Creationist Baumgardner: one of the top mainstream mantle/plate tectonics simulators!

JoeDoes his plate tectoics engine work well and allow models to be tested? If the answer is yes I think you simply don't like his after hours use of it.

EdgeI think we've got a new war going on here! Computation/theory vs experiment/observation. I think they're both important. The first guy to reliably fold a protein on computer or reconstrcut the known patterns of continental drift will have done all of us a great service by demonstrating that the underlying mechanisms are quantiatively understood.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 08-18-2002]

RandyWe are simply proposing that the water came from the same place you get your marine innundations from - tectonically generated sea level changes. Yes we have a heat problem, I'll agree with you on that. But so many other apects of the model work nicely. Same problem with every model - conflicting data.

EdgeFrom my readings Baumgardner has a very good plate tectonics simulaiton engine. During the day it is used to simulate mainstream plate tectonics and after hours, after tweaking a few paramters, he uses the same engineto test runaway subduciton.I quoted a plate tectonics guy several months ago saying that deterministic simulations of plate tectonics 'reproduce nothing like' the continental history we have. Protein folding is not much better. Take protein sequences, fold them deterministically on computer and you get a Nobel prize. I'm working on it!Saying you know the underlying forces is one thing. Qualitatively showing they reproduce the detailed phenomenon is another. It's so easy to say that protein folding is dictated by the hydrophobic effect and hydrogen bonding. Using this to predict protein 3D structure is another ball game called the 'protein folding problem'. Quantum chromodynamics (quark nuclear physics), climate and continental drift are equally difficult 'Grand Challenges'.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 08-19-2002]

^ Both scientific and non-scientitifc coding have their own challenges. The difficulty for the Windows guys is trying to maintain interoperability with a hundred thousand formats/protocols etc while a project manager is breathing down your neck. Scientific coding in my experince is actually easier than Windows programming unless you have to optimize code for speed.

^ Read that thread carefully and you will see that my statement was that tectonics has not been deterministically simulated. I quote a mainstream guy stating this in black and white.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 08-19-2002]

RandyThe whole point of runaway subduction is that it is . . runaway. It is like a chain reaction. Subduction above a certian threshold will lead to further subduction and further heating and so on. How the subduciton got to that threshold is presumably the put-off for you understandably. Nevertheless if, through e.g. accelerated radiodecay, we can get such an initial threshold then runaway subduciton can take it from there.I'm not saying that runaway subduction must be the answer - it is a possibility and it works very nicely with accelrated decay - if only we didn't kill everything! Further work is clearly needed if this were to become more than just a toy model. I see it simply as a hint in the right direction. Nevertheless the concept of runaway subduction could be completely correct.

RandyI fully agree with you that the heat is a huge constraint. But there just aren't enough people working on this to rule it out yet. If the entire process of continental drift is carried over decades rather than a year it might all work. With Noah disembarking at a high elevation then the tectonic aftermath of the flood could have gone on for decades afterward (and decades before).If one spreads the energy to boil the ocean over a longer period it will not boil the ocean!

EdgeI don't have a problem with Noah disembarking at the end of the flood year at high elevation (as suggested in Scripture) while the flood tectonically sorts itself out over decades and even centuries at lower elevations. Simple solutions like this often exist and that is why it is improper to rule out possibilties with such quick shrugs. Such a Biblically consistent time extension of the flood might easily save the model and account for the actual prehistory of our planet.PS - 6 generations after Noah we have 'Peleg' who was so named becasue 'the earth was divided in his time'. During this few hundred years longevity also dropped from 600 years or so to about 120 years. Perhaps the dregs of accelerated decay extended through these several hundred years after the flood seperating the continents and depositing the last of the flood layering in the low-lands.

RandyIs the 10^28 J from runaway subduction, 500 million years worth of radiodecay or both?I'm aware that AIG doesn't go for Peleg like that - I simply raise it as a possibility.I agree with everything you're saying except I still let the model sit there awaiting future advances. In the mean time I will agree with you that the heat at this point is a model killer.

^ Let's just remember how hard it was for continental drift to become accepted. Sniff . . sniff. I am detecting high levels of irony around here.

Yes this is all very constraining. By maybe, in the wash, it all just works out and the ark really was there to protect those on baord from a truly bizarre event. And maybe we now know the real reason for the marine extinctions. Only small pockets of life survived to repopulate.So I'll believe that. I'll beleive that the Bible is not kidding in talking about a recent global flood.You can believe that life evolved from slime.It's faith for both of us.[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 08-21-2002]

Our faith that Noah et al somehow survived on the ark is not much different than you believing that the first cell somehow popped out of the proverbial soup.

^ I don't think that changes the validity of what I said.

^ My cartoon version of evolution? I'm the one sticking to proven evolution - you're the ones extrapolating from beak shape changes to eyes, complete with optic nerves, evolving from skin protrusions!![This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 08-22-2002]