Summations Only

Instead of clicking on the reply button and posting a three character message, you can click on the "You have not yet responded" link and it will change to "You have acknowledged this reply".--Percy

Nothing wrong with your arguments? Faith, there's almost nothing right with them. Very little of what you believe is supported by evidence, and much of it is flatly contradicted by both evidence and our understanding of natural processes.Usually confidence in one's knowledge and reasoning faculties derives from seeing them compete successfully in the arena of ideas. Given your failures in this arena and your inability to convince anyone of anything, your confidence in your ideas is difficult to fathom. You can be credited for your determination but for little else.One of your common refrains goes something like, "It will be figured out eventually," but you never consider the implications of what it means when something isn't known yet. If something hasn't been figured out yet then you couldn't know it already, yet you inexplicably express complete confidence anyway, usually based upon your own personal interpretation of Biblical revelation, a completely unscientific foundation absent of any evidence.--Percy

Well yes, of course this is an active planet, and of course riverbeds and canyons and mesas and buttes and plains and mountains and seas and ocean crust and continents should be constantly evolving and changing.The question is what evidence and reasoning leads you to think that what has happened in the Grand Staircase region over the past 50 million years was required to have happened in past eras? Why do the natural laws of the universe require that this region, billions of years old, must have experienced prior geologic events identical to what we see has happened over the past 50 million years.We see rivers forming canyons in many places around the globe, and in many places we do not. Why would prior eras of the Grand Staircase region be identical to the current one? Why wouldn't each geologic era contain its own unique features? Since the Grand Staircase region was once a coastline, why wouldn't past eras have been more like the east coast of the US, say around South Carolina. Do you see any evidence of significant uplift around South Carolina? Do you see any evidence of canyons forming there? Why wouldn't ancient eras of the Grand Staircase region be more like South Carolina or possess their own unique qualities? What evidence and reasoning leads you to believe that everything we see happening today around the planet wasn't happening in the past? Here's an image of a canyon from a former geologic era now deeply buried beneath sedimentary layers: That ancient canyon formed by the same canyon-forming processes we observe around the planet today, namely slow and gradual erosion of a river downward into the landscape. The image also shows networks of tributaries feeding the former river of that canyon, just like we see at other canyons around the globe, like the Grand Canyon. But we *can* prove it, by "prove" of course meaning that we can provide evidence that supports the views of modern geology. These views were molded by the evidence, so of course evidence exists. Unconformity interfaces often contain erosive artifacts like riverbeds, there's a complete lack of interbedding, there is a distinctive difference in the type of sedimentation, the fossil variants change, and radiometric dating reveals a time gap. Again, how do you look at an unconformity and tell how much material has been removed? In this diagram of the Grand Canyon layers, how can you tell that the eroded material didn't contain "the buttes, the monuments, the canyons including the GC, the cliffs of the GS etc."? Whatever geologic structures existed in the layers that have been eroded away, evidence of their nature and very existence no longer exists. All we know is that sedimentary layers were once there and now they're gone.--Percy

Hopefully some questions are not off limits to you.The "?" character appeared 9 times in my post. Which question are you referring to, your ambiguousness.--Percy

I hope we're not assuming anything of consequence. We can be fairly certain that the same forces and processes active on the Earth today were active in the past, because what we see in ancient strata makes that clear. And we can be very certain that the laws of the universe that we know today were the same in the past because that's what the evidence in the light from ancient stars tells us.--Percy

Do people still surf the Internet? I'm beginning to doubt it and suspect that people are congregating around the social media sites and the major destination sites for sports, hobbies and so forth. I'm hoping to give us a Facebook presence at some point, maybe that will help. Activity here is about 1/4 what it was around 10 years ago.--Percy

Again, why do you expect the same types of geologic structures of today's American southwest to have occurred there before and be buried within its sedimentary layers. This region is not the world's grower of buttes and canyons. Buttes and canyons can form anywhere the proper conditions exist, which are slow uplift coincident with downcutting of a river or rivers. If there are no buttes and canyons buried in the sedimentary layers of the American southwest then it's because the proper conditions hadn't come about before. The conditions that existed in the past will likely have been different than the ones we see today, and the sedimentary layers tell us that coastlines moved back and forth across the region, so we know it must have been much different than the inland region it is today. There's no requirement that ancient conditions be different, but neither is there any requirement that they be the same.But how do you know there are no buttes and canyons buried in the American southwest? We can only look where rivers have cut down through the layers, and that's just a tiny, tiny portion of the entire region. Even if you were correct that an active planet demands that there be buttes and canyons buried in the layers of the American southwest, there is no way you could know that they're not out there somewhere ready to be discovered if someone would just dig down a mile or so in the right place.But it is also possible that the proper conditions *did* arise in the past and created a great many buttes and canyons, but so much time passed and so much erosion occurred that they were all completely eroded away. This is what is happening right now in Monument Valley. In another few million years the buttes of Monument Valley will all be gone, and if it then undergoes subsidence and becomes a region of net deposition then the sedimentary layers that form will contain no record of the dramatic landscape that once existed there.Here's our old favorite diagram. Ask yourself what we could know about the sedimentary layers above the Kaibob if the layers we see at Bryce Canyon had been eroded completely away and there was no record of all the layers from the Claron on down to the Moenkopi Formation. How would we know how many layers there had been and how thick they were? How would we know whether they had contained buried buttes and canyons? Connecticut, just to pick a coastal state at random, has been a particularly active area geologically. Why do you think an active planet demands that ancient buttes and canyons be buried in the American Southwest and not in Connecticut?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Wordsmithing.

I think Faith is under the impression that you believe there *was* a "quiet" period in the GC region, where "quiet" is defined as a period during which the region was not being eroded in the same way it is today.I don't see any "quiet" periods myself. When it was beneath the seas it was a region of net deposition, deep burial and transformation into rock, and when it was uplifted it was a region of net erosion. To me a "quiet" period might be better defined as one where the net of deposition and erosion balanced out, which wouldn't be recorded very well in the geologic record.--Percy

No, I'm a "follow the evidence where it leads" type of person. We absolutely know there were layers above the Claron because it has been lithified into sandstone, which requires deep burial for compaction and cementation. This is mere assertion. What evidence and line of reasoning tells you that this is not a buried river system with canyon and tributaries? How do you know it "got filled in by sand," how would that have happened "after it was buried," and where did the sand come from? You're not concluding sand because of the yellow in the image, I hope. That's not a true color image, you know. There's no light down there. Canyons and buttes form by the same process, a river downcutting into an uplifted landscape. Buttes form when nearby canyons join due to slope retreat of their sides. Here's the relevant diagram again showing multiple rivers cutting down into a landscape to form canyons whose slopes then retreat joining them together and forming buttes: Buttes and canyons should be of equal interest to you.--Percy

Oh, I know. It's clear that you're trying to reason within her framework of beliefs so as to show her the contradictions, but Faith's Message 654 refers to "...those hundreds of millions of years of quiescence that you consider to be quite normal in the GC/GS area." I interpreted that to mean she now thinks modern geology agrees with her that the region experienced a significant period of "quiescence", whatever "quiescence" means.--Percy

I'm sure I speak for everyone when I ask if you could, just out of simple consideration and politeness if nothing else, please read the replies addressed to you? That doesn't mean you have to reply. You can click on the "You have not yet responded" link to change it to "You have acknowledged this reply," or you can just move on, but please at least read them.--Percy

These are religious, not scientific, views. There is no evidence for a worldwide flood 4300 years ago, no scientific definition of perfect, no evidence of non-natural processes leading the planet toward deterioration (whatever that means), and no evidence of a Creation resembling that described in Genesis.Until you find evidence supporting your views you can't hope to convince anyone. Imagine someone fully sympathetic to and supportive of your beliefs, and all they want is to be able to bring the message to others. They ask you for evidence so that can say more than, "Faith at EvC Forum says so." What evidence do you have that, interpreted by the actual laws of the universe (instead of ones you make up), leads to your conclusions?--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

You're just repeating your bald declaration using different words. No one here can imagine how a river drainage system could form beneath a flood. It's seemingly impossible, and it isn't something we see occurring anywhere in the world today. You're going to have to describe how this could happen for us.--Percy

Anyone with a little scientific knowledge and reasoning ability is unlikely to accede to notions that have no evidence and that violate known natural processes and the natural laws of our universe, which is true of most of your ideas. If you'd like acknowledgement that you're making sense then you should develop hypotheses that don't have these fatal qualities.Most people interpret lack of acknowledgement that they're making sense as an indication that perhaps they're not making sense.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

They look like this: AbE: If you'd like to see a satellite view, type "36.94,-110.1" into Google Maps, zoom out a bit, then turn on satellite mode.--PercyEdited by Percy, : AbE.