On 07-07-2004 03:48 PM, Robert Byers wrote
....religious discussion deleted...
"To Mike King ( by the way welcome) there is no evidence
of long geologic history only evidence of history and
then human interpretation."
One simple fact that various creationists forget here is that their specific reading of the various parts of the Bible is nothing more then their specific **human interpretation** of the Bible. This can be seen in the disagreements between Old Earth and Young Earth creationists, who are both Evangelical Christians, in how they interpret the Bible. To be truthful, a person also has to admit that Young Earth creationism is only one of many ways that fallible humans interpret the Bible.
Robert Byers further wrote
"The trip you offer would only show the same thing as my backyard.
Flat or folded or crushed rock creations. All explained, and more
plausibly, by events and not slow development."
Unless the laws of physics and rock mechanics were suspended during creation, Noah's Flood, and at other times, there is abundant hard evidence of the processes having occurred in the formation of the rock record of both gradual and rapid development of sedimentary rocks, geologic structures, and many other aspects of so-called "rock creations". For example, in folded strata, a person finds abundant evidence of ductile deformation of rocks in the form of stretched pebbles, deformed fossils, and so forth. it is physically impossible for such deformation to have occurred with the rapidity advocated by Mr. Roberts without involving direct divine intervention by God to suspend the physics of rock mechanics to allow this to happen. The claim that it is "All explained, and more plausibly, by events and not slow development." is nothing more then arm-waving that contradicted by what is now known about geologic produces and basic principle of physics and chemistry.
"Look at any rock, almost, and it shows evidence of sudden
destruction."
This is simply now true. Any textbook about sedimentology will readily refute this claim. A person can start with:
Allen, J. R. L., 1985, Principles of Physical Sedimentology. The
Blackburn Press.
Principles of Physical Sedimentology
This book explains in great detail how sedimentary rocks that a person finds are readily explained in terms of common physical processes without any need to invoke "sudden destruction" related to Noachian Flood. This book shows how sand, silt, clay, and other particles are transported and deposited to create the sedimentary rocks, including the diagnostic sequence of sedimentary structures, that a person can see exposed in roadcuts, outcrops, and other exposures. Also, for many examples of how sedimentary rocks that can be seen in the field can be created by a wide variety of processes, unassociated with any type of Biblical "sudden destruction" and directly observable in modern rivers, shorelines, deltas, oceans, lakes, and elsewhere a person can look at:
Boggs, Sam, Jr., 2001, Principles of Sedimentology and Stratigraphy.
3rd ed., Prentice Hall, New York.
Walker, R. G. and James, N. P., eds., 1992, Facies models-response
to sea level change. Geological Association of Canada, St. John's,
Newfoundland.
The concept of the stratigraphic record having been formed entirely by sudden destruction is completely refuted by the presence of innumerable paleosols that can be found throughout many sedimentary rocks. For examples of paleosols, fossil and buried soils, that demonstrate long period of inactivity during the deposition of individual layers of sedimentary rocks go see:
1. Retallack, G. J., 1997, A Colour Guide to Paleosols. Chichester,
United Kingdom
2. "SOILSCAPES OF THE PAST - This set of published reconstructions
of ancient landscapes and their soils provide an overview of the
evolution of soils and landscapes through geological time" at:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~dogsci/retall/soils.html
3. Wright, V. P., 1994. Paleosols in shallow marine sequences.
Earth-Science Reviews.vol. 37, pp. 367-395 see also pp. 135-137.
4. Reinhardt, J., and Sigleo, W.R. (eds.), 1989. Paleosols and
weathering through geologic time: principles and applications.
Geological Society of America Special Paper 216, 181pp.
5. Radiometric Dating, Paleosols and the Geologic Column :
PaleosolsGeology at 200 d
There are now hundreds of more papers documenting the presence of fossil soils, called "paleosols", in the sedimentary record. It is impossible for strata containing paleosols to have been created by any sort of Biblical sudden destruction.
Robert further commented":
"Flat rocks show evidence of uniform creation that does not occur
today anywhere because it does not happen."
What evidence? I certainly challenge Mr. Brown to provide what he considers the five best pieces of "evidence" that demonstrate "uniform creation" so that the people on this list can evaluate for themselves the credibility of such evidence and if the processes associated with them truly "not occur today anywhere".
The paleosols noted above, among many other evdience, clearly refutes the claim that the "creation" of sedimentary was as "uniform" as Mr. Brown claims it to be.
Mr. Brown finally stated:
"It takes a great event."
In the case of sedimentary rocks in general, this statement is completely refuted by innumerable published books and papers, which include:
Allen, P. A. & Allen, J. R., 1990, Basin analysis: principles and
applications. Blackwell, Oxford.
Friedman, G. M., Sanders, J. E. and Kopaska-Merkel, D. C., 1992,
Principles of sedimentary deposits. Macmillan, New York.
Leeder, M. R., 1982, Sedimentology-process and product. Allen &
Unwin, London.
Leeder, M. R. 1999. Sedimentology and sedimentary basins: from
turbulence to tectonics. Blackwell, Oxford, 592 p.
Nichols, G., 1999, Sedimentology and stratigraphy, Blackwell,
Oxford.
Potter, P. E., Maynard, J. B. & Pryor, W. A., 1980, Sedimentology
of shale. Springer, New York.
Reading. H. G., ed., 1996, Sedimentary environments and facies
(3rd ed.) Blackwell, Oxford.
Reineck, H.-E. & Singh, I.B., 1980, Depositional sedimentary
environments with reference to terrigenous clastics (2nd ed.)
Springer, Berlin,
Scholle, P. A. & Spearing, D., eds., 1982, Sandstone depositional
environments. American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Memoir
no. 31.
Scholle, P. A., Bebout, D. G. & Moore, C. H., eds., 1983, Carbonate
depositional environments. American Association of Petroleum
Geologists, Memoir no. 33.
Tucker, M. E. & Wright, V. P., 1990, Carbonate sedimentology.
Blackwell, Oxford.
Wilson, J. L., 1975, Carbonate facies in geologic history.
Springer, New York.
If a person would read through any of the above books, they will find that numerous events of all types have created sedimentary rocks.
Mr. Brown wrote:
"You say offer experiments. Well since you say yours is the
dominate position accepted today. YOU FIRST. However you can't
nor I since geology is not a scientific study but a historical
study not open to testing."
Contrary to what Mr. Roberts claims, geology is as scientific as criminal forensics. Below is a quote about geology that I like from Baker (2003).
"This means that the geologist is more an investigator than a
theorist2: like a detective at a crime scene, the geologist relies
on the evidence and knowledge of the operative processes to
conclude what causes led to that evidence. The overall assemblage
of evidence, and the explanatory surprises that it may generate
('consilience'), are used to suggest fruitful lines of inquiry.
These tentative hypotheses are then subject to additional testing
against new evidence. In other words, the geologist lets the
planetary landforms tell their own 'story', just as the evidence
at a crime scene reveals its story to an experienced detective."
Footnote 2 is:
Gilbert, G. K., 1886, The Inculcation of Scientific Method by
Example, with an Illustration Drawn from the Quaternary Geology
of Utah." American Journal of Science , 3 rd ser., vol. 31,
pp. 284-299.
References Cited
Baker, V. R., 2003, Icy Martian Mysteries. Nature. vol. 426,
pp. 779-780.
Finally, geology is open to testing. Geologists can test whether "sudden destruction" is needed to produce epsilon cross-stratification or not. They can test the conditions needed to produce different sedimentary structures, i.e. climbing ripples, different types of trough cross-bedding, planar bedding, and so forth; how different types of concretions and nodules are formed; how fossils are preserved and mineralized; how specific types of volcanic rocks are produced by specific volcanic eruptions; and so forth. From these observations, they can, like prehistoric Crime Scene Investigators (CSI), infer how ancient rocks are produced. (Geologists and paleontologists are the "CSI Gondwanaland" and "CSI Pangea" of the past.)
Interested people can read:
Kitts, David B., 1977, The Structure of Geology. Southern Methodist
University Press, Dallas, Texas.
Yours,
Bill
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