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Author Topic:   Should intellectually honest fundamentalists live like the Amish?
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 121 of 303 (231863)
08-10-2005 12:30 PM
Reply to: Message 120 by Faith
08-10-2005 12:23 PM


Re: Finding oil is a PRACTICAL matter
No you never did say it was simple but your characterization is simple minded. You are oversimplifying a very complex field which you refuse to understand properly.
When specific points are brought up, the ones that you bother to address are given a totally ignorant and insufficient response. That you cannot see this is not my problem.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 120 by Faith, posted 08-10-2005 12:23 PM Faith has not replied

Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 122 of 303 (231897)
08-10-2005 1:28 PM
Reply to: Message 118 by Faith
08-10-2005 12:13 PM


Re: Faith and Randman are full of schist
Message 62 and Message 64
That didn't address anything I was talking about. You said your links made no mention of depositional environments nor shoreline advancement and recession. I pointed out they did.
The replies you mention above are not to the links you cited, but rather your continual monologue on what you think geologists do.
If this was supposed to suggest that your link did not mention shorelines and such, then I guess you have now reached the level of lying. Certainly you have reached a minor pinnacle of deceit.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 118 by Faith, posted 08-10-2005 12:13 PM Faith has not replied

Silent H
Member (Idle past 5819 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 123 of 303 (231915)
08-10-2005 1:59 PM
Reply to: Message 119 by Faith
08-10-2005 12:21 PM


Re: Faith and Randman are full of schist
You have not described this process in any way a person could visualize, but I venture to guess that "depositional environments" have nothing to do with it
Your own source mentioned depositional environments when it talked about things like shorelines. When are you going to admit the simple fact that your own citation included an OE reference to a specific DE as something important that stratigraphers try to map?
merely knowledge of predictable stratigraphic formations -- PHYSICAL configurations, not fairy tale explanations of how they got that way.
I'm sorry, but what can one call knowledge or predictable regarding a stratigraphic formation, without a model to guide one? It is not merely physical properties and I'll try to show you why.
Jazzns gave and example of a log, imagine several more perhaps in a rectangular arrangement plus one in the center. That is four more logs, creating the corners of a square with a dot in the center. Now imagine that the logs do not have the same contents at each level, and some at varying thicknesses. How then do you make a map of that square area, in cross section of depth? That goes double for the unknown area.
You hit it on the head when you mentioned "predictable". What makes something predictable, including formations, is to have a theory about how it was formed. Otherwise you have no clue if a "formation" is suddenly going to take a nose dive, or turn from sand into clay or an olivine wall.
According to your strawman of geology, a person just "knows" "physical configurations". Thus a specific configuration of sand and clay and sand again may be expected to zig zag back and forth when viewed as a cross section from top to bottom. Not because it is a "shoreline" referencing the exact same depositional environment one can find near the surface of a shoreline which has receded or advnaced, but because it is a "zoreline" where that same type of sand-clay-sand formation seen at depth has had predictable zig zag formation?
That seems to be willfull ignorance, or mere semantic gamesmanship. If one sees something happening at the surface and can see that again at depth, why does it change for you from something one understands and so can predict based on its known properties at the surface, to something one must understand using some completely different criteria?
In fact, if you are to follow your line of logic then we should not be identifying fossils either. How can we say what they are except pretty mineral deposits? If we cannot recognize the indication of a shoreline at depth, then why do we identify things that look like organic life (or products of such life) but are not organic, as indications of things that were organic or having been around them?
Indeed I am curious at what depth you feel we can no longer refer to formations as what they appear to be when looked at at a surface depositional environment?
It is identifying a structure as a specific kind of depositional environment, which gives a strata in a well log a certain predictability such that one can make a connection to another well log, and estimate how it might end, or bend between points. It allows one to predict where a lens of some other material could exist between well log points.
Without the "fairy tale" that it formed in a specific way, one knows nothing except the point itself.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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 Message 119 by Faith, posted 08-10-2005 12:21 PM Faith has not replied

Arkansas Banana Boy
Inactive Member


Message 124 of 303 (231935)
08-10-2005 2:32 PM
Reply to: Message 100 by Faith
08-10-2005 8:15 AM


Chickening out
How can we take what you say seriously when you can't justify it scientifically?
Too bad...I was looking forward to another grand blunder(birds on dino shoulders,"pictures" of massive meteor strikes) when Jazzns crowds you into a corner.
ABB

This message is a reply to:
 Message 100 by Faith, posted 08-10-2005 8:15 AM Faith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 125 by Jazzns, posted 08-10-2005 2:50 PM Arkansas Banana Boy has replied

Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 125 of 303 (231945)
08-10-2005 2:50 PM
Reply to: Message 124 by Arkansas Banana Boy
08-10-2005 2:32 PM


Re: Chickening out
I would argue that there is no corner for which to back into. Without a basic understanding of geology there can be no meaningful criticism and therefore no meaningful discussion. Just the same old cycle of rediculous point -> refutation/exposure -> rediculous point -> etc....
Patitent help with the learning part is offered and summarily rejected. No indication that there is even a willingness to learn about the topic of criticism is given.
Two words. Willfull ignorance.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 124 by Arkansas Banana Boy, posted 08-10-2005 2:32 PM Arkansas Banana Boy has replied

Replies to this message:
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Arkansas Banana Boy
Inactive Member


Message 126 of 303 (231960)
08-10-2005 3:10 PM
Reply to: Message 125 by Jazzns
08-10-2005 2:50 PM


Agreed
By having few corners if any the arguments can go circularly forever; locked in some paralell universe throwing intellectual dung at each other.
If Faith wants to even pretend to play the science game, it would seem reasonable to most that she learn some science. The tiny bit she seems to know combined with her "logic" puts more importance to the saying... " A little knowledge is a dangerous thing"
Not that it is important to science... I think geology has survived Faith's disagreement. But perhaps youngsters who lurk here will see that ignorance combined with circular rhetoric are a poor substitute for real world knowledge.
ABB

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by Jazzns, posted 08-10-2005 2:50 PM Jazzns has not replied

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 127 of 303 (232027)
08-10-2005 6:14 PM
Reply to: Message 98 by Silent H
08-10-2005 6:35 AM


Re: Faith and Randman are full of wisdom
Jazzns provided an example of one well log, if you did not understand what a well log was. He showed how OE paradigm can aid in understanding that one log. I was discussing map making using several logs. How do you build a MAP of largescale areas using well logs without an understanding or presuppostion of depositional rules from OE? I asked the question and I deserve an answer.
I think we need to get some terminology straightened out. "OE paradigm" is not the problem. I KNOW that everything is based on OE in the sense that OE is the theory that guides the research and also in the sense that its basic concepts and terminology define the whole geological shebang. This is in fact what makes it so difficult to try to point out what I'm trying to point out. That is, the OE concepts and terminology are so wedded to the factual physical reality or data, that separating them to discuss the problem is almost impossible and so far here just IS impossible to get across.
Obviously "depositional rules" are needed and used, and they are derived from OE because it was under the influence of OE that they were established, and there is no other source of them.
But what I'm trying to say is that their practical utility rests in their being DESCRIPTIVE of the depositional situation rather than EXPLANATORY of it. Descriptively there is no problem, no argument. Descriptively it is all the same because it is factual. That is, descriptively there is neither OE nor YEC, just the actual strata sequences and the rocks and the fossils and the hardness and softness and so on.
As long as the terminology merely describes the actual physical characteristics of the strata configurations in a particular region, we have no argument, as we are simply discussing the objective facts. But since the terminology derives from a theory about the historical origins of these facts, those historical origins are often treated as synonymous with those facts.
What I am trying to do is to SEPARATE the facts themselves from the theory of the origin of those facts. I have no problem whatever with the facts themselves, or with the methods of understanding and determining those facts, the configurations of the strata, the well logs etc, or even with the OE-derived terminology when it is used strictly to describe those facts.
ALL I have a problem with is the idea of the historical origins OF those facts. For instance, what is called a "marine environment" may describe a certain kind or range of sediments and fossil contents in a particular stratum or sequence of strata. These are facts, OK? Facts. On the other hand "marine environment" or "deltaic environment" or "aerial environment" are interpretations or hypothetical explanations of those facts.
NEVERTHELESS, they may be useful terms for calling to mind the characteristics of sediments and fossil contents for particular purposes, including oil exploration, and for helping one to visualize the underground terrain, BUT whether there ever really was an ancient time in which that location WAS in fact a marine environment or any other kind of "environment", such as we now see on the surface of the earth, is purely hypothetical.
Are you following me?
In other words, even the terminology of the "depositional environments" may merely be used to describe the objective underground formations that exist apart from the implicit explanation of their historical origins.
The OE explanations of the origin of the physical phenomena, in the idea of "depositional environments" that purport to describe actual surface topography during an actual ancient time, however useful such concepts no doubt have been for describing actual subterranean geological phenomena, as I have amply acknowledged, nevertheless are in themselves superfluous to any practical purpose beyond this instrumentality.
In fact, again beyond this mere terminological utility, they are not needed and are not used in the practical operations of looking for oil because they are not relevant. The term "depositional environment" isn't even found in most well log discussions. I DID find it in three well log discussions online, very rare occurrences (google: "well-log depositional-environment"). There were really only two as the first two were separate publishings of the same thing:
http://aapg.confex.com/aapg/da2004/techprogram/A87966.htm
Page not found
These systematic changes are interpreted to reflect temporal changes in the depositional landscape as the basin filled. These changes include increasing depositional area, decreasing accommodation, decreasing potential energy, and decreasing confinement.
This is simply explaining a terrain in evolutionist terms, the aim being to describe the supposed historical "landscape" and the well log merely supplies data for this purpose. In other words it is an academic discussion of the expectations of the OE theory rather than a practical plan for finding oil.
and: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/...j.1365-3091.2003.00600.x
This second link does, however, use the concept of ancient depositional "environments" in discussing the mapping of the sequences of strata in a particular area. However, the way the terminology is used is DESCRIPTIVE OF THE PHYSICAL UNDERGROUND TERRAIN, and the interpretation of that terrain's supposed previous existence as a surface topography over a great span of time is merely implicit in the terminology itself, and not of any practical relevance to the aim of discovering oil.
Think that has nothing to do with making maps of an area based on well logs? Think that has nothing to do with estimating where new wells should be dug? Then you are thinking about something other than geology and oil exploration.
You are simply eliding the practical uses of the OE terminology as I'm discussing it above, with their implicit assumption of an ancient historical surface environment. The practical uses as description are acknowledged as necessary, the interpretational assumption is dispensable.
You want some citations to add to the discussion? Fine. I wish I could put on my old strat exercise books just to ask you to draw the maps and explain why you built the map you did, how you connected one well log to the next. But alas I will settle for looking at the use of OE vs YE models in geology and oil exploration.
Nobody is offering a different model for these practical purposes. Despite the tendentious derivation of the concepts and terminology from OE theory, they are instrumentally very useful for practical science, as has been said over and over, and nobody has ever disputed that. ALL that has ever been in dispute is the theory itself of the origin of these terrains that are being mapped. AGAIN, That they ARE mappable underground terrains is not disputed. Certainly they are. Only the explanation of their ORIGINS is disputed. And in fact in the practical work of science those historical origins are truly irrelevant.
More to follow, I should live so long.
This message has been edited by Faith, 08-10-2005 06:26 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 98 by Silent H, posted 08-10-2005 6:35 AM Silent H has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 128 by Jazzns, posted 08-10-2005 6:39 PM Faith has not replied

Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 128 of 303 (232043)
08-10-2005 6:39 PM
Reply to: Message 127 by Faith
08-10-2005 6:14 PM


Re: Faith and Randman are full of wisdom
You have already been shown how your source does in fact reference depositional environments.
You have already been shown via multiple explanations how the theory is important for making accurate predictions of unknown or uncharted strata.
Your post is nothing but a complicated rehash of your idea that the theory can be made independent of the facts without any actual diagnosis of how this is to be done. All of this seems to be based soley on your personal skepticism and incredulity.
I'll ask it again for the 3rd time. Don't you feel that would would have a better argument if you based your criticism on an actual knowledge of basic geology rather than a complete fanciful characterization of it? Wouldn't you like to know what the theory really is before you so summarily dissmiss it as unnecessary based on your personal opinion?
Do you even honestly understand what holmes and I have been presenting as examples?

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This message is a reply to:
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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
Joined: 05-26-2005


Message 129 of 303 (232054)
08-10-2005 7:00 PM


Faith, it's hopeless
my 2 cents
But back to the OP, and I am not sure how oil exploration is related to the OP, but one fundamentalist, a Pentacostal preacher, is a very famous paleontologist by the name of Dr Robert T Bakker.
Considering the man is a fundamentalist preacher, a Pentacostal, it is interesting to me how he was way ahead of the curve in accurately predicting dinosaurs were probably much faster than the mainstream science considered, and probably warm-blooded.
Thus, the notion that fundamentalists are anti-science is totally unfounded.
I believe as well, that a certain prominent geneticists heading up the human genome project, is a believer that the Bible is the word of God, and is a born-againer, by definition a fundie based on the definitions around here.
In fact, some fundamentalists believe in theistic evolution.

Replies to this message:
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 Message 133 by paisano, posted 08-10-2005 10:20 PM randman has replied

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 130 of 303 (232077)
08-10-2005 8:27 PM
Reply to: Message 98 by Silent H
08-10-2005 6:35 AM


Poor straw man is full of schist
Answer to holmes' full-of-schist post pt. 2
But alas I will settle for looking at the use of OE vs YE models in geology and oil exploration.
A lost cause as nobody here has proposed a YE model or disputed the PRACTICAL applications of studies done under the OE model, only the OE theory itself. Please try to keep this in mind even if it doesn't make sense to you because it really is what I mean even if I may later find better words to get it across.
First is a map of the US. This is a great map as it merges both topography and geology. Note that this map is referred to as a tapestry of TIME and terrain. You can play with this page and see how geologists have dated features as well as description of features. Oh yeah, I haven't even asked you for explanations of accreted terrain, but that ought to be interesting.
I love maps and have in fact looked at that one before, but it is frustrating for me as the legend is on a separate page and I don't have a color printer. A map I have wanted to see for some years now is one that shows the mapped sequences of the geo column down to bedrock from sea to shining sea, a sort of peelable onion-layer map you can see into layer by layer. But I suppose all regions aren't mapped yet so it will be a while before I get to see that. However, because of my interest in the formation of the Grand Canyon, well before I came to EvC, I would look at the maps of the surrounding regions, particularly the Great Basin with its north-south system of aquifers and the Colorado river source area.
Anyway.
As for asking me for explanations of some formation or other, if I had geological knowledge I would even as a YEC use exactly the same methods and explanations OE evos use because none of the methods are in dispute. I would even use the disputed concepts where necessary, while mentally converting them to description from interpretation.
I would note that geologists would not need absolute dating to reach something beyond 6-10K age of earth, it is relative dating alone given how structures interact that built old earth paradigms, but you'll see that later.
Okay so, lets go back to Faith's citation of a handbook on oil exploration. It points out and I have already agreed one can use other methods to detect the presence of or find pockets of oil.
And just to say it again, nobody has suggested the use of ANY "OTHER METHODS to detect the presence of or find pockets of oil" than the methods derivable from OE theory.
Those first two cover primary methods of oil exploration, and why shouldn't they? But what about speculation or reading well logs within a field? This time we'll avoid Faith's quotemining (which still didn't help)...
A final method of exploration is the study of stratigraphy. Stratigraphic exploration consists of establishing correlations between wells, matching fossils, strata, rock hardness or softness, and electrical and radioactivity data to determine the origin, composition, distribution, and succession of rock strata. Sample logs, driller's logs, time logs, electrical logs, radioactivity logs, and acoustic logs help geologists predict where oil bearing strata occur... This data is correlated with other information to enhance the chance of finding oil...
Radioactivity Logs, which record both gamma-ray and neutron values, have been in use productively since 1941. Because radioactivity can be measured with precision it can be used to identify different layers within beds....
Maps, including contour, isopach, cross sections, and three dimensional computer images, also aid the petroleum explorer in locating oil and gas. Contour maps give details of subsurface structural features enabling geologists to visualize three dimensional structures. Contour maps include information about porosity, permeability, and structural arrangements such as faults, pinch-outs, salt domes, and old shorelines.
There is nothing in that entire passage (with one exception that is only apparent and not real) that does anything but describe sheer physical realities which are not in dispute by anybody. NONE of it (again with that one exception) describes a historically ancient terrain or "environment" but ONLY the actual physical features of an actual depositional terrain, age undetermined, that can be mapped. The one exception mentioned is the term "old shorelines." Clearly this invokes the OE theory. NEVERTHELESS it is used in this context as description and its supposed historical actuality is irrelevant to that purpose. OE terminology always contains such assumptions, but in fact they are not practically necessary and ANY theory of age whatever would not change the actual physical picture or the methods for exploring its characteristics.
So stratigraphy, as I said and you denied,
Have done no such thing. Where do you think I said that? Everything I have said has acknowledged the legitimacy of stratigraphic methods.
[So stratigraphy...]helps in oil exploration via creating maps by identifying rock beds, using among other things radioactive dating to match strata, and identification of their nature such as things like ohhhh let's say: old shorelines.
Yes, as I've acknowledged above, and I didn't catch that term the first time around. But again, it is the only clear reference to the theory of ancient "depositional environments" and again, it is used purely descriptively, to encapsulate the characteristics of that particular part of the underground terrain. (And, if it helps to know how I can accept such an idea while denying an OE, I assume that the Flood would have left MANY "shorelines" in its slow retreat.)
Once again I ask you to deal with the reality of geology in oil exploration. How do stratigraphers not use OE paradigms, when they construct large scale maps using radioactive dating (productively I might note) and concepts such as shorelines?
They do use them, as discussed.
But let's look for more discussion. Here is a page on petroleum geology. You will note that it says:
In terms of source rock analysis, several facts need to be established. Firstly, the question of whether there actually is any source rock in the area must be answered. Delineation and identification of potential source rocks depends on studies of the local stratigraphy, palaeogeography and sedimentology to determine the likelihood of organic-rich sediments having been deposited in the past.
Nobody has objected to stratigraphy or even palaeogeography, stratigraphy merely describing the practical work of mapping underground geological formations no matter what their theoretical origins, and palaeogeography addressing the objective fossil contents of the various strata, all objective facts, simple factual description, none of which is in dispute, merely the assumptions of old age the theories contain, and that doesn't have a practical use in these explorations (despite appearances since it is taken for granted).
But let's say abiogenesis of oil becomes the predominate theory and so source rock is no longer necessary, then that still leaves the search for reservoir rock...
The existence of a reservoir rock (typically, sandstones and fractured limestones) is determined through a combination of regional studies (i.e. analysis of other wells in the area), stratigraphy and sedimentology (to quantify the pattern and extent of sedimentation) and seismic interpretation.
Paleogeography should be obvious and lets dismiss it casually as being a creation of those evilutionists. What is stratigraphy?
Stratigraphy, a branch of geology, is basically the study of rock layers and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. The subject was essentially invented and first rigorously applied by William Smith in England in the 1790s and early 1800s. Smith, known as the Father of English Geology, created the first geologic map of England and first recognized the significance of strata or rock layering.
Hmmmm...
Key elements of stratigraphy involve understanding how certain geometric relationships between rock layers arise and what these geometries mean in terms of depositional environment. One of stratigraphy's basic concepts is codified in the Law of Superposition, which simply states that, in an undeformed stratigraphic sequence, the oldest strata occur at the base of the sequence.
But this is true no matter how old the rocks are. Nobody disputes such a common sense formulation. I've quoted the Law of Superposition myself on this site.
Note that I left in that last sentence as a nod (or thumb to nose) to your suggestion that lower equals older.
And I corrected that ridiculous misrepresentation of my point. My point was that instead of describing the phenomena in terms of time, it would be more useful to describe it in terms of space and physical characteristics, and since pre-cambrian rock is USUALLY way at the bottom of most formations there's nothing wrong with it as a casual reference to make the point, and the strata are considered to have characteristic locations in the column anyway, right, which is where the idea of time came from in the first place. So instead of describing it in terms of time, I'm saying it would be more useful simply to describe it in terms of its basic physical characteristics, its fossil contents if any, its relatedness to other strata and rock formations and its characteristic position in the geo column etc.
Here we see that that is only true in undeformed sequences, and indeed it is things like erosion and deformation which give stratigraphers their jobs, and that requires understanding depositional environments!
Correction: It requires understanding the geological phenomena that are (tendentiously/question-beggingly) DESCRIBED as depositional environments.
And just to add to your understanding of geology, relative age dating, OE, and evolution, here is the following...
Biostratigraphy or paleontologic stratigraphy is based on fossil evidence in the rock layers. Strata from widespread locations containing the same fossil fauna and flora are correlatable in time.
Sure, theoretically according to OE, but not in any sense demonstrably, at least in terms of extremely long ages and I haven't yet seen a practical use for this idea.
Biologic stratigraphy was based on William Smith's principle of faunal succession, which predated, and was one of the first and most powerful lines of evidence for, biological evolution. It provides strong evidence for formation (speciation) of and the extinction of species. The geologic time scale was developed during the 1800s based on the evidence of biologic stratigraphy and faunal succession. This timescale remained a relative scale until the development of radiometric dating, which gave it and the stratigraphy it was based on an absolute time framework, leading to the development of chronostratigraphy.
Yes, all that is well known. It created the whole evo catastrophe. It is the theory under dispute. And in this case, I see no practical applications from it and you have as yet shown none.
Now let's put this altogether. Stratigraphic mapping is based on concepts of depositional models.
Which nobody has disputed, merely the theory of the creation of the depositional "environments" as ancient landscapes.
Stratigraphy at its inception accumulated relative age data of structures which itself refuted YE and suggested not just OE but because of the ordering of life in strata, evolution.
Historically quite correct.
This was later corroborated by radioactive dating.
It is contested.
Depositional models, which involve concepts foreign to flood hypotheses, and radioactive dating, which corroborates relative age dates beyond YE, are used by modern stratigraphers to make maps which can identify source or reservoir rock.
Not at all foreign to some flood hypotheses, and you have not shown that there is any practical usefulness in the dating methods. As with all the OE concepts they no doubt inform a background mental set that has fed the various practical methodologies, but the methodologies stand on their own despite their embeddedness in question-begging terminology, and the theory itself is of no real practical utility and may well be false.
Okay, so who care about evidence for what those evilutionist stratigraphers say they use anyway, right? Evidence that geologists use creo models. especially successful models, would say something just the same. So where are they?
The methods used are not disputed by creos. Only the theory that they are unfortunately embedded in.
Here is an article on a guy that claims to have predicted a major oil find under the dead sea, and is looking for investors, based on YE/Flood models. The review is biased of course as the author is skeptical. But have a look. Maybe you want to invest. I have no idea of that regional geology, but personally I wouldn't put money in unless a depositional environment likely to trap or form oil was offered from an OE paradigm.
Now if this single guy is doing it, then there must be others, right?
There are many nutty flood theories, and the older ones that were overthrown by OE theory certainly deserved to be overthrown no matter what I think of OE theory. I don't subscribe to any of them. But the idea that such a world-wide catastrophe would be discoverable only in some difficult-to-find layer is ludicrous to my mind, but in this discussion I am not interested in anything having to do with flood theory. I am simply trying to conceptually separate out the useful practical methodologies that have sprung up within the OE theoretical framework from that framework itself.
Here's a guy that is supposedly a real geologist and YEC. who pitched YEC models to an oil company. Guess what the answer was...
When I was finishing my Ph.D. work, having developed a real love for petroleum exploration, I approached the research branch of a major oil company with a proposal. Pointing out that an exploration program based on old-earth/uniformitarian concepts doesn't work very well (only about one exploration well in 50 produces enough oil to pay for itself), I proposed that this company establish a team of young-earth creationist/catastrophists to see if a better exploration program could be developed.
To fund a research team of five or so creationist geologists for several years would cost about the same as one dry hole. Certainly we couldn't do any worse.
Unfortunately, my proposal was not accepted (maybe this was good, for I took a university faculty position and eventually ended up at ICR). I still don't know for sure if a Flood-geology approach would work better, but I think it could. At least it wouldn't be based on a wrong premise.
I'm not sure what particular concepts would be different in their thinking from OE thinking, but it's an interesting thought. It's also interesting of course that OE only has 1 in 50 hits at finding oil, which may or may not be the fault of the theory, since the geological mapping ought to be quite useful in any case, and certainly any actual association between actual oil finds and particular structures would be useful, regardless of the theory of how it all got that way. But if the poor record of finds is a flaw in the theory, that would be interesting to know. I guess we'll just wait and see.
YEC geologists in oil firms. Are there figures for this? Not that I could find. But I sure did find an interesting anecdotal account...
For years I struggled to understand how the geologic data I worked with everyday could be fit into a Biblical perspective. Being a physics major in college I had no geology courses. Thus, as a young Christian, when I was presented with the view that Christians must believe in a young-earth and global flood, I went along willingly. I knew there were problems but I thought I was going to solve them... I finally found work as a geophysicist working for a seismic company. Within a year, I was processing seismic data for Atlantic Richfield.
This was where I first became exposed to the problems geology presented to the idea of a global flood...
I worked hard over the next few years to solve these problems. I published 20+ items in the Creation Research Society Quarterly. I would listen to ICR, have discussions with people like Slusher, Gish, Austin, Barnes and also discuss things with some of their graduates that I had hired.
In order to get closer to the data and know it better, with the hope of finding a solution, I changed subdivisions of my work in 1980. I left seismic processing and went into seismic interpretation where I would have to deal with more geologic data. My horror at what I was seeing only increased...
The previous cited author who attempted to convince an oil company to do YEC research challenged this author at a conference. This author revealed the other author's claim to be working for an oil company to be fraudulent. Whoops. He goes on...
Not following. But the other author didn't claim to be working for an oil company, he said he didn't get the job and went on to work for ICR didn't he?. So you mean THAT guy who didn't work for an oil company challenged THIS guy who claims he did lo these many years of supposed investigations into flood theory? Does this serve your purpose here? Doesn't this suggest that the guy who is obviously in the process of debunking flood theories was lying? This same guy who goes on as you quote:
But eventually, by 1994 I was through with young-earth creationISM. Nothing that young-earth creationists had taught me about geology turned out to be true. I took a poll of my ICR graduate friends who have worked in the oil industry. I asked them one question.
"From your oil industry experience, did any fact that you were taught at ICR, which challenged current geological thinking, turn out in the long run to be true? ,"
That is a very simple question. One man, Steve Robertson, who worked for Shell grew real silent on the phone, sighed and softly said 'No!' A very close friend that I had hired at Arco, after hearing the question, exclaimed, "Wait a minute. There has to be one!" But he could not name one. I can not name one. No one else could either. One man I could not reach, to ask that question, had a crisis of faith about two years after coming into the oil industry. I do not know what his spiritual state is now but he was in bad shape the last time I talked to him.
But didn't you just show that this guy who is reporting these supposed interviews was lying about his years in the industry?
I can well imagine how crises of faith come about. Sorting out all the facts is obviously not easy.
Well that sure was enlightening. You guys find me any geologist, especially an oil exploration geologist that does not end up using OE paradigms. I would seriously like answers to some of the issues I and this last author have found in the geological record, and are necessary for dealing with when making maps.
Once again, as you sit there with that straw man reduced to shreds all over the place where you have to beat him straw by straw, NOBODY has said the OE paradigms aren't used or don't work!! They are useful for making maps. As long as they are describing actual objective physical realities there is no problem. As soon as they start taking themselves seriously as descriptions of ancient landscapes I protest.
It seems to me you guys are making an argument along the lines of "No one really needs atomic theory to do chemistry, its just reading what's on the labels, using detectors of some kind, and looking at a periodical chart... which doesn't really have to mean anything about actual elements."
I guess you gathered those poor tattered straws back into a bundle for another go round. No, nobody has any problem with any science that is testable and replicable like chemistry, only with far-out imaginative scenarios like the ToE and the geo time scale, that are glued onto the data rather than organically related to them. Science goes on in SPITE of these theories, not because of them except in the most superficial instrumental way, whereas chemistry and atomic theory have a long history of tested established principles that have built upon one another and are used every single day in doing more chemistry and atomic theory.
That is you are taking for granted, the products of models and tools which inherently include OE paradigms, and you just haven't figured it out because you don't go to the actual data to see how it gets processed for your use.
Poor poor straw man.
This message has been edited by Faith, 08-10-2005 09:42 PM
This message has been edited by Faith, 08-10-2005 09:44 PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 98 by Silent H, posted 08-10-2005 6:35 AM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 138 by Silent H, posted 08-11-2005 6:02 AM Faith has replied

Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 131 of 303 (232079)
08-10-2005 8:30 PM
Reply to: Message 98 by Silent H
08-10-2005 6:35 AM


Poor straw man is full of schist
Sorry, duplicate post
This message has been edited by Faith, 08-10-2005 08:31 PM

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 132 of 303 (232081)
08-10-2005 8:32 PM
Reply to: Message 129 by randman
08-10-2005 7:00 PM


Re: Faith, it's hopeless
Sure it's hopeless but might as well go out fighting.

This message is a reply to:
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paisano
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 459
From: USA
Joined: 05-07-2004


Message 133 of 303 (232114)
08-10-2005 10:20 PM
Reply to: Message 129 by randman
08-10-2005 7:00 PM


Re: Faith, it's hopeless
Recall that in the OP, the qualifier "many", not "all", was used in the statement
More generally ,many fundamentalists regard the process of open scientific inquiry as inimical to , and in conflict with, their religious beliefs.
We can certainly debate the meaning of "fundamentalist", but obviously the OP does not apply to those that do not fall under the qualifiers of the OP.
I believe as well, that a certain prominent geneticists heading up the human genome project, is a believer that the Bible is the word of God, and is a born-againer, by definition a fundie based on the definitions around here.
If you are referring to Francis Collins, yes, AFAIK he is an Evangelical, and also AFAIK he accepts the theory of evolution and has made recent statements opposing Discovery Institute ID. If you have references to the contrary, let us know.
In fact, some fundamentalists believe in theistic evolution.
There certainly exist evangelicals in this category, so again it depends on how specific the term fundamentalist is.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 129 by randman, posted 08-10-2005 7:00 PM randman has replied

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paisano
Member (Idle past 6422 days)
Posts: 459
From: USA
Joined: 05-07-2004


Message 134 of 303 (232117)
08-10-2005 10:42 PM
Reply to: Message 130 by Faith
08-10-2005 8:27 PM


Re: Poor straw man is full of schist
A lost cause as nobody here has proposed a YE model or disputed the PRACTICAL applications of studies done under the OE model...
Sure, theoretically according to OE, but not in any sense demonstrably, at least in terms of extremely long ages and I haven't yet seen a practical use for this idea.
One discussion topic that has not come up yet is how geologists evaluate "timing and migration" in a prospective petroleum basin. This is another instance in which OE based ages are at the very heart of the methodologies used.
Even if a petroleum basin has the right configuration of source rock, reservoir rock, and cap rock (and sound OE based arguments for how this is evaluated have already been made in this thread), there still is the question of whether the source rock is at the right maturity to generate petroleum.
Undermature, and the source rock has organic matter that is not yet petroleum (kerogen, bitumen). Overmature, and the source rock is starting to become metamorphic rock and is beyond the petroleum generating phase. The source rock has to be at the right maturity for petroleum formation and migration of the petroleum into the reservoir rock.
These are inescapably age based questions ,and OE age based questions at that. This is not empty theorizing, as you seem to think. This is a practical problem that simply cannot be solved without reference to OE ages.
Your denial of this does not make the facts go away.
If you think we on the board are just making this up, do a Google search on "petroleum basin modeling" or "petroleum timing and migration". Real major petroleum companies are paying real money to small firms that specialize in doing this kind of work, which very much involves applications of the facts of OE.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 130 by Faith, posted 08-10-2005 8:27 PM Faith has replied

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randman 
Suspended Member (Idle past 4898 days)
Posts: 6367
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Message 135 of 303 (232126)
08-10-2005 11:51 PM
Reply to: Message 133 by paisano
08-10-2005 10:20 PM


Re: Faith, it's hopeless
So how you are defining fundamentalists. Most IDers and many YECers are not fundamentalists in the narrow religious sense of the term, which refers to non-Charismatic/Pentecostals that hold to certain literal intrepretations of the Bible and generally conservative philosophy.
If you are classifying anyone that holds to the Bible as the word of God, even the literal word of God, then all evangelicals are indeed fundamentalists. They adhere to the fundamentals of the faith.
Young Earth Creationism is not generally considered a tenet exclusive to or central to Christian fundamentalists.
Plenty "fundamentalist" Christians don't actually hold to YEC and some do. If you ask Francis Collins if he believes Jesus rose from the dead, really walked on the water, that the Bible is the word of God, etc, etc,...I suspect from what I have read that he would answer in the affirmative. Same with Bakker.

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