Is the Global Flood Feasible? Discussion Q&A

Howdy folks!I wish I had more time to spend here, as there are some claims being made that are so-ripe for refutation. Re: BaumgardnerActually that quote, "admittedly does not work without miracles," is not directly from Baumgardner, but accurately summarizes his position as expounded in:Baumgardner, John R., 1990a. Changes accompanying Noah's Flood. Proceedings of the second international conference on creationism, vol. II, pp. 35-45.Baumgardner, John R., 1990b. The imparative of non-stationary natural law in relation to Noah's Flood. Creation Research Society Quarterly 27(3): 98-100.Many observations "point to the need to remove large amounts of heat from extensive bodies of rock in the earth in order to account for the geological change proposed for the Flood. It is the author's conclusion that this cannot happen within the framework of time-invariant physics" (1986, p. 21). I can't find the source for that one either, but I remeber reading this in one of his articles.Here's an interesting quote from a guy named Hill Roberts that I saved from a message board long ago. Roberts is an old-earth creationist. He explains the major problem with the model quite well:"The Terra model will only produce results of rapid crustal motion if one inserts completely non-physical constants into the simulation. For example he uses properties of rock in terms of specific heat, thermal conduction, thermal gradients, tensile strength, shear strength, compressive failure, dynamic loading and mass density profiles that have NO relation to the actual values for these properties of basalt and granite (the two basic types of crustal rock). Some of the values he uses for these constants of nature differ by more than an order of magnitude from reality. When he uses values for these properties of nature that are correct for such materials, his model produces exactly the type of slow motion for the continents consistent with the rest of geological data. Furthermore, his own model shows that if the continents were to move at such rates, the surface destruction would be so great and so prolonged that the earth would STILL be uninhabitable for all the massive earthquakes which would STILL be happening if runaway subduction happened only a few thousand years back. So which part of the model's results do you want to keep for your presuppositions."

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"As it happens, computer simulation and finite element modeling is something I do myself in my professional work. Anyone who works with such tools knows that a computer model can be made to produce any result at all simply by changing the model and/or using inputs that produce the desired results. For example, in a model of a satellite flying around the earth, I can easily produce a model that indicates such a satellite can orbit the earth at only ten kilometers altitude. All I have to do is give the atmospheric portion of standard, high-fidelity models constants for the density of air that are off by a factor of 10. But surely everyone understands that satellites cannot orbit at ten kilometers altitude just because a computer model with bad data says so, even if its a really good community-standard computer model that produces high-precision results for orbital mechanics when used with correct data. Computer models can be great. But it is never fair to input a lighter-than-air pig into one and then claim pigs really can fly"Be Well!Patrick

Regarding Burdick's precambrian pollen, this is unfortunately not-so-atypical of YEC research. The whole thing was amply refuted by another YEC, Arthur Chadwick, 20 years ago. I emailed Chadwick a few months ago asking him what he thought about the fact the claim is still being floated around, and he said that it was "as refuted as anything can be in science," or something very close to that, and that he and Kurt Wise were planning on writing another article on the matter. The following is from something I wrote:

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In a 1966 CRS article, creationist C. L. Burdick claimed to have found modern pollen in the Hakatai Shale (Microflora of the Grand Canyon. Creation Research Society 1966 Annual 3(1):38-50). This finding was lauded by creationists as definitive "disproof" of plant evolution, and even today is presented as such on numerous creation "science" web sites.

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Unfortunately for Burdick and others who have promoted this claim, the supposed precambrian pollen is apparently nothing more than surface contamination. In 1980, another creationist, Arthur Chadwick of Loma Linda University, published an article in the journal Origins summarizing the results of his attempts to confirm Burdick's claims. Precambrian Pollen in the Grand Canyon - A Reexamination. Origins 8(1):7-12 (1981). He concluded:

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"A total of fifty samples from the same strata which Burdick had studied were processed. All slides were completely scanned. No single example of an authentic pollen grain was obtained from any of these samples. In fact, the slides produced from the Hakatai Formation were in most cases completely free from any material of biologic origin, modern or fossil."

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But what of Burdick's supposed precambrian pollen? Where did it come from? As Chadwick points out, the samples were taken from a surficially exposed portion of the Hakatai, and this immediately suggests contamination of modern pollen in Burdick's samples. This suggestion was amply confirmed by Chadwick, who notes:

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"No rigorous attempt was apparently made by Burdick to evaluate personally the modern pollen rain in the Grand Canyon. A single sample of soil from near one of the collecting sites could have completely satisfied Burdick as to the source of most of the grains he has reported. A typical analysis of a site near where Burdick collected his Hakatai samples yielded the following profile: bisaccate pollen (conifers) 30%; juniper 12%; ephedra 16%; various species of angiosperms (42%) (Sigels 1971). Although the poor quality of the photographs in the plates of Burdick's first paper makes definite assignments impossible, one can approximate the composition of the flora he reports. Of the grains identifiable as pollen or spores in the two papers by Burdick (n=18), 7 or 37% are bisaccates, 2 or 11% are possibly juniper. Ephedra pollen constitute 11% and angiosperms and unassignable grains 34%. Thus even with this small sample size, Burdick's grains approximate the modern pollen rain found in surface samples in the area of the Grand Canyon where he collected his samples"

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In fact, there are objective criteria for distinguishing between original pollen and pollen contaminates. These have not been adequately adressed. For instance, ancient pollen should be darkly colored, not clear or yellowish like fresh pollen. A bigger problem is that the Hakatai was "baked" by the intrusion of igneous sills after deposition of the shale. Thus the pollen, if it was originally present, would have been baked also, probably baked into unrecognizability. Chadwick again:

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"The preservation of the grains which Burdick figures in his first paper is difficult to estimate because of the poor quality of the photos. In the second paper the grains appear nearly fresh. The complete absence of organic material other than the pollen and spores cited by Burdick makes comparisons difficult, but many analyses from other Precambrian rocks where organic remains are thought to occur reveal little more than carbon films. Considering the deep burial, lithification, and oxidized condition of the Hakatai shales, the state of preservation of these grains suggests that they were not a part of these sediments during their diagenesis. Incidentally, the red color of the grains, cited by Burdick as an indication of their antiquity, if not due to laboratory staining procedures commonly employed, is in any case not necessarily an indication of antiquity since the ferruginous stain in the rocks can be readily acquired (as any Grand Canyon hiker will testify)."

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Which is the more likely scenario: a) the surface exposure of the Hakatai Shale in the Grand Canyon contains original pollen grains which just happen to match the pollen spectrum of the Grand Canyon area, while the overlying 10,000 ft of sediments contain no evidence at all of any metazoan life of any kind and the first indisputed pollen grains occur much higher still, or b) the supposed precambrian pollen grains are simply surficial contaminants which entered the exposed shale very recently, after the Hakatai bed was exposed to the air by erosion? Chadwick notes that "More difficulties are created than are solved by Burdick's report since it would require the explanation of the accumulation of all the Upper Precambrian sediments (10,000 ft.), their lithification and subsequent erosion before the first additional fossil forms were buried. Add to this picture the many thousands of macerations of lower Paleozoic and Precambrian rocks which have been carried out in scores of palynology laboratories around the world which have not supported Burdick's claims. There is a general absence of evidence for flowering plants below the middle Cretaceous. It is a responsibility and challenge to creationists to develop a model of earth history which explains this absence."

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[This message has been edited by ps418, 01-30-2002]