Implied by YEC? Most science is faulty?

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Originally posted by Quetzal:
Punisher: Just curious. What long geological processes is Mount St. Helens supposed to have disproved?

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Please see my last post. It didn't disprove anything; it simply showed us that once thought long processes in nature do not necesarily require that much time. Are you deliberately being obtuse?

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Originally posted by Punisher:
The point of the Mt. St. Helens reference was to show that geologic occurances once thought to take millions of years, in fact, do not need that much time with the right conditions. Petrification, river bed formations, multiple layers of fossil forest, etc. Let me try to simplfy it. You look at the Grand Canyon and say "little bit of water and a whole lot of time". I see the same canyon and say "a whole lot of water and a little bit of time". We don't throw out modern geology as implied in the original post; we merely make observations in the present to help us make 'guesses' about the past, as do evolutionists.

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So, when the Mississppi river floods, is there a deep canyon formed which winds and snakes, or does the water spread out over the plain after it fills up the existing riverbanks?If your "interpretation" of how the Grand Canyon came about is with a lot of water in a short time, it contradicts everything we know about how rivers flood and meandering rivers cut through the land. Therefoore, the "interpretation" is a poor one and makes little sense.Hey, if Creationists want to say that their interpretations are simply different, that's fine, but then I have to say that the interpretations are often silly ones which are also inelegant.

Actually once-thought long processes still are thought to take a long time. And your message is invalid unless you can demonstrate that before MSH's eruption people believed that catastrophic processes associated with volcanism were also thought to take millions of years. I think geologists have known about at least some of these "Young Earth MSH Revelations" since Pompeii.Also some of these cannot be extrapolated elswhere. When you have 300 ft of volcanic dust with the consistency of flour being deposited in streams, naturally you will get "canyons" more quickly than you would carve through sandstone.

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Originally posted by Punisher:
Please see my last post. It didn't disprove anything; it simply showed us that once thought long processes in nature do not necesarily require that much time. Are you deliberately being obtuse?

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No, are you deliberately being a jerk?Perhaps you misunderstood my question. Allow me to rephrase it: "What processes, evidenced by the results of the pyroclastic flow and lahar produced by the eruption of Mount Saint Helens, were shown to require less time than originally believed by mainstream geology?"That simple and specific enough?

I'm sorry Que; lets start over. Civility will get us much further.Layers of strata once thought to require millions of years to form only took days. Coal formation and fossil forests once thought to require long periods of time, given the right conditions, do not need millions of years. Once again, my reference to MSH was to explain that creationists do not need to abandon modern geology to form a hypothesis about the past as implied in the original post. http://pws.prserv.net/creation/Articles/CRYOUNG3.HTM (skip down to rapid formation)Bottom line is this, and I think it applies for all posts on this board. The two sides of this debate start with different presuppositions. Mine are as non-negotioable as yours. We will always arrive at different conclusions.

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Originally posted by Punisher:

Bottom line is this, and I think it applies for all posts on this board. The two sides of this debate start with different presuppositions. Mine are as non-negotioable as yours. We will always arrive at different conclusions.

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JM: Oh dear, this is simply a cop-out commonly used by young earth creationists. Science started with many of the same presuppositions you claim to hold today. For example, nearly two+ centuries ago, naturalists thought the world was young and fossils were testament to a global flood. After careful examination and repeated testing of their presuppositions, they concluded that no flood occurred and that the earth was significantly older than they previously thought. Your presuppositions (as you noted) are dogmatic assertions. Science, on the other hand, changes as more information comes along. While modern geology operates under certain presuppositions, we also test each of those presuppositions on an daily basis and modify them in light of new data. So far, creationists have turned a blind eye on the data whilst clinging to the notion of a literal bible. I've said it before and I'll say it again--creationists worship the bible as god rather than the god of the bible.CheersJoe Meert

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Originally posted by Punisher:
The point of the Mt. St. Helens reference was to show that geologic occurances once thought to take millions of years, in fact, do not need that much time with the right conditions.

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Utter silliness. Can you find me a single geological reference that denies catastrophic events and does not include them in a framework of uniformity?

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Petrification, river bed formations, multiple layers of fossil forest, etc.

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On the other hand, coral reefs, pelagic sedimentation, and lake varves. Do you deny that there are slow and fast processes? For your basic premise to be true you must disprove slow processes. You have not done so.

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Let me try to simplfy it.

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Please don't. The whole point here is that creationism falls apart on first contact with details.

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You look at the Grand Canyon and say "little bit of water and a whole lot of time". I see the same canyon and say "a whole lot of water and a little bit of time".

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Yep, that's pretty simple. I don't suppose you would include the concepts of continental shelf sedimentation, metamorphism, orogeny and lithification. You have simplified the GC and the science of geology to the point of ridiculousness.

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We don't throw out modern geology as implied in the original post; we merely make observations in the present to help us make 'guesses' about the past, as do evolutionists.

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You take snapshots and out of context information and build an untenable model that does not take into account the myriad sources of information that bear on the problem. Why do you ignore the fact that coral reefs take thousands of years to form? Why do you ignore the fact that there are desert deposits in the middle of the GC "flood" sediments? I'm sorry, but your model makes a mockery of three hundred years of geological research.

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Why do you ignore the fact that coral reefs take thousands of years to form?

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How is this a fact given that no one has been around for a thousand years to watch it form?

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Originally posted by Punisher:
How is this a fact given that no one has been around for a thousand years to watch it form?

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JM: How about this. Do you know that no one was around to see who killed Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman? Yet, police have a pretty good idea of who committed the act. Did you know that no one was around to see trilobites crawling on the ocean floor, but we have a pretty good idea that they did. No one was around to watch the Deccan traps erupt onto the surface of the earth, but we have a pretty good idea that they did. No one was around to see the meteor hit in Arizona, but we have a pretty good idea that one did hit. This logic is just plain silly. Tell me that young earth creationists have stronger arguments than this!CheersJoe Meert

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Originally posted by Punisher:
How is this a fact given that no one has been around for a thousand years to watch it form?

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How is Genesis literaly true when its writers were not there to observe the events themselves?And before you say God dictated it to them remember that we only have their word for that, remember people who claim that God tells them to do things are sent to institutions in todays society.....

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Originally posted by Punisher:
edge: Why do you ignore the fact that coral reefs take thousands of years to form?

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P: How is this a fact given that no one has been around for a thousand years to watch it form?

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Mainly from empirical evidence regarding measured growth rates. Humans also have worked coral reefs for hundreds of years without noticeable changes. There could be other ways to measure them against rates of subsidence etc. At any rate, none have been observed to form overnight. They are hardly the product of catastrophic events.

Both of your replies still require speculation. Please do not use phrases like "the fact that coral takes thousands of years", when in fact, we don't know for sure. I speculate that it doesn't grow overnight but may not take thousands of years. Maybe hundreds.Please tell me evolutionists have stronger arguments than to pass off "we have a pretty good idea" as fact.

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Originally posted by Punisher:
Both of your replies still require speculation. Please do not use phrases like "the fact that coral takes thousands of years", when in fact, we don't know for sure. I speculate that it doesn't grow overnight but may not take thousands of years. Maybe hundreds.

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Please tell me evolutionists have stronger arguments than to pass off "we have a pretty good idea" as fact.

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Wrong. I never said that "coral takes thousands of years" to grow. I said that a coral reef would take thousands of years to form. I also did not say that "we have a pretty good idea..." I said we have measured the rates of coral growth and they require very long periods of time to form the large reefs we see some places in the world. We do know for sure and it is not sheer speculation.You have completely misrepresented my statements. I suggest that you read my posts more carefully in the future.You have also ignored the fact that there are geological events that take long periods of time and this goes against your apparent belief that all events are catastrophic. In order for your thesis to be correct, you must show that there are no slow geological processes. You have not done so. Coral reefs are an example. How do you explain them in a biblical flood context?

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[This message has been edited by edge, 03-08-2002]

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Originally posted by Punisher:
Please do not use phrases like "the fact that coral takes thousands of years", when in fact, we don't know for sure.

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How do you know for sure that we don't know for sure? That may seem flippant, but it's a difficult question to answer well.You are scratching the surface of one of the most thorny issues in the whole debate - what is the nature of scientific evidence and to what extent can current observations be used to infer historical processes?Do you consider all attempts to infer historical processes from current observations to be unsound by their nature?If so, do you think this poses a problem for Young Earthers who must still apply their current observations to the past? Your Mount Saint Helens example is a prime case of this.If you think it is possible to infer historical processes from current observations, what are your criteria for judging whether the inferences are tenable?

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Originally posted by Punisher:
Both of your replies still require speculation. Please do not use phrases like "the fact that coral takes thousands of years", when in fact, we don't know for sure. I speculate that it doesn't grow overnight but may not take thousands of years. Maybe hundreds.

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Please tell me evolutionists have stronger arguments than to pass off "we have a pretty good idea" as fact.

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Thats like saying we have a pretty good idea gravity exists. We experience it today, can measure its affects, and make predictions. We "speculate" that gravity was in effect 1,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, 100,000 thousand years ago, ect. We can find evidence here and now that supports our "speculation". However, it seems that you weak arguements are only applied to things that you don't like. I have yet to hear a YEC cry havoc that we can't find evidence that gravity affected the universe in the past.