Is Evolutionist Disparagement of Creationism Justified?

Mostly no. It varies widely from one fossil bed to another. The Burgess Shale is a famous example of all sorts of different organisms all together. Pretty much yes. There's so much information and evidence that few if any geologists know it all; they have subspecialties. It's kind of amusing when YECs look at 0.0000000000000000000001% of the evidence and then tell the experts that they're all wrong. Amusing, that is, if it weren't so pathetic.Yeah, experts are sometimes wrong. Sometimes.

Oh very much not so. This is as I said a matter of the truth to me. I did a fair amount of thinking about evolution on my own before I became a Christian. I puzzled over it even then. I liked to read articles about it, enjoyed reading Gould, read Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, tried to grasp the supposed proof of it. Tried to grasp these things out of my own interest. After I became a Christian I read a number of books by creationists also out of my own interest in the issues. I don't understand your not understanding. The Bible says God made one couple who are the progenitors of the whole human race, with no antecedents whatever. The ToE contradicts that. The Bible also makes it clear that death did not exist until our first parents disobeyed God, so that any scenario that has death existing prior to the commission of that sin contradicts the Bible. If you want to discuss the implications of any of this please start another thread, as I don't want to discuss it here. In a word, no. If you would like to discuss it, please start a thread on the topic. No. That's real science. The Geo timeline isn't.If you REALLY want to discuss this please start another thread on these subjects.

But I'd guess that 99.99999999% of what geologists know has no real bearing on the idea of an old earth, the timeline etc., simply classified as if it did. Facts are facts but the timeline is an irritating intrusion on the facts rather than a true explanation of them.Thanks for the Burgess Shale link -- sure is amazing what that Flood did to the planet! -- but my question was about the larger land animals of the upper layers. How often are dinosaurs or any other large animal found buried with other kinds of animals. Actually there's no reason they wouldn't be at least from time to time, from the point of view of the Flood, but it was just dawning on me that when evos talk about animals supposedly existing in the same time period, that does NOT mean they've been found together in any actual layer of sediments.

Seeing as you've already admitted to not knowing much about geology, this statement is just more of your bullshit.

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*not an actual doctor

Not a geologist, just a bit of study both from textbooks and a few field trips till you understand the evidence before you. Of course, once you are acquainted with the 'theory', be prepared to handle someone coming up to you and saying 'All this is bunk,you are deluded and wrong, and only I have all the facts right'. While not an American, I have a fair knowledge of your history. You say the country is going downhill as the result of teaching ToE and atheism. I would point out, to the best of my knowledge, that, from the President down, through the Federal houses down to State Legislatures, seem to have had a majority of Christians in power for the last half-century or far longer. Are you saying Atheists should be in power to promote Christian values?

The question then is which OTHER animals ABOVE the dinosaurs in the semi-fictional Geo Timeline / Fossil Record have this wrist joint in common with them, if any?This message has been edited by Faith, 03-25-2005 07:49 PM

ils Have you noticed how poor your guesses about geology are? This is another poor one. Quite often, although I don't know exactly what you mean by "kinds of animals"; "kinds" is a loaded word in the creation-evolution debate. Of course, the chronological order of fossils is always present; you never see a dinosaur in Cambrian (e.g. Burgess Shale) layers, nor do you find modern mammals in with dinosaurs. You want to look up the Karoo Supergroup of South Africa. I don't know of any really good on-line resources, but The Karoo supergroup: a geological and palaeontological superlative and The Beaufort Formation - Karoo Basin may get you started. There's a famous (and disputed) estimate that there are 800 billion fossils in the Karoo. There definitely is a s**tload of 'em there. The Karoo covers from before the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs (late Carboniferous, 290 Ma) to the early Jurassic (about 206 Ma)

Of course, I agree. But we're trying to avoid appealing to the Creator here, and simply argue from what is actually observable, which really is enough all by itself to blast their Geo Timeline nonsense to bits, although they don't appear to be able to think outside the box long enough to get the point.

If you don't quote me I don't know what you are talking about. Again I don't remember the reference since you don't quote me, but the "point I'm trying to deal with" is why, given the worldwide Flood, the supposedly "more advanced" animals are the ones that appear in the upper strata according to Geo Timeline theory. I've come to the conclusion that the lower layers were simply those that were buried earliest, the marine creatures, and that started the idea that the ability to put off dying in the flood was probably the main explanation for position in the strata. Perhaps creationists have already said this, but it's new to me and seems very reasonable. Somebody introduced birds into the equation and I should have ignored it as it's a red herring at this point. I gave a variety of possible scenarios to explain ability to survive for lengths of time and it does get tiresome when the same old silly straw man is repeated. OF course you are right but the same possibilities also occurred to me, and that's what led me to my next thought about the basic falseness of the timeline idea. Also this started with ONE example of ONE dinosaur bed which I answered in terms of the facts given for that one bed.Again, in the process of thinking about all this I also came to the conclusion that the Fossil Record really is more of a mental construct than it is anything that can be demonstrated from actual fact, so that the ordering of the fossils is more a fiction than a reality in any case. Layers found in unexpected combinations are mentally placed in positions in the "Geo Timeline" according to the theory. There is no reality, beyond a few early observations of a few layers that occurred in the "proper" sequential order, that assigns them that order.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-25-2005 08:09 PM

In the few places where "unexpected combinations" are found, they are placed in the timeline according to what the evidence shows. You are so increibly ignorant of the evidence, and so arrogant about presenting your fantasies as reality. You are incredible even for a creationist.Sorry, your only reason for saying that is your wish that it be so; and reality doesn't care what you wish. The vast majority of layers and fossils are found in the order expected by mainstream science. The order of the fossil record is an observed fact that any theory must explain; and all flood "theorists" have totally failed to explain it.

The Karoo bed has been shown to me before. Very interesting and very consistent with the Flood. Also very much of a similar sort there. No elephants, no sheep. Birds of a feather principle again.Let me try to refine my concern. The "fossil record" is really a bunch of separate finds of fossils, some in layers, some in layers that fit the timeline theory, many not. The whole idea of the timeline is really pieced together from all these separate finds and deviations from the theory are simply mentally reconstructed to fit it. The "correct" version of the timeline actually exists only in fragments and only in a few places. The idea that certain animals existed with other animals, or didn't exist with them, in some hypothetical past era, is completely the conclusion from a conceptualization of the timeline based on very few actual representatives of such an ordering.

This is the mantra here. When "evidence" is actually produced, instead of just held up as an icon to be worshiped, it is usually quite consistent with Flood theory. Thank you I'm sure. The evidence unfortunately fits the Flood better than it fits the Timeline. Namecalling won't change that. Well I accepted this for starters. I've been going along with this but I'm not so sure of it any more. "Vast majority?" How many locations? How many layers at each location? How many PERFECT sequences of these layers? How many perfect sequences in any very deep stack of layers?However, the explanation of order of death / burial I began to suggest here DOES go a great distance to explaining the supposed fossil record. It's a very reasonable theory. Every good theory always has kinks that need ironing out.

Such as evaporite deposits with syneresis cracks? Or termite nests or raindrop impressions in the middle of a global flood? Or erosional unconformities when the entire world innundated? How are thise consistent with a global flood? Keep on saying that, Faith. I think you are really just trying to convince yourself. Oh, so now the sequences have to be perfect? What geological text did you get this from? Sorry, Faith, but yours has not just kinks, but major overthrusts. THere is no iron big enough to straighten out your theory.

No, such as a better explanation for a dinosaur bed in Utah. There are certainly answers to the rest but I don't know them yet. Let me see now. Either a stratum was laid down in a specific time period or it was not. If a layer in the column doesn't correspond to the time period the timescale designates for it, then the timescale is falsified. I simply want to see the timescale verified by something in reality rather than glued together by suppositions that fill in thousands of "gaps" and "unconformities" in the actual real world geo column formations. Edge, from most of your posts it is clear that you can't follow my thinking well enough to put it into your own words, let alone pass judgment on it. Your misrepresentations are so strange I've had to decide not even to try to answer you. It is hard for someone who is used to thinking in evolutionist terms even to start to grasp the completely different way of thinking about the same phenomena that I'm attempting here. Understand it first and then we'll talk.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-26-2005 12:02 AM

How are fluviatile deposts evidence of the flood? First of all, where does this happen? Second, whatever are you talking about? Why wouldn't a stratum correspond to a period in the time scale? And the time scale does not designate anything. A geologist designates the time period of depostion. Your logic is so stilted that you appear rather ridiculous. Well, if you reject fossil data, and radiometric data, and relative age data, and modern analogs, and unconformities, and plate tectonics, that doesn't leave much to debate and I imagine that geological or fossil correlation would be a REAL reach for you. All of these lines of evidence are impossible to explain by your 'better theory'. In fact, several of them would be impossible and yet, there they are... Sorry, but all too often, I DO understand what you are saying and it is truly frightening that someone could be so ignorant and yet so stubborn. The point is that your thinking does not square with the facts. Well, when your references are so geologicaly nonsensical, that would stand to reason. I have simply overlooked many of your posts after reading a couple of sentences, sighed and moved on. Such a convoluted set of comprehensions read like Faith in Wonderland. I have no problem comprehending your viewpoint. It simply has no bearing at all upon reality. You act as though the rock record is some kind of unsolvable mystery. You reject hundreds of years of work by people much more capable that you or I, with a wave of the hand and a casual dismissal.You may deceive anyone in the world you wish, but my advice is to not deceive yourself. If you have never questioned your position, you are intellectually bankrupt. LOL! Here is someone who has not even the most basic geological training telling me to learn something! Do you have a clue as to how ridiculous this is? Your whole basic understanding of geology is convoluted beyond recognition and then you try to hide behind some intellectual argument that you are really thinking on a different level so you can just dismiss all previous work in the field. Do you realize how insulting this is?