Objections to Evo-Timeframe Deposition of Strata

To reply to your numbered points on message 16...1. No one witnessed the (alleged) Flood... Study of historical and prehistorical events can be inferred through present data... to limit science to directly observational science is to limit the playing field and ask no questions at all about history. Remember that we weren't around during Biblical times, so archeology or literature can't be used to support your beliefs under this logic.2. Yes, the world is a collection of local, regional, and world events that need to be put in proper context to make sense of them.3.Same as 2. You spend time here contending that its obvious that a geologic column can't exist and in the next breaths argue for your own ignorance(too much study, creationist geologists with better things to do, its full of evolutionist terminology, etc.)In order to progress this debate or to just learn something about geology. Spend the time that it takes to make 2 or 3 posts here to learn about deposition( a lot happens underwater but that doesn't necessarily mean Flood), erosion, superposition, seafloor spreading.on google put 'geology+'aforementioned term' and read both the university, science pages before settling on some of the ICR, reasons to believe,and Answers in Genesis pages that will be there also.Also, any used freshman geology text may help.You've said that scientists can't see the forest for the trees...I think it helps to understand something of both than very little about either.ABBConstruct a thought experiment...for example...what would one expect to find in rock layers if a large worldwide flood happened, and what do we see in nature?

I decided to take my own advice. In the 5 minutes it takes to make a post, I googled geology+deposition and geology+erosion. Several good pages came up, those under mountainnature.com seemed to be of a moderate content about basic geological processes that would make a good starting point.You are just a few keystrokes away from knowledge; fewer than the number you type out to say ' I don't have time to look this stuff up but enough to argue about it'.ABB

So if there was a worldwide flood, what would you expect to see in rock strata? In a 6000 yr old world you would see a base of God made rock, then a large homogenous jumble of rocks, fossils and debris, then a layer of soils on top.If you have a very old earth you see hundreds of layers that vary with location that reflect the series of deposition from ocean or fresh water floods, wind blown layers, and erosion of same.While flooding is a means of deposition, it isn't the only one. When you see that some layers are deposited by water you cry "Flood!" and say its possible so that you don't have to weight the evidence, which is that there are many layers, not one.In my previous post I suggested a freshman geology text. Perhaps you need to read a logic text first.The subject isn't so huge that you couldn't learn about basic deposition and erosion and how it relates to geologic sequences around the world in a few hours. You don't need math,knowledge of DNA, or loads of time. Just get your nose out of those creationist texts, quit arguing for your intuitive ignorance, and do it!p.s. You never looked at Ned's links, did you?

I'll address just a few points.I thought I recall that if all the ice in the world was melted that it would only raise sea level about 200 ft. Perhaps someone here knows the figure. This would require the fountains of the deep to hold the vast amount of water needed to cover the world to 30,000 ft. required for total coverage. There seems to be little evidence of such a layer between our crust and mantle.Horizontal layers are present in many tectonic zones, but so are angles and folds. That layers of rock can be squeezed, tilted and folded gives one the idea of how powerful tectonic forces can be. But these formations occur where large plates of crust bump up againt one another. In California one plate is being subducted, that is forced under another overriding plate. These and other areas ( hot spots of thin crust over the mantle such as Yellowstone or Hawaii) are where things are happening tectonically, wheras places like the center of the North American are usually stable. Referencing a map of tectonic plate border zones may explain some aspects(usually present in any geology text).Another way to look at this is historically. In 1700 most scholars believed in Flood theology and geology. They belived in a young Earth. By 1800 very few scholars belived that the Earth was young. The concept of 'deep time' became popular and then the race was on to quantify how long.I am cribbing this from Stephen J. Gould's essay "The Proof of Lavoisier's plates" in the book 'The Lying Stones of Marrakech" page 93, which may be helpful here."In 1700, all major Western scholars believed that the earth had been created just a few thousand years ago. By 1800, nearly all scientists accepted a great antiquity of unknown duartion, and a sequential history expressed in strata of the earth's crust. These strata, roughly speaking, form a vertical pile, with the oldest layers on the bottom and the youngest on top. By mapping the exposure of thes layers on the earth's surface, this sequential history can be inferred. By 1820, detailed geological maps had been published for parts of England and France, and general patterns had been established for the entirety of both nations. This discovery of "deep time', and the subsequent resolution of historical sequences by geological mapping, must be ranked among the sweetest triumphs of human understanding" Stephen J. GouldNote that he uses variations of the word 'sequence' three times in this paragraph.Also it is worth pointing out that a number of these scientists were Christian, but subsequently accepted an old earth.I was taught that the best way to debate against someone's position is to have to represent that position in a practice debate. This requires one to learn the other's position and makes one a stronger debator.Many folks here have looked at both or perhaps more accurately, all sides of this question. If you don't agree you can still profit by understanding why they hold the positions they do.Some member has a signature quote along the lines 'Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts'(apologies to whomever it is, I'll run across it again soon). Until you learn enough about geology to recognize that the existence of horizontal strata do not imply a worldwide flood, you will find that your intuitive arguments hold little scientific weight.It took more than 350 yrs for the Catholic church to forgive Galileo for his heliocentric theory. Perhaps all these things take time
because of the emotional implications, which seem to linger amoung individuals and institutions to the eclipse of reason.Banana Boy

I can only agree with your last sentence.We do not misunderstand your idea one bit.I think you are somewhere between ignorant and irrational.I think you will continue to refute others' posts point by point with trite, illinformed, unsubstatiated drivel...time that could be better spent learning something instead of gleaning rampant misconcetions from some comic book tract about evolution and recreating them here.I can think of three main possibilities: that you are intentionally obtuse,unintetionally obtuse, or are just deliberatly wasting our time.ABB

...and we infer from evidence.Just out of curiosity... what and who do you refer to for your scientific data? That may speak volumes.ABB

No, you'll be back and soon. Over almost 200 posts you've set a pattern. Propose an unsupported assertion, get some answers, cling to a very few misconceptions, insist we find some validity in them, argue that we don't understand you, say you are going to study, then come back. Rinse. Repeat.Its almost like the TV detective Columbo who always comes back 'for just one question', except that his question was insightful and lead somewhere.Arkansas BBP.s. still not imagining... just looked up some stuff about pangea and gondwonaland and how it relates to ancient tectonic movement. I think I'll spend some future posts practicing how to make links.

You are faith based.Most here are reasoned based.Wallow in ignorance, and seem to be proud of it.I'm laying odds to anyone that Faith posts to the 300 limit if it goes that far. It's like some message board OCD.'The Bible says it, I believe it, and that's that.' Seen on a bumper sticker.Bye,bye,bye!!!?!(In Seargent Major accent) "Wait for it"p.s. On second thought, I suggest we put this thread down, unless we can get Faith to expound some more on sediment movement so jar can collect some more classics.

A good deal of that intolerance was undoubtably attributed to me. I have apologized in another thread while this one was closed. I repeat this apology to Faith and to all thread participants.If you get a chance Percy, please review this thread and notice that my heated responses did not arise in a vacuum.It is not ignorance that I mind, but repeated disregard for information provided by many posters.Some good has and hopefully will be derived for me from this thread. First, I got some great info about Grand Canyon strata(Thanks Gary and message 117), and other strata. Second, I have looked at some good stuff on late night PBS psych course shows on 'emotional anchoring bias'; I think it applies here. The hopefull part is that I've learned how to deal with this style of argumentation. We'll see if I can.Academically cool,ABB

I was reading a Gould essay about Lyell and his developing uniformitarianism. This developed my idea for why Faith and I disagree.Uniformitarians assumed an earth of great age and that atmosphere,land, and oceans cycle back and forth in processes roughly the same as those now.Catastrophists believe that physical laws and earth processes moved at different rates in the past. This seems to be a tempting line of thought because it means that studying those times will lead to no useful information, so why try.Faith saying that maybe "layers were already there" indicates that such a catastrophist god who leaves evidence that is reasonable and consistent but ultimately wrong and is presumably a test of our faith. This reminds me of the argument that a very distant star had its light created on the way to earth or that the speed of light was different to stay consistent with a young earth. I think such a god as capricious at best and perverse at worst. Plus I will tend to trust my reason than arguments against it.Perhaps Faith and others had more of a philosophical disagreement than any about geology.ABB

Back in message 156 you seem to imply preformed layers, but a close reading shows that you meant layers formed by a flood so I misunderstood.My bringing up catastrophism and uniformitarianism still stands with your concept of layers formed during the flood(message 171 and others) and how philosophy drives your debate and not science.In message 156 you say that the world was essentially flat and that 25 feet of water could have covered all mountains. This implies a world greatly different(catastrophic in origin) than the view of land masses in the past having mountains such as we see today(uniformitarian).I invoke catastrohpism (defined in glossary as'the belief that geologic history consists of major catastrophic events involving processes that were far more intense than they are now') because it seems to be your mode of argument.A placid flat world with plants and animals in the space of a year has 20,000 ft and greater mountains thrust up, all sediments for any future layers formed, some moved together as groups and deposited as same, and several other examples of natural phenomena that we don't see in evidence today seem to be your basis of argument.Then you argue for your own outlook of layer deposition by intuition,still not looking into deposition and erosion as 'normal processes', continue a view of how intricate and consistent layers forming in a year is more plausible than over long periods of time.Why did I invoke Lyell and scientists from 200 years ago? Why do most people here think you are wrong? Because this mode of thought was abandoned by most scientists 200 years ago. Everything has to be justified over again to verify things we think we know, but you need some dramatic evidence to support a worldwide flood.That's why I offered up catastrophism as your intellectual refuge, because it solves a lot of problems for you as opposed to staying in the (for you) netherworld of geology and history of earth science. More educated creationists than you believe in it and can sidestep that nasty world of evidence that supports an old earth.That leads to the frustrating part of dealing with your view. You seem to try to use your own misconception of deposition,erosion,layer deposition,etc. to support your Flood views without even seeming to try to learn about them. I can understand ' faith as belief in things unseen' but it seems to me you 'disbelieve in things seen', so the easier way is to actively try to not to see at all, or demand that your intuition is as valid as hundreds of years of human thought.And your last sentence displays the dichotomy...'How the Flood played out in geology was not defined in the Bible....but there is absolutely no doubt that a worldwide Flood occured.'The ' reasonable and consistent' part refers to the fact that layers in the geologic column are consistent with stratigrapy,radiometric dating,historical tectonic movement as it relates to fossil deposition, and others. This implies an earth of old age that moves and cycles(uniformitarian). A god leaving evidence of great age and no global flood that you have to ignore to believe what is in his book still seems perverse to me.And as to your petulant 'everyone here says I'm wrong and that's the end of that'. Until you come up with evidence instead of intuition that is the end of that. Until you look into the science you are (more than) 200 years out of date intellectually.That's why I say run to catastophism... it has its own problems but is easier to say that God can change physical laws anytime he wants to reconcile young earth or Flood 'evidence' than to study about how real world evidence correlates with an old earth model. Any deviation from the expected can be corrected with an historical physical law change that can never be substantiated.But I don't really think you need to run to catastrophism, you are there already even if you don't know it. Trying to use your misknowledge of geology to justify a scientific view of a worldwide supernaturally caused flood is ridiculous from a uniformitarian point of view.ABB

I also misunderstood you to be a young earther. You seem to be an old earth Floodist which is new to me. That explains some and leaves just worldwide flood existence, timing, and mechanism to discuss.Yes, layers exist.Most geologists also accept this occured through long periods of time(although some seem to be seasonally periodic, like varves). These layers probably came from large regional areas where biological,fresh water, salt water,evaporate,igneous, metamorphic, or other depositions occured.They also get busted up into plates and move around,on top, and underneath other layers through this time and are not totally 'quiet' as previously stated. Erosion occurs throughout all this time to complicate the mix.There seems to be little evidence of worldwide flood due simply to the lack of a relatively recent worldwide band of rock that dates(not just radiometrically) to the same time, a band that would contain a mixture of all known plants, animals,soil, and rock.Many arguments have been made in the thread about how implausible and inconsistent explanations are for the types of layering we see in strata to occur as the settling from one large flood.I think a flood did occur, probably the regional Black Sea flood theorized to have occured several thousand years ago. This large but not worldwide flood was still impressive enough to be remembered in myth from our anscestors who lived next to that once smallish freshwater lake.ABB

Well perhaps in message 213 where you say 'Nothing that was said on this thread really answered my original impression of the millions of years long buildup of sediments in thick layers sharply demarcated from others of completely different sediments, though certainly some posts raised questions about the Flood explanation that I can't answer.'is how I read otherwise. But you must mean the opposite, presumably as an example of what people other than you believe in.Again, you are a catastrophist as you believe in a past where the world was changed to the extent that it was a 'different world' and that physical laws as we know them must not operate the same way as they do now so that evidence is unproduced or unseen.Uniformitarianism is the concept that the processes we see today are those that operated in the past. The formation of the geologic column assumes this concept.Gary's message 117 is a good place to start; the Grand Canyon strata.Or any of the Flood threads by Ned in message 54.The least logical aspect is that you establish an opinion about a subject while trying to learn nothing about it.You 'Just see no way a few feet of homogeneous sediment marked off sharply from completely different sediments could have been laid down over millions of years, and really haven't seen an argument on this thread that's at all a convincing explanation' because you STILL WILL NOT LEARN ABOUT DEPOSITION OR EROSION AND HOW THEY RELATE TO THE GEOLOGIC COLUMN, but you feel that you enough to comment about them, and always in an intuitive or general way because the details work against you, so you dismiss them.You think that strata were formed by post flood settling while ignoring the problems of hydrodynamic sorting and absence of mammals in lower layers. And yes I would expect a worldwide rock layer from a worldwide flood; what would you expect? Oh no, don't answer that one on second thought.You aren't convinced, but the truth is that the seas go in and then go out. Layers are formed in rock throughout the world in patterns that reflect ancient and sequential patterns that then cycle with tectonic activity. We find fossils in layers that they correspond to and not in places where we wouldn't expect them, fossil dogs in the preCambrian for example.To me this is a case of 'I've got my mind made up, don't confuse me with facts.'You seem to be proud of your ignorance, and I'm sure that I'm repeating myself.ABB

Upon reviewing this whole thread(ow my head), I find that some of the early responses as the best.Your message 24 reflect both Faith's ignoring what deposition versus erosion means and the arrogance of those hundreds of years in the scientific past.Crash's enumeration of basic contradictions of Faith's understanding of the geologic column and its formation are correct and numerous in early messages(his thread after all). How does Faith have such faith in erosion to undo all deposition while knowing apparently little about geology? The answer is F/faith!

Upon reviewing the first few messages of this thread, it seems that Faith thinks that weathering (erosion) will erase all deposition.We observe that in present times that some areas are being deposited,some eroded, and some little affected as they are buried and temporarily protected from erosion until cut thru, subducted,or exposed.An old earth predicts that these forces will find equilibrium, but this does not mean a one for one destruction across the board. Some layers from heavy deposition remain in areas that were not lost to weathering or subduction to indicate great age.Looking at it from a young earth point of view it would be appealing to not see erosion and deposition as in an equilibrium state. Perhaps a view where all deposition occured at the Flood and most if not all forces now favor erosion may be what Faith is driving at, a decreasing linear function instead of an equilibrium.However the evidence through dating methods of many kinds show that similar sized land masses have moved across the world for at least several hundred million years, which seems to indicate that erosion and deposition are at least roughly matched, lest the land masses soon melt away into the oceans by erosion trumping deposition.Faith's catastrophic view has erosion and deposition as mismatched nonequilibrium processes that invoke the 'degeneration' since the fall of man, presumably a few thousand years ago.A uniformitarian view sees erosion/deposition as in an equilibria cycle that has been occuring a long time. Layers of some rock that have escaped weathering or subduction correlate with other rock layers in other parts of the world to suggest an overall pattern and sequence that can be inferred. This inferred pattern is the geologic column.You will understand this outlook if you crack a freshman geology text and look at erosion, deposition,tectonic movement,fossil types and incidence,dating methods,geologic column, etc. You don't have to agree with it but if you don't understand the concepts how can you say you disagree with it? Because you have your mind made up before you look at the idea.I think Ned's latest opinion as spot on.ABB"deposition occurs" instead of "shit happens" on my bumper sticker