SCIENCE: -- "observational science" vs "historical science" vs ... science.

You are arguing a different point. The point I'm arguing is that there is no need to know the origin of the rock in order to do the work of practical Geology, finding oil or ore or whatever else geologists do.

I know it's a different point. The point is, once again, that practical geology goes hand-in-hand with an old earth. The practical geology leads to an understanding of how the rocks formed and that formation required long ages. The practical geology produces the long ages as a byproduct.Everybody doing practical geology has the same understanding of how the rocks formed over long periods of time. You can't separate practical geology from the implications of practical geology.

And you would be wrong. In some situations, you don't need to know anything about the geology. In others, it's bit more complex.

Wrong. I can think of several other differences off the top of my head. One would be tetrapod tracks. How would you create those in a marine environment where there are obvious water-saturated sands and high currents?Then there is the grain-size distribution of the sands and their purity. And the presence of ventifacts formed by sandblasting of the rocks. Actually, it is because dunes eventually get planed off. I have shown you pictures of this.

You are mistaken. You really, really need to know if you have a rock that was capable of forming and/or holding oil before you go spending a few hundred million dollars on randomly boring holes in the earth's crust. You really, really need a model of how and where that rock (those rocks, really: source, reservoir, and seal) was deposited and perhaps deformed before you set a platform 150 miles from land in mile-deep water.And let me concede something that will shock you, Faith. A petroleum geologist does NOT need to know that the top of the Permian is 251,000,000 years old to find oil. But the ages of that magnitude are still there, largely as a byproduct of us oilys' doings. The Horseshoe Atoll down beneath my house is a humungous reef - grown in place - that grew there before the Permian ended. It's a reef, Faith: 600 feet thick, 120 miles long. It was deeply eroded in places before it was buried by 6500 feet of evaporites, limestones, and sands/clays. That did not happen in 4300 years. It didn't happen in 4.3 million years. It took a Long Time. And the only viable models that find oil RELY on millions of years for it to have arrived where it is now.Spindletop and Drake's Folly were then. We are in now.

Er, yes, you try to do that. (Or you could save time by adopting the principles of the scientific method, but you wouldn't enjoy that at all.) But until you have a principle, you should stop pretending that you are acting on the principles that you do not in fact have. Perhaps in between trying to acquire some principles, you could find out some stuff about sand and sand dunes and aeolian sandstone.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

I think that knowing how to make observations includes being able to interpret smaller observations and consolidate that into a larger observation.By that I mean, what a knowledgeable and experienced geologist can observe is because s/he can interpret the details.Example of how 3 different people could observe the same plutonic igneous rock sample: They're all looking at the same thing, but the experienced specialized geologist is seeing (observing) so much more. S/he's observing so much more because s/he knows how to interpret all the details that make up the rock, and is subconsciously doing such.Thus, what would be a simple observation for one person, would be far beyond the ability of the 4 year old child, and would at least require a substantial effort of conscious study and interpretation for the beginner geologist.Moose

So you need to know what sort of rock it is and how it was deformed in relation to other rocks and all that, but I don't see anything about a need to know its age here. I'm sure you USE the OE models, and you know what, I also suppose that they work for your purposes, but what I wonder is if they are really necessary. You really haven't said anything here that proves that.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Interpretation is involved in all science, and any actual work done in the field by a geologist would also involve interpretation. The point I'm trying to keep in mind is that in that sort of science it's testable and verifiable by others, but interpretations of some events in the prehistoric past cannot be tested or verified. I'm trying to find the best way of defining just what category of events this applies to.

Biblical myths to start with. Seen any talking snakes lately? That's the epitome of "cannot be tested or verified."Whereas those of us who do study the distant past can readily formulate hypotheses and test them, and all of these are then subjected to testing and verification by our colleagues.And don't think that eager young graduate students coming up aren't looking for any previous hypotheses or theories that they can overturn. That's the quickest way to become recognized.Perhaps your idea that one can't test or verify hypotheses about the distant past is really wishful thinking? You don't like the answers we're coming up with so you are doing your best to denigrate our methods--for purely religious reasons, of course.It appears that you've convinced yourself, but you certainly aren't coming up with any evidence that would convince anyone else here.

I like how you qualify the argument with a 'really necessary'. I suppose that you would be the one deciding what is 'really necessary'.Certainly, a lot of geology was done before radiometric dating, so it's possible to do many things in the science. The thing is that absolute dating does make a lot of other conclusions possible such as what I have discussed here earlier, and on the geological column thread. So, what is 'really necessary? To an Archean geologist I'd say that such dating is critical to solving certain problems. But you'd probably say that's not all that important. That's a judgement call and everyone can have an opinion, but for you to dismiiss other peoples' opinions on the topic is nothing more than arrogance.

I'd be deducing it from what I gather from what is said by you all.It looks from what everybody has said, not from something I'm making up but from what you all have said, that the main way Old Earth concepts are used in practical Geology is through radiometric dating, and what that does is help you determine the relative ages of different rocks, the absolute age really not being relevant. Yes or no?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I'm thinking talking snakes would come high on that list.But nothing in geology is going to. You know why not? Because it's practiced by scientists. They're not allowed to arbitrarily make stuff up. The other scientists would notice. And point and laugh.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Interpretation is involved in all science, and any actual work done in the field by a geologist would also involve interpretation. The point I'm trying to keep in mind is that in that sort of science it's testable and verifiable by others, but interpretations of some events in the prehistoric past cannot be tested or verified. I'm trying to find the best way of defining just what category of events this applies to.

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Here's a starting point for you Faith. The fact that the Earth is very, very much older than 10,000 years has been thoroughly tested and verified.Multiple independant lines of evidence confirm this, and the idea that they are all badly wrong - and yet agree to a great extent - is hopelessly implausible.

In all seriousness Faith, could you make a list of what you consider to be "Old Earth concepts?" I am having trouble with the idea. For example, is radiometric dating a "Old Earth concept?" If we used radiometric dating and it indicated the earth was 6,000 years old, it would then be a "Young Earth concept." So I see radiometric dating as just a concept, that yields results that suggest the earth is old.Uniformitarianism would be one that maybe is an "Old Earth concept." Because a "Young Earth concept" would have to be that things in the past, including the laws of physics, operated completely different than they do today.HBD