Summations Only

You would completely disregard any basic supporting evidence as we see you always do here, so don't expect anyone to respect your point.

I don't, but it's true anyway. I wouldn't exactly "disregard" it but I would regard it as confirmation of the silly methods of historical geology. It would just be nice to see it acknowledged instead of covered up in favor of a dogmatic pronouncement of fake facts about a fake landscape.

Finding evidence that supports or refutes scientific articles in magazines is understood to be the reader's responsibility and it is entirely your own fault if you are too lazy or ignorant or stubborn to do that.

But of COURSE, I take it for granted here that everything is my own fault. There is no doubt in my mind that if I said the sky is blue today I'd be told I'm so wrong I shouldn't be allowed to breathe.

I disagree that believers in the Flood need to try to deal with all the questions about how the Flood did this or that, and agree with mike the wiz on that subject. That's why I wasn't interested in that thread.

Really? Because you make nearly 900 posts about a very similar topic in another thread that just ended.

No, you don't have to try to deal, but you have done so, and likely will again.

Do you have any evidence supporting this view of the geologic column.

Actually I do. Wherever it is mentioned it is always described as a complete entity just as I describe it. All this other hooha doesn't enter into it. And wherever it is found it is quite clearly a stack of similarly formed rocks, while all the nonsense you try to palm off as part of it is nothing like them in shape or size or location.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I didn't intend for you to address the issues in those lists here in this thread. I was just illustrating how many issues you've avoided and how many issues you've misunderstand. These issues can't be addressed with simple one and two line answers as you've attempted here, but I'll go through them anyway.

Faith writes: In stratigraphic columns, with increasing depth why are there first no mammals, then no dinosaurs, then no reptiles, then no amphibians, then no fish, then no multicellular life? I don't know

Credit for honesty, but not having an explanation is fatal to the Flood scenario.

Why do you think the Grand Staircase region's geology to be representative of all geology worldwide? Because I believe it can be shown the Flood caused it all.

That's not an answer, and it seems to misunderstand the question, which was intended as an inquiry about why you think so many things that are true geologically of the Grand Staircase region are also true geologically of other regions of the world, such as the amount of tectonic activity and the lateral extent of the strata. Why do you think this when the evidence shows that geologic strata around the world vary a great deal in the amount of tectonic activity they display and in their lateral extent?

If the Paleozoic layers were already present when the Supergroup layers tilted, why do the faults associated with the Supergroup extend down into the Vishnu Schist but not up into the Paleozoic layers? Because of the horizontal movement I believe occurred at the Great Unconformity.

This is a nonsensical answer. You haven't thought this through. Try to visualize how strata move, in just two dimensions should be sufficient, then give answering this question another try.

If the Supergroup layers actually tilted, where did all the missing cubic miles of rock go? I believe it became the schist though some is what is called "erosion."

This, too, is a nonsensical answer. Nothing in the Vishnu Schist resembles metamorphized Grand Canyon Supergroup layers. There is no bulge upward that those cubic miles of rock would create. And you don't mean erosion but abrasion, for which there is no evidence (there's plenty of exposed supergroup/Tapeats contact to examine), and again all cubic miles of rock would create a significant bulge upward.

Your scenario requires cubic miles of rock to simply disappear. That's not possible.

If the Grand Canyon had been cut suddenly then the canyon walls would be vertical. How do you explain the sloping walls of the Grand Canyon? I don't think it had to have been cut vertically. The receding Flood volume would have been greater at first, cutting a wider area, then narrower as it cut deeper into the area and its level dropped.

Not possible. The sloping sides happen naturally through their erosion in a gradually deepening canyon, not through downcutting by rapidly flowing water.

There's another aspect of the sloping canyon sides that is important to note, and that's that the sides of the canyon vary in slope. Some of the exposed canyon face is vertical, some sloped, and the governing factor is the hardness of the strata. The softer the strata the more likely it is to form slopes. Check out this diagram and you'll see that the harder strata (the limestones and sandstones) form cliffs, while the softer strata (the shales and mudstones) form slopes. This pattern is caused by erosion over long time periods:

It takes around a thousand years to erode 15 inches of limestone and sandstone, less for shale and mudstone, call it five hundred years. The Hermit Shale is 300 feet thick and it's face is at a 45 degree angle. This means that the bottom of the Hermit Shale extends 300 feet further into the canyon than the top. 300 feet of Hermit Shale has eroded away. It would take 120,000 years for that to happen.

Of course, far more than 300 feet of Hermit Shale has eroded away. The canyon is around 10 miles wide, and it would take 21 million years for that much Hermit Shale to erode away. This is, of course, a gross approximation, and it is likely less because the original river likely threaded and twisted through the region, but certainly it is millions of years.

Also, the amount of talus in the canyon indicates the passage of a minimum of hundreds of thousands of years. Most talus finds its way through erosion and gravity into the river where it is carried away by the river, so obviously far, far more talus has been produced in the canyon than is currently present.

Also, geochemical techniques can reveal how long a rock has been near the surface, and this says that the canyon was not carved all at the same time. There is not yet a consensus, but recent data indicates some sections were carved 50-70 million years ago, others 15-25 MYA, and yet others much more recently, with the sections joined together to create the pathway for the Colorado River only around 5-6 MYA. See Grand Canyon is not so ancient.

Why is the rate of slope retreat at the Grand Canyon consistent with an age of millions of years? I don't know.

It's appropriate to mention talus again. Had the Grand Canyon formed rapidly only 4500 years ago the canyon would be nearly pristine with regard to talus. The limestone (very hard) portion of the canyon sides retreats at the rate of about 15 inches per thousand years, so in 4500 years the total amount of slope retreat would be about 5 feet. There is far, far more talus than that in the Grand Canyon, as you can see in this image:

What is your evidence that all tectonic activity worldwide occurred after deposition of sediments? Various cross sections from different locations.

Well, that is remarkably unspecific.

This is related to the question about why you think world geology generally is the same as the Grand Staircase region. Evidence of any fault that didn't extend to the surface anywhere in the world would be evidence that there was tectonic activity while the Flood was depositing sediments, contradicting your claim. The New Madrid Fault System begins in Missouri and extends southwest. It is buried beneath sedimentary layers:

Given the randomness of floods, why has no fossil ever been found in the wrong strata evolutionarily? I don't know, For some reason the layers are consistent.

This is fatal for the flood scenario.

How did the flood leave behind cross bedded sand dunes with animal tracks in the Coconino? Why are you asking these questions I've answered many times before? Those aren't sand dunes, they are sand that the water cross bedded. Animal tracks occurred between waves and/or tides.

I asked because your answer, as many have told you many times, is impossible. The correct answer, for you, is "I don't know." The angle of repose indicates eolian deposits. Wikipedia says: "Several structural features such as ripple marks, sand dune deposits, rain patches, slump marks, and fossil tracks are not only well preserved within the formation, but also contribute evidence of its eolian origin." TalkOrigins adds, "Since McKee published, additional types of terrestrial trace fossils, paleosols, and other distinctive eolian sedimentary structures have been recognized in Coconino and related eolian strata."

Also, your "animals running out between waves to leave tracks" idea is more an indicator of your inability to think rationally than anything else. The idea is absurd, as is your successive waves/tides idea.

How did the flood transport and deposit sediments that include burrows, termite nests, worm holes, etc.? It didn't, it overran the nests and buried them, perhaps moved them some distance, burrows and holes were formed by the animals between waves or tides.

Same answer as the previous: absurd on its face, and the correct answer, for you, is "I don't know."

What is the definition of kind? Animals that share a basic genome.

As explained in messages you probably ignored, animals that share a genome are the same species.

How can you argue about kind without a definition? If you notice, I am usually in the process of defining it in the argument.

What I notice is that you have once again not defined kind.

Why, if you believe the Bible is God's inerrant word, do you think there are exceptions to God's claim to have "destroyed all living creatures" in Genesis 8:21? I read it as referring to air-breathing land-dwelling creatures. You may count sea creatures, I don't think the Bible does.

Your contradictory way of interpreting the Bible is noted.

How did the ocean keep all the sedimentary types separate? Well, there are examples of that happening in the Berthault film I posted sometime back. Walther's Law demonstrates that the rising sea deposits clearly separate sedimentary layers. What's the problem?

As explained in messages you probably ignored, Berthault studied flumes, and the layers deposited were at an approximate 45 degree angle. Try again.

You still do not understand Walther's Law. Continuous deposition (i.e., no unconformities) will often produce gradations from one sedimentation type to another. Sharp contacts are also a possibility. Transgressions after a period of erosion will produce an unconformity and often a sharp contact. In other words, Walther's Law can product both sharp and gradual contacts.

Also, transgressions and regressions often experience reversals producing structures like this:

Notice, for example, the tongues of Bright Angel Shale that extend into the Muav Limestone. That happened because the transgression was not continuous but was occasionally interrupted by minor regressions.

Since floods only sort continuously by size/density of sediment and do not create sharp contacts, what is it about strata that says "flood" to you? Mostly their scale I think, their hugeness. but Walther's Law deals with layers that look like they have sharp contacts.

Again, you do not understand Walther's Law. It can produce both graduated and sharp contacts.

How did the deposition of sediments by a series of waves leave no evidence of that process behind? Why should it?

Because each wave would only travel so far inland, and where it stopped it would leave an edge of sediment deposition. Right?

How deep were the sediments deposited by each wave? Just for the sake of discussion let me suggest that each wave deposits sediments 10 feet deep, and that each wave travels a mile inland. So after the first wave there's a second wave that deposits another 10 feet of sediment above the first 10 feet. After it travels a mile inland it should begin retreating, but it can't because it spills over the edge left by the previous wave. Your wave idea doesn't work.

Each layer covered up the one under it.

And each wave contained identical sediment content? Including fossils (except at that point they were actually corpses)? And including laterally so that the differences in a wave's sediment content across, say, 10 miles of coastline, were identical from wave to wave? That would be magical.

And besides I don't think ALL the layers were deposited by wavers, I think when the water was deep enough the layers precipitated out.

Well, now you're back to your problem of how layers of larger/heavier particles were deposited above lighter particles.

If the flood rains washed all the land sediment into the sea, how was life left behind on the denuded landscape to leave tracks when waves deposited new sediments? Obviously it didn't wash ALL the land into the sea.

So where can we find some of this antediluvian land? Shouldn't it possess unique qualities since it had no sedimentary origin yet sustained life anyway?

I've answered so many of these already, what a tedious project this is.

Oh, give me a break. Someone as reluctant as you to respond to posts can't brag about how many times she's provided answers. Most of your posts are short one and two liners. Your longer posts are usually just redeclarations of what you believe, not answers.

Why do you think Bertault's views relevant since his experiments deposited sediments at an angle of 45° and required a flume? It demonstrates that water makes neat flat sedimentary layers, the specifics aren't important at this point.

You won't find anyone to agree with you that something as specific as a difference in angle of 45° isn't important.

ABE: In fact early in the film a flooding creek was shown to make a neat stack of layered sediments; whereas it was being argued that "floods" don't do that. /ABE

You can tell me where in the film and I'll take a look, but it seems pretty obvious that any process depositing horizontal layers couldn't be the same one as in his experiment. You likely misunderstood.

Since 3/4 of the globe is currently covered by water, how is a truly global flood that covers the remaining quarter much different? Don't understand the question.

The world is currently 71% flooded. How would flooding the remaining 29% make much difference? How could flooding the little remaining area sticking just a tiny bit above the water represent some massive catastrophe changing the planet's geology everywhere?

Why did no fishermen survive the flood? Probably ran for cover when the rain started?

Really? The world over, not one fisherman stayed on his boat? As water levels rose, no fishermen rushed themselves and their families to their boats? There wasn't a single houseboat anywhere in the world, nothing like this anywhere:

How was the original salinity of the ocean restored after the Flood? Don't know how much salinity there was before or after and neither do you.

Well, yes, you're correct that I don't know the salinity before the Flood, since there was never any such thing. Obviously I know the salinity 4500 years ago, since it must have been just about the same as today.

It is you who is the supposed expert on the Flood. Presumably the salinity of the ocean after the flood would have had to return to its original level, so how would it do that?

If the fountains of the deep were undersea volcanos, where is the evidence that many undersea volcanos erupted 4500 years ago? I don't know if the fountains of the deep were undersea volcanoes, I think it rather unlikely myself.

If you think it unlikely then why were you pushing this idea just a month of so ago?

This is tedious because I've already answered many of these. Also the next list. I will have to come back to that.

Again, someone who responds to as few messages as you cannot complain of how tedious answering questions is. Even when you respond to a message you frequently address just a small part of it.

And meanwhile all this stuff about the Flood is really OFF TOPIC here so I don't want to continue it after I've answered the lists.

Someone who turns a thread in the Biological Evolution forum into a flood thread cannot complain about others being off-topic.

By my count you answered 0 of 27 questions.

--Percy

Collecting some definitions and statements for possible reference on this thread, here's a definition of Evolution I'd like to get opinions on since I'd rather not make use of it and find out later nobody here accepts it.

From Live Science, What Is Darwin's Theory of Evolution?

The theory of evolution by natural selection, first formulated in Darwin's book "On the Origin of Species" in 1859, is the process by which organisms change over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. Changes that allow an organism to better adapt to its environment will help it survive and have more offspring. Evolution by natural selection is one of the best substantiated theories in the history of science, supported by evidence from a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including paleontology, geology, genetics and developmental biology. The theory has two main points, said Brian Richmond, curator of human origins at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. "All life on Earth is connected and related to each other," and this diversity of life is a product of "modifications of populations by natural selection, where some traits were favored in and environment over others," he said. More simply put, the theory can be described as "descent with modification," said Briana Pobiner, an anthropologist and educator at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., who specializes in the study of human origins. The theory is sometimes described as "survival of the fittest," but that can be misleading, Pobiner said. Here, "fitness" refers not to an organism's strength or athletic ability, but rather the ability to survive and reproduce.

And from the same site, a summary:

Summary of Darwin's Theory of Evolution • A species is a population of organisms that interbreeds and has fertile offspring. • Living organisms have descended with modifications from species that lived before them. • Natural selection explains how this evolution has happened: — More organisms are produced than can survive because of limited resources. — Organisms struggle for the necessities of life; there is competition for resources. — Individuals within a population vary in their traits; some of these traits are heritable -- passed on to offspring. — Some variants are better adapted to survive and reproduce under local conditions than others. — Better-adapted individuals (the "fit enough") are more likely to survive and reproduce, thereby passing on copies of their genes to the next generation. — Species whose individuals are best adapted survive; others become extinct.

SO: Is all this acceptable as a definition of the Theory of Evolution? Any objections?

Thank you.

The obvious objection is that it puts too much emphasis on selection. While selection dominates adaptive evolution there is still a significant amount of evolutionary change - especially at the genetic level - that is due to drift.

On further thought I think it should be taken as a description, not a definition. For instance universal common descent is not in any way an essential part of the theory and shouldn’t appear in a definition.

Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

Faith writes: Is all this acceptable as a definition of the Theory of Evolution? Any objections?

After 17 years telling us why the Theory of Evolution is wrong you're asking for definitions?

Groundhog day. Again.

... all that's missing is a brief sentence about how the particular climate attributed to the time period was determined by the presence of salts in the Jurassic rocks, and maybe a reference to a source discussing it. ...

Well I agree with that. I looked at the rather brief article and then to see if they listed any source material. This could be a result of new management:

quote:

---

Rupert Murdoch Takes Over National Geographic, Then Lays Off Award-Winning Staff

November 3, 2015

The memo went out, and November 3rd 2015 came to the National Geographic office. This was the day in which Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox took over National Geographic. The management of National Geographic sent out an email telling its staff, all of its staff, all to report to their headquarters, and wait by their phones. This pulled back every person who was in the field, every photographer, every reporter, even those on vacation had to show up on this fateful day.

As these phones rang, one by one National Geographic let go the award-winning staff, and the venerable institution was no more.

The name now belongs to Rupert Murdoch, and he has plans for it. The CEO of National Geographic Society, Greg Knell, tried to claim back in September that there “there won’t be an [editorial] turn in a direction that is different form the National Geographic heritage.” Murdoch’s move today only served to prove Knell’s words hollow, with hundreds of talented people now served their pink slips. And with the recognition that Murdoch’s other enterprises do not reflect the standards held by National Geographic, and with Murdoch’s history of changing the editorial direction of purchased properties, today’s move indicates that we can expect a similar shift for National Geographic.

---

The National Geographic we grew up with is no more, it is now a sensationalist rag. The brevity and low level of information of the article is likely because of editing.

So you need to blame Rupert's people not scientists for this lapse.

Well, I qualify, had basic science courses in both high school and university, enjoyed it, was good at it; but you don't really mean that, you mean that I still believe what I was taught in the classes about evolution, and of course I no longer do.

So you understand the scientific basis. It doesn't matter what you believe or accept, what is true will remain true regardless of your beliefs. Evolution happens every day in every generation of every species. The theory of evolution is that this is sufficient to explain the natural history of life on earth. So far no other explanation has come close.

Enjoy

Edited by RAZD, : subtitle

1. I disagree that believers in the Flood need to try to deal with all the questions about how the Flood did this or that, and agree with mike the wiz on that subject. That's why I wasn't interested in that thread. ...

So when you say the flood is the best explanation of geological depositions, shouldn't you annotate that with the provisio that it is only a partial explanation based on some evidence and that other evidence has been ignored, and thus it is a tentative conclusion ...

... since you are asking for that from the National Geographic article?

Enjoy

They claim that secular science is blinded since the secular scientist sees no need to search any differently. The problem with their arguments is that they have no guidebook on how else to teach and show the secular scientists how to look.

So they are blind searching in the dark, and think science is blinded ...

Enjoy

From Live Science, What Is Darwin's Theory of Evolution? And from the same site, a summary: Summary of Darwin's Theory of Evolution ... SO: Is all this acceptable as a definition of the Theory of Evolution? Any objections?

Darwin's theory of evolution (by natural selection) is part of the modern theory of evolution, but not all of it, as other processes (like genetic drift and how genetic inheritance and mutation cause variations) have been added, so no, that is not acceptable as a full definition of the theory of evoution.

Enjoy

Faith writes: You insist on not getting the point so I'll drop it. But I really do think if even you yourself took some time to think it through based on what I've been saying, you, even you, would have to see that the system of creating whole landscapes/time periods with particular climates and geographical features out of salt and coal found in rocks doesn't hold together.

But strata corresponding to time periods is precisely what you just argued has happened. Quoting you from your Message 41 in reply to a question from me:

Faith in Message 41 writes: If the flood rains washed all the land sediment into the sea, how was life left behind on the denuded landscape to leave tracks when waves deposited new sediments? Obviously it didn't wash ALL the land into the sea.

So any antedeluvian land not washed into the sea was once a landscape full of life, and now it is buried beneath layers of sediment from the Flood and lithified. It's now strata representing a time period.

Of course none of us believe that, but you have to believe it because you just said it. Though of course you could prove it to us by pointing us to somewhere in the world that some of this antediluvian strata can be found. For now it's just another of your evidence-free out-of-the-blue claims.

--Percy

Again, I didn't intend for you to answer the issues in these lists in this thread. I provided those lists only to make clear how many issues you've failed to address, usually for one or more of several reasons; a) You fail to answer entire messages; b) You answer only one or perhaps two of the issues raised and ignore the rest; c) You answer detailed posts with one or two lines; d) You don't address the issue at all but merely restate your original position from scratch as if no problems had been raised; e) You respond to the issue in a way that makes clear you still don't understand it.

Just a quick scan of your post reveals that your responses are far too brief to have actually addressed any of these issues, but I'll respond anyway

Faith writes: And here are a list of things Faith still has doesn't understand or has misconceptions about: Constructive discussion. Ha ha. Couldn't it be that it's impossible to have a constructive discussion on this subject in this place? Ha ha, of course not, has to be a fault of mine.

Your recent honesty regarding some questions by replying "I don't know" is refreshing, but in general your discussion tactics involve discouraging constructive discussion as much as possible. See the above list in my first paragraph.

How to anchor views in facts. No point in answering such accusations.

So you plead nolo contendere regarding your failure to connect your wild ideas to facts.

Subordinating everything to the Bible is not science. If you mean subordinating relevant facts to the Bible, sure it is.

Subordinating facts to a religious book is religion, not science. What you're doing is religion. This bears on the previous point, your failure to perceive a need to connect ideas to facts.

Math. Yes I'm bad at math.

More refreshing honesty.

Physics. This I know I'm good at.

You are remarkably poor at physics. You are even remarkably poor at having an intuitive feel for how the real world works, despite, one would assume, living in it all day every day.

Walther's Law. I don't know if I misunderstand it or not, I may very well understand it just fine, though I couldn't trust you to recognize that. In any case as I've many times said, the only thing that interests me about Walther's Law is the fact that rising sea water lays down layers of sediments.

Oh, trust me, you badly misunderstand Walther's Law. Walter's Law is not about water transgressing across or regressing from a landscape, though of course transgressions and regressions provide a common example of Walther's Law in action.

Walther's Law is about depositional environments moving across a landscape, often due to slow transgressions and regressions. Your idea of waves repeatedly washing miles onto and then retreating miles from the land is not Walther's Law - it includes no persistent depositional environment such as you can see at any coastline. Your scenario is closer to repeated tidal waves such as happened in Japan after the 2011 earthquake.

Perhaps you have visited the ocean for a week. There the ocean beach is, day after day, runoff from land delivering sediments to the beach, the waves grinding and separating the sediments into sand that remains at the beach and smaller particles that remain suspended in the active shore water and are carried away from the coast where they eventually sink in quieter water. Is the sea transgressing or regressing? It's so slow that it's impossible to tell, though the likelihood today with climate change and rising seas that the sea is transgressing. But it is very, very slow. The depositional environment along the beach, and the different depositional environment further from the coast, and the still different depositional environment far from the coast, are all moving slowly inland. This slow migration of depositional environments is Walther's Law. It isn't floods or waves.

That the strata of the Grand Canyon formed through Walther's Law, except the Coconino. RAZD showed that Walther's Law explains it, and it must also explain the Coconino whether you like it or not.

Your use of the pronoun "it" renders your comment ambiguous, but Walther's Law is about depositional environments associated with shifting land/water boundaries. The Coconino is eolian and could not have been due to Walther's Law. Either you or RAZD can refer me to the post where RAZD supposedly said whatever you think he said, and I will respond.

Moose challenged my view of Walther's Law in a very unspecific way in Message 2306 of the Evolution. We Have The Fossils. We Win. thread ("My impression is that Faith is misusing Walther's Law less than Percy is misusing Walther's Law."), and then when asked to clarify became even more unspecific. I challenge Moose to get specific about in what way I am misusing Walther's Law. It's way past time to lay this Walther's Law issue to rest.

The claim that no terrestrial landscape is as straight and flat as strata is false. The claim is true and the efforts to prove it false are so beyond idiotic, in an atmosphere where the physics-challenged Boss disagrees and I have nobody to agree with me we're talking about a really weird setup that has nothing to do with science.

You deny the evidence before your very eyes, for example, Kansas from the air. It's actually flatter than most strata:

But please don't get this issue confused with the issue of terrestrial landscapes like this become strata. It is possible, of course, but extremely unlikely. Kansas at an average elevation of 679 feet is very, very likely just a way station for sediments on their way to the sea. If no uplift occurs, or if rising sea levels get seriously out of hand, then eventually Kansas will be at sea level with the ocean nibbling at its borders, and its landscapes will be consumed by the processes of Walther's Law. They will not be preserved in any stratigraphic column.

Strata are not as flat and straight as Faith thinks, even at the Grand Canyon. They are exactly as flat and straight as I think, only you have a problem seeing it.

You think wrong. This diagram illustrates some of the strata contacts that are not flat and straight:

Note the Surprise Canyon Formation and Temple Butte Formation, both of which have irregular contacts with strata above and below, and both of which pinch out at points.

Strata are rarely uniform with regard to sediment type. A major stupid nitpick.

Actually it's a significant misconception on your part.

It's utterly irrelevant that there are small imperfections since to the naked eye they are almost perfectly uniform and science calls them by their sedimentary names.

You are dead wrong that they are "almost perfectly uniform". The labeling of a layer as limestone or standstone or siltstone are frequently compromises of nomenclature. For example, here's the description of the Tapeats Sandstone from the USGS website:

quote:

---

Brown and red-brown, cliff-forming sandstone and conglomerate. Includes an upper slope-forming transition zone of nearly equal distribution of brown sandstone of Tapeats Sandstone lithology and green siltstone and shale of Bright Angel Shale lithology, and a lower unit of cliff-forming sandstone and conglomeratic sandstone. Lower cliff unit consists mainly of medium- to coarse-grained, thin-bedded, low-angle planar and trough cross-bedded sandstone and conglomeratic sandstone; sandstone beds 6–24 in. (15–60 cm) thick. Unconformable contact with underlying Middle and Late Proterozoic surface that forms the Great Unconformity. The Tapeats fills in lowland areas and thins across or pinches out against young Proterozoic highlands. Variable thickness 0–400 ft (0–122 m)

---

Note where it says that the upper Tapeats is significantly different from the lower Tapeats, and that the Tapeats includes siltstone and shale. And it isn't just sandstone everywhere.

What kind of flimflam are you trying to pull here?

I'm trying to insert some facts into that concrete bunker of a head of yours.

I'm talking about the ones that ARE called by the sedimentary names, the limestones, the sandstones, the chalks, the mustones and so on.

Yes, I know what you're talking about, and you're wrong. Want another example? Here's the USGS description of the Bright Angle Shale:

quote:

---

Green and purple-red, slope-forming siltstone and shale, and interbeds of red-brown to brown sandstone of Tapeats Sandstone lithology. Includes ledge-forming red-brown sandstone member of McKee and Resser (1945). Consists of green and purple-red, fine-grained, micaceous, ripple-laminated, fossiliferous siltstone and shale; dark-green, medium- to coarse-grained, thin-bedded, glauconitic sandstone; and interbedded purplish-red and brown, thin-bedded, fine- to coarse-grained, ripple-laminated sandstone. Includes gray, thin-bedded, fine-grained, micaceous silty dolomite in upper part of unit in western quarter of map area. Intertonguing and facies change relationships with the underlying Tapeats produce variable thickness trends. Contact with the Tapeats is arbitrarily marked at lithologic vertical and lateral transition from predominantly green siltstone and shale to predominantly brown sandstone in slope above the Tapeats cliff. Thickness is about 350 ft (107 m) in eastern quarter of map area, thickening to about 500 ft (150 m) in western quarter.

---

Note the many different types of rocks that are described, from siltstone to shale to sandstone, with different types of each. Hardly uniform.

I'm just giving you facts. These last couple facts kind of help you, since the non-uniformity of strata in terms of both composition and flatness is more what one would expect from a chaotic Flood. Of course there are still the other many problems, but these particular facts allow you to shift your ideas in a way that brings them into a slightly closer correspondence with reality.

Life in the past lived and died and sometimes became entombed just as it does today, above, atop and beneath surfaces of terrestrial, marine or lacustrine sediment, not on flat slabs of rock. In other words I must completely abandon what I know to be true and just accept the establishment view. That is science to you. Wowsie wow. The rate at which that scenario happens in the present is ludicrous as an explanation for the abundance of fossils. Blech. Here I am having to deal with this crazy list of denigrations of my abilities just because the Boss can't think straight.

Well now you're simply denying reality. Obviously life has lived and died and sometimes become entombed at all times during life's history. Some strata are fossil rich (Redwall Limestone), some strata are fossil poor (Coconino - occasional trace fossils at best).

Had corpses been suddenly buried a mere 4500 years ago there would be significant tissue remains in at least some fossils. We have no trouble extracting DNA from mastadons and Neanderthals from tens of thousands of years ago - that there is no DNA in ancient fossils says they are not 4500 years old, as does the total lack of any ¹⁴C or even any bone at all - for example, most dinosaur bones are completely mineralized, no bone left.

The number of fossil species identified is less than 5% of the number of species on the planet today. If fossils were preserved so prodigiously during the flood and if antediluvian life was so much richer and varied than today, then we should be finding many more fossil species than we do. But we don't, and that's yet another fact the flood doesn't explain.

Most strata are marine. While terrestrial landscapes can become strata, they usually don't. Navajo Sandstone isn't a stratum, Moenkapi isn't a stratum, all the cliffs of the Grand Staircase aren't strata. What a revelation.

You sound confused here. I said that terrestrial landscapes don't usually become strata, not that they never become strata. The Coconino and the Navajo are terrestrial strata. The Moenkopi (not Moenkapi) is a marine stratum consisting of sandstone and shale with gypsum layers in between. Many of the layers of the Grand Staircase above the Kaibab are coastal or swamp or lacustrine, not terrestrial.

Lithified soil is called a paleosol. Golly gosh another amazing revelation.

This item was added to the list when you got paleosols wrong. Specifically you said in your Message 2760 of the Evolution. We Have The Fossils. We Win. thread, "'Earth' can't become a sedimentary rock; 'soil' can't become a sedimentary rock." Since a paleosol is soil that has become sedimentary rock, you were dead wrong.

Have you changed your mind and now believe lithified soil is possible and actually has a name: paleosol.

Rocks do not form by drying but by diagenesis. Actually somebody here corrected you on that years ago...

Nobody could have corrected me because it is true: rocks do not form by drying but by diagenesis. Jar's post merely noted that some rocks form by the drying up of water, forming crystals. I didn't know why he interjected that at the time, and I still don't, since we were talking about sedimentary rock in the Grand Canyon.

...and even put up a link showing that simple compaction/drying out does form some rocks.

I don't think so. See if you can run that down and we'll straighten this out once and for all.

But no matter what Jar was saying, it doesn't apply to sedimentary rock like sandstone, siltstone, shale, limestone, etc. Take a shovelful of beach sand or of offshore muck or of calcareous ooze and plop it down in your driveway in the hot sun and wait for it to turn to rock. It'll never happen. The closest you'll come to rock is dried blobs that crumble easily. Look up diagenesis and lithification.

But I never made that claim anyway, all I ever said was that compaction hardens them enough to hold their shape during various kinds of erosion, even the cutting of the Grand Canyon. Have you ever worked with clay?

No, I haven't worked with clay, but the layers of the Grand Canyon are not lithified clay. And you did make that claim. You said that the canyon was carved while the rocks were soft, and then the compressed but soft rock now exposed on the canyon walls dried into hard rock. Rock does not form by drying. Any soft strata at the base of the canyon with a mile of rock above would have been extruded into the canyon like a giant flat noodle maker.

There are no underground rivers and streams eroding buried strata (karst structures are a different matter). There is absolutely no reason why not, it's perfectly reasonable that after the Flood water running between layers would erode away some of them.l In some situations such stream erosion would form what are really karsts in effect. Too bad you have no ability to visualize the physical world.

This displays ignorance on at least a couple things. Karsts form because limestone is soluble in water. Other sediment types are not soluble.

There is no water flowing underground. Aquifers are not giant underwater lakes - they're buried regions of water-permeable rock whose water content is 5% at best. Underground water doesn't flow, not between layers nor through layers. There are no underground rivers in any conventional sense. Underground water seeps through rock at a very slow rate.

Here in New Hampshire those who live outside cities and larger towns (which provide town water) mostly get our water from wells drilled into rock. Our well is 330 feet deep, mostly through rock, no liner required for most of it (you usually only need a liner for the top portion until you reach rock). The water is in rock that is part of an acquifer (water is in almost all rock, but rock in an aquifer contains a higher percentage of water). They drill down until they reach an aquifer, then they drill another 30 feet or so that there's a considerable surface area of rock out of which water can seep into the well. The pump is placed at the bottom of the well.

About the percentage of water in rock, some aquifers have a higher water content in their rock than others. We're lucky, our aquifer, though much deeper than most (many people in the neighborhood didn't have to drill deeper than a hundred feet or so), is water rich, and we can pump faster than 5 gallons/minute if we want. Some neighbors were not so lucky, dropping multiple wells on their property in search of a decent aquifer. They actually have maps of the aquifers in our neighborhood, the local water authority puts them together, but their accuracy is only so-so.

Our unfortunate neighbors have only been able to drill into aquifers with flow rates of 2 gallons/minute or less, barely enough for a shower, and certainly not enough to do more than one thing at a time, like take a shower while someone else flushes the toilet. Large holding tanks can help, hydrofracking can help, in some cases multiple wells can be joined together.

That's probably too much detail about wells, but the point is that underground water is in the rock, not in underground lakes and rivers. There are no open spaces underground - the overlying weight of sediments crushed out all open space long ago. There is no such thing as underground lakes and rivers. There are no rivers flowing underground (again, we're not talking karsts here). There is no erosion underground.

Buried strata cannot tilt without affecting surrounding strata. Well it usually does knock them around quite a bit, leaving only a layer or two in many cases, but it left the whole stack in at least one case I know of. And actually it DID "affect" the surrounding strata, it pushed them up and created the Kaibab Uplift and slid them horizontally a quarter of a mile. Fair amount of effect there.

You are living in fantasyland. Buried strata cannot tilt without affecting surrounding strata. Cubic miles of rock cannot disappear.

Angular unconformities happen when sediment is deposited atop tilted strata, such as at Welcombe Mouth Beach. Gosh you are sure the champion of the Status Quo, no imagination. That beach is a ridiculous example anyway.

This is a non-answer. You obviously still do not understand that sedimentation continues today atop stratigraphic columns in much of the world, certainly at least 71% of the world, because that much is ocean.

Accelerated continental drift with the attendant accelerated creation of sea floor at mid-oceanic ridges would release enough heat to boil the oceans. This is even without taking into account the heat from friction and subduction. Righto. It must be that I don't "understand" these things, can't be that I disagree with them. That's all this ridiculous list is about.

If you recall you conceded math was a weakness for you. I did the math for you, first for the mid-oceanic ridge example, then for the example of a candle under a pot of water, something you promised to come back to but never did. If you can't follow the math and aren't interested in putting in the effort to learn the math then you are doomed to ignorance and have only one avenue open to you, the one typically resorted to by the ignorant and the one you have apparently chosen: ridicule.

In the oceans, sea floor sediment depth increases with increasing distance from mid-oceanic ridges where the sea floor forms. Sea floor near mid-oceanic ridges is young and has little time to accumulate sediments, while that far from mid-oceanic ridges is much older and has had much time to accumulate sediments. The sediments comprising strata were always deposited during a particular time period, whether the millions of years of geology or the year of the Flood. In the year of the Flood there was only one continent and no Atlantic Ocean. In fact even according to your establishment explanation the Atlantic Ocean didn't begin to form until, what was it, the Jurassic Period?

This doesn't address the issue and indicates you don't understand the problem. Read the point again with emphasis on the parts about increasing sediment depth with increasing distance from mid-oceanic ridges. The sediment depth adjacent to the North American continent represents far more than could be deposited in 4500 years.

The sediments comprising strata were always deposited during a particular time period, whether the millions of years of geology or the year of the Flood.

You accidentally left this one out of your list and so provided no answer.

Stratigraphic columns continue to grow today, mostly at low points such as lake and sea bottom. There is absolutely no stratification happening today anywhere that is a continuation of the Geological Column or even like it.

This a bald declaration with no explanation. You still do not understand that sedimentation occurring today is atop existing stratigraphic columns.

Fossil abundance varies widely among strata. So?

You said fossil abundance is so great that it proves the Flood. You don't seem to understand that fossil abundance varies widely among strata. Whether in the aggregate that means fossils are abundant or rare or somewhere in between cannot be known, both because you've provided no data, and abundant is qualitative, not quantitative.

Life buried today could eventually become fossils. I guess, just nowhere near the rate necessary to account for the abundance in the Geological Column.

You fail to address the point: life buried today could eventually becomes fossils. Your claim that the rate is too low to account for fossil abundance (something you don't really know, which was the previous point) is unsupported by any data - it's an empty claim.

Speciation does not take millions of years. That's for sure. What's your point?

In your Message 1494 of the Evolution. We Have The Fossils. We Win. thread you accused us of believing it takes millions of years to produce new trilobite species: "Millions of years to get the different species of trilobite is absurd." No one believes that, and the fact that you think we believe that represents yet another issue you misunderstand.

Old evidence is still evidence. Evidence has no expiration date. Gosh a Sturdy Fact if there ever was one. It's point, however, eludes me.

You argued that evidence from the distant past has no value. Evidence that has survived to the present is still evidence, no matter how old. You don't seem to understand that.

Vegetation and trees did not keep buried sediments loose so that the 40 days and nights of rain could wash them into the ocean. Eh? Roots and especially the deep roots of tall trees do indeed keep soil loose. Look it up.

Tree roots sure don't keep soil loose around here. I looked this up as you suggested and found nada. I did find this: "The majority of a large tree's roots are in the upper 18"-24" of soil."

You've either forgotten the original explanation, or, more likely, never read it or never understood it. Roots only go so deep, only a few feet at most. Even if tree roots went down ten feet, how is that going to keep sediments loose that are 50 feet down, a hundred, a thousand, a mile. You don't seem to understand that your argument about roots keeping soil loose, even if true, which it probably isn't, only applies to the top few feet. It doesn't extend to the rest of whatever underlies the landscape. You don't seem to understand this simple point.

The dog does not have enormous genetic diversity compared to other species today. It can be no more genetically diverse than the gray wolf from which it is descended. I include the wolf with the whole collection of dog breeds, but if all the dogs descended from the wolf they would have left the wolf with less genetic diversity.

The origin of dogs was not a population dividing into daughter populations but just a few wolves drifting off to live with humans. Wolves genetic diversity would be highly unlikely to be affected in any significant way. Plus DNA analysis reveals at least several significant episodes of dogs and wolves interbreeding.

A definition of kind that is different for each kind is not a definition. But of course I never said anything of the sort. I was looking for the best way to define the kind morphologically and it worked for some species but not others.

You provided different definitions of kind for different kinds.

Well, I lost one somewhere along the way. Not going to try to correct it.

I added it back in.

By my count you were 0 for 28 in demonstrating an understanding of any of these issues.

--Percy

As usual you have a bunch of straw man misrepresentations of my arguments plus the usual idea that if I don't accept the establishment point of view I don't "understand" anything, since all you are doing is regurgitating tha status quo as usual. That's kind of the theme song here in general. The idea that I lack scientific knowledge simply means my refusal to accept evolution and the Old Earth.

And you're the one who doesn't understand physics, but of course fat chance anyone will ever acknowledge that in Percy Land.

So you insist that Walther's Law is about slow movement across "depositional environments." Well, I deny depositional environments, and the rule covers the scenario of a faster rising sea just fine, as moose agreed a while back. Perhaps he's changed his mind by now, but it's true no matter who agrees with it. I also deny the ridiculous idea that there were a number of sea transgressions and regressions. You think it impossible to account for one worldwide Flood and yet you have, what, six?

Why don't you just put a banner up at the top of EvC saying

CREATIONISTS NOT WELCOME HERE.

That would be a lot more honest than "Understanding through discussion." Don't you think it's time to come out from behind that curtain?

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith I understand that it must be painful to have your errors exposed. This is not a welcoming site to pride-filled arrogant dogmatists who can’t be bothered to get their facts right.

Percy is quite right to point out that you are not good at Physics. Not even High School level Physics.

Denying depositional environments is just saying that sedimentation doesn’t happen. Which is rather silly since it is observed in the present day. And no, rising water over the short term would not produce the sequences expected over a much longer term. You don’t even understand your own ideas if you think otherwise.

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I also deny the ridiculous idea that there were a number of sea transgressions and regressions. You think it impossible to account for one worldwide Flood and yet you have, what, six?

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We have none as you ought to realise by now. Covering some of the land - even relatively large portions of it - is not covering all of it,

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Why don't you just put a banner up at the top of EvC saying

CREATIONISTS NOT WELCOME HERE.

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If your idea of being welcome is being given a free pass on arrogant boasting, inventions, false accusations and misrepresentations then nobody is “welcome” here.