Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham

Isn't the winner determined by the audience? In a debate before an audience of evangelicals at the Creation Science Museum won't the creationist always be deemed the winner? And in the same debate played out before an audience of NAS members won't the scientist always be deemed the winner?At the superficial level of detail of an oral debate, evangelicals will know that the creationist won, and NAS members will know that the scientist won. The only truly significant difference between the two audiences is that one is unable to assess the issues and the other is. One must trust his side speaks truth, while the other knows his side speaks truth.--Percy

Holy cow! Robertson is a loon of the first rank, I can't believe he said this: Is Robertson having an attack of sanity in his dotage?--Percy

Is there a typo in there? Is the second occurrence of the word "evaporation" supposed to be "lithification"?Also, the majority of sedimentary layers are marine and not former flood plains.--Percy

I have trouble seeing Faith's position on evidence as anything but irresolvably conflicted. For Faith there is almost no evidence that is from, to use her term, the "prehistoric past," and certainly the flood was not in the prehistoric past. For Faith there is little evidence that can't be considered.But when you do consider the evidence from what Faith thinks is the Flood it says that everything is very, very old, placing it all in the prehistoric past, and Faith can't consider such evidence.When Faith ignores this evidence then she feels free to conclude that the world is only 6000 years old, but that places all evidence from the flood in the historic past, and now its evidence can be considered.But when you do consider that evidence then you find that everything is very very old...And so on forever.--Percy

Right, I understand, but I think the phrase "rock formed by evaporation" will be interpreted by Faith as reinforcement of her belief that rock forms through evaporation. As she's said, mud dries, clay dries, and so does rock.--Percy

Yes, I understand. I just checked and I see that you weren't a participant in the Why the Flood Never Happened thread. Faith thinks that rocks like this form through evaporation: So when you refer to "rock formed by evaporation" she's going to think, "Aha! I was right!" I'm just trying to avoid an avoidable misunderstanding.--Percy

So you think that evaporation and drying are two different things? So when something dries, what do you think happens to the water?--Percy

Hi Faith,I was focusing on the contradiction. You claimed you had never said rocks form from evaporation, that you had instead stated they form by drying. You seem unaware that evaporation and drying are the same thing.But rocks, the kind we were talking about in the Grand Canyon, don't form by drying.--Percy

I've read ahead and I seen that Faith is expressing mystification about why this is an issue, so let me fill in the details she's leaving out. Over in the Why the Flood Never Happened thread she said that the layers of the Grand Canyon were soft and incompletely lithified when the Grand Canyon was carved, explaining how the canyon was carved so quickly. The layers above the Kaibab were removed at the same time. When it was asked how the layers at the Grand Canyon completed the lithification process after the pressure of the overlying layers was removed, particularly the Kaibab with no overlying layers at all, she said they dried.--Percy

Well, okay, so in keeping with my policy of going with whatever you currently claim you really meant, then we still don't know how, for example, the Kaibab became rock in your scenario. You said that the layers above the Kaibab were eroded away quickly because they were soft and incompletely lithified, and that the Grand Canyon was carved in a very short period of time because the Kaibab and the layers below were also soft and incompletely lithified.So how did the Kaibab become rock once the pressure of the overlying layers was removed? I thought you had said that they dried, but if that's not your explanation then what is?--Percy

This is you in Message 164 of the Why the Flood Never Happened thread: You said precisely what I claimed you said. Incredibly, the one who can't be trusted about what you've said is you.You know what they say about a web of lies collapsing under its own inconsistencies and contradictions? This happens because untrue stories don't have a foundation in fact to anchor them to reality. It's the same for you and the stories you make up about evolution and geology. You can't keep them straight (or even remember them) because they don't have any basis in fact.--Percy

In the Why the Flood Never Happened thread it was indeed Faith's position that no pre-Flood layers survived the flood, and that all strata we see today were the result of the flood. The supergroup was originally laid down horizontally just like all the above layers, but then a volcano beneath the canyon caused them to tilt, even though deeply buried.Faith changes her positions so often that I stopped calling her on it. Calling her on it never ends well, so I just go with whatever she says last.--Percy

It was your own words that inspired such nonsense, inconsistent and contradictory as they often are. You said the material of the pre-Flood landscape was scraped off by the flood and then redeposited into the layers we see today. When asked how so much material could have been deposited upon the landscape in just the couple thousand years before the flood you said that the pre-Flood world was much richer and more vital, so there was much more life.I thought it was just you not considering the implications again when you said that the pre-Flood landscape was not organized into layers. You might want to think this through a little bit more before insisting on it. If the pre-Flood era contained deserts and warm shallow seas and swampy lowlands and coastal regions and so forth, then all these environments leave their own distinctive deposits.But let me summarize what I think is your current position. There were no stratigraphic layers prior to the flood, so material comprising the pre-flood landscape must have been a homogenous mix of every kind of deposit (never mind how that might have happened, and never mind how, since it must have been just as deep as the post-Flood layers, it wasn't turned to rock). During the flood all this material was scraped off the landscape, sorted, then redeposited into largely homogenous layers of various types like sandstone, shale, and limestone that we see today. Major geological formations like the Grand Canyon are a result of the receding floodwaters or burst lakes that carved into the strata before they had completely dried into rock.--Percy

Hi Faith,I think your only problem is that I didn't use the exact same words you used. You don't like that I used the word "soft", but I communicated the exact same ideas you did. Your position is that the Grand Canyon was carved before the strata had become too hard to erode quickly, that they were still soft enough to allow huge amounts of material to be removed in a short period of time. I'm sorry you don't like the word soft, but I'm communicating your precise position. The English vocabulary is rich enough to permit the same ideas to be expressed in different ways.And after the flood you believe the rocks hardened by drying.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

Breeding is one way to bring out unique traits, and of course it is true that traditional breeding programs where mating pairs are selected based upon whether they possess desirable traits will tend to reduce genetic diversity.But breeding is not a way to create new species. It does not explain the diversity of species we see today, nor the great diversity of extinct species.--Percy