Catastrophic Plate Tectonics - Fact or Fiction?

"In all of that time, Baumgardner has never, to my knowledge, published a coherent explanation of how CPT could have occured in a peer reviewed scientific journal (as opposed to creationist publications)."Please understand why Hydroplate and CPT theories seem "improbable" from being published in Leading Science Journals, as per Walt Brown(In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood - Misleading Statements).

I wish we lived with fair and open-minded science authorities, PaulK. It seems to me (a non-geologist I’m afraid) that CPT is at least as parsimonious as the ever-evolving PT theories and their own catastrophicisms. (Please forgive any YEC bias, here):Does PT itself invoke any 10 mile/day problems?

Paulk; I also asked if problematic 10-mile/day plates ever clashed wthin your PT scheme.As far as dogmatic parsimony is concerned, however, I myself view the ever-evolving PT scheme with increasing suspicion. Again I’m not a geologist, but many questions hit me (you don’t have to answer these, Paulk)1) Are there now over a hundred tectonic plates to keep track of, going different directions? 2) Which of those hundred plates consistently travel an inch per year, and how do their current force vectors really suggest Pangaea fits into your uniformatarianistic view?3) Can you or anyone accurately draw a Pangaea for us that might be validated? (Funky Pangaea text-drawings come to mind).4) How many 10-mile/day plate movement (catastrophes) might you allow in your PT scheme over the millennia, Paulk? 10, 20, 100, 1000?5) Do grand canyons and rocky mountain phenomena really fit into YOUR PT theory(ies) (with process, parsimony, and prediction)?6) Did not immense catastrophe(s) cause tall mountain ranges?The questions go on and on, Paulk.In sum, PT theory seems to me to be evolving to suggest greater and greater catastrophes these days, i.e., to be REALLY parsimonious.

Very well Edge,I'm sure many of you are convinced that PT theory SANS ‘immense’ catastrophies (e.g., plates sliding 10 mi/day) is parsimonious and predictable, Rocky mountains, their fish fossils, canyons, and all.As for me and my house, its gonna take a little more convincing, geology study, etc.I'm neither geologist nor theologian. So forgive my ignorance at present while I lurk a little.Thanks,

Percy,I have to apologize for my lack of knowledge of PT and not knowing the slow rise of the Himalayas continues today. I am currently rethinking my logic.Also, your thoughtful and penetrating reply (and references) is astonishing to say the least. I durst not ask any other questions until I have fully assimilated your data and recovered from being blown away (if you will).(Note my response to Edge)Thanks,Philip

Paulk,See my response to Percy and Edge, and Percy’s response Especially note Percy’s response to my questions and his illustration of the Himalayan mountains rising today (i.e., due to plate collision forces, it seems).Please understand I am currently rethinking my CPT and PT logic, my increasing data on the subject, etc.Thank you for 'patiently tolerating' my ignorance in geology. I'll do the same for other persons ignorant in microbiology or medicine.A side note: I’m willing to jump out of the CPT boat so long as there is absolutely no contradiction with the Bible record. As a ‘believer’ I’m forced to reconcile some OEC with YEC and to believe the ‘global flood’ proofs (whatever they be).Philip

Very well,But see my response to Paulk

Edge, I wish I could believe that. The conflict I perceive is the biblical record of the global flood and Noah’s ark, repeatedly stressed by OT and NT passages; it is ubiquitous to the Bible. Also, there are relatively concrete established timelines after Gen 2. I apologize if I’m getting off topic.Geological plates (i.e., as per Percy’s arguments) ensnare me somewhat. It will take me some time to factor and figure all this into acceptable unified-theory that fits the Gospel and Bible.1) Were not CPT theory(s), Hydroplate theory(s), Vapor Canopy theory(s), etc. suggested in the first place, by biblical apologists (YECs) trying to make sense of it all?2) Does PT theory go against the ‘global flood’? (I know of only one theistic-Evo who himself believed there was a global flood (vs. localized flood)?3) Biblical apologists (myself included) state TIME IS BUILT INTO GEOLOGY Gen. 1 and 2 are certainly supportive of this hypothesis. To prove fictional or even hand-wave out CPT doesn’t matter to me, unless it is biblically necessary to have CPT around.4) ‘Global flood’ theories of the Bible are necessary to Biblicists (especially evangelists). Many Biblicists (including Noah) taught that sea-world is real. Also, this water planet was founded upon one or 2 floods. No one believed it.5) Bias itself doesn’t matter to this ‘believer’. I don’t tentatively hypothesize the global flood. It happened: It may have been
A) supernatural oceans that became H2O
B) And/or more empirical oceans (as we existentially perceive them).

No, you're pretty on target. Biblicists (I'm afraid) seem to require CPT or some variant to account for a parsimonious timeline that includes a 'global flood'.

What about creation with apparent age?Biblicists cite apparent age from a Creator to allow for God’s mature geological creation and creatures. Please elaborate a little ... to explain Biblical timelines and the global flood SANS the CPT variants.While I hope I can agree with you, my own thoughts are a little cloudy, i.e.,:1) If Pangea divided POST-flood stamped age pieces of geology seem irrelevant; CPT becomes a necessity.2) If Pangea divided DURING the flood (via CPT runaway subduction or something) apparent age still seems irrelevant (to me) and CPT becomes even MORE of a necessity to fit the Bible.3) If Pangea divided PRE-flood, then your hypothetical model may perhaps seem to fit.
A) Do you accept that fossils were unmistakably laid down over eons of time with the PT folk and Evos?
B) Apparent age was stamped into geological layers incrementally or something?
C) Geological layers show successive apparent age as might be expected?
D) The global flood caused relatively no CPT events?Again, please elaborate a little ... to explain Biblical timelines and the global flood SANS the CPT theories.

I'd prefer you ask him? I don't know his stance as well as you.I'm not jumping off the CPT ark until someone (here) can reconcile:1) The (fundy) GLOBAL flood feasibly occurred about 5000 years ago (via supernatural and/or natural events)
2) The "8 saved by water" (Noah and family) paradigm of Judaeo-Christian and Chinese traditions is not debunked.
3) "Unmistakable" fossil graveyard mechanisms become more convincing and parsimonious with the data. Either:
A) Fossils *appeared to occur over eons of time* as per PT and harmonizing with the Bible’s Apparent Age (i.e., to help make sense of your radiometric aged strata)
or
B) Most fossils occurred during global flood catastrophe(s)
4) PT theory must not contradict the faultless Bible record.Else, I'm forced to cling to CPT and/or CPT-variants as valid theory, despite *invalidity* therein.

Re: Cornerstone Theory of Geological ScienceI disagree. Your bad news seems to pertain only to false science. If you say natural sciences by nature are stilted and plastic, that seems to me as circular, superficial, and natural reasoning.On the other hand, True-Science authority must conclude that *something immeasurable* exists deeply within quarks and the cosmos that SUSTAINS it all!I view it not inconsistent with unified-theories to hypothesize that immeasurable sustaining entity proceeding from God and His Christ (directly or indirectly).That sustaining immeasurable something (which sustains quarks and the cosmos) seems to me to be perfectly consistent with geological science and origins, even as Cornerstone Theory of geological science. Of course, some mainstream geologists reason geological evolution as Cornerstone theory.Does theism fit science theory or not? If not, why are there so many theistic-evos in this Creation vs. Evolution Forum?Deerbreh, the reason I’m here (vs. other forums) is to be zealous in my gospel faith by interacting with other naturalists in brotherly love, or something.Admittedly, invisible things from the beginning of the creation are difficult for me to hypothesize about. But, I perceive it fatal error: to handwave these invisible things out of science.

Jar without side-tracking into those "telling characteristics (of all theisic-Evos); you state you have "no problem fitting theism, even Christianity and Science".You yourself are professedly theistic (as I perceive Percy).But you might not be a "Christian" if you discount the "Noachian Flood"; for Christ repeatedly stressed issues concerning Adam, Noah and a Flood, Jonah and the "whale", etc. That is, Christ Himself seemed (to me) to take those events literally.In sum, if you or I were to face such a Christ, CPT theories/variants may perhaps seem (to God) more fact than fiction, if you will.But for geological parsimony’s sake: might you (or another) declare or hypothesize whether FOSSILS seem to have been:
1) Laid down gradually with sediments
2) Laid down catastrophically
3) Some predictable combination of 1 or 2
4) Some other parsimonious mechanism(s) of fossil formation?Thanks in advance,
Philip

Very well, I may have tended to get a bit incoherent with metaphysical rant. (I’ve been reprimanded for that before; please allow me to be reproved and stand corrected)But there appear to me many more god-of-the-gap fallacies in gradual sedimentary fossil formations if PT theory must take a biological (mega-) ToE into account? I’m not a mega-evolutionist. (Its incomprehensible to me how the mega-ToE can be so full of "missing links/chains", "hopeful mutational monsters", "oversimplified developmental phases of life-forms, random gene-pool ICs, etc.)Now can PT theory really be parsimonious without fossil evidence(s) of *gradual sedimentary deposits of fossils* ??? Methinks, mega-evolved fossils are a must for PT theory to be parsimonious. And if the biological mega-ToE is dead wrong, CPT MUST be reconsidered. PT theories must be rebuilt as well.So, I still ask you (and our geologists) to please, reconsider the hypotheses of:
1) "deeper" than quarks and
2) "greater" than our universe(s).Even other Evos here are admittedly theistic (Jar and Percy come to mind) and peradventure might conclude that a supernatural "sustainer" exists, here.If that sustainer is God (vs. faulty-gods, UFOs, or something), then God wouldn’t leave us utterly clueless, hopelessly cursed, and unredeemable (being all-good, all-powerful, etc. by definition)So I’m back to reconsidering CPT as fact vs fiction.

Deerbreh, I diametrically disagree with your responses at this point and feel we are getting off topic. It is futile (for both of us) to entangle in questionable definitions of "parsimony", "bias", "theism", and the "ToE" (mega vs. micro).I brought up the "questionable" bio-ToEs because these are ON TOPIC:Unconvincing Macro-Bio-ToEs (and their geological fossilization *mechanisms*) seem "cancerously" woven into PT theory (if you will). I view that this biology seems to directly:1) Place PT theory on trial.
2) Place strata-fossilization theory on trial.
3) Allow for CPT theory as tenable.----------------------------------------------------------
--DPM, MSBS