All I care about is getting across the distinction between the actual facts and the conjecture. Sometimes the conjectures are offered a little more tentatively than at other times, and sometimes some of the evidence that leads to them is offered too -- more so when the discussion is among scientists I gather, but what the layperson is usually confronted with is nothing but the imaginative scenario. Stick to the actual facts and there is no problem.
In fact the exact conditions of the rocks that lead to such conjectures as "marine environment" are often left out or blurred over. I'd simply appreciate it if you and the other geologists would be alert to this effect and try to fill in the descriptive material that supposedly explains the scenarios -- but of course first of all I'd appreciate it if the imaginative scenarios were clearly identified as such and set apart from the facts better.
This message has been edited by Faith, 03-15-2006 09:20 AM
This message has been edited by Faith, 03-15-2006 09:46 AM
This message has been edited by AdminAsgara, 03-15-2006 08:49 AM
I haven't read your post carefully yet, but I have to point out that the first two quotes you are presenting are not mine though they are presented as if they were. The third is mine.
Re: Again a mixture of fact with imaginative speculation
Great, so we have to explain absolutely everything then.
I think it would help if you simply left out the conjecture altogether myself. But if you are going to bring it in, then it has to be presented in terms of how you arrived at it. It's not fair to just describe a rock as a "marine environment."
roxrkool writes:
In another thread, I briefly touched on how the U.S. grew via island arc accretion south from about the Wyoming/Montana area. Wyoming is located on the Archean Wyoming craton and everything south and basically west are progressively younger accreted terranes - generally considered to be island arc terranes (volcanic island chains similar to Japan and Indonesia that develop along subduction zones).
Look, Rox didn't pull this out of her ass or something. (Believe it or not, part of Ireland formed the same way.) An accreted terrane is a term describing a geological section that was formed from slices of rock formations; so I guess what you see is individual slices or areas, all crushed together, consisting of rock formations similar to what we see in Japan and Indonesia. We assume that, as the formations are similar and there is evidence of uplift and other tectonic action that squashed them together, they may have formed like Japan and Indonesia. Hence "progressively younger accreted terranes - generally considered to be island arc terranes" - because the evidence in the rock indicates that this is the most likely explanation.
I didn't say she pulled it out of a hat. I assume it's standard geology.
The Vishnu Schist is pretty old, but still - we see marine sediments, deformed and uplifted, which were intruded by igneous rock later. That's more or less consistent with what we expect to see in an island arc terrane.
Evidence is given, but still the interpretations have that aura of fact. No contrary interpretations are suggested. There is no way to verify or falsify such an interpretation. This is what I find so frustrating about both OE and TOE discussions.
The evidence suggests this is the most likely explanation.
But my complaint is that the evidence usually isn't given, only the interpretation is given and it is given as fact rather than speculation, and to the poor layman it is often ALL that is given.
We verify or falsify it by examining the evidence - if we see what we expect to see if our explanation is correct, then the explanation is somewhat verified. If we see something unexpected, or something that is not possible for our explanation, it is falsified.
Call it interpretation if you will, but that is what science is.
It makes it impossible for another interpretation of the same phenomena to be offered. You don't give enough of the particulars for a person to think about and you don't like your interpretation being questioned because it's "science" and so on, but that attitude prevents your reader from thinking through the evidence, and especially if one is a YEC makes it nearly impossible to sort out enough fact from fiction to have an answer to you. But of course you don't want to hear the creationist's answer anyway. All you want to do is prove to us we're wrong, so there's not much motivation to be very careful about distinguishing the facts from the interpretations and imaginative scenarios.
Imagination and speculation are more the creationist's forte.
Boy is that a delusion.
This message has been edited by Faith, 03-15-2006 09:40 AM
This message has been edited by Faith, 03-15-2006 09:43 AM
This message has been edited by Faith, 03-15-2006 09:44 AM
This message has been edited by AdminAsgara, 03-15-2006 08:50 AM
The majority of people know that when such things are being discussed, they are getting the consensus opinion of the relevant scientists. If they don't want to accept their opinion they are entitled to.
On a debate board when the interpretation is in question, this doesn't fly.
This message has been edited by AdminAsgara, 03-15-2006 08:51 AM
I may have nothing to say about dating, but presenting a date as geologists do is nothing but interpretation, so THEY have nothing to say EITHER. A date in geological time cannot be a FACT, I don't care HOW much evidence supposedly supports it.
Of course it's just an animal running from the Flood waters about 4500 years ago and eventually overtaken and buried in that particular layer which of course isn't a time period hundreds of millions of years old. sn't.
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