$50 to anyone who can prove to me Evolution is a lie.

Farmers don't farm sediments, they farm soils, which are very different things. Sediments become sedimentary rock over time, soils become paleosols over time.Yes, the soils that farmers farm were formed recently. This has nothing to do with the mainstream view of the age of the Earth and the rocks and life. It does, however, have a lot to do with the impossibility of your claims about the flood and the age of the Earth and life.Soil takes time to form. There is lots of fossil soil (paleosols) in the world. How did all that fossil soil form?[This message has been edited by JonF, 01-21-2004]

Yup. Joe Meert has some nice pictures of paleosols at the beginning and end of Radiometric Dating, Paleosols and the Geologic Column: Three strikes against Young Earth Creationism. There's some links, a brief description of paleosols and a highly technical bibliography at A Paleosol Bibliography.

There were several glaciations, separated by significant time. Which one do you think was caused by a flood? How does a flood cause a glaciation?Given what we know about liquefaction and rock formation the sedimentary rocks could not have formed recently. Millions and billions of years are required.

We know all about Waltie, there's no need to post links or point out that he has a search engine. I have a BSME and MSME from MIT, and I have read Walt Brown's stuff, and it's rubbish no matter how many degrees he has and no matter how sophisticated his site is.The Pleistocene extinctions (note the plural) occurred over a period of about 20,000 to 40,000 years. That's not sudden. They happened too long ago, occurred over too long a time, were too localized, and didn't involve enough animals to have any connection with your flood. From Quaternary Faunas: Note that there was no noticeable extinction in the Middle East or Europe or most of Asia.There was no Atlantis as described by that site you posted, and whatever event gave rise to the Atlantis legend (probably Thera) has no connection to the Pleistocene extinction. You really will fall for any crackpot who comes down the pike, won't you?The sudden freezing described on that site is a lie. The Berezkova mammoth was significantly putrefied and was not quick-frozen. You've ignored this before, but here it is again. From Mammoths: Were They QuickFrozen?:"Take the frozen Berezovka mammoth, for instance. ... "The excavators found the stench of the partially rotted Berezovka mammoth unbearable; even the earth in which it was buried stank." (Weber, 1980, p.15). Ancient predators had a chance to get at the carcass, which proved there was no instantaneous freezing. The unfortunate animal seems to have fallen from a river bluff, possibly by getting too close to the edge and causing a slump, and broke many bones. In the muck of the floodplain below his carcass was soon frozen in (Strahler, 1987, p.381).William R. Farrand, writing in 1961, pointed out that only 39 mammoths had been found with some of their flesh preserved. Out of those only four were found more or less intact, including the Berezovka mammoth. All of them were rotten to some extent and the evidence showed that most were somewhat mutilated by predators prior to freezing. ...All of this evidence points to a routine scenario of life and death."

OK, so some site says that an unobtainable book written in 1887 contains descriptions of evidence that would support your claim? Pu-leaze!Since the Pleistocene extinctions, plural, fell far far short of wiping out all creatures on land, by your own words the Pleistocene extinctions can't correspond to your flood.

Yes, isn't it?The reason is obvious; since Walt's ideas are founded on religion rather than evidence and science, it's impossible to discuss his ideas without including religion.Perhaps Joe will amplify; but Walt Brown seems pretty clear to me. Joe sent a signed contract to Walt asking him to live up to his contract as he wrote it, and Walt refused.The letter from the creationist lawyer is especially interesting.

Debating religion with Walt is on-topic. There's no science or evidence of facts in his theory to be debated ... just religion.

Wrong on so many levels ...Whatever that status of Walt's "debate", truth is not decided by debate.If creation is to "win", it must win in the arena of scientific results and evidence. Debates just don't matter.The doctorate scientists in the basic or applied scientists are busy doing science. The vast majority of them can't be bothered to debate crackpots like Walt. I find it incredible that someone of Dr. Meert's standing bothers with such a loon.

I just noticed you're from Edinburgh. I've visited a few times and love that city. I also am not a geologist, just an amateur. Yes, Walt's theory has all the contradictions within it that you think it does, and you probably haven't even found the all the contradictions. Also, Walt's theory is completely inconsistent with the observations geologists have made over the centuries. Yes, a theory based on just such dodgy thinking is put on the web for everyone to see ... because Walt's a crackpot and very likely believes his fantasies.He's not the biggest crackpot on the Net by a long shot; take a look at http://www.bearfabrique.org/. Ted's a lot more interesting than Walt, too. Or see Welcome to the Electric Universe!Walt's even moderately successful because he appeals to a group of people who claim to believe literally in the Bible (although every one I've ever encountered interprets the Bible without acknowledging that interpretation) and who will swallow any crackpot notion whole if it promises to support their preconceptions. Such as at least one prolific poster on this board.

News flash from Bob Park's What's New:

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Three years ago, Columbia U. researchers reported in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine that in-vitro fertilization is twice as likely to result in pregnancy if the women are prayed for by a group of total strangers, even though the women are unaware of being prayed for. Recognizing that such a finding would threaten the very foundations of science, WN called on WN readers to "pray this study is wrong" (WN 05 Oct 01). This week we learned that our prayers seem to have been answered. No one, of course, ever replicated the study. But meanwhile, one of the coauthors has been exposed as a con-man. Daniel Wirth, J.D. (not MD), is known in alternative-medicine circles for his studies of Non-contact Therapeutic Touch on wound healing. Touch therapy, you may recall, was thoroughly debunked in a Journal of the American Medical Association paper by a 9-year old scientist, Emily Rosa (WN 03 Apr 98). On 18 May ‘04, Wirth reportedly pled guilty to fraud charges in Federal Court for his role in bilking troubled Adelphia Communications out of $2M. The senior author on the prayer paper, Rogerio Lobo, Chairman of the Columbia Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, now says he provided only "editorial asistance." Bruce Flamm, Clinical Professor of Obstetrics at UC Irvine, who relates this incredible tale of academic chicanery in Skeptik magazine, says the third author, Kwang Cha, has left Columbia and isn’t talking.

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See also Exposed: conman's role in prayer-power IVF 'miracle' (which is a terribly deceiving headline) and Prayer Study Flawed and Fraud.