Scientific Fact versus Interpretation

Your problem seems simply that fact is being used in the description of a particular theory of how the GC strata were formed. When I use the term theory in this sense I am talking about scientific theory.The facts by themselves are rather dry because they don't tell us how or why the rocks got there. Determining the geologic history of an area uses many theories of geology that are time tested and thus "theories" in the scientific sense.Your beef is with the theory. The problem is that if you don't like said theory then you need to come up with another one that explains the "how and why" of those layers better and justify why it is better scientifically. Until you do then existing theory wins.If you are not talking about science then really there is no discussion. You can have your opinion about why the theory is wrong all day but it does not stand up objectivly against the existing theory.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

A number of OE theories used to construct rox's scenarious are perfectly falsifiable.The theory is that limestone is of marine origin. If we find a bunch of limestone that contains a mix marine and dinosaur fossils then this theory would be falsified.All of the theories that rox used are falsifiable in the same manner. Competing theories might also exist to explain the same data. It just so happens that currenly none exist that pass scientific rigor.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Potentially you are correct. If all we had was the similarity then we hold our theory with much more tentativity. But we have more then that. We have correlating and relationship information of that rock with the rocks around it. With that information our confidence in the theory is increased.We will never know for sure (in the sense of "proven") and it will always be a theory that it used to be a marine environment. Such an explanation though is valid and is scientific because the data supports the theory and the theory explains ALL of the data. So called "theories" from flood geology often lack in one of those two cases. Either the data does not support the theory or the theory does not explain all the data and is therfore incomplete and inferior scientifically.The theory of common decent is similar. Just the existance of half bird half dino creatures in the past only gives us a certain degree of confidence in the theory that they are related by common decent. We need the evidence from genetics and the fossil [b]progression[b] to raise our confidence in the theory. Once again, since science is always tentative, we will never be able to prove that birds and dinos had a common ancestor. We just are very confident based on the evidence that our explanation is correct.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

But you are the one insisting that all of these geologist's interpretations are just-so stories. You called them unfalsifiable interpretations. This is demonstratably not true. The theoretical origin of rocks is perfectly and 100% falsifiable.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

In the context of the discussion the distinction was unnecessary. The questions being asked were what are the layers of the GC and how did they get there. No one was asking, "How do you know that these rocks are old." If someone did ask that I am sure there would have been someone to point at the appropriate thread and respond with the reason why.If you notice the way the discussion is continuing in that thread there is more of an effort to try to get the sequence of how the rocks were created which applies to either an old or young earth scenario. The principles of superposition and cross cutting apply in either case. If you don't know what I mean by this I would be happy to go into more detail.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

That would be a rediculous scenario. It is a good thing that no one is suggesting that is what the Carboniferous was like. In fact if it was it would totally refute the standard geological explanation for the formation of coal.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

If you ever find it again I would love to see it. I just hope you know that mainstream geology does not believe that coal was created on the surface.Where paleo "landscapes" come in with regards to coal is actually very interesting. We know coal come from organic material and there are grades of coal that eventually start looking like peat. Yet we can go into a swamp today and drill down and find peat that eventually start looking like coal the farther you drill down.While it might be your opinion that coal is created from some dump of consolidated plant material during the flood, the transition from peat to coal that we can see today is what mainstream geology uses to construct the theory that coal beds were once lush swampland. Of course that is not the only evidence that points toward a swamp environment but it is the most simple.This message has been edited by Jazzns, 03-15-2006 06:38 PM

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)