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Author Topic:   Solving the Mystery of the Biblical Flood II
wmscott
Member (Idle past 6238 days)
Posts: 580
From: Sussex, WI USA
Joined: 12-19-2001


Message 62 of 234 (27656)
12-22-2002 2:51 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by Percy
12-21-2002 9:24 PM


Dear Percy;
quote:
The spacing of the two visible prongs in your photograph is closer together and would yield 9 or 10 prongs, not the 7 of the reference photograph. The prongs do not have the same shape. Most of the prongs, if they were ever present, are missing. None of the other structures from the reference photo are evident in your photo, such as the narrow inner prongs. I can only make a visual comparison, and on that basis these two photos do not appear at all alike.
The diatom in my picture is not laying flat, it is tipped at an angle which alters the appearance of the spacing. The drying or decomposition and wear and tear has also effected the appearance as well. But the overall structure is still visible and matches the reference diatom better than the "sticklike figures that must be the Thassalionema." As you pointed out, my shot is a picture of a single diatom which makes identification much easier than a jumbled distant group shot. I will make you an offer, I would be willing to drop my claim of identification of this diatom, if you can offer a better identification. If it is not what I claim, show me what it really is then. For if the one thing in the universe that it most resembles is a Asterolampra Marylandica, then that is what it must be.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by Percy, posted 12-21-2002 9:24 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 64 by Percy, posted 12-23-2002 12:32 AM wmscott has not replied
 Message 67 by Percy, posted 12-24-2002 6:12 PM wmscott has replied

  
Tranquility Base
Inactive Member


Message 63 of 234 (27679)
12-22-2002 7:00 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by wmscott
12-22-2002 1:29 PM


Wmscott
There is no requirement for or mention of a major reshaping of the literal earth's surface.
I think you'll find that reading the literally hundreds of verses littered throughout scripture on reshaping valleys and mountains might probably be descriptions of the flood. You can claim they are creation week events but I think they are both. I cant prove it to you.
In fact YEC's reshaping of the earth was never a Christian doctrine until after the discovery of the GC, at which time it was invented as a way of trying to explain away the obvious great age shown in the GC. If it was really taught by the Bible, why didn't any one teach it before the discovery of the GC?
God is continuing to unfold his word to us. Some of it is more relevant in this scientific age than it was earlier.
Read verse twenty, it was the people in the ark who were 'baptized' by the waters, not the earth. A baptism is a dedication, it is not just a dunking.
I believe it was both. Neither of us can prove anything here Wm.
The length of time as shown by the growth of plant roots and animal activity is far too long to fit in the time frame of the biblical flood.
We would simply claim that these are uprooted plants buried in transported soil and rock sediment. It is simply an assumpiton by you and mainstram sceince that these are genuine soil horizons.
The flood was about a year in length, how much time can you allow for this formation and the formations below it to form, then to be exposed, then animals rush in and make traces and then the area is reflooded, and so on.
Of course ultimately, in each geographical location, it would be nice to have an inventory of the entire evidence for habitaiton. In the absence of that, the evidence I have seen so far is explanable within the realms of possiblity by the flood so I will assume the flood model is still alive.
So you have these periodic flood surges that come in and drop a sand layer and then depart, why doesn't this hermit formation extend out into the sea floor from where the surges come from? How could the flood level retreat without depositing any hermit sand outside the area of the formation? and why is the deposit not made up of different types of material if the water keep surging in and out of the area?
These freshwater layers do grade into marine beds as one trsaverses horizonally. It fits the flood model perfectly. Your issues of composition favour our model better than yours.
The incredible purity of beds throughout the geo-col are fantastic evidence of hydropdynamic sorting.
As far as I know, nearly all YECs have abandoned the canopy theory because they all see the obvious impossibilities with it.
I fully agree the canopy model is dead. In our model catastrophic tectonics would have boiled significant water to create vast freshwater beds. I allow for possibility of an extrateristial origin of water as well (eg comet).
The absence of marine traces in these formations is fatal to YEC flood theories.
Not at all. Inbetween surges there should be no marine evidence.
And even if you could come up with another major source of freshwater, there is the problem that when rivers enter the sea, the freshwater flows over the top of the more dense saltwater. Even a large 'pocket' of freshwater would rise to the top and salt water would flow beneath it. As the sediments from the freshwater dropped to the bottom, they would pass through and be deposited in saltwater.
This is irrelevant. The nature of the beds are determines from the fossil types anyway.
Currents would of course rapidly mix any 'pockets' of freshwater into the saltwater, mixing marine traces into them. Even a fresh water rain on exposed ground between your 'flood surges' will not work, for each flood surge will deposit a layer of marine traces on the surface when the water returns which are not found in none marine formations.
I think you have missed what we are really proposing. The gross structure of any local geocol might typicaly be:
marine groups (2000 feet)
freswhwater groups (500 feet)
marine groups (2000 feet)
freswhwater groups (500 feet)
marine groups (2000 feet)
freswhwater groups (500 feet)
covering, for example, the entire Paleozoic or Mesozoic in three cycles. At he boundaries there may be small scale oscialations between marine and freshwater but at the gorss level the above is a good first order description of a typical 200 million years of geo-col.
So we explain it as 3 or 4 marine surges with freshwater depositon in between. No contradiciton and, in fact, it is the same explanation that mainestream science uses except they we replace 'transgression/regression' with 'surge'.
Using a heavy rain on still exposed hills to wash down material onto lower also exposed elevations, also runs into problems. As pointed out above, the amount of rain that fell while large, was not a major source of flood water. This limits such erosional effects to reasonable sizes, as we would expect to find in areas that today experience extreme rain fall events.
You have missed the point that the freshwater flows would erode the soft recently laid marine beds (during marine regression) in highlands as well as pre-flood rocks. And who knows the volume with tectonically generated rain?
Then there is the problem of the rain, the Bible states it lasted 40 days and ended, yet most deposits show layering with a dry surfaces that recorded foot prints and plant grown, with a single 40 day rain you would at most have only one such surface when the rain ended.
Are you referring to freshwater beds I presume? During shallow flows there is nothing stopping multuple levels of temporary habitaiton and these environments do not have to be 'dry'.
So there is no way YEC can account for multiple dry surfaces in non marine formations. Then we have the non marine formations that are wind blown with reworking with plant growth in-between the reworking, under YEC the wind reworking had to occur after the rain ended and before the water rose high enough to cover them. Such deposits require time for the plant growth to occur a number of times and yet are frequently found beneath many layers that YEC claims as flood deposits.
I've pointed out our answers to aparent paleosoils, eolian and evaporite deposts on many occasions.
Also if the flood was so erosive that it picked up so much sediments in it's waters, why weren't the areas that were affected by 'flood surge' deposits, later washed away when the flood waters covered them to later deposit the formations above them?
They were washed away!! Just like in the mainstream model we do not claim the geo-col is complete. There were probably entire formations laid in any local geo-col that are not evident. The highlands would have been covered by marine sediments that were eroded away during retreat. the mainstream claim that only 50% of the land surface has been simultaneoulsy covered by marine transgression is utterly ridiculous. With the amount of the geo-col missing as we all know that 50% is a lower limit.
And if the flood switched from erosion to depositing before reaching that elevation, then there should have been no erosion above that elevation, only deposition on top of what was already there including the 'sediment hills.' Yet this has not been found or even claimed by YECs.
I think you need to explain that again. The flood eroded from highlands and deposited into basins just like everyone would expect.
Actually I prefer it since the scriptures do not support YEC, and any detailed examination of scripture will rapidly bring to light how YECs frequently twist Bible verses to try to vainly support their man-made theories.
I simply disagree. The Scriptures plainly talk of creation 6000 years ago with a flood 4500 years ago. The creation week details are described in a time sequence as well.
Perhaps the biggest difference between us is, I don't claim that the Bible states my theory is how the flood happened.
I do my creation research and education as part of a local congregation under the authority of our eldership. I am not a one-man show and what I am saying is part of our local declaration of the gospel. So if you have a problem with my interpretaion then it is with the body of elders from my church Australasia-wide.
I accept the Bible as the inspired word of God, but I also recognise that any interpretation of that word is prone to human error.
So do I.
If I am proved wrong, it is just my theory that is disproved.
I am not declaring a theory. I am declaring what our eldership has declared to be the gospel and I have found the scientific data mostly fits it like a glove when we take creation and the flood literally.
And we have yet to even deal with the problems I raised with rapid plate movement in post number 344 in the old thread.
I'll get to that over X-mas.
[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 12-22-2002]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by wmscott, posted 12-22-2002 1:29 PM wmscott has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 65 by wmscott, posted 12-23-2002 7:33 PM Tranquility Base has replied
 Message 66 by Coragyps, posted 12-23-2002 9:09 PM Tranquility Base has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 64 of 234 (27706)
12-23-2002 12:32 AM
Reply to: Message 62 by wmscott
12-22-2002 2:51 PM


wmscott writes:
The diatom in my picture is not laying flat, it is tipped at an angle which alters the appearance of the spacing.
Human visual perception has no problem making distance assessments with perspective. That is why the tick marks at the top of a clock face when viewed from the side seem the same distance apart as those on the sides. Here are the photos again, yours on the left, the reference photo on the right:
Your problem is not to convince non-experts such as myself that you've made a proper identification. To my inexpert eye these do not appear to be very similar. I suggest you put your findings in a paper. Or just include them in a letter to an expert in the field, perhaps the authors of one of your reference books. As I keep saying, perhaps your picture is precisely what a Asterolampra Marylandica looks like after 10,000 years, but how would *I* know. It does you no good to press non-experts about this. To the untrained eye the two photos don't resemble each other. To the trained eye maybe the resemblance is striking, but I don't have a trained eye, and you've provided no hint that you do, either.
But the overall structure is still visible and matches the reference diatom better than the "sticklike figures that must be the Thassalionema." As you pointed out, my shot is a picture of a single diatom which makes identification much easier than a jumbled distant group shot.
Well, of course a close-up makes identification easier, but the article with the photo (Page not found | Stanford School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences) was simply presenting a picture of a diatom-filled clast, not attempting to justify diatom identifications as you are. As they say in the article, "Diatoms within the Sirius Group have been found at 12 of 14 localities sampled, in varying abundance (Harwood, 1986a, 1986b). They commonly are highly fragmented as both isolated clasts in the matrix and within clasts of diatomite up to 240 mm in diameter (Figs. 3, 4)." And so they provided a picture of a clast in Figure 4. They were not writing an article about identifying fossil diatom species.
I will make you an offer, I would be willing to drop my claim of identification of this diatom, if you can offer a better identification. If it is not what I claim, show me what it really is then. For if the one thing in the universe that it most resembles is a Asterolampra Marylandica, then that is what it must be.
First, the logic in this is completely backwards from a scientific perspective. And second, once again you're asking the wrong person. What weight do you think it would carry if you convinced people here. There you are presenting your paper to an audience of geologists and saying, "The people over at EvC Forum are convinced that my diatom identifications are correct." Yeah, that will carry a lot of weight.
I suggest you consult knowledgeable people. I also suggest you gather more samples to strengthen your identification, ie, replication.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 62 by wmscott, posted 12-22-2002 2:51 PM wmscott has not replied

  
wmscott
Member (Idle past 6238 days)
Posts: 580
From: Sussex, WI USA
Joined: 12-19-2001


Message 65 of 234 (27759)
12-23-2002 7:33 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Tranquility Base
12-22-2002 7:00 PM


Dear Tranquility Base;
quote:
I think you'll find that reading the literally hundreds of verses littered throughout scripture on reshaping valleys and mountains might probably be descriptions of the flood. You can claim they are creation week events but I think they are both. I cant prove it to you.
As I have said before, the fact that you can't prove it should tell you something. I think you exaggerate greatly about hundreds of verses, I can think of only a few off hand that you may be referring to. I would be happy to discuss the interpretation of any such verses with you and show you how none of them require or clearly indicate a YEC type flood has occurred. If you have problems locating your verses, I would recommend you get a reference bible CD with which you will be able to do word searches for what you are looking for.
I had stated that only the people in the ark were symbolically baptised by the flood waters and not the literal earth, to which you replied.
quote:
I believe it was both. Neither of us can prove anything here Wm.
Actually I did prove my point by pointing out that without a willful decision to commit oneself to God, there can not be a baptism. The physical earth being an inanimate object is incapable of deciding to dedicate itself to God. Unless you can find a scriptural way around this problem, you have conceded the point. As a result your connected claim on this that the Bible condemns modern geology, fails as well.
quote:
We would simply claim that these are uprooted plants buried in transported soil and rock sediment. It is simply an assumpiton by you and mainstram sceince that these are genuine soil horizons.
Assumptions can be tested by examining the evidence and proven true or false. An examination of many of these examples has conclusively shown these examples to be genuine. For example, why are the trees and other plants be found all level with the old ground level if it isn't real? How can YEC explain how plants sinking in sediments can all end up at the right positions with an apparent old ground level? If these trees sank in the sediments, why are their tops missing?
quote:
I fully agree the canopy model is dead. In our model catastrophic tectonics would have boiled significant water to create vast freshwater beds. I allow for possibility of an extrateristial origin of water as well (eg comet).
I covered both alternative sources of water you mention in my book in the chapter on canopy theories, they both suffer from the same impossible fatal flaw, they would both release too much heat which would result in sterilizing the entire earth, ark and all. We know that nether of these events has occurred on a scale large enough to supply a major part of flood waters, for example you claim the animal traces found in the GC were created by animals after the 40 days of rain and before they drowned in the flood, the steam would have killed them before they could have made any tracks. Even under YEC, since we have the tracks, there could not have been a huge release of steam at the time of the flood. This limits the flood rain intensity to what could be expected in heavy rain events as seen in modern times.
quote:
You have missed the point that the freshwater flows would erode the soft recently laid marine beds (during marine regression) in highlands as well as pre-flood rocks.
No I didn't miss it, the lack of marine traces precludes it as a possibility. Marine sediments reworked by freshwater would still contain reworked marine trace fossils. Rain also is incapable of instantly turning rocks into sediments, it does happen slowly over long periods of time, but that doesn't fit at all with a YEC flood. Which is why I said you would need hills of sediments ready to be washed way by the rain, since there wasn't enough time in the biblical flood for rain to dissolve large quantities of rock.
quote:
I think you need to explain that again. The flood eroded from highlands and deposited into basins just like everyone would expect.
That would eliminate your flood surges! It also would reraise the question of how animal tracks where buried in the GC if they occurred after the rain had stopped and the area was above water.
quote:
The Scriptures plainly talk of creation 6000 years ago with a flood 4500 years ago. The creation week details are described in a time sequence as well.
The creative days described in Genesis are not literal days as shown by the fact that we are still in the seventh day. If the seventh day of the creative week is already over 6,000 years long, the other days could have covered long periods of time as well. Use of the term day in regard to creation is also shown to refer to periods of time rather than actual literal days is shown by Genesis 2:4 where the six creative days are referred to as one day. So there is no scriptural support for the YEC interpretation that the biblical creative days are literal days.
quote:
I do my creation research and education as part of a local congregation under the authority of our eldership. I am not a one-man show and what I am saying is part of our local declaration of the gospel. So if you have a problem with my interpretaion then it is with the body of elders from my church Australasia-wide.
I had assumed you had some sort of religious affiliation and some connection with YEC groups. Yes, I do believe your church elders are in error and have taken a turn down the wrong path. The question is do you want to follow them even if they are wrong? Remember Matthew 7:21-23.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Tranquility Base, posted 12-22-2002 7:00 PM Tranquility Base has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 86 by Tranquility Base, posted 01-12-2003 5:24 PM wmscott has not replied
 Message 87 by Tranquility Base, posted 01-12-2003 9:37 PM wmscott has replied

  
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 725 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 66 of 234 (27761)
12-23-2002 9:09 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Tranquility Base
12-22-2002 7:00 PM


quote:
The creation week details are described in a time sequence as well.
Or two distinct time sequences, if you use both creation stories.....

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Tranquility Base, posted 12-22-2002 7:00 PM Tranquility Base has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 67 of 234 (27803)
12-24-2002 6:12 PM
Reply to: Message 62 by wmscott
12-22-2002 2:51 PM


Here are some additional diatom candidates, assuming your picture is of an actual diatom:
Plate P4.
The splines of the Asterolampra marylandica appear sufficiently different in this photo as to actively discourage your ID. On the other hand, the splines of the Asteromphalus heptactis have the same apparent shape as those that can be made out in your photo, and the splines are not equally spaced, removing the issue about number of splines.
My own opinion is that your photo is not of sufficient quality to allow any definite identification whatsoever, at least not by a non-expert. I know I'm repeating myself, but identification becomes a real skill when an object may have been greatly modified by time and the elements. How do you even know your object is a diatom and not some other of the infinite forms of microscopic life? Even if you had a positive ID you've still got the age problem to solve. And you need more than a single sample of each diatom type to have convincing IDs.
I don't think your photos and and the reference photos look much like each other. If they're actually of the same diatoms then you need confirmation by an expert, not by EvC Forum members.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 62 by wmscott, posted 12-22-2002 2:51 PM wmscott has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 68 by wmscott, posted 12-27-2002 10:13 AM Percy has replied

  
wmscott
Member (Idle past 6238 days)
Posts: 580
From: Sussex, WI USA
Joined: 12-19-2001


Message 68 of 234 (27972)
12-27-2002 10:13 AM
Reply to: Message 67 by Percy
12-24-2002 6:12 PM


Dear Percy;
quote:
the splines of the Asteromphalus heptactis have the same apparent shape as those that can be made out in your photo, and the splines are not equally spaced, removing the issue about number of splines.
I knew you had it in you Percy! Very good, Asteromphalus heptactis was my second choice. I had passed it over in favor of Asterolampra Marylandica due to the large pattern in the center that doesn't show up in my picture. I took the picture and ran it through an adobe focus program that is suppose to improve the clarity. You may want to try this if you have a copy. What shows up better is a a spline on the bottom half that lines up with the left one on the top. Since an equal spacing of seven splines would not result in any lining up across the center, I thought that perhaps that would countermand my identification, but then I found this. "Asterolampra Marylandica-Diameter ranges from 50 - 150um. Identified by number of hyaline rays. A. Marylandica has 4 - 12 with the most common being 7 rays." So the number of splines is variable in this species, like I was telling you earlier, not all members of a species are identical. ( I couldn't get your link to work, perhaps you could fix it, I would like to see what you have.) As I told you, once you have the pictures side by side, identification is not that hard. The only real problem is getting a clear enough picture in which the necessary details are visible. Last week for example I saw several of what may have been Asterolampra Marylandica diatoms, but the spline structure was not visible at all, so I couldn't make a species identification.
So even if you are not an expert Percy, I do get some good input from you. It seems to be quite valuable to air my theories in a hostile environment and see what has holes in it. That way I will hopefully look like less of a fool when I try and publish this stuff. You have also made a valid point on indenfication, I do need to get better reference books consisdering that the one I have didn't even mention anything about the variable number of splines of Asterolampra Marylandica.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 67 by Percy, posted 12-24-2002 6:12 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 69 by Percy, posted 12-29-2002 2:36 PM wmscott has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 69 of 234 (28066)
12-29-2002 2:36 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by wmscott
12-27-2002 10:13 AM


You're focusing on the incidental content in my posts to you. The specifics of diatom IDs by non-experts such as you or me are unimportant. It is your general approach and methods that are questionable. Diatom IDs are but one example of your general problem, and they are instructively helpful in pointing out the inadequacies of your approach because they are indicative of the types of deficiencies prevalent in all your ideas:
  1. You have to establish that what you're looking at is a diatom. If there was a strong resemblance between your photo and the reference photo then this question would be satisfied, but there is no such resemblance.
  2. Once you've established it's a diatom, you have to establish the type of the diatom. Given the great disparity in appearance, you are not going to convince anyone that you've made an unequivocal ID.
  3. You have to establish the origin of the diatom, ie, whether it was wind, glacier or otherwise transported.
  4. You have to establish the age of the diatom. That there is apparently no way to do this does not diminish its importance.
  5. You need to explain why other geologists aren't finding marine diatoms in Wisconsin. Any paper you write would have to address this.
The conversation you should be having with yourself should go something like this: "This is obvious to me, but how do I go about making it obvious to others?" As I keep telling you, determined repetition of your position is not going to work. You need more evidence.
It seems to be quite valuable to air my theories in a hostile environment and see what has holes in it. That way I will hopefully look like less of a fool when I try and publish this stuff.
This is not a hostile environment. As I've said several times already, many of us would welcome a new perspective to explore, a fresh paradigm for interpreting the evidence. How exciting it would be! We're objecting not to your ideas, but to your inability to recognize the insufficiency of your evidence. People in the habit of accepting ideas with such poor evidence as you have also accept the evidence for ESP, flying saucers and spoon bending.
You *will* look the fool if you insist on not listening to the helpful feedback you're getting here. When your paper on the identification of marine diatoms in Wisconsin is rejected, are you planning to do the same thing you do here and write them back asking, "Well, if it isn't an Asterolampra marylandica, then *you* tell me what it is." Yeah, that'll go over *real* big.
Your real problem is that you're treating the feedback you're getting here as hostile, biased criticism to be turned aside, rather than a helpful guide for where to turn your efforts. Unless you change your approach your theory has no prayer of accomplishing what all successful theories do: persuade.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 68 by wmscott, posted 12-27-2002 10:13 AM wmscott has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 70 by forgiven, posted 12-29-2002 5:39 PM Percy has not replied
 Message 71 by wmscott, posted 01-01-2003 10:29 AM Percy has replied

  
forgiven
Inactive Member


Message 70 of 234 (28076)
12-29-2002 5:39 PM
Reply to: Message 69 by Percy
12-29-2002 2:36 PM


well i have no earthly idea what you're talking about percy, but i just want to commend you for a reasonable (and hopefully helpful) reply...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by Percy, posted 12-29-2002 2:36 PM Percy has not replied

  
wmscott
Member (Idle past 6238 days)
Posts: 580
From: Sussex, WI USA
Joined: 12-19-2001


Message 71 of 234 (28242)
01-01-2003 10:29 AM
Reply to: Message 69 by Percy
12-29-2002 2:36 PM


Dear Percy;
I don't think that your being able to reach a pretty good identification is incidental, I was impressed by the quality of your effort and it illustrated what I have been saying all along about how almost any one can do this if they try.
quote:
1.You have to establish that what you're looking at is a diatom. If there was a strong resemblance between your photo and the reference photo then this question would be satisfied, but there is no such resemblance
This was done early on, I have seen much and learned much since I started this. I have seen a number of different marine diatom species, I even have seen stacked diatoms and strand diatoms. Not all my pictures come out well, I have seen very clear examples of various marine diatoms, but they don't always show up clearly in my prints. Obviously I need to and will continue to work towards collecting a collection of better pictures.
quote:
2. Once you've established it's a diatom, you have to establish the type of the diatom. Given the great disparity in appearance, you are not going to convince anyone that you've made an unequivocal ID.
Yes of course, species identification is necessary.
quote:
3. You have to establish the origin of the diatom, ie, whether it was wind, glacier or otherwise transported.
In our discussion I thought we had cleared that up, that link to that article you posted was quite clear on the matter. As demonstrated by maxim sizes of marine diatoms found in Antarctica ice cores, the marine diatoms I have found are too large for wind transport. As I already explained, glacial transport of marine sediments is not a possibly for this location. Such sediments are not found in this area or any area remotely simular, in fact under current geologic thinking, a marine flood of the Mid West would be more easily accepted than glacial transport of marine sediments to the area. Of course in a journal article these issues will have to be dealt with and backed up with all sorts of references.
quote:
4. You have to establish the age of the diatom. That there is apparently no way to do this does not diminish its importance.
As stated earlier, the time of deposition is bracketed by the retreat of the last glacial advance that left behind the till found here, and our own knowledge of the history of sea level changes.
quote:
5. You need to explain why other geologists aren't finding marine diatoms in Wisconsin. Any paper you write would have to address this.
I would rather not have to, but you maybe right. It will make it all that much harder to get published if I also explain how I, without even a degree, caught all of science with it's collective paints down. This is really a major screw up of epic proportions, here for all these years a global flood has been written off as a myth and all it took to find the missing evidence was a microscope! That is going to go over real well. Perhaps if I tactfully explain how it took a specific search to find the marine diatoms, that it involved a muti step process of concentrating the sample, it will go over better. But truthfully, the process used was probably a simple version of the methods used on till samples in Antarctica. It no doubt was really just a matter of no one thinking to look, after all why would they, everyone already 'knew' what the results would be.
I have to admit you are probably right, I should be more receptive to good advice I receive. Sometimes when you are on the receiving end, it is hard to tell the constructive criticism from all the negative criticism. I will try to listen more to what you have to say and think it over.
It maybe helpful if I let you know where I stand at the moment in progressing towards publication. I have spent most of the last year refining my lab procedures. This has been successful and I now have a much more workable procedure. There is still some fine tuning to do, but I am basically where I want to be. I now can work on collecting high quality pictures of marine diatoms, hopefully I will be able to do this with my present microscope. However, a much more expensive microscope with better optics may be necessary, which not having funds to work with, may be impossible to get. I am also starting the second phase of my work, collecting samples from many other locations in an effort to map the distribution of marine traces.
Thanks for fixing the link, I had seen that page before, the unevenness you referred to is apparently an individual flaw rather than a species trait.
---Wmscott

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by Percy, posted 12-29-2002 2:36 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by edge, posted 01-01-2003 12:30 PM wmscott has replied
 Message 75 by Percy, posted 01-02-2003 8:35 PM wmscott has replied

  
edge
Member (Idle past 1696 days)
Posts: 4696
From: Colorado, USA
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 72 of 234 (28248)
01-01-2003 12:30 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by wmscott
01-01-2003 10:29 AM


quote:
Originally posted by wmscott:
quote:
5. You need to explain why other geologists aren't finding marine diatoms in Wisconsin. Any paper you write would have to address this.
I would rather not have to, but you maybe right. It will make it all that much harder to get published if I also explain how I, without even a degree, caught all of science with it's collective paints down. This is really a major screw up of epic proportions, here for all these years a global flood has been written off as a myth and all it took to find the missing evidence was a microscope!
Ummmmmm, one minor detail here. Aren't you forgetting to provide evidence for a global flood? In the end, it doesn't matter whether your diatoms are marine or fresh or both. It doesn't matter if they are transported by wind, water or bicycle. It doesn't even matter if they are diatoms or glass beads. How can they possibly constitute evidence for a global flood? You need to fit this into a framework of data that support your conclusions. You have not done this.
quote:
That is going to go over real well. Perhaps if I tactfully explain how it took a specific search to find the marine diatoms, that it involved a muti step process of concentrating the sample, it will go over better. But truthfully, the process used was probably a simple version of the methods used on till samples in Antarctica. It no doubt was really just a matter of no one thinking to look, after all why would they, everyone already 'knew' what the results would be.
Wmscott, this is ridiculous. Even your photos have shown the identification, provenance and transport of the diatoms to be equivocal. You are going to be shredded if you publish this nonsense as evidence for a globabl flood. If you want to call it an unusual find of marine diatoms, fine; we will all congratulate you. But there is no evidence yet that any body of water covered the entire globe at one time. You cannot even show that catastrophic melting of the ice caps occurred, or that such an event would cover the earth with water. This is still untenable.
quote:
I have to admit you are probably right, I should be more receptive to good advice I receive. Sometimes when you are on the receiving end, it is hard to tell the constructive criticism from all the negative criticism.
When you continually ignore advice, it will eventually become very negative.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by wmscott, posted 01-01-2003 10:29 AM wmscott has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 73 by wmscott, posted 01-02-2003 4:07 PM edge has replied

  
wmscott
Member (Idle past 6238 days)
Posts: 580
From: Sussex, WI USA
Joined: 12-19-2001


Message 73 of 234 (28324)
01-02-2003 4:07 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by edge
01-01-2003 12:30 PM


Dear Edge;
quote:
"We can use brackish-water diatoms to reconstruct sea-level changes in the recent past," Introduction to Marine Micropaleontology, edited by Bilal U. Haq and Anne Boersma 1978, p.255
Marine traces such as marine diatoms can and routinely are used to map the extent of past marine transgressions. Once other possible transport mechanisms have been eliminated, marine flooding remains as the only viable answer. By sampling different locations and elevations, the size and extent of the marine flooding can be mapped. This is all basic geology Edge, facts are facts, if the evidence supports a recent global marine flood as having occurred, you will just have to learn to live with it. The other issues have already been addressed in this thread at least once if not several times.
Wmscott

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by edge, posted 01-01-2003 12:30 PM edge has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 74 by edge, posted 01-02-2003 7:46 PM wmscott has replied

  
edge
Member (Idle past 1696 days)
Posts: 4696
From: Colorado, USA
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 74 of 234 (28332)
01-02-2003 7:46 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by wmscott
01-02-2003 4:07 PM


quote:
Originally posted by wmscott:
quote:
"We can use brackish-water diatoms to reconstruct sea-level changes in the recent past," Introduction to Marine Micropaleontology, edited by Bilal U. Haq and Anne Boersma 1978, p.255
Marine traces such as marine diatoms can and routinely are used to map the extent of past marine transgressions. Once other possible transport mechanisms have been eliminated, marine flooding remains as the only viable answer. By sampling different locations and elevations, the size and extent of the marine flooding can be mapped.
But they have NOT been mapped. I'm not sure how much more clearly I can say this. When you do so map the world, then you will have evidence. A few occurrences at under a kilometer elevation simply does not do it. This is a silly waste of time. Go and get your data.
quote:
This is all basic geology Edge, facts are facts, if the evidence supports a recent global marine flood as having occurred, you will just have to learn to live with it.
There is no such evidence as yet.
quote:
The other issues have already been addressed in this thread at least once if not several times.
Irrelevant. The title of thise thread addresses evidence for a global flood. After so many pages, we have seen no such evidence.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by wmscott, posted 01-02-2003 4:07 PM wmscott has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 77 by wmscott, posted 01-06-2003 3:59 PM edge has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22359
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 4.8


Message 75 of 234 (28334)
01-02-2003 8:35 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by wmscott
01-01-2003 10:29 AM


wmscott writes:
I don't think that your being able to reach a pretty good identification is incidental, I was impressed by the quality of your effort and it illustrated what I have been saying all along about how almost any one can do this if they try.
You're kidding yourself. Your photos are of low quality and bear little resemblance to the reference photos. Your IDs appear to others as grasping at straws. You still haven't even convinced me you know the difference between a diatom and other forms of microscopic life. I accept consensus, and the only way to convince me is to convince others knowledgeable in the field.
Why don't you perform an experiment. Take samples from five sites you believe underlay the Biblical flood, and five sites you believe did not (perhaps old farm plots now lying fallow), then study the differences in diatom populations. If you can create a situation where you don't know where each sample is from while you look at it under the microscope that would be a big plus. Certainly your paper would have to show that you only find marine diatoms in former Biblical flood sea-bottom and not anywhere else.
In our discussion I thought we had cleared that up, that link to that article you posted was quite clear on the matter...etc...
When you draw conclusions from technical articles that seem at odds with the articles themselves I no longer try to argue with you.
As stated earlier, the time of deposition is bracketed by the retreat of the last glacial advance that left behind the till found here, and our own knowledge of the history of sea level changes.
As stated earlier, there were earlier glacier advances and retreats. And as also stated earlier, you can't use sea level changes as an argument since there not only is no evidence they caused the Wisconsin inundation, there isn't even any evidence of an inundation. And as both I and edge have pointed out several times recently, even if your diatom ID is correct, you have to establish that they could not have arrived there by any other means except Biblical flood.
Thanks for fixing the link, I had seen that page before, the unevenness you referred to is apparently an individual flaw rather than a species trait.
Perhaps, but to me this appears to be yet another example of you drawing conclusions with no supporting evidence.
We know this all appears obvious to you. Your problem is to figure out how to make it obvious to others. Perhaps we're the wrong audience. Perhaps when you put your photo before an actual geologist with diatom experience he'll say, "My God, a Asterolampra marylandica in Wisconsin, this overturns everything we thought we knew about geology!" Unless you actually do change your ways and start listening and responding to the feedback, I'm not sure it makes any sense to waste your time here with people who wouldn't know a diatom from popcorn.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by wmscott, posted 01-01-2003 10:29 AM wmscott has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 76 by edge, posted 01-03-2003 12:07 AM Percy has not replied
 Message 78 by wmscott, posted 01-06-2003 4:01 PM Percy has replied

  
edge
Member (Idle past 1696 days)
Posts: 4696
From: Colorado, USA
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 76 of 234 (28338)
01-03-2003 12:07 AM
Reply to: Message 75 by Percy
01-02-2003 8:35 PM


quote:
Originally posted by Percipient:
You're kidding yourself. Your photos are of low quality and bear little resemblance to the reference photos. Your IDs appear to others as grasping at straws. You still haven't even convinced me you know the difference between a diatom and other forms of microscopic life. I accept consensus, and the only way to convince me is to convince others knowledgeable in the field.
You are correct. The wmscott samples bear only the grossest resemblance to the index specimens. It is also possible that the specimens he has shown us are transported as well. One is clearly broken some are possibly abraded. The photos are of quite poor quality, though. Hardly enough to support a challenging claim to the mainstream geological interpretation. In this case, I rather think that one must be convinced before seeing the evidence.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 75 by Percy, posted 01-02-2003 8:35 PM Percy has not replied

  
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