Falsifying Creation

Aaarrgghh! [insert head-banging smilie here]

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
"Umm, which Flood model are you describing? According to Genesis, the entire world was covered in about 40 days. That's pretty fast by any standards."
--Yes that is fast, though in being more specific for randomness would be more like flooding the earth in a matter of an hour or some hours. Though even if you were to do this, you would still find a remnance of a uniform burrial, though it sertainly would be much more random. Also then you have very little obsticle for environmental conditions such as the rising ice age killing the dinosaurs at the point of the K-T boundary.

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Au contraire, mon frere. There is literally NO mechanism that can account for fossil stratigraphy EXCEPT geologic time. Let me make this perfectly clear: NO FLOOD MODEL YOU'VE PRESENTED EXPLAINS THE EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL RECORD. (Sorry for shouting.) There are NO repeat NO anomalies as would be required by any global flood. Not to mention the utter lack of any geological evidence of rapid deposition. Not to mention the utter inability of a Flood - of any size - to explain things like fossilized mudcracks, raindrops, animal tracks, bioturbation, evaporite formations, etc etc etc.

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"It's not a question of the flexibility of the theory, TC (although even if it were, I'm not sure how that could be construed as a negative attribute)."
--Yes, it would not neccessarelly be a 'negative attribute', though it is something that should very much be taken into consideration when discussing the highest theoretical validity for YEC and OEC interperetations.

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Why??? You've had the essence of the scientific method explained to you a dozen times. What is it about the formation and testing of hypotheses don't you understand? (Your science teachers down through the years should be taken out and shot.)

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"The original theory was so elegantly simple, and so well-based on available evidence, that almost all observations since have tended to reinforce the original idea."
--In a scence it is very close to Flood theory, you just take it down to a drastically short time period. The idea of survival of the fittests is all for flood theory and constitutes its randomness.

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In the first place, evolutionary theory is the absolute antithesis of biblical creationism (sorry, creation "science"). It rests on little things like EVIDENCE and OBSERVATION - two elements at least that creationism ain't got. In the second, I have no clue what the heck that second sentence is supposed to mean. Perhaps you'd care to clarify.

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"Some of the mechanisms have had to be tweaked a bit, but considering the numbers of scientific hypotheses that have been jettisoned over the years, the ToE appears to be practically a law of nature."
--From my observation and experience, Evolution by common descent (or the theory of an Old Earth), has been the most modified theory in all scientific history. Though ofcourse that's somewhat the cause of it being such a fundemental theory for much of other geologic and biological interperetation being refined and fashioned over the years.

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Okee dokee, what (in your no doubt VAST experience referenced above) do you consider modifications to Darwin's theory? Please specify anything that might give one to believe there was something sneaky or underhanded going on. The only changes I can see were mechanistic, descriptive or based on new sciences (like genetics). These changes would include such refinements as an understanding of allopatric vs sympatric speciation, population genetics, genetic drift, PE, etc. None (let me repeat for clarity) NONE of these modifications IN ANY WAY FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGED DARWINIAN THEORY (again apologies for shouting). There has been NO change in common descent, no change in natural selection (except mechanistic - and an ongoing argument about its relative importance), and the addition of random mutation and genetic drift. Darwin's orginal idea still stands after 150 years. Not bad, eh?

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"You're correct that the Flood theory is highly speculative (I'm being kind)."
--I was more addressing the fact that if you found a human in cambrian strata or something liket that, Flood theory itself would have to be greatly modified.

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On the contrary, that's exactly what you would expect from your Flood theory. In fact, you'd almost HAVE to find such an anomaly - and lots of them - for your theory to have any validity at all. Nice try. Now if you COULD find such a strangeness, especially if it were repeated in various places around the world, ToE could rightly be considered false.

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"Except, TC, you have yet to present any positive evidence in support of a global Flood..."
--Thats because were discussing the validity of a flood deposition for organisms, if you would like to ask that question, what specific would you like to tackle?

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Validity or falsehood of any deposition theory DEPENDS ON THE VALIDITY OF THE FLOOD ITSELF. In other words, if the Flood didn't happen, then the discussion of deposition patterns is moot. In fact, the entire discussion of sorting mechanisms etc is rooted in an attempt to determine whether the Flood occurred. We're all still waiting your positive evidence. Any day - you've only been asked for the same thing about 50 times or so...

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"Ordered deposition is NOT what would be expected by a flood. Look at ANY modern flood - the deposition of remains is utterly random."
--The global flood was, hm.. how could I put this. Just a bit more catastrophic than any nile-river or mississippi flood of today.

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No kidding. Therefore the evidence IN SUPPORT of its occurance should be immediately obvious everywhere in the world. Unless you can come up with some wonderous revelation that all the geologists, paleontologists, etc over the last 200 years have missed, there isn't any. Again, we're waiting eagerly for your information.

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"Therefore, if there were a Flood (unless your positing that the Noachian Flood didn't follow the basic laws of hydraulics and fluid dynamics), you would expect to commonly find totally random distributions (men with anthracosaurs with rabbits). In spite of possible individual anomalies (like a rabbit running faster or swimming longer than a dimetrodon), statistically the majority would be randomly sorted. This is NOT what is observed."
--Thats right, because hydrologic sorting is a vastly small percentage of what would be a consideration in flood deposition, for hydraulics and fluid dynamics to be the sole prospect, no organism should be able to move (they all must be dead before any flood activity) and the flood should flood every point on earth at the same time. I see that an order of deposition is fundamental in what should be found.

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THEN BLOODY WELL STOP HANDWAVING AND PROVIDE THE EVIDENCE!!!! [insert second head-banging smilie here]

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"Don't drag in "god of the gaps" inre bats, etc. Besides, you're a YEC, you can't even legitimately USE an argument that shows spontaneous bat creation 50 mya because for you the world has only existed for 6000 years."
--I never said that I was bringing in the god of the gaps argument in, nor is it substantiated by what I said. I was making a point that since bats should be fully formed as bats during the flood, this is what we see, we don't see any proto-bats to the degree of evolution. And they appear in supposedly 50 myo strata.

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Err, that last bit IS god of the gaps - there's a gap in the fossil record, therefore it didn't happen. I've given you an explanation for why this gap exists (remember: small forest dweller, acid forest soil, lousy chance of fossils?). Also, given the number of different species alive today that exhibit some of the adaptations one would expect from critters on the evolutionary pathway to bat-style flight (i.e., glider to flyer), there's absolutely no reason to believe it didn't happen the same way in the past.

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"Even granting you can play with dates, there has been a fair amount of discussion concerning evolution of glider to flyer in mammals already."
--Yes, sure you can always speculate on what should be found, its whether you've found it that is going to really make the matter.

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GoG.

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"TC, listen to yourself. In one breath you are denying the evidence of feline evolution, and in the same breath you are claiming you have no information on feline evolution."
--No I did not den feline evolution, i said that as an example as an attatchment to what I said earlier for clarity. And then I said that within this example, I have seen what the theory is on feline evolution, though have little evident background information on it rather than the theory itself.

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You mean you've never read anything about the miacid to cat evolution? Lots of fossils, lots of branches, lots of good evidence. 'Course it couldn't possibly have happened in 6000 years, so it must be wrong.

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"Why? This would be precisely required by your Flood. That these anomalies don't exist provides pretty damning evidence against the Flood being real."
--Because as I stated earlier in the post, the flood did not just all of a soden flood the world with 500+ feet of water at every point on earth to give this randomness. My theory on flooding is ice cap's melting some from the heating of the oceans which would flood the world and then with the massive global vapor saturation in the atmosphere rain for 40 days and a rebuilding of the polar ice caps from a slight nuclear winter.

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Bzzzzzzt. [sound of buzzer] I'm sorry, thanks for playing. Since your genesis story is your only evidence for the Flood, there's no mention (I checked) of nuclear winter or global cooling or an ice age. Even without the bible, there is no evidence that such an event occured 4500 years ago - of ANY stripe. Your theory collapses again for lack of evidence.

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"You are aware, of course, that the book you base your worldview on makes no mention whatsoever for any ice age?"
--Why would it make such a mention?

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Because that's the bleeding mechanism you're touting. If the infallable biblical scholars who invented the whole thing (err, sorry, the divinely inspired authors who were writing the literal and strict word of God), didn't include it - IT DIDN'T HAPPEN. Now, if you can show where the bible talks about endless winter or global freezing or an ice age, maybe we can reconsider the question.

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"However, large dinos and the other fossils used as evidence for an old earth (at least) are found throughout the world even in places - including Egypt - where ice never came. Odd, isn't it?"
--For a cold-blooded organism to die, you don't need to freeze it from an ice cap, you simply need to lower the climatic temperatures, the bible does make slight reference about this. Saying that after the flood there would be seasons the way they did.

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Once again, there is neither evidence from your God-given bible NOR from science that indicates a severe global cooling occuring 4500 years ago concurrently with the massive global warming that would have had to occur for your putative non-existent ice sheets to melt - causing the global flood you seem so fond of.

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--Take a look at an elephant, if you throw the thing in the ocean, how long is that thing going to swim? A sauropod does not have the same ability as a pleseasaurus.

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Repeating: "How in the name of Darwin did you arrive at this little gem, TC?"

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"No doubt this explains why there are NO dinos buried ABOVE any large mammal, flightless bird, mammoth, etc. Not even ONE SINGLE FOSSIL out of place."
--Yup.

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I decided to bold this one. You're accepting evolutionary theory? 'Cause that's the ONLY conceivable explanation for the statement. I really can't wait to see how you wave this one off.

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"What about the Permian extinction? 90+% of all species on the planet disappeared in a few thousand years. I thought THAT was supposed to be the Flood. How does Flood myhtology account for the other 3 major extinction events - in the most minor of which over 50% of extant species disappeared. Care to comment? (Preferably without absolute denial followed by "I don't know.")"
--No doubt your going to have a Permian extinction of Acritarchs, Archaeocyathids, Molluscs, Echinoderms, Gusulinid Foraminifera, Corals, Diatoms, Dinoflagellates, Stromatoporoids, Trilobites, etc when the sea floor was going through mass catastrophy in heat and tectonic activity. What other extinctions would you like an answer for?

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Wait a sec. We now have two extinctions you admit to. Dates aside, which one coincides with your flood?Permian-Triassic: 90+% of all extant species obliterated. In fact, this one comes closest in sheer scale to your Flood: it nearly cancelled the whole experiment in life of this planet. Life persisted by a whisker, no more.Cretaceous-Tertiary: 60-70% of all extant species obliterated.Fill us in, TC: Which one corresponds to your Flood? And, of course, how do you explain the other one - let alone explain it in the last 4500 years (for which period, btw, we have verifiable archeological, including written, records?)[insert final head-banging smilie here]

[QUOTE][b]Not to mention the utter lack of any geological evidence of rapid deposition.[/QUOTE][/b]You mean large scale rapid deposition of course, we still have landslides, lahars, and Pompeii.My turn to be pedantical.

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[This message has been edited by gene90, 03-02-2002]

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
"TC, did you ever explain to us why flowering plants were more agile, intelligent or had better swimming skills than most of the dinosaurs? Ah, maybe they could climbe trees, very tall ones."
--Unfortunatelly, I am not as knowledgable in plant evolution or how it is found in the geologic column, as with other animalia organisms. Though I'll quote myself from another forum:

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One characteristic I found significant is that flower petals and its outer and internal structures have a very non-polar coating that are fiber-like in these structures. Thus when you dip it in water this is the reason you see the glossy foily reflection. they are literally water-resistant, though not water 'proof', you will also find that it is almost impossible because of this characteristic to sink it unless it were to rot away and after a while loose its glossy coating, this is also simmilar in many types of insects, which is one of the reasons most can float on water and some glide. Obviously 'agility or intelligence' or anything of the like would be at all a factor, so you rely on characteristics.

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TC, "flowering plants" doesn't mean "flowers". Petal composition really doesn't matter to the discussion. The point is, NO flowering plants are EVER found in the lowest layers. The whole plant. Not just flowers.All trees except conifers are flowering plants.
All grasses are flowering plants.
Cacti are flowing plants.How do you explain the fact that we have yet to observe a single instance of a flowering tree, a flowering grass, etc., in the lower layers of the geologic column?

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Originally posted by gene90:
You mean large scale rapid deposition of course, we still have landslides, lahars, and Pompeii.

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My turn to be pedantical.

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Duh-oh. [sheepish] Yeah - what you said. [edited to fix really strange quote mis-arrangement]

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

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"Why? This would be precisely required by your Flood. That these anomalies don't exist provides pretty damning evidence against the Flood being real."
--Because as I stated earlier in the post, the flood did not just all of a soden flood the world with 500+ feet of water at every point on earth to give this randomness. My theory on flooding is ice cap's melting some from the heating of the oceans which would flood the world and then with the massive global vapor saturation in the atmosphere rain for 40 days and a rebuilding of the polar ice caps from a slight nuclear winter.

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awwww- isn't that precious? a creationist making things up so that the bible makes more sense.... that's just so sweet- no really it is. it's another example of how very flawed creationism is...ps- wasn't it god that made the flood?pss- didn't he abruptly stop the water from falling, and then create a rainbow in the cloud, tell us that he'd never flood the planet again?psss- that pesky ark just can't stay discovered. always turning up in different places...

I'm not going to use a lot of quoting in this post, but I'll
summarise some of this discussion, and maybe ask a few
questions to elaborate TC's position.I'll start by commenting that TC appears to get hooked on the
surface details of the examples/questions raised to the
extent that the underlying message is overlooked.Example::Peter:: How come ALL apatosaurs were burried before ANY elephants.TC:: apatosaurs were cold blooded, and elephants can't swim.Good thing to point out here is that dinosaurs were NOT reptiles,
big or otherwise. They are dinosaurs. There is a fair amount of
evidence that many (particular bi-ped predators) in the
dinosaur kingdom were, in fact, warm-blooded.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/dinos000420.html
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/dinosaurs/coldbloo.jsp
http://www.sciam.com/exhibit/2000/042400dinoheart/AND elephants can swim (Indian ones anyhow):: http://home.gwi.net/~dnb/read/elephant/elephant.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/india/html/body_regions.html"Most amazing of all, however, are the
swimming elephants. The beasts of burden were brought to the
Andaman and Nicobar Islands to haul timber. But to do their work, they
must occasionally commute, island-hopping with their trainers, called
mahouts, riding astride their backs. Remarkably, the great beasts can
swim a mile or more at a stretch and move through the water faster than a swimming person. "Unless of course TC was referring to aparosaurs, which I already
admitted was unsupported.The GUTS of this question remains ....Why are some remains ONLY found in layers above ANY example
of other forms.I'm trying to remain in TC's own model here, to explore it. It
does not sound credible in the slightest that any flood, no
matter how cataclismic, could sort remains into the consistent
order we find. Not even ONE out of place.TC is gradually changing tack, too. So hypothesising and re-arranging
based upon new evidence shouldn't be a problem for TC to understandDirect question to TC::Are you a Young Earth Creationist ?I had the feeling you were from most of your posts.The biblical flood WAS a rapid filling of the earth with water. That's what it says in the bible.TC, do you accept Genesis as a literal, true account ?My questioning over infants was motivated by the suggestion that
the sequence in the fossil record could be related to survivability.An infant would survive less time than an adult of the same
species. All infant fossils should therefore be in the lower
strata.This is not so, and there are relatively few infant fossil in any case. Not giving a reference, check the museums and fossil
catalogues ... I think you'll find majority adults and some
juveniles.And what about those single celled fossilised impressions. How
could a very light organism sink and leave a fossilised imprint
before a burrowing animal like a rabbit or fox ?Why DO we find fossilised foot prints of dinosaurs ?Was ALL of the fossil record laid down by the flood ?The fossil record is contrary to the hypothesis that all animals
(or some recent ancestor thereof) co-existed at ANY
time, let alone 4500 years ago.Individual survivability does NOT explain a burrial sequence
in which we find single celled animal imprints at the bottom
of the grand canyon, moving upward we find some worms, and on upward
until we find more and more complex forms.And was the grand canyon a direct result of the flood ??????

No responses for a bit ...My contention that originated this debate was that the
fossil record FALSIFIES the account of creation in Genesis.[The bit of it that I've been in I mean!!]There is little doubt that the fossil record (barring a global
flood ) would refute the creation account. Even TC agreed
that the fossil record was a sequence of existence (well in one
post anyhow, in others he/she says 'No its a burrial sequence'.
Bit of chop and change going on there).The ONLY way in which the fossil record can NOT refute the
predictions about burrial in the biblical creation account
is if some force burried animals in a complexity sequence, and that
the entire fossil record was laid down at one time.TC claims 'The flood did it.'The burrial sequence for TC is related to individual survivability,
and the existence of non-speciated forms of modern animals.There is NO flood mechanism which could support the sequence in the
fossil record. Even from simply common sense, let alone consideration
of scenarios in which a global flood could occur.The sequence in the fossil record must, therefore, represent an
existence sequence (no time scale inferred), and the existence
sequence alone refutes the biblical account of creation.

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[This message has been edited by Peter, 03-11-2002]

Bit thin on responses now ... do I win yet ???

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Originally posted by Peter:
Bit thin on responses now ... do I win yet ???

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Ya got my vote!

"Ya got my vote!"
--Oh please Quetzal , give me a bump on saturday, I should have sufficient time around then.------------------

Hi John, I hate to tell you but your aproach to falsification is grossely in error. The biblical creation and Noachian flood myth can easily be disproved by just disproving ONE aspect of it's story line. Simple enough, there never has been a GLOBAL flood. Also, the geographical and temporal aspects of the fossil record support evolution and falsify creation.Second, you really do have to aspects of science and proof all backwards. Your first staement is not how the Popperian approach works at all. Ex.
1) A hypothesis is not proven by disproving a different hypothesis; therefore, creation is not proven by the fact that Lymarkian evolution has been disproven. Another example, creation was not proven when ONE aspect of embryology was disproven, ie ontogeny recapitulates {adult} phylogeny, a lot of people forget that it was adult phylogeny that was intended in the statement.
2) A hypothese (in the more inductive approach) is supported by supporting evidence and in the by not finding fatal flaws that disprove the entire edifice using the Popperian approach . Small flaws are generally used to correct errors in the overall framework.This is why evolution is a science and creationism is not, not because people do not want to hear creationism, but because fatal flaws have been found in creationism and not evolution and because supporting data has been found for evolution and not creationism.------------------
"Chance favors the prepared mind." L. Pasteur
Taz

"Hi John, I hate to tell you but your aproach to falsification is grossely in error. The biblical creation and Noachian flood myth can easily be disproved by just disproving ONE aspect of it's story line. Simple enough, there never has been a GLOBAL flood. Also, the geographical and temporal aspects of the fossil record support evolution and falsify creation."
--I would most love to discuss the Flood with you, what are your objections, maybe I can help.------------------

Perhaps you'd have a look see at messages 96 & 97 too

I am curious why in this forum everyone seems to think that all of the animals were created at one single moment in time? The bible says animals were created on the 6th day, obviously day doesn't mean a 24 hour period. Rather due to the language it was written in, it just means a period of time. The animals were made at all sorts of times within this sixth day and therefore died at all sorts of times

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I am curious why in this forum everyone seems to think that all of the animals were created at one single moment in time?

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First question: who seems to think this?Second question: what does it matter whether anyone thinks they were all created at the same moment or were created throughout the day? Neither idea can save the Genesis creation myth from its incompatibility with the known evidence in biology and geology.

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"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the same sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."
-- H. L. Mencken (quoted on Panda's Thumb)