Peanut Gallery - What variety of creationist is Buzsaw? (Minnemooseus and Buzsaw)

Per request, a "Peanut Gallery" topic for the What variety of creationist is Buzsaw? (Minnemooseus and Buzsaw only) topic.Minnemooseus and Buzsaw are NOT to post to this PG topic (see proposed PG guidelines here).Adminnemooseus

In message 43 Buzsaw reminds us that he is having trouble understanding whether the dating of the sedimentary rock reflects the age of the sediments within them. He comes up with an analogy (I assume it’s an analogy) to help us understand his point of view: First I think we need to point out to Buz that, generally, geologists don’t date the sedimentary rocks directly. Rather they date igneous layers sandwiching and crosscutting the sedimentary layers to constrain the age of the sedimentary package.
To relate this back to his wall analogy, it would be like dating when the mortar solidifies to give a date when the wall was built.However in the real world we have many more constraints than the mortar or the bricks. For example in the below diagram we would date the crosscutting intrusives I & G and the volcanic layers F & A to give us dates on fossil bearing sediments E, C, K & H. To put numbers on this: If the granite ‘I’ is dated at 300 Million years old, and the volcanic layer ‘A’ is dated at 310 Million years old, it follows that the sedimentary layer between them at ‘C’ aged between 300 and 310 Ma. This diagram came from this very educational site which it might be worth buz having a look at.So in my example, buz would need to explain (from his Young Animal Life perspective) how the fossils got in to sediments that were deposited about 305 Million years ago. Surely the dead animals which were fossilised were deposited at the same time as the sediments, much as we see today?Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Fix source link. There had been an undesired space in front of the "http".

I PMed the member about this, but nothing has happened.

1. It is always a good and proper thing, to supply credit(s) and link(s) for the information source(s).
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2. It is REALLY as good and proper thing, to supply credit(s) and link(s) for the information source(s) if you are recommending the material as further reading.
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3. Not including credits/links is actually a forum rule 7 violation - "Never include material not your own without attribution to the original source."

Now, the source could be tracked down via the graphic's url ("view image info" in Firefox). That url is http://serc.carleton.edu/...es/quantskills/methods/xcut2.jpg. But that is not the readers job, it's the authors responsibility. As per my suggested Peanut Gallery guidelines, it is NOT Buzsaws "Great Debate" function, to respond to PG input. It is permissible for Minnemooseus (the other white meathead) to bring such to Buzsaw in the GD (and in some variation, he may have already done such).I won't go into this further, as I'm already bending the "GD participants are not to post in the PG" guideline.Please, NO REPLIES to this moderation message, in this topic. Any discussion needs to go to the Whine List topic.Adminnemooseus (the other other white meathead)ADDED BY EDIT #3 - The problem was all a coding error/glitch. I hadn't looked at "peek", or I might have noticed it.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add "suggested Peanut Gallery guidelines" link.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add "forum rule 7" section. Add "NO REPLIES" section.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : See above.

I thought I'd pick up on the first part of Buz's latest reply: Just to explain why it is wrong:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...logy#Relative_and_absolute_dating

quote:

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A large advance in geology in the advent of the 20th century was the ability to give precise absolute dates to geologic events through radioactive isotopes and other methods. The advent of radiometric dating changed the understanding of geologic time. Before, geologists could only use fossils to date sections of rock relative to one another. With isotopic dates, absolute dating became possible, and these absolute dates could be applied fossil sequences in which there was datable material, converting the old relative ages into new absolute ages.

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(Welcome to the 20th Century, Buz!)It does sound like it used to be a bit circular (although I doubt it was ever completely circular) but the introduction of methods for absolute dating has moved geological dating completely away from any accusations of circular reasoning.Hopefully Buzsaw will see this and adjust his understanding. *crosses fingers*

Don't hold your breath. My prediction: Buz will hand wave away all of the radiometric methods of dating by saying "you don't know what the world was like pre-flood, therefore all the dating methods are wrong" without ever explaining what conditions would exist to cause all the dating methods to be incorrect but also in agreement with each other.edit:
and here it is Edited by DrJones*, : No reason given.Edited by DrJones*, : No reason given.

In fact Buz is repeating an old creationist strawman which anybody familiar with the EvC debate will know of. It is a classic PRATT that survives only because some people naively trust ignorant or dishonest creationist sources.Index fossils are used for relative dating. However, contrary to the creationist falsehood it is first established that the fossil is suitable for use as an index fossil before it is used for dating. To put it simply, it is established that the fossil is common for a relatively short time period (in terms of geological dates !) and then not found at all. This can be shown by relative dating techniques, without need for radiometric dating. Once this has been reliably established the fossil may be used as a relative dating indicator. Contrary evidence, if discovered, may change that assessment.Index fossils are used because they are a cheap and simple method of dating rocks.This method is not circular, because the fossil is identified as a reliable date indicator before it is used.As to Buz's latest, it's even worse. Already a classic creationist strawman. Geologists accept catastrophic events when the evidence supports them. In fact there is no plausible mechanism for increasing radioactive decay rates by the amount required, let alone one that would work consistently for all the elements used in radiometric dating techniques. Nor is there any good evidence that radiometric decay rates have significantly varied. As usual Buz misrepresents the Bible. The "vapour canopy" is not "clearly depicted" in Genesis at all. It is an invention of modern Creationists. His science is even worse. Cosmic rays do not come from the sun at all. Even if the atmosphere was much thicker and intercepted more cosmic rays it would not drastically increase decay rates as Buz's argument requires - not for ANY of the isotopes used to date rocks, let alone all of them. Not to mention the fact that layers of rock are likely to prove rather effective shielding.In other words this is ignorant bullshitting, and nothing more.(Variations in cosmic ray influx DO affect carbon dating, but only because they affect the FORMATION of radiocarbon. However, a thicker atmosphere is not likely to affect that much, since it is in the atmosphere that Carbon 14 forms, when a cosmic ray hits a Nitrogen atom. Moreover, carbon dating is not used to date rocks and calibration with independent dating techniques allows scientists to compensate for that variation. So it's no help to Buz at all.)

Which is fine - but it means that the 'circular reasoning' argument needs to be withdrawn.If Buz agrees that geologists use radiometric dating, then - regardless of the accuracy of radiometric dating - they are not using "fossils to date rocks and rock to date fossils".

In the Great Debate thread Buz seems to be saying the Cambrian "explosion" marks the global flood.But don't I remember that elsewhere we were assured recently by another creationist poster (I'm not going to bother to look up who) that the K-T Boundary marked the global flood?Hmmm. One creationist places the flood 500+ million years ago, and another about 60 million years ago. But biblical scholars place the flood some 4,350 years ago.And we are supposed to be impressed by this kind of stuff?

There is nothing naive about Buz's acceptance of this PRATT. Not only is the circular fossil/layer aging accusation a stupid PRATT, it's one that Buz has seen debunked here any number of times.Buz has also been asked any number of times to point to a mechanism that would allow reduced cosmic or solar radiation due to a water canopy or any other pre-Flood condition to affect radiometric dating (other than C14 dating) in the direction Buz wants the dating to be wrong. To date Buz has yet to provide even a handwaving explanation.As one poster once put it, no scientists don't assume that radioactive decay rates increase when it becomes hot and humid outside. We know from experiment decay rates aren't significantly affected by heat and pressure.I can't understand why anyone would want to debate with Buzsaw about anything.

You don't expect him to REMEMBER inconvenient facts, do you ? He couldn't even remember that his preferred "Exodus Crossing" site was DEEPER than the traditional site !

No I don't. I assume the man is debating in the best fashion he can manage.What I expect is that most reasonably honest participants in debates here will tell the truth about what has and hasn't been said when they know that it is written down for anyone to review. I expect people to give up on failed arguments even if they never change their mind about the ultimate truth of their position.Maybe Reagan really did forget about forget the details of that arms sale to Iran.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

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We're not debating the Exodus perse presently. Nevertheless, NoNukes and PaulK are going at me in Message 10 about dishonesty, implying that I was ignoring the fact that the Exodus crossing is too deep presently for such a crossing.

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In fact we can see that I was defending Buz against charges of dishonesty by suggesting that he FORGOT that the area was one of the deeper parts of the Red Sea, as had been thoroughly established in previous discussion. For instance in Message 132 Nuweiba is referred to as "the most shallow part of the sea".In Message 175 he even cites the alleged shallowness as one of the significant items of "evidence" for the Exodus: And this is evidence that apparently can be seen today: Both of these posts were made BEFORE Buz made any claims of erosion or tsunamis deepening the channel.

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The fact is that if they would go back to the Exodus debate, they would be honest themselves and tell the folks that I explain why the site was deeper thousands of years ago than it is now, advising how the global flood which happened, according to the record, relatively shortly before the Exodus. Thus the tsunami like rush of the returning of the walls of water from North and South, would likely cut a chanel in the looser sandy Eastern section of what the flood washed down from the wadi canyon, etc.

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The FACT is that AFTER it was pointed out that the site was not especially shallow Buz made up a cock-and-bull story about there having been huge amounts of sediment at that particular site. But he provided no evidence that it had ever been there at all, let alone any evidence that it was there at the time of the Exodus. Nor is there any evidence that if it was there that it would reduce the depth by the amount required for Buz's original claim to have been true, even then. Even if the Flood is assumed (despite all the evidence that it did not happen) there is no reason to suppose that there was a massive deposition at this particular site - or that there was no deposition at other sites that should be taken into account. (Also, if such a massive deposition was swept away in a single, catastrophic event, we would have to conclude that heavier objects - such as any debris from an Egyptian army that happened to be crossing would also be swept away. There should be no chariot wheels at the actual site - if Buz is right).And let me add that an honest person would have to admit that such a massive, implausible speculation cannot possibly be considered evidence. So even if Buz claimed that he meant only that the area was especially shallow at the time of the Exodus (contrary to his claim that the evidence exists now, and despite his failure to add any such qualification until after it was pointed out how deep the Red Sea at Nuweiba really is) he would be admitting that he dishonestly tried to pass off his wild speculations as fact.So since Buz seems so determined to be seen as dishonest I will accede to his wishes, and cease to offer any defence of his honesty ever again.

From Moose Message 56Some people theorize that a very heavy dew was the irrigation project God instilled in the garden. In the outer atmosphere there may have been a blanket of water vapor which supplied evaporation and condensation hence the heavy dew or fog.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

If there had been a 'vapour canopy' what do the you think the relative humidity would been and what affect would that have had on evaporation?

Im not saying I agree with the "canopy theory". The dew tho I do . Im not sure how it worked but we still get dew today without a canopy.Here is what CMI says about it: The HE is Hovind. This is an article that refutes or disagrees with a lot of what Hovind teaches: Maintaining Creationist Integrity (response to Kent Hovind) - creation.comThe "canopy theory" is mentioned in the article.