Summations Only

Deep roots for one thing should prevent lithification

Nope. Billions of tons of pressure, standard and known chemical reactions.

How about all the organic matter that would have become mixed with the soil?

How about the previous discussion of exactly that? What's your response?

Nobody was there, after all, everything is a guess or an estimate or a speculation or a hypothesis, including yours.

Except ours is derived from examining all the evidence and testing our hypotheses.

Edited by JonF, : No reason given.

I don't treat my hypotheticals as fact, they remain scenarios intended to support the Flood model. But you describe some stuff in a rock as a swamp. I had to make4 an effort to realize you weren't talking about a real swamp but some stuff inside a rock. That's reification and mystification.

And I don't think you've noticed how much of your own methodology is really nothing more than story telling.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well that's certainly a bunch of mystification right there. Pressure and chemical reactions answer the idea that deep roots would prevent lithification? I'm listening. Tree roots break up concrete sidewalks. What are you talking about?

You say you've examined all the evidence but what evidence?

You say you've tested your hypothesis? How?

edge writes: I'm not sure how you have any idea what science is.

This is certainly part of the problem, she has no qualifications in anything and no experience at all in any form of science work. I think she thinks that scientists do what she does; make up ad hoc solutions to problems then move onto the next one.

She has literally no idea how many years of effort it would take to construct an objective, evidence based research paper to attempt to validate just one of her claims. I think she’d be quite shocked by the rigor involved - particularly if the idea is in anyway controversial.

Not only is historical "science" a bunch of imaginative fairy tales, the people who support it also like to make up fairy tales about me personally. Interesting.

Personal stuff like that is against the rules but all that has just been tossed to the wind lately.

It's also a fallacy called ad hominem argument, dealing with the subject by attacking the person.

I used to like to read about the history and philosophy of science. Also books about evolution. Loved Stephen Jay Gould. I used to respect science. I still respect REAL science, but the historical sciences, evolution, historical geology, really are a lot of fairy tales.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Interesting. I guess they ran across a deposit of vegetation.

Faith writes: Not only is historical "science" a bunch of imaginative fairy tales, the people who support it also like to make up fairy tales about me personally. Interesting. Personal stuff like that is against the rules but all that has just been tossed to the wind lately. It's also a fallacy called ad hominem argument, dealing with the subject by attacking the person.

I'm not attacking you, I'm attempting to explain why you are incapable of objective analysis.

I used to like to read about the history and philosophy of science. Also books about evolution. Loved Stephen Jay Gould. I used to respect science. I still respect REAL science, but the historical sciences, evolution, historical geology, really are a lot of fairy tales.

Reading books and so on, is fine but it gives you no idea of the work underpinning the words therein. You also don't understand what is written, which is why you say the absurd things you say. Please note that I'm not saying that you disagree with what's written - of course you do - but you actually don't know or understand the concepts you're criticising.

And, of course, you have absolutely no formal training at any level in the things you're discussing so you can't possibly have a clue about them.

Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

This topic is veering way off course. I'm going to give it a rest.
Topic Reopen Requests simply Message Me.(or any administrator)

Edited by AdminPhat, : No reason given.

We have the fossils, the cultures, the geology, the radiometric and isotopic evidence as well as the models, processes, methods, mechanisms and procedures that explain the fossils, the cultures, the geology, the radiometric and isotopic evidence and the other side has absolutely nothing but the dogma of their Cult.

We WIN!

Might as well end where it began - nobody has put a dent in Dr A's near opening post.

Dr Adequate writes: What a strange stroke of luck that this range of life on earth fits so well with evolutionary predictions. But I guess that's nothing to the massive sequence of coincidences by which the Flood sorted them into the right order. And rigged the radiometric dates in some way which is never properly explained. Or perhaps coincidence is the wrong word. If one believes there's a divine hand behind all this, then one must conclude that the entire fossil record is a vast lie to trick scientists into being evolutionists, one huge and gratuitous act of deceit on the part of the Almighty.

Science wins because it is based on verifiable evidence rather than ancient tribal myths which have been disproved.

I hope you read this one.

Faith writes: I just lost a fairly long post I was composing and am not up to reconstructing it right now but I remember all its parts so may come back to it later.

Sorry that happened, but it's just as well that the long version was lost. I say that because you're operating under a misimpression - you think geology takes a position that it does not. This misunderstanding has been explained several times in this thread, which is why I said at the top that I hope you read this one, because then the discussion can finally move past this.

If it's land you were thinking about when you asked this question, most land does not become strata. Land that does become strata is most often near coastal. I just lost a fairly long post I was composing and am not up to reconstructing it right now but I remember all its parts so may come back to it later. This idea that "flat" land of the sort you are always showing photos could ever become a rock like those in the geo/strat columns needs to be answered but I don't think any answer will do it for you. I don't know how anyone could possibly be convinced of such an idea but of course you'll remind me that incredulity is not an argument. Too bad, it really should be in a case as obvious as this.

Incredulity is a perfectly legitimate emotion, but it is not an argument. "I can't believe I have to explain this yet again," is a legitimate expression of incredulity (and frustration and exasperation), but if I left it at that then you would not understand why I was incredulous, would you.

And so it must be explained. Again. But if you read and understand this then the discussion might move onward instead of repeatedly rehashing this issue. We don't insist you believe this is what actually happened, but it would represent significant progress if you understood that this is what geology actually thinks happened, instead of repeatedly arguing against things geology does not believe.

In Message 2760 you made this assertion:

Faith in Message 2760 writes: Nothing that flat [as strata] exists on the earth's surface normally,...

But this is, of course, untrue. Beneath the sea the abyssal plains are extremely flat and of great extent. On land even your own state has vast flat stretches, as shown in this image of Ash Meadows:

This image was offered because it is very flat, not because it's likely to be preserved as strata, but it could be. It depends upon what happens geologically in the future. If the region experiences no uplift then the mountains and the prairie will gradually be eroded lower and lower and disappear. A thousand or two feet of strata beneath the prairie could be eroded away over time.

But maybe instead a nearby region will experience uplift, increasing deposition onto this plain and gradually burying it more and more deeply in sediment, eventually to be lithified. Uplift will at some point cease, then erosion will dominate again and the now lithified prairie will one day be exposed. Perhaps a river will deeply incise parts of the region and expose the lithified prairie as a stratum in its walls.

There is no landscape of the sort you illustrate with photos that is anywhere near the extent of the rock formations you think could come from such land.

You're connecting two different things that no one has ever suggested should be connected. In response to your assertions that none of the Earth's surface is as flat and straight as strata we have repeatedly pointed out that large portions of the Earth's surface are extremely flat, like Ash Meadows, large parts of Kansas and the abyssal plains. But then you're making a false connection between this fact and your mistaken notion that geology believes the strata of the Grand Canyon region formed by deposition atop flat landscapes like these. No one is suggesting or has ever suggested that. We have said time and again that the strata of the Grand Canyon are the result of Walther's Law, about which I still see no indication that you understand.

Walther's Law produces alternating layers of sandstone, shale and limestone. Because that is what we see in the Grand Canyon region naturally we believe Walther's Law was responsible. What we don't see is paleosols, which is what we would see had ancient prairies become buried and lithified.

The strata above the Kaibab that can be seen west of the Grand Canyon, for instance in the Bryce Canyon area, have more varied histories. Some formed through Walther's Law, some formed in lake-filled regions that were also affected by nearby orogeny, some formed other ways.

None of your "flat" landscapes could ever form a knife-edge straight contact with another,...

Sure they could. One obvious way is deposition in a terrestrial environment followed by uplift resulting in erosion followed by subsidence into a marine environment.

...let alone cover even a hundredth of the territory the rocks actually cover.

This again reflects you mistakenly combining our corrections of your assertions that nothing as flat and straight as strata exist on the Earth's surface with your misimpression that we think the strata of the Grand Canyon region resulted from deposition atop flat terrestrial regions of the Earth. Again, all the evidence suggests that the strata in the Grand Canyon region resulted from Walther's Law.

Moving on to your Message 2833:

Where on earth did I say "paleosols can't happen????"

Quoting you from your Message 2760:

Faith in Message 2760 writes: "Earth" can't become a sedimentary rock; "soil" can't become a sedimentary rock.

A paleosol is soil that has become sedimentary rock, so you just said that paleosols can't happen.

Here's a paragraph from Wikipedia, Geological Formations, that is about the connection between the strata and the time periods.

You don't quote anything I say, and this doesn't look like a response to anything I said.

Without the strata there would be no Geological Time Scale. How convenient that each time period has at least one such rock.

I never mentioned the Geologic Timescale. What is it you think I said that you're attempting to rebut here?

Of course I don't buy any of the "depositional environments" stuff about tidal mudflats, beaches and sand dunes etc.

Of course, but can you explain why?

The rest of this message contains some really neat images and useful descriptions but nothing that requires rebuttal.

--Percy

I switched to using Kind in this discussion where I sometimes used to use species because I realized species has meanings I don't intend.

You quote nothing I said, I can only guess you're responding to where I said that according to you, around mid April species and kind were the same thing, but now in early May they're not. You didn't switch to using kind - you changed it from being defined as a species to having no definition at all.

Kind is meant to define a creature that may vary greatly but only within its own genome.

A genome is all the genes and chromosomes of a species. Unless kind is synonymous with species, a kind cannot have a genome.

Where you use "species" I would probably usually use "subspecies."

These words already have definitions - you cannot change them. The gray wolf is a species, dogs are a subspecies of the gray wolf.

I usually don't try to define Kind at all because it seems futile...

Without a definition you've got an unintelligible proposition.

...but in some cases it seems clear enough to define it for a particular creature.

Having a different definition of kind for different creatures just makes more clear that you're making things up as you go along.

Hence what I've said about dogs and cats and trilobites, attempting to define them by their "basic shape."

This is so vague as to be useless. Dogs and cats have the same basic shape.

It doesn't seem ambiguous to me.

If all that matters to you is how your ideas seem to you, why are you here?

No other mammal has the same skeleton as the dog, or the cat.

So now you're changing your criteria from "same basic shape" to "same skeleton"?

I included wolves with coyotes with dogs as a Kind for that reason, that their skeletons are so similar;...

And now you're changing your criteria from "same skeleton" to "similar skeletons"?

...and defined trilobites as sharing the three-lobed structure with the side lobes made up of spines that can be lengthened or shortened etc.

And now you're changing your criteria from "similar skeletons" to lobe numbers?

...which includes an enormous variety, many of which are different enough to be hard to recognize.

Your criteria for determining kind lack generality and consistency. So are all fish the same kind? Are all insects the same kind? Are all snakes the same kind?

I have one consistent idea in my mind about all these things so I'm not sure how I've given you the impression I have different definitions.

You changed your criteria three times in this post alone.

--Percy

Resetting summation mode, which was originally set to start (by AdminPhat?) after 5 more messages. Now set, effective a few minutes ago.

All participants get one last general reply message (that mean you too Percy, even if the software will permit you more).

Adminnemooseus

I don't have much of a summation to give, but last night I intended to answer the Message 2877 Percy asked me to read and since I tried to reply to his post and got a summation mode message I thought I couldn't post at all, which wasn't true but it derailed the attempt. Anyway I'll do that now.

He claims I don't understand the standard geological point of view, that I am "repeatedly arguing against things geology does not believe," but as I read through his post that doesn't really seem true.

Faith writes: Nothing that flat [as strata] exists on the earth's surface normally,... But this is, of course, untrue.

So this isn't a case of my not understanding what Geology says, it's just me arguing with Geology as usual, which DOES say the following:

Percy writes: Beneath the sea the abyssal plains are extremely flat and of great extent. On land even your own state has vast flat stretches, as shown in this image of Ash Meadows:

As I've looked at images of the abyssal plains I don't see the flatness of the strata represented there, but I did have the SURFACE OF THE EARTH in mind, not the sea floor, and I strenuously disagree that Ash Meadows is any kind of example of the flatness I keep talking about. It's just another of those landscapes Percy keeps putting up that bear no resemblance to the flatness of the strata and as usual I just cannot fathom why he. or Geology in general, thinks they do.

In any case, again, I'm not arguing with a straw man here, I'm arguing with what Geology apparently does really believe, if Percy is right about that anyway.

Ash Meadows:

Percy writes: This image [Ash Meadows] was offered because it is very flat,

"Flat" but far far far from the flatness of the strata.

... not because it's likely to be preserved as strata, but it could be. It depends upon what happens geologically in the future. If the region experiences no uplift then the mountains and the prairie will gradually be eroded lower and lower and disappear. A thousand or two feet of strata beneath the prairie could be eroded away over time. But maybe instead a nearby region will experience uplift, increasing deposition onto this plain and gradually burying it more and more deeply in sediment, eventually to be lithified. Uplift will at some point cease, then erosion will dominate again and the now lithified prairie will one day be exposed. Perhaps a river will deeply incise parts of the region and expose the lithified prairie as a stratum in its walls.

And if it was made of cheddar cheese you could slice it with a knife and make it as flat of the strata and save all that time.

Faith writes: There is no landscape of the sort you illustrate with photos that is anywhere near the extent of the rock formations you think could come from such land.

Still true.

Percy writes: You're connecting two different things that no one has ever suggested should be connected.

The only two things it looks to me like I'm connecting are the flatness and the extent of the strata, meaning the enormous areas of geography so many of them cover, which was the main point of my post on the formations in my Message 2833, all of which cover parts of many states in the western US. None of the photos Percy has shown cover more than a hundredth of that area.

But Percy sees a different connection I'm making:

Percy writes: In response to your assertions that none of the Earth's surface is as flat and straight as strata we have repeatedly pointed out that large portions of the Earth's surface are extremely flat, like Ash Meadows, large parts of Kansas and the abyssal plains.

And I have repeatedly answered that those examples are nowhere near the flatness of the strata and I still think the comparison indefensible. But again let me point out that this is an example where I DO get what Geology is saying, if Percy is right anyway, not where I don't get it, and I'm disagreeing with it.

But then you're making a false connection between this fact and your mistaken notion that geology believes the strata of the Grand Canyon region formed by deposition atop flat landscapes like these. No one is suggesting or has ever suggested that. We have said time and again that the strata of the Grand Canyon are the result of Walther's Law, about which I still see no indication that you understand.

Well, I think this may be wrong, as I recall a thread from years ago started by jar to discuss how each of the layers in the Grand Canyon was formed and Walther's Law was not part of any of the descriptions, it was all the usual "depositional environments" that I also object to as nothing but unprovable imagination. Walther's law didn't even come up at EvC until much more recently. However, I do think it does explain the Grand Canyon and maybe others here do too at this point.

However, I don't have the Grand Canyon particularly in mind when I'm talking about the flatness of the strata, but all the strata I've seen everywhere and I don't get why you think I'm only talking about the GC.

Here's one from West Virginia:

Very straight and flat, though perhaps not as tight contacts as some in the Grand Canyon.

And here's one from Kansas:

Pretty straight and flat to my eye, and a LOT flatter than any of those landscapes in the photos.

Then you go on to object to my connecting all this to the Geo Time Scale though you haven't brought it up yourself. It's all part of the same argument I've been making all along but I'm not up to pursuing it at the moment so I'll end this here.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.