I gather that this was during the time of their formation, during the millions of years during which the dinosaurs supposedly roamed?
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In the particular case of the Grand Canyon, it may have been during that period, after that period or over the extended period from somewhere during or even before the period and continuing through to today.
If after, the erosion would have not only removed the dinosaur layers but most of the superimposing layers during which time it occurred. It is hard to see how erosion that occurred before the dinosaur period would have eroded anything from the dinosaur period at all unless it continued through the dinosaur period. And that's a lot of erosion in that dinosaur period. Must have rained a lot in that period in that part of the world. Funny it didn't make some canyons in the underlying strata. But I digress.
Somehow ONLY those layers were eroded away, and ONLY those layers?
A prodigious leap of faith. Somehow you have concocted a whole new interpretation that was not even HINTED at in anything I wrote.
No, I'm working only from what you tell me, but I'll try not to be silly. The supposition was based on the fact that you had only mentioned missing dinosaur layers, no other missing layers, and mentioned no disturbances in the canyon strata that would be evidence of them, and to the naked eye it does seem to me there is a conspicuous absence of any disruption that one would expect from such prodigious erosion, erosion that would completely eliminate an extremely thick belt from the dinosaur period without leaving a visible mark of its supposed former existence in the column. The only evidence that anything is missing that you gave was the fact that such layers are found elsewhere.
Now you go on to say that in fact there is other evidence, in the canyon column itself, but only negative evidence, no positive evidence.
What makes you think only those layers were eroded. In places the layers that should be above them are gone as well. Part of the layers beneath them, even earlier layers are missing as well.
That's an ENORMOUS amount of erosion you are talking about. So it took out not only the dinosaur layers OVER AN AREA OF HUNDREDS OF SQUARE MILES but much of the underlying and overlying layers as well. One wonders how the parallel appearance of the canyon strata remains at all, not only in the canyon area per se but over the surrounding terrain as depicted in the diagram you posted.
And they were eroded away PERFECTLY...
They were eroded away, gone, kaput, finished, Elvis has left the building. That's what eroded means. GONE!
...leaving no trace of their prior existence in the stack, none whatever,...
But isn't that marvelous, that there is not the tiniest artifact of it left at all?
Of course there traces of their prior existence. First, they are missing. In one place we see ABCDE and in the Grand Canyon area we see ABC and in a few spots ABCE.
Negative evidence drawn entirely from the time table theory.
But the evidence is not just there. The traces are spread out over other areas, what gets eroded here gets deposited there. That's how it works. That's how over millions of years, beaches form. Every beach was once a mountain.
OK, then show me where it all went please. Are there huge dinosaur beds downslope from the canyon area? (Away from the canyon of course, not in the canyon itself as that was created later, though beds there would be interesting to know about too).
The problem is that you are positing an ENORMOUS amount of material over miles and miles in all directions that you suppose did indeed get deposited as part of the canyon strata at one time, but was all washed away, leaving the strata of the canyon walls nevertheless, yes, to the naked eye, quite neatly parallel, which parallel configuration is confirmed in your own diagram, not just my imagination.
...no lumps to disturb the parallel profile ...
There IS no parallel profile.
It's on your own diagram, it's affirmed in basic geology courses -- somebody just posted one recently here -- it is visible to the naked eye.
... not an errant stubborn rock or an embedded dinosaur bone the erosion couldn't dislodge?
And the Grand Prize Winner!
Yes, I thought it was clever too.
We are looking at a whole section being eroded away. If there was a rock that couldn't be eroded when everything around it was gone it too would get moved and deposited somewhere else.
You are positing an ENORMOUS force of erosion to explain nothing but a SUPPOSEDLY missing layer for which there is NO DIRECT POSITIVE evidence that it was ever where you say it should have been. Not one dinosaur bone as I say, not one rock from that period. And the whole idea that such a layer was ever there is completely derived from THEORY.
While that's fair as a working mode of thinking, it is not fair when the positive evidence that is missing for your theory is in fact good evidence for the opposing theory but you stubbornly deny it. "Missing Layers" should go in the CON column for evolutionism and the PRO column for creationism.
Let me summarize.
A whole section is missing.
What should be above it is missing.
Part of what should be below it is missing.
There are NO neat parallel layers.
What was once there is now somewhere else.
Again, where is it? That much stuff ought to show up in an incoherent unlayered pile of sediments and bones somewhere nearby I would think.
This did not happen over a large area, if we go up to Utah or Montana, or down into Arizona and Mexico, we see different results.
Large enough nevertheless to raise reasonable questions about how it could disappear and leave no meaningful evidence that it was ever there.
No doubt what you see is the remains of dinosaurs that were washed into Utah, Montana, Arizona and Mexico but not into the Grand Canyon strata by the Flood.
AND despite all that severe erosive activity over millions of years that totally erased multiple thick layers lumpy with dinosaur carcasses, the erosion left the underlying layers completely intact?
Of course not. No one has said that.
No, but I'm referring to the fact that the strata remain intact to the naked eye. This appearance of the strata is infact evidence. You point to disturbances of a lesser magnitude than would disrupt this parallel appearance, so let me hasten to allow that I'm sure that is the case, that there are many such disturbances you could show me, but I am trying to suggest that an event of the magnitude of the complete erasure of such quantities of material as you describe would have made it impossible for the column to continue to build in as neat parallel layers as it in fact did TO THE NAKED eye at the very least.
Apparently you are saying that all eroded areas were just filled in with new deposits and that maintained the overall structure, and I can see that for depressions, but erosion that would have erased whole deep layers had to make sloping troughs or gullies for the exiting of all that material it seems to me and that would have made further visibly level sedimentation on top of it extremely difficult and I'd say impossible. In summary, you can point to many areas of disruption but not to anything of the magnitude that the erosion you are describing would have caused IMHO.
Look at the diagram you posted. Of course it's idealized. Of course lots of discontinuities could be shown to exist within it on a more realistic view, but for the parallel structure to be exhibitable AT ALL as presented there after entire layers were washed away just doesn't compute by the physical laws of this universe.
There are signs of the exact same processes in every layer at every location in the world. The underlying layers that are now exposed are being eroded as we speak and in other areas the very, very oldest layers are being eroded away, AND covered up with new deposits.
It is an ongoing process. The very things that happened over the BILLIONS of years of records (not mere millions of years) that are exposed by the Grand Canyon continue today. Parts that are exposed wear away and others get covered.
Of course erosion works on exposed layers. BEING ERODED AS WE SPEAK. YES. Erosion has OBSERVABLE EFFECTS over VERY SHORT PERIODS OF TIME. I've based most of my complaints about the strata on this fact. I suppose they may be filled in and covered up by new deposits in some places under some conditions, but erosion does have the effect of obliterating structures even if new ones are later formed. This is OBSERVED all the time on planet earth in normal human time frames. The question is why it didn't do more damage to the layers in the strata during the enormous long periods of their formation, how they could have remained layers over millions of years during which long periods of exposure to the elements are also postulated. Some washes away, some fills in but how can that process have gone on for millions of years -- or even thousands -- and yet retained the overall parallel appearance. YES IT HAS AN OVERALL APPEARANCE OF HORIZONTAL PARALLEL LAYERS. To keep denying that with pictures of the Grand Canyon showing its dramatic parallel layering is RIDICULOUS.
Faith.
Please accept this as constructive criticism.
The problem is that your basic knowledge and understanding of the world and what goes on is so completely lacking that you are bound to have difficulties accepting the obvious.
You're tackling a subject without even the most basic tools need. As a fellow Christian, I have to tell you the best course is for you to step back and first get the minimal amount of knowledge needed to understand the question.
Jar, I either argue it from where I'm at or I don't argue it at all. I've chosen to do what I can with what I've got and what I pick up as I go. I'm happy to learn whatever there is to learn as I go, and will no doubt study some more, but the odd thing is that the more I learn just here, the more convinced I am of the point of view I started out with. Your carrying on about my monumental mistakes is out of proportion. Despite drawing a few wrong conclusions from the facts you have given me, they appear minor to me, and my overall impression remains that the evidence is on my side, not yours, and it has only increased with the information you and otherw have given.
This one paragraph is an example. It's taken me about a thousand words to address the errors in a one hundred word paragraph. And I have only scratched the surface. When it comes to geology your ignorance is near complete.
I've answered it. It's not the total disaster you tried to make it out to be by a long shot. None of what you have said accounts for an actual erosion away of an entire huge layer the entire length and width of the greater canyon area, without disturbing the rest of the entire column to a visibly drastic degree, but the canyon retains its horizontal layered appearance and your own diagram confirms this.
There was no dinosaur layer in the canyon strata ever. They happened to be washed into the other areas you mention but not the canyon area. The strata do not represent great ages of time. They most probably represent the disposition of sediments by water throughout the world, in broken arrangements because they never were together and there is no physical principle that requires them to have been together in any particular combination whatever.
That ignorance is not a problem; it's an opportunity for you. Before you try to carry this any further, can I suggest that you go back and read some of the works from a couple hundred years ago on the subject? Look at the evidence through the eyes of the geologists of the time, those who finally put the question of whether or not there was a world-wide flood to rest. These folk were mostly Christians and it was the evidence that forced them to conclude that the Bible was simply in error.
Sure I'd love to. I am certain they would provide evidence for my side of this argument.
You are not stupid. You are though, blinded by your ignorance. That can be cured. But it is a difficult task.
Go back to them. They began their journey in exactly the same position you now occupy. They wanted to believe the Biblical Myth of the Flood, but what they found, the evidence written by GOD himself in the rocks of the earth, said it was just a story.
The Flood, as described in the Bible is but a morality play. It simply never happened. Period!
Yes, the dogma of the evolutionist. Flat refusal to admit the other point of view for a moment. Jar, even if there were no physical evidence of it, that would not prove the Flood hadn't happened, as there must be plenty of things that happened in the distant past that left no evidence we are able to ascertain, or actually most likely, that left evidence we misconstrue and evidence we overlook because we are hung up on some other notion about how things happened and simply cannot see it.
The Flood was a reality whether or not physical evidence for it is ever affirmed.
And also understand, once you have learned enough to begin reading what GOD wrote (the universe we live in)
Jar, God wrote BOTH the universe AND the Bible and they cannot contradict one another because they have the same Author.
as opposed to what men wrote (the Bible) you will find your Faith strengthened and a vastly increased awe and wonder at the miraculous world we live in.
I AM in awe of this universe, jar, and it is BECAUSE I believe the Bible is God's word, not men's.
To pit science against the Bible is evidence of a lack of faith in God's word to us. The universe is God's, but science is done with our own fallible minds, but the Bible was inspired by the God who made it all.
This message has been edited by Faith, 03-20-2005 06:44 PM
This message has been edited by Faith, 03-20-2005 06:48 PM
Ummm... it's been a bit tough...
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