists concluded was a TRIUMPH for science over preconceived ideas. They thought one thing, but the evidence proved them wrong, so they changed their opinion. That is what we all should be prepared to do.For Hadrian's wall, there was little erosion on the cut rocks forming the wall in 2000 years, compared to the natural rocks, showing that the latter had been exposed for orders of magnitude longer.

Around the world mainly in the oceans but also on land, there are chains of extinct volcanoes, being islands and seamounts in the oceans, which are formed as the tectonic plates pass over a magma hot spot. The Hawaiian -Emperor chain is the best known, with about 50 dated radiometrically. Their ages increase linearly as you move away from the hot spot south-east of Hawaii, and they correspond closely with the expected age for the rate of tectonic movement.
Other chains show the same pattern.(Of course trying to produce these volcanoes during the madness of catastrophic plate tectonics during or after the Flood presents its own physical challenges.)I see four possible conclusions from this :1. This is very good confirmation of the accuracy of RMD
2. Some wonderful unknown mechanisms operate to precisely match change in decay rates and movement.
3. All the ones who did the dating conspired to cook the results.
4. Loki is in charge.Which do you choose?

I think the alternative you choose is really No 2, wonderful mechanisms. It seems you do not realise what is required to fit most tectonics and vulcanism to in or soon after the Flood. All that is required for the conventional explanation is for current physics and nuclear physics to be the same now as in the past.The tectonic record shows the continents coming together and breaking up again repeatedly in the past, with what is part of one continent one time being part of another next. RMD of volcanics associated with this allows dates to be assigned to the various arrangements going back billions of years.
To have all this even in the 100 years after the Flood still means speeding up by a factor of at least 100,000,000. The associated quakes and volcanoes would mean that Noah would not be able to breathe or stand to plant his vineyard.The speeding up of RA decay to allow the dates to fit in with a YEC paradigm has been admitted by the RATE study people to release enough heat to seriously heat the Earth, if not melt it. And if there were accelerated RA decay during the Flood, why did it affect the moon rocks and meteorites?Then somewhere you have to fit in the evidence for many recurrent ice ages, not just the one that some YEC try to limit it to. They are shown by numerous ice, sea, and land cores which show consistent patterns of warming and cooling. Study of the direction of travel of ice sheets for the Permian glaciation in Africa and South America show that they were there BEFORE the continents separated.

Explaining all these findings as happening during or soon after the Flood needs an acceleration of processes by a factor of 1,000,000 to 1,000,000,000. Picture the tectonic plates churning along tens of miles a day at least. with prodigious amounts of magma pouring out of the mid-ocean ridges, cooling rapidly to take on the current polarity of the madly oscillating magnetic poles. Hotspots are madly building volcanoes before they are taken away by the moving plates, some of them frantically growing coral reefs on their tops before they sink too far.At the same time nuclear physics is being tampered with to give an appearance of long age from RMD of the magma.All this is bad enough but at the other end where the plates subduct, they have to push into the crust by the same number of miles per day, get heated, melt to form magma, which then has to fight its way up to produce volcanoes to build areas such as the Aleutians, American west coast volcanoes, the Andes, and more.It not only requires miraculous changes in physics, it also seems a little unnecessary when all that was wanted was a Flood to drown everyone.

Your scenario might have only one ice age, but the real world has numerous ones. There are very many lake and sea cores which clearly show multiple cycles of warm and cold flora on land, e.g. cool grassland pollens alternating with temperate forest, and similar changes in sea fauna and changes in markers for temperature.Multiple oscillations are also shown in ice coresThe idea of a single ice age is untenable, and only put forward by YEC because there is not enough time after the presumed Flood to fit more in. Noah apparently did not notice it when he planted his vineyard.
As I said before, evidence in Africa and South America shows a major Ice Age (End-Permian) BEFORE they split apart. As an aside, this was one of the evidences that led the geologist De Toit to realise Wegener's idea of moving continents had merit.

Faith, just think. Given the number of earthquakes we have with a few inches per year of plate movement, don't you think that even one mile per year might actually be noticed? There is no indication in history of quakes being significantly more common than currently.

As has been explained many times, the dates of the various ages are derived from RMD of igneous layers sandwiching the fossils. Their relative ages have been known for nearly 200years. You reject the validity of dating but do not show where its errors are.

De toit looked at the distribution of fossils in S. America and Africa, and the direction of movement of ice sheets - shown by scratches on rocks, and could not make sense of what he was seeing. Hearing of Wegener's ideas, he moved the continents and Antarctica together and saw they fitted very well.This showed the ice age preceded the separation and does not support the usual YEC ideas.Have you ever read Wonderley's "Neglect of Geologic Data by Creationists"? It is freely available on the Net and will give you a lot to think aboutGoogling De toit Permian ice age will give you references.

200 years or so ago all you needed for the Flood was to miraculously drop some water on the Earth then take it away. As geology and physics have developed, now you need the following miracles :- sorting of the fossils
- rapid plate tectonics
- massive volcanism
- rapid magnetic pole inversions
- vast change in RA decay rates, which also affects the Sun, Moon, and even other galaxies
- get rid of the heat from RA decay
- one big ice age
- throw a few meteorites at the EarthI've probably missed some.Incidentally, why are the moon, rocky planets, and asteroids covered in craters? Debris from lack of tidying up after Creation hitting them?

Faith, please use the word "species " correctly.
Sea stars, sea cucumbers, and sea daisies, (which are probably the little round one you refer to), are in the same PHYLUM, Echinodermata, but different orders.
There are about 1300 species of sea cucumbers, 1600 of sea stars, and a small number of sea daisies. They would not be able to breed with one another, and it is exceedingly unlikely that the considerably different trilobites would be able to interbreed.This is a reply to 1812, not 1813Edited by Pollux, : Message replied to

Thanks Percy.
Better answers than I would have given.