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Author Topic:   The Methods of Historical Science to mystify the public: Assertion, no evidence
Faith 
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Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 1 of 2 (833819)
05-27-2018 2:39 AM


Kind of as a reaction to jar's thread demanding that believers in the worldwide Flood be able to explain every single geological event that ever happened on the planet or else trash the whole Flood idea, I would like to talk about what evidence geologists have for their Geological Time Scale landscapes which are based on a stack of rocks with dead things in them that are best explained by the Flood.
Oh I know they have evidence, I just want to see it spelled out because the usual presentation to the clueless public makes bald assertions about things they couldn't possibly know about, apparently based on some bits and pieces of this and that found in a flat sedimentary rock or assemblage of such rocks found in a stack of flat rocks, each supposedly pertaining to a landscape in a particular time period, a wonderful gift of the gods of science I assume to help us understand the history of the Earth. They can only get away with this bald assertion of "fact" because in the historical sciences there is no way to confirm or disprove anything they say.
There are plenty of examples of this kind of "science" but here's a typical one from National Geographic:
JURASSIC PERIOD
During this period, Earth's climate changed from hot and dry to humid and subtropical.
So here is one of those typical assertions in the Name of Science written as if someone had actually been there and experienced this supposed climate change, without one mention of what evidence led to this obviously perfect knowledge of the climate on earth 150 to 200 million years ago.
So I'm asking what's the evidence this is based on?
And since we're supposedly having a climate change right now that's occurring over a matter of decades, or make it centuries to be on the conservative side, how does it make any sense to talk about a change over a time span of fifty million years? In fact there are many things that occur much more rapidly in our present time than is imputed to similar events in the supposedly very distant past. But maybe that will come up later in the thread if the topic goes anywhere at all.
Next we have an imaginative illustration of one of those landscapes I've so often referred to, this one of course illustrating the "Jurassic Period," (and since there seems to have been some objection to my use of the term "landscape" allow me to point out that National Geographic uses that term here just as I do).
[caption] JURASSIC LANDSCAPE
The Jurassic period (199.6 million to 145.5 million years ago) was characterized by a warm, wet climate that gave rise to lush vegetation and abundant life. Many new dinosaurs emergedin great numbers. Among them were stegosaurs, brachiosaurs, allosaurs, and many others.
So this is another example of a flat assertion of what purports to be fact. Nothing tentative here, no consideration of different possible interpretations, just "this is the way it was" and that's it. We don't even have that kind of certainty about what happened a hundred years ago let alone millions.
So at every such assertion I'm going to want to know
HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS?
WHAT IS YOUR EVIDENCE?
Perhaps the above is enough for now, but I'll quote the rest of the article and the same questions can be raised about it in their turn.
A SHIFTING CLIMATE AND DEVELOPING OCEANS
At the start of the period, the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea continued and accelerated. Laurasia, the northern half, broke up into North America and Eurasia. Gondwana, the southern half, began to break up by the mid-Jurassic. The eastern portionAntarctica, Madagascar, India, and Australiasplit from the western half, Africa and South America. New oceans flooded the spaces in between. Mountains rose on the seafloor, pushing sea levels higher and onto the continents.
All this water gave the previously hot and dry climate a humid and drippy subtropical feel. Dry deserts slowly took on a greener hue. Palm tree-like cycads were abundant, as were conifers such as araucaria and pines. Ginkgoes carpeted the mid- to high northern latitudes, and podocarps, a type of conifer, were particularly successful south of the Equator. Tree ferns were also present.
The oceans, especially the newly formed shallow interior seas, teemed with diverse and abundant life. At the top of the food chain were the long-necked and paddle-finned plesiosaurs, giant marine crocodiles, sharks, and rays. Fishlike ichthyosaurs, squidlike cephalopods, and coil-shelled ammonites were abundant. Coral reefs grew in the warm waters, and sponges, snails, and mollusks flourished. Microscopic, free-floating plankton proliferated and may have turned parts of the ocean red.
HUGE DINOSAURS
On land, dinosaurs were making their mark in a big wayliterally. The plant-eating sauropod Brachiosaurus stood up to 52 feet (16 meters) tall, stretched some 85 feet (26 meters) long, and weighed more than 80 tons. Diplodocus, another sauropod, was 90 feet (27 meters) long. These dinosaurs' sheer size may have deterred attack from Allosaurus, a bulky, meat-eating dinosaur that walked on two powerful legs. But Allosaurus and other fleet-footed carnivores, such as the coelurosaurs, must have had occasional success. Other prey included the heavily armored stegosaurs.
The earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx, took to the skies in the late Jurassic, most likely evolved from an early coelurosaurian dinosaur. Archaeopteryx had to compete for airspace with pterosaurs, flying reptiles that had been buzzing the skies since the late Triassic. Meanwhile, insects such as leafhoppers and beetles were abundant, and many of Earth's earliest mammals scurried around dinosaur feetignorant that their kind would come to dominate Earth once the dinosaurs were wiped out at the end of the Cretaceous.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Message 2 of 2 (833825)
05-27-2018 4:46 AM


Thread Copied to Geology and the Great Flood Forum
Thread copied to the Motley Flood Thread (formerly Historical Science Mystification of Public) thread in the Geology and the Great Flood forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

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