Summations Only

When you have to believe in something before you can see it then it doesn't exist. You have not given evidence. Fossils *are* evidence, but what you call the "abundance of fossils" is your own qualitative characterization and is of questionable accuracy. It isn't evidence, and what "abundance" means is anyone's guess. The density of fossils varies across the depth and extent of a single strata, and across strata. If the different specific numerical densities of fossils in all the different strata somehow argue for a flood then you will have to produce the data and show how that is so. Just saying, in effect, "The abundance of fossils says flood," is neither evidence nor argument. How can a conceptual framework for stratigraphic columns constructed from evidence gathered from stratigraphic columns around the world be absurd? Yes, we know, you believe what you believe because of the Bible, not because of evidence.--Percy

I'm glad you're not the kind of person who goes back and edits her posts to make them consistent with her false claims about what she said. That means we can go back to your Message 2493 and see that you said: So you see, you did call joules meaningless. Since you've already admitted you didn't understand it, you couldn't possibly know whether it was vague, rambling, speculative or meaningless.The constructive and adult approach to material you don't understand is not to lash out at it but to ask questions about it. I'll answer any questions I can. I'll even throw you an assist. If you want to cast doubt on the admittedly very simplified analysis then focus on factors that I left out, such as radiation of heat into space, subduction, friction, etc., with an eye toward whether their effects are large enough to have a meaningful impact on the final answer.--Percy

Who would be stupid enough to believe this? You barely respond to anything I say, let alone return to things I've said for a second look.I'm seeking an explanation you'll understand, so you'll have to explain what seems strange to you about boosting the heat causing boiling to accelerate. Adding more candles boosts the heat which accelerates the boiling. More candles were added to deliver 175 million years worth of heat in a single year.--Percy

JonF seems to agree with you that fossils are abundant, but as I've said before, abundant is a qualitative rather than quantitative term, and for myself I don't believe the term abundant is appropriate. In some limestones it's practically wall-to-wall fossils, but there are no fossils in the Coconino. Below Paleozoic layers there are no fossils of anything in the way the term is popularly thought of (that is, no fossils with bones or skeletons - the absence of such fossils below a certain strata level is part of the fossil order that argues so strongly against the flood). So are fossils abundant worldwide or not? Got me - abundant is not a quantitative term.Certainly it seemed like there were far fewer fossils a couple hundred years ago, and that's because paleontologists have worked hard to find them, so obviously fossils are not so abundant that you find them every time you dig a hole. Darwin lamented the paucity of fossils in some layers in The Origin of Species:

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With respect to the terrestrial productions which lived during the Secondary and Palaeozoic periods, it is superfluous to state that our evidence from fossil remains is fragmentary in an extreme degree. For instance, not a land shell is known belonging to either of these vast periods, with one exception discovered by Sir C. Lyell in the carboniferous strata of North America. In regard to mammiferous remains, a single glance at the historical table published in the Supplement to Lyell's Manual, will bring home the truth, how accidental and rare is their preservation, far better than pages of detail. Nor is their rarity surprising, when we remember how large a proportion of the bones of tertiary mammals have been discovered either in caves or in lacustrine deposits; and that not a cave or true lacustrine bed is known belonging to the age of our secondary or palaeozoic formations.

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But he spoke of how rich in fossils were other layers:

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I am convinced that all our ancient formations, which are rich in fossils, have thus been formed during subsidence. Since publishing my views on this subject in 1845, I have watched the progress of Geology, and have been surprised to note how author after author, in treating of this or that great formation, has come to the conclusion that it was accumulated during subsidence. I may add, that the only ancient tertiary formation on the west coast of South America, which has been bulky enough to resist such degradation as it has as yet suffered, but which will hardly last to a distant geological age, was certainly deposited during a downward oscillation of level, and thus gained considerable thickness.

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Obviously paleontologists have collected a great, great many fossils since Darwin, but Darwin's remarks about the paucity of fossils in some layers and richness in others remains a truth. When I hiked down the Bright Angel Trail at the Grand Canyon I never saw a single fossil. So I ask again: Are fossils worldwide abundant? The answer is the same: abundant is not a quantitative term - who knows? I don't think you can use a claim of worldwide fossil abundance as an argument for your flood scenario.But it does seem that fossil abundance in limestone strata might impose certain requirements upon the flood. Limestone of all types, from fine-grained to fossiliferous chalk, is about 10% of all sedimentary rock. (Home improvement stores like Home Depot and Lowes have available limestone tiles with fossils.) Limestone forms from calcareous ooze deposited on seafloor in warm shallow seas (not deep seas because deep ocean where sunlight does not reach is very cold, plus calcium carbonate becomes more soluble with decreasing temperature (which seems strange, but you can't fight facts)).In such waters the calcium carbonate concentration can be high and even at saturation, and precipitation is frequently a factor. The tiny size of many of the tiny creatures that make up limestone means that the water must be quiet for them to settle out of suspension, and precipitation except at saturation also requires quiet water. Precipitation requires a high concentration of such sea life be maintained for long time periods, certainly at least thousands of years and probably millions. Shallow seas, quiet water and long term periods seem highly inconsistent with a global flood that lasted less than a year and was at least 4 miles deep over most of the land. I don't think anyone doubts that a sudden global flood would kill off much life, but it wouldn't distribute it in the strata the way it is, it wouldn't create the stratigraphic formations we find anyway, and if it happened a mere 4500 years ago the buried life would be lithified with much of the biological material still present. I would have said something a little different from JonF. I would have said that whatever the fossil abundance is, the geologic and evolutionary processes of science explain what we find very well. In particular they're consistent with reality because those processes were uncovered through detailed studies of reality.--Percy

I normally reply to posts in the order I read the thread, and the thread continues to accumulate posts faster than I can read because I keep stopping to reply, but my eye caught this one when I just posted so I'll reply now. Yeah, I agree completely. I was trying to be sarcastic when I said, "I'm sure we're all brilliant in our own minds."--Percy

Is my mind is playing tricks on me? Can I no longer do simple math? Because it looks like 60 messages were posted to this thread in just the last two hours.Assuming I'm not crazy, and not speaking as a moderator but just as a concerned participant, if these are all constructive messages then that's great, but if this volume of messages instead reflects a thread spiraling out of control into insult and nonsense then I hope it stops.Apologies if this is really a math error, I'm being called to dinner, can't check the math again.--Percy

Oh, thank God, thanks. I see what happened. My watch says it's May 1, but it's really May 2, and I was replying to a message from May 1 at 3:43 PM that was 60 messages ago, so I thought all 60 messages happened since then.Watch is mechanical, thinks every month is 31 days, has to be adjusted manually after any month that's not.--Percy

If the overall argument is the aggregate of all the little bits of argument, then throwing away one little bit of argument makes the overall argument less strong. If Moose believes what you just said (and he gave your message a cheer, so I assume he does) then he's incorrect about the possibility of rapid sea transgressions creating the strata of the geologic record. He might want to reply to my Message 2381 so we could discuss what he really meant at greater length. Accelerated sea transgressions are wrong for reasons analogous to why accelerated radioactive decay is wrong and accelerated evolution is wrong. Probably the biggest problem with accelerated sea transgressions is that fine sediments take a considerable time to fall out of suspension.The key principle is that simply speeding up a process affects all the interdependencies with other processes and it just doesn't work. For a simple example consider accelerated traffic flows as a solution to traffic jams. Seems like a great idea until someone points out that stopping distances remain the same and centrifugal forces rounding curves haven't changed and the maximum speed of cars hasn't changed and people's reaction times haven't changed and the increased kinetic energy would make accidents more deadly and so forth and so on. I don't know why you say it has nothing to do with the Flood argument. Moose explicitly said it was about the Flood model in his Message 2306: Back to your message: It's also untrue. I've agreed with you plenty of times. For example, I agreed with you about not seeing any point to the term "system", that it seemed redundant to "period", see Message 2039 (you didn't reply, no surprise there). It would make no sense to disagree with a fact just because you mentioned it in support of the flood. For example, you could cite the fact that Mount Ararat exists as evidence that the Bible's flood story is true, and while I would disagree with your conclusions I would absolutely agree with you that Mount Ararat exists while not weakening my position on the flood at all. One can't disagree with what is true without weakening one's own arguments. The reason you make so little headway in the form of concurrence on any major or minor point is because you have a knack for being wrong about just about everything. I didn't say it did, and you're not responding to what I said. In that post, Message 2306, Moose took the position that you were less wrong about Walther's Law than I was. I still don't understand what he was getting at, but I'd like to. I don't think either one is involved here, not objective truth or emotional bias. It's about what evidence and rationale can be brought to bear in support of a position.--Percy

You still do not understand how Walther's Law works. I included another explanation in Message 2526 that specifically addresses the misunderstanding represented in what you say above, but you haven't responded yet. Let me know if you have any questions.--Percy

How do you know whether what Genesis doesn't describe happened naturally or supernaturally? For example, the distribution of fossils in the geologic column - how did you determine that that happened naturally rather than supernaturally?--Percy

As has been explained many times, by definition any sedimentation (and I'll include volcanic deposits) occurring anywhere on Earth is adding to the local stratigraphic column. Any life buried by that sedimentation is a candidate for possible fossilization.Why do you think life buried by a global flood 4500 years ago can be fossilized but life buried today cannot? Wikipedia has a section on fossilization processes.--Percy

In an earlier post I calculated that the volume of all the sediments currently on land are only 10% of the ocean's volume, so its effect on life washed into the ocean wouldn't be that great. And as I mentioned, whether a corpse initially floats is serendipitous, dependent upon whether the lungs fill with water or remain filled with air.Faith also hasn't yet explained why sea life would die. She attributed it to the sediments suffocating them, but as I said, the sediments would be only 10% of the ocean's volume.Faith also hasn't explained how the ocean's original salinity returned (not to mention where all the extra water went).--Percy

Bigger animals also have more body tissues and heavier skeletons (the cross sectional area of bones has to grow by the cube of the length to support the additional weight). Ratio of fat to muscle is also a factor. I don't think you can reach any firm conclusions about the effects of body size. I don't know what that first sentence means, but you've never explained how the flood could be responsible for fossil distribution. I don't think you can say anything definitive until you know how big is each wave, how far inland does each wave travel, and how much sediment does each wave deposit?One comment I will make is that you seem to be imagining an extremely heavy sediment load if you're imagining it possible that a wave of this sediment could sweep across, say, a fleeing zebra and bury it all at once. Seems something more like mud than water. Given that we now know that all current land sediments are only 10% of ocean volume at the time of the flood (I calculated and posted this a day or two ago) such a heavy sediment load seems very unlikely. And the problem of keeping all the sediments in their proper layers in the oceans only grows worse. And the likelihood that these sediments would be thick enough to suffocate any sea life also becomes very unlikely. How do you plan to take account of the effects of temperature on ocean currents, sediment, and corpse distribution? There's also the effect of accelerated drifting continents on ocean currents. And ocean salinity also affects currents. For example, increased fresh water from melting Greenland glaciers decreases the salinity of the North Atlantic. Normally the water flowing into the North Atlantic from the Gulf Stream cools and sinks (because cooler water is denser) and flows back down south along the sea floor. But fresh water is less dense than salt water, so the decreased salinity reduces the ability of the North Atlantic's waters to sink. This could, eventually, have an impact on the Gulf Stream and affect the climate of Europe. The Gulf Stream is what gives Europe a moderate climate. For example, London is way further north than Quebec, but it has a climate more like Washington, D.C. Couldn't decipher this. I couldn't decipher this, either, but I agree with the part about there being no reason for larger animals to be at the bottom. To me it seems like serendipity governs. Any corpse not immediately buried by sediments would sink at a later time dependent upon whether its lungs filled with water, and if so how long that took, and how long gases took to float the corpse, and how long it took the gases to release and for the corpse to sink. That's a lot of different things that could happen. There would be a lot of different outcomes.Imagine this scenario: Two zebras are running side by side fleeing an oncoming wave that washes over them. One of the zebras is immediately entombed, the other is not but is drowned and is carried along by the water. It's lungs do not fill with water and so it floats. When the wave recedes the zebra is carried back out to sea. How does it end up in the correct strata with the other zebra?--Percy

That many traits are governed by multiple genes is generally true of life today, and all you're doing is extrapolating that to trilobites. It is also true of the limbs, backbone and heads of lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, bobcats, cougars and wildcats, which are all different species. Since chimps and humans have the same body plan and almost all the same bones, what structure are you referring to? But we can tell just from looking at the skeletons that these are two different species: However, many different species have the same "basic body shape". This is the coyote and the gray wolf. How do tell just from examining the skeletons that these are two different species: These trilobites are far more different than the coyote and wolf. Why aren't these two different species: --Percy

Incredulity is not an argument or a rationale, and you still do not understand how Walther's Law works. Did you read my explanation of Walther's Law in Message 2526. Then you're missing out on quite a bit. I don't have the same delusions of brilliance that you do, but my posts do tend to be packed with facts - or is that really why you don't read them?--Percy