Objections to Evo-Timeframe Deposition of Strata

But you have already been told that is not what happened. There have been one period of orogeny (mountain building) after another for 100's of millions of years. As you were told before the Appalacians were from a previous time of upheaval on that side of what is now north america and for 250 million years have been wearing down.You seem surprised that this has only just happened. Well that is not what happened so there is no need for surprise.You also seem to be surprised that there are enough quiet times in a place here and there around the world to allow for sediments to build up. A few millions or 10's of millions of years of "quiet" is enough to build up rather a lot and that is not very long when we talk of coninents moving across the planet. The time scales involved are on the order of 100's of millions of years between events like a new round of orogeny.The nice flat layers are not "all over the world" in one great set of layers. They are different in different places laid down at different times. Some are still pretty flat, some very much not so flat any more.You are coming to the wrong conclusion because your facts are wrong.Edit ti fix dumb spellings.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 02-20-2005 10:08 AM

I'll address just a few points.I thought I recall that if all the ice in the world was melted that it would only raise sea level about 200 ft. Perhaps someone here knows the figure. This would require the fountains of the deep to hold the vast amount of water needed to cover the world to 30,000 ft. required for total coverage. There seems to be little evidence of such a layer between our crust and mantle.Horizontal layers are present in many tectonic zones, but so are angles and folds. That layers of rock can be squeezed, tilted and folded gives one the idea of how powerful tectonic forces can be. But these formations occur where large plates of crust bump up againt one another. In California one plate is being subducted, that is forced under another overriding plate. These and other areas ( hot spots of thin crust over the mantle such as Yellowstone or Hawaii) are where things are happening tectonically, wheras places like the center of the North American are usually stable. Referencing a map of tectonic plate border zones may explain some aspects(usually present in any geology text).Another way to look at this is historically. In 1700 most scholars believed in Flood theology and geology. They belived in a young Earth. By 1800 very few scholars belived that the Earth was young. The concept of 'deep time' became popular and then the race was on to quantify how long.I am cribbing this from Stephen J. Gould's essay "The Proof of Lavoisier's plates" in the book 'The Lying Stones of Marrakech" page 93, which may be helpful here."In 1700, all major Western scholars believed that the earth had been created just a few thousand years ago. By 1800, nearly all scientists accepted a great antiquity of unknown duartion, and a sequential history expressed in strata of the earth's crust. These strata, roughly speaking, form a vertical pile, with the oldest layers on the bottom and the youngest on top. By mapping the exposure of thes layers on the earth's surface, this sequential history can be inferred. By 1820, detailed geological maps had been published for parts of England and France, and general patterns had been established for the entirety of both nations. This discovery of "deep time', and the subsequent resolution of historical sequences by geological mapping, must be ranked among the sweetest triumphs of human understanding" Stephen J. GouldNote that he uses variations of the word 'sequence' three times in this paragraph.Also it is worth pointing out that a number of these scientists were Christian, but subsequently accepted an old earth.I was taught that the best way to debate against someone's position is to have to represent that position in a practice debate. This requires one to learn the other's position and makes one a stronger debator.Many folks here have looked at both or perhaps more accurately, all sides of this question. If you don't agree you can still profit by understanding why they hold the positions they do.Some member has a signature quote along the lines 'Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts'(apologies to whomever it is, I'll run across it again soon). Until you learn enough about geology to recognize that the existence of horizontal strata do not imply a worldwide flood, you will find that your intuitive arguments hold little scientific weight.It took more than 350 yrs for the Catholic church to forgive Galileo for his heliocentric theory. Perhaps all these things take time
because of the emotional implications, which seem to linger amoung individuals and institutions to the eclipse of reason.Banana Boy

Well to answer your points I do not have extravagant standards for evidence. I simply do not relax those standards for your convenience.The simple fact is that a vague, superficial and partial similarity is not in itself good evidence for anything. Yet that is all you offered with no argument to explain WHY it should be considered significant evidence at all.As to the rest intuition is an unreliable guide - especially when it is based on near-total ignorance and a strong dose of bias. And I must remind you that the rules of this forum require YOU to support your assertions - not demand that others refute them.

All I can say is:

quote:

---

Genesis 7:19
"They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered."

---

You are being generous here. YECs demand proof of evolution from us. Wouldn't that be a bit hypocritical? Okay, then. THEY need diagnostic evidence. Not the point. The point is that there is no definitive flood sequence in the geological record. There is a reason for this. (regarding coral reefs in the geological record)Yes. And lateral facies changes. And basic morphology.

We've stopped arguing any of this as well. Perhaps I could just point out in as clear as possible terms that while it is very striking to have large areas of apparently conformable sedimentation, it is NOT AT ALL a large swath of the earth, nor is it unusual or unexplained.It is apparent to me that you have decided to pay no attention to our posts and this I consider to be disrespectful. And I am struck by the amazing ability of YECs to dismiss logical arguments by professionals in the field, as simpy 'unbelievable'. You have been treated with a lot of patience here, but your constant, tedious repetition of an argument from incredulity, and numerous trite strawmen, will not cut it any more. Do you really think that geologists have not thought about these things? Do you think it's all just 'made up'?

quote:

---

I'll address just a few points.
I thought I recall that if all the ice in the world was melted that it would only raise sea level about 200 ft. Perhaps someone here knows the figure. This would require the fountains of the deep to hold the vast amount of water needed to cover the world to 30,000 ft. required for total coverage. There seems to be little evidence of such a layer between our crust and mantle.

---

You are envisioning today's mountain heights, whereas the Biblical indications are that it only took some 25 feet of water to cover the "mountains" of the pre-Flood world as I quoted to somebody last night, edge I think. The idea is that the tectonic upthrusts that created the tall mountains occurred since the Flood, way more recently than geology says. Which is one reason I'm not arguing for the Flood, because I can't answer dating claims.Sounds like the ice is where all that water of the Flood may have gone since it apparently contains an awful lot of water, enough to raise sea level 200 feet being a lot more than the Bible appears to indicate covered the earth in the Flood. Most creationist views I've read construct a pre-Flood world that had no ice, was very temperate and lush, and in which the poles were far more inhabitable than since the Flood. The huge animals found frozen in the ice are understood to be pre-Flood.

quote:

---

Horizontal layers are present in many tectonic zones, but so are angles and folds. That layers of rock can be squeezed, tilted and folded gives one the idea of how powerful tectonic forces can be.

---

Of course. But the layers were already formed. The squeezing, tilting and folding happened to them after millions of years of quiet build up according to the time frame of geology. The layers were all once horizontal, according both to evolutionists and creationists. Even after being subjected to all kinds of destructive forces their parallel neatness is visible. Where they have been compressed to extreme hardness and raised into mountains they were once horizontal and quietly accumulating. Where they have been eroded away partially or altogether they were either once present or something interfered with their deposition.

quote:

---

But these formations occur where large plates of crust bump up againt one another. In California one plate is being subducted, that is forced under another overriding plate. These and other areas ( hot spots of thin crust over the mantle such as Yellowstone or Hawaii) are where things are happening tectonically, wheras places like the center of the North American are usually stable. Referencing a map of tectonic plate border zones may explain some aspects(usually present in any geology text).

---

Again, wherever the layers occur they had to have a long period to form, and these disturbances you are talking about all happened to them AFTER they had formed over that long period.

quote:

---

Another way to look at this is historically. In 1700 most scholars believed in Flood theology and geology. They belived in a young Earth. By 1800 very few scholars belived that the Earth was young. The concept of 'deep time' became popular and then the race was on to quantify how long.I am cribbing this from Stephen J. Gould's essay "The Proof of Lavoisier's plates" in the book 'The Lying Stones of Marrakech" page 93, which may be helpful here.

​

"In 1700, all major Western scholars believed that the earth had been created just a few thousand years ago. By 1800, nearly all scientists accepted a great antiquity of unknown duartion, and a sequential history expressed in strata of the earth's crust. These strata, roughly speaking, form a vertical pile, with the oldest layers on the bottom and the youngest on top. By mapping the exposure of thes layers on the earth's surface, this sequential history can be inferred. By 1820, detailed geological maps had been published for parts of England and France, and general patterns had been established for the entirety of both nations. This discovery of "deep time', and the subsequent resolution of historical sequences by geological mapping, must be ranked among the sweetest triumphs of human understanding" Stephen J. Gould

​

Note that he uses variations of the word 'sequence' three times in this paragraph.

​

Also it is worth pointing out that a number of these scientists were Christian, but subsequently accepted an old earth.

---

Yes, the history is very interesting and I appreciate this and a couple other posts that mention it.

quote:

---

I was taught that the best way to debate against someone's position is to have to represent that position in a practice debate. This requires one to learn the other's position and makes one a stronger debator.

---

Yes, I'm sure. I know I seem to be debating the Flood but all I'm doing so far is answering what seem to be misconceptions about what I understood the creationist view of the Flood to be. I don't feel prepared to debate it but perhaps I can at least present a better view of it than some seem to have, such as expecting that signs of such a Flood would be nothing more than one striking layer in the geo column, or one layer of sediment in a river, when creationists claim the entire geological column, all those layers all over the earth everywhere, was the result of a worldwide flood, and do not indicate the time spans of the current theory.I've had the impression that the idea of the Flood that preceded the historical changes you mention above were nothing like this idea. One famous archaeologist whose name I forget for the moment thought he had "detected" it at the bottom of the Jericho layers, which all of course had built up since the Flood, but the current idea is that there is nothing hidden about the evidence for the Flood such that you'd have to strain to "detect" it. It is everywhere we look, wherever the geo column is visible, which is an awful lot of places on planet earth. Seems to me they also had some strange ideas about the fossils, some even thinking God put them there whimsically for fun. Well now we understand that they record the deaths of enormous numbers of living things preserved by certain chemical processes. Creationists think it all happened in one gigantic cataclysm, evolutionists think they occurred over huge spans of time.

quote:

---

Many folks here have looked at both or perhaps more accurately, all sides of this question. If you don't agree you can still profit by understanding why they hold the positions they do.

---

I appreciate that. As I said I seem to be preoccupied with having to explain my views over and over. I'm sure the opposing views are quite reasonable, but I want to be sure that mine aren't simply misrepresented. Certainly everybody has answers to what I've said, whether they get what I've said right or wrong, but I'd rather they got it right.Beyond that, as I said yesterday, I'm going to have to take a long time out to read up on geology. But I can tell you in advance that I don't expect to understand enough even then to answer the claims about dating and the claims of processes within the layers that prevent them from having been laid down at one time. These aren't enough to talk me out of my creationist position -- I simply expect that there WILL be answers to them, but I doubt I'll have those answers.

quote:

---

Some member has a signature quote along the lines 'Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts'(apologies to whomever it is, I'll run across it again soon). Until you learn enough about geology to recognize that the existence of horizontal strata do not imply a worldwide flood, you will find that your intuitive arguments hold little scientific weight.

---

I conceded that yesterday already. Then I made the mistake of asking some questions and have had to answer a bunch of misunderstandings ever since and haven't even gotten back to half of them, not to mention some posts before that.

quote:

---

It took more than 350 yrs for the Catholic church to forgive Galileo for his heliocentric theory. Perhaps all these things take time because of the emotional implications, which seem to linger amoung individuals and institutions to the eclipse of reason.

---

As I understand it the Catholic Church's problem with Galileo was created by their commitment to Aristotle, not to the Bible, even if they used the Bible in their argument against him. The Bible has no problems with Galileo.The Bible was the foundation of science in the West. The earlier pagan philosophers no doubt gave it some inspiration, but the empirical method came from men convinced of the Bible's presentation of a rational God and a lawful Creation. There is no conflict between the Christian religion properly understood and true science.There IS a conflict between the idea of great ages and Genesis. And when on top of that one just imagines a bit about what a Flood capable of covering the earth might do, or at least when I do the imagining, I come up with the evidences of physical violence that we in fact see everywhere, I can't see a billion years of slow accumulation of anything whatever.But sure, of course, I have to do some reading in geology.

quote:

---

Do you really think that geologists have not thought about these things? Do you think it's all just 'made up'?

---

No.Good bye.

I can only agree with your last sentence.We do not misunderstand your idea one bit.I think you are somewhere between ignorant and irrational.I think you will continue to refute others' posts point by point with trite, illinformed, unsubstatiated drivel...time that could be better spent learning something instead of gleaning rampant misconcetions from some comic book tract about evolution and recreating them here.I can think of three main possibilities: that you are intentionally obtuse,unintetionally obtuse, or are just deliberatly wasting our time.ABB

A powerful approach to sorting things out is not focussing on looking for evidence that supports a view. It is trying to find ways of showing conclusively that an idea is wrong. Generally, while you can get to be very, very sure that something is right you can never be 100% certain that a complex model is totally correct. Even when there is an enormous amount of evidence supporting it. You might be 99.999% sure but not quite 100%.However, you can sometimes use a smaller amount of evidence and be even more sure that another idea is wrong. This is the case with the flood model.You are the one that suggest that creationists explain the whole of geology by a catastrophic flood. In fact, some of them, at least, do not. There are too many pieces of individual evidence that exclude that idea.One you have been given: the paleosoils. They are simply not possible in the middle of one giant flood laid down layers. So the idea that you suggest creationist have is wrong. That is settled.Now we need to have a modified model that might acoount for that. When you find out what creationists might be saying then we can discuss it.The idea that the mountains arose quickly doesn't work out very well. Imagine the number of huge earthquakes there would be for one thing. There is a lot of heat energy involved as well. With some care in thinking through the details that is another model that doesn't stand up.The dating of the different formations to vastly different ages also shows that they did not all happen at once. Nor did they happen 4,500 years ago. The flood model for tectonics is simply wrong.ABE No, there isn't!There is a conflict between a paritcular interpretation of Genesis and the real world. As Galileo put forward 400 years ago if there is a conflict between the real world and the Bible it is the interpretation of the Bible by humans that is wrong not either the Bible or the real world.For some reason, that many find very hard to understand there is a minority cult of Christians (and other religions ) that we tend to use the term "creationist" to label that say if their specific personal interpretation of the Bible is wrong then the whole message of the Bible is false. My Christian friends (and other believers here) find this appalling. It is obvious to me and other believers that this isn't the intended use of the Bible (as a science text). Most of us here do NOT think that showing creationists interpretations to be wrong says any thing about the existance of God. However, creationists seem to think it does. Very strange they are.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 02-20-2005 18:08 AM

quote:

---

A powerful approach to sorting things out is not focussing on looking for evidence that supports a view. It is trying to find ways of showing conclusively that an idea is wrong.

---

That's why I did not want to, and am not engaged in, defending the Flood, but started out objecting to the idea of slow formation of the Geo Column.

quote:

---

However, you can sometimes use a smaller amount of evidence and be even more sure that another idea is wrong. This is the case with the flood model. You are the one that suggest that creationists explain the whole of geology by a catastrophic flood.

---

No, just the stratifications Geology calls the Geologic Time table, not the whole of GEOLOGY, the workaday science that goes on apart from all the theories involved, even if it all works within the assumptions of great ages the creationists reject.

quote:

---

In fact, some of them, at least, do not. There are too many pieces of individual evidence that exclude that idea.

---

Yes, I understand there are many versions of creationism and I understand there are scientific objections to the one I'm talking about.

quote:

---

One you have been given: the paleosoils. They are simply not possible in the middle of one giant flood laid down layers. So the idea that you suggest creationist have is wrong. That is settled.

---

Unless there is another way of explaining how the depositions of the strata came about from the Flood point of view.

quote:

---

Now we need to have a modified model that might acoount for that. When you find out what creationists might be saying then we can discuss it.

---

Yes. If I still care enough about all this to do the reading up I said I intended to do I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunity to consider it all.

quote:

---

The idea that the mountains arose quickly doesn't work out very well. Imagine the number of huge earthquakes there would be for one thing. There is a lot of heat energy involved as well. With some care in thinking through the details that is another model that doesn't stand up.

---

I understand the objection and of course it occurred to me as well, but as somebody pointed out I didn't feel the tsunami, and people do live through earthquakes. The thing is, on BOTH sides of this all anyone can do is imagine.

quote:

---

The dating of the different formations to vastly different ages also shows that they did not all happen at once. Nor did they happen 4,500 years ago. The flood model for tectonics is simply wrong.

---

I have conceded that I have no way of answering dating claims, and even if it's insulting to geologists that I trust the Bible over their dates, I'm hanging on to it for now.Thanks for your input.

Of course, and since many creationist decided they could not do that they modified the flood model to something different.Until a better model is constructed science will stick to the best available one. That is the current consensus model and there isn't any real competition that I'm aware of. The single, world wide, 1 year, catastrophic flood isn't it. Are you? What is it that makes you object to it? So far you simply seem to find it hard to accept or believe but don't have any reason that I have seen yet.It was clear to people who looked closely that the time scales were large and long before we had good measurements of the actual time. I'm sure some of them found it hard but they realized they had to take it as it was. You have no real reason not to follow the same path. No, one side is not allowed to imagine. No one gets anything accepted in the sciences without good reasons that go far, far beyond imagination.But try imagining earth quakes happening a rate 1,000's of time greater than they do. We would get a quake like the Dec 26th one everyday. It isn't insulting to geologists, it does say something about your reasoning.

...and we infer from evidence.Just out of curiosity... what and who do you refer to for your scientific data? That may speak volumes.ABB

Looked BRIEFLY online for info on this topic. Found this essay that claims to do in the flood theory for good.http://home.entouch.net/dmd/paleosol.htmHe raises all kinds of issues that seem irrelevant to me, but to understand the article completely, just to get the terminology I'd have to do a lot of studying of geology. Now you can all just say well go do it or you can consider if this question has any merit:He keeps talking about the "year" time frame of the Flood. Sure, for the Flood itself, but the layers it laid down, IF that is how they formed, would have to have undergone many changes for some period of time afterward. I mean we suppose fossils were formed in them. That doesn't happen overnight. And I would assume neither does the formation of paleosoils. Unless I'm not getting something here (he raises a lot of issues that I can't see have any bearing on the topic) there is no reason I can see at my present state of ignorance and triteness not to suppose that topsoils were carried on the flood like everything else on earth, and deposited in the layers, and over time within the drying and compressing layers underwent the changes required to turn them into paleosoils. He says it takes decades or millennia at least. Well they've certainly had enough time in 5000 years.So what is your objection to this view?This message has been edited by Faith, 02-20-2005 19:08 AM

quote:

---

You imagine..

​

...and we infer from evidence.

---

All you can do when it comes to the impact, speed, heat generated and other effects of tectonic movement is imagine it same as anybody else. You may pride yourself on your educated imagination over a creationist's, fine, but all you can do is imagine.

quote:

---

It isn't insulting to geologists, it does say something about your reasoning.

---

It says nothing whatever about my reasoning, only about the assumptions I start from. My reasoning I daresay is better than half the contributors to this thread.And they sure sound insulted to me.