Glenn Morton's Evidence Examined

Which argument are you talking about, the tracks on the rocks or the ammonites in separate strata?Whichever, I consider both of them to be Class A arguments, not second best.

The ammonite argument is an excellent argument. Any obviously closely related species found in separate strata --ammonites, triobites or whatever -- implies millions of years between them, which is absolutely screamingly ridiculous. How many generations do you think intervened? It's a fine argument, contested only by willful obfuscation.Likewise the argument about the tracks and other impressions made in the rocks is a fine argument, based on the observation that all the rocks in the strata are huge flat featureless expanses of lithified sediment on which nothing could live. Whatever signs of life are found there had to be in transit, thrown there by the flood perhaps, or chased there. If they are burrowers rather than runners then they would burrow. The sediments had to be in a somewhat dry condition to preserve the impressions -- I think Morton made that point about the Bay of Fundy mud impressions of bird tracks and raindrops -- and no, whoever asked, that is not part of the geologic column, it's a recent occurrence, but it suggests the degree of dampness the surface must have had to hold the impressions in the geologic column. Which suggests to me deposition by a tide that drew off a lot of the wetness
as it receded, and gave time for animals to make their impressions.But the main point about this is that it is a huge flat barren slab of sediment/rock, NOT an environment, not a landscape, not a habitat. The evidence is before your eyes because it describes ALL the strata of any stratigraphic column. The marine layers cover distances up to whole continents and beyond, as confirmed by the geologist here, and there are lots of those stacked one on top of another, but even some terrestrial layers in between that would have been totally buried by the next marine layer. No terrestrial habitat would have survived their deposition. By the time you get to the predominantly terrestrial layers there are now lots and lots of marine layers covering up any possible habitat. The terrestrial layers build on top of that stack of barren rocks. There is no place any livable environment could have insinuated itself anywhere in such a stack. The stratigraphic columns are nothing but a big cemetery encasing billions of dead things.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The only view of the Flood I called traditional is that it was global. Morton seems to be objecting to its global extent alone; otherwise why bother with the explanation that it was the result of the flooding of the Mediterranean? I'll continue to defend my view because it makes sense to me, no matter who originated it -- and I haven't read Price -- but I'm not defending any particular scenario as the traditional view. I understand why you scientists are so captivated by contemporary geology, but nevertheless I regard that as capitulating to the world and losing the essential things about the Biblical revelation that I mentioned in my former post (Message 249).Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This thread is for arguments between OEC and YEC, not just any arguments you can dream up against YEC. I'm using Glenn Morton's list for reference.

For all I know Morton or Bertsche or any other OEC could answer jar.

All I said was that location seems the likely explanation but that I wasn't going to argue it.Your comments about the ammonites are what is ignorant and irrational.

I don't address questions that look too technical for me, which I've said a hundred million times already. And I haven't even read jar's question. I simply do not care. There are going to be lots of questions I can't answer and couldn't care less about. This thread was inspired by Glenn Morton's arguments and I'm sticking to it.Meanwhile I've made some really good arguments here that are simple but crucial support for the Flood, that nobody seems able to grasp.

There was no Cambrian, there is only a rock low in the strata that you call the Cambrian. It is only a rock, a very extensive rock that nothing could live on even when it was an extensive expanse of sediment. There was never anything there but the sediment and whatever got trapped and died in it. It is one of a stack of sediments that buried whatever landscapes existed before the Flood. Mammals got buried in layers much higher up.

In reproductive isolation thirty years for five pairs (Pod Mrcaru lizards), a few hundred for a herd of cattle, etc. (abe: Assuming of course that the species has sufficient genetic diversity left for variation, which in our time is not a given.} Where the fossil record preserves in one rock layer a number of individuals of one type or variation that are somewhat but not greatly different from other members of the same species in another rock layer, you've got mere cousins millions of years apart. Hey I just discovered this by pondering Morton's argument about ammonites. I think it's something that needs to be noticed that calls the whole OE system into serious doubt.in one strataEdited by Faith, : No reason given.

There probably wouldn't have been much of a surviving habitat at that point, if any, just a lot of dead mammals either floating in the water or on the higher surfaces of the land, to be buried in their turn. You have shown no such thing. Any remaining life there was about to be buried there along with all the other creatures that are buried there. ... even when it was an extensive expanse of sediment. There was never anything there but the sediment and whatever got trapped and died in it. [/qs]Or creatures that live there. [/qs]It's a HUGE flat expanse of nothingness, just recently deposited wet sediment that is now just a huge expanse of rock. NOTHING lived there. All existing habitats in that region would already have been destroyed and broken up into pieces that would eventually be buried in their own sediment. Anything that survived did so only very temporarily. There are some dinosaur tracks on the surface of some of the rocks. For some reason they survived long enough to leave those impressions but for sure not long after that. The mammals were probably already dead as mentioned above. I don't recsll mentioning mammals. The only tracks I'm aware of are dinosaur tracks.

Because they are different from their cousins, they flock together in a separate location, and are found in a different layer of rock. Why any more odd than for birds?

I'm sure they didn't "wander," they would have been tossed there by a wave of the Flood, made tracks as long as they could before being buried by the next wave. Somehow they survived that long, but they certainly weren't living there, just lost and wandering across this flat sedimentary wasteland before being buried in one of the waves full of sediment. At some level well above the Holocene.

Well, coyote, thanks for the personal note, but I don't see that I've failed to produce evidence or have denied evidence either.However, as usually happens at this point in a thread where everybody seems to me to be committed to utter irrational trashing of everything I say for no good reason whatever, I have a great desire to leave EvC and never come back. Too bad that desire never lasts.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I wasn't lying when I said I hadn't read jar's posts on the subject and I have no reason to do so now either. I need a break. However, the age of the UNIVERSE is something other than the age of the Earth, and astronomical time is weird. I'm content to give reasons why evolution is genetically impossible, and the strata can't represent ancient separate landscapes in separated time periods, and I think I've done so. If what I've said is true and I certainly believe it is, then I don't care about other stuff I can't prove; it will eventually fall into place.

I've been using different pages at the Old Earth Ministries site for Morton's arguments, such as this page .I'm sure i won't try to take on most of them, but the articles on the ammonites and the tracks in the rocks inspired my arguments here so far.But I would say, concerning the canopy theory, which I haven't studied and don't argue one way or the other, that I don't trust any opinion that depends on calculations about basic physics in the distant past, which couldn't possibly be checked -- and not so much because the calculations themselves can't be trusted, though they surely can't, but because there are too many unknown variables that have to be overlooked from our vantage point today. How much heat some phenomenon would supposedly have generated, how much pressure, how much time something would take etc etc etc. There's no way we could ever have enough knowledge to calculate such things for the distant past, and I'm amazed that so many act as if it's possible. I can't say his calculations were wrong, but I don't know how anyone could say they were right either.As for the seismically pictured underground canyons, edge is right, I don't see any reason to suppose they ever were really canyons on the surface of the earth. So thinking in terms of how the Flood could have been the cause of it I suppose enormous quantities of water pouring through spaces in and between the strata as the water receded, which is how I suppose the Grand Canyon was cut too. I certainly don't think the strata were "hard" yet though, even if probably fairly compacted, but even then tectonic movement would break things up, create spaces, perhaps develop big karsts in limestone and so on as water ran through cracks. Water DOES run underground, even now, why not a huge amount of water at the end of the Flood? And if the canyon eventually got filled up with sediment as I recall is part of the explanation of that image, that makes sense too with strata collapsing above it and far less of an exit out the other end of it than would be expected for the Grand Canyon. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.