I know of another Creationist fellow taking geology classes at my own alma mater.
I have to wonder if they actually do believe in an old earth, but life is grand in the creationist circles (heck, they are practically gods themselves and not accountable for their mistakes) so they pretend to be YECs. Or are they really YECs pretending to be OE geologists while in school, all the while ignoring the mountains of evidence (ha! no pun intended)right before their very eyes?
In the words of a colleague, if there really is all this evidence for Creation, why do they need to misrepresent mainstream research?
Onto Austin again:
quote:
Rapid Erosion
Photographic documentation assembled by ICR scientists demonstrates that very pronounced rills and gullies had formed at the margins of seam explosion pits before May 23 - less than five days after the pumice was deposited. The rills and gullies resemble badlands topography, which geologists have usually assumed required many hundreds or even thousands of years to form.
Well, seeing as the pumice, and/or other volcanic deposits, were not welded in any way, except perhaps locally, I don’t see why these unconsolidated sediments shouldn’t develop rills and gullies, especially with the amount of rain in that part of the country. Also, I don’t believe many geologists assume rills and gullies take many hundreds or even thousands of years to form. I mean, shoot, they proved it themselves! All you need is a slope, rainfall, unconsolidated seds or soft rock (such as shale), no protective cap rock or binding vegetation, and you have rills and gullies in a matter of days to a few months or years. The softer the seds/rock and/or higher rainfall amounts, as was the case at Mt. Saint Helens, will result in rapid rill/gully formation. Of course clay content and other chemical variables can affect erosion, but really, this is not rocket science.
quote:
A mudflow on March 19, 1982, eroded a canyon system up to 140 feet deep in the headwaters of the North Fork of the Toutle River Valley, establishing the new dendritic pattern of drainage. As ICR scientists surveyed this new terrain, they began to contemplate the processes which may have formed the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. The little "Grand Canyon of the Toutle River" is a one-fortieth scale model of the real Grand Canyon. The small creeks which flow through the headwaters of the Toutle River today might seem, by present appearances, to have carved these canyons very slowly over a long time period, except for the fact that the erosion was observed to have occurred rapidly! Geologists should learn that, since the long-time scale they have been trained to assign to landform development would lead to obvious error on Mount St. Helens, it also may be useless or misleading elsewhere.
He really doesn't say much here. What exactly did the mudflow erode? Were they recent sediments associated with the volcanic event or country rock? There were several large debris avalanches in the North Fork Toutle River Valley, so it's possible that the mudflow eroded unconsolidated sediments, which would not require long periods of time, especially in a river valley with plenty of water. I also don't understand what he means by a "new dendritic pattern." Seems to me if the erosion happened within the North Fork Toutle River Valley, how is this new? Is he referring to the scale - that
within the valley itself, a new drainage pattern emerged? That makes much more sense. Too many vague statements.
Also, I noticed Austin (they all do it, actually) feels the need to delude the audience into believing that all [non-YEC] geologists interpret everything they see using the "long-time scale." As if they are incapable of imagining catastrophic processes or interpreting them correctly, which is pure bull.
quote:
Upright Deposited Logs
The Spirit Lake upright deposited stumps, therefore, have considerable implications for interpreting "petrified forests" in the stratigraphic record.
Except he forgets or refrains from discussing those implications or just how one would go about comparing petrified forests to trees in a lake. Has he seen other petrified forests associated with lake sediments/deposits? What would the timeline be for completely replacing a lakeful of organic material with silica? What is the process for getting all that silica in the lake? Being the good geologist, he should have at least touched on his model in some way... does he have a model? Or is this just fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants speculation?
quote:
The volcano, therefore, challenges our way of thinking about how the earth works, how it changes, and the time scale we are accustomed to attaching to its formations.
Seems to me, it's only a challenge for Creationists since the geologic community has been able to explain these processes for quite some time.
[This message has been edited by roxrkool, 05-02-2003]
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