Fossil Sorting in the Great Flood Part 2

Yes, only Christians can make valid comments about religion. Right! Larger size, greater population, greater natural resources, fortuituous geographic location, they're all irrelevant. And we'll just ignore all the studies showing Americans to be poorly educated compared to much of the world, especially Europe. Not to mention our incredible modesty and humility! In fact, we here in the US know they can babble on confidently and meaninglessly on any number of topics!--Percy

Science never proves or disproves anything because it includes the important principle of tentativity. Tentativity means that no matter how strongly a theory is supported by evidence, contrary evidence is always a possibility. Science never knows anything for certain.This is one of the reasons that evolution is science and Creationism isn't. Scientists will reject the theory of evolution if and when sufficient evidence is available falsifying it, while Creationists believe the story of creation as told in Genesis can never be falsified.--Percy

Who is the witness to Genesis? Even those who believe Moses wrote the Penteteuch realize he could not have witnessed the creation or the flood. The flood story was falsified during the 19th century. It was originally believed that the geology of the modern earth resulted from the great flood, but when trained clergymen (the naturalists and geologists of the day) began investigating geologic processes in the late 18th and early 19th century the evidence they uncovered clearly indicated two things: a) a worldwide flood could not explain most geologic formations; b) the earth is far more ancient then the Bible hints at. Let me guess. You're an English speaking Christian evangelical. What a coincidence! Well, even though you're obviously the most intelligent, moral and successful among us, you'll still have to support your arguments with evidence, just like everyone else.--Percy

Hi Robert,Evolution receives no special status as a theory. It is tentative and falsifiable, just like all other theories, such as relativity theory, quantum theory and the theory of gravity. When speaking precisely one says that these theories are strongly supported by the available evidence. One doesn't say they are proven.When speaking casually it is very common to say that a theory has been proven, but this is just a shortcut way of saying that the theory has so much supporting evidence that it has become widely accepted within the scientific community. This is what has happened to relativity, quantum theory, the theory of gravity, and the theory of evolution.--Percy

It sounds like you're claiming that the "hypothesis method" (better known as the hypothetico-deductive method) was invented solely to justify evolution and abiogenesis. Since evolution predates formalization of the hypothetico-deductive method, and since it is actually used across all branches of science, what leads you say this?--Percy

Hi Robert,You've just repeated your original assertion. I already understand that you believe that science fixed on abiogenesis and evolution as the explanations for the origin of life and for the origin of species by a means different from that for other fields of science, but you're wrong. Abiogenesis and evolution are theories accepted within the scientific community based upon the same hypothetico-deductive method used by other branches of science.If you think abiogenesis and evolution do not use the hypothetico-deductive method, then you'll have to explain why you think this, and tell us what method you think was used instead.--Percy

Sure they do. Henry Morris's The Genesis Flood first introduced the flood sorting argument, and it has been enhanced over the years with concepts like "hydrologic sorting" and "turbidity".What you're actually arguing is that Creationists who acknowledge the ordering are wrong, and that the ordering is only apparent because of population size changes.In a certain sense, evolutionary theory agrees with you. Successful fossilization is dependent upon many factors, and population size is one of them. The smaller the population, the less likely it is to leave behind fossil evidence, and populations of size zero will leave no fossil evidence at all.As you ascend geological layers, the appearance of new fossil types is not necessarily a result of evolution. It might also be due to migration, causing the population in a geographical region to suddenly increase in size from zero to many.The first fossil might also appear long ofter the organism originally evolved, for any of a variety of reasons. It might have evolved in another region where fossilization was rare because of climate, then migrated into a new region where fossilization was more likely. Or it might have evolved elsewhere in a region where fossilization occurred, but we haven't discovered it yet, or the region was subducted or eroded away and no longer exists. Or it might have evolved in the region under a climate unfavorable to fossilization, but then the climate changed. Or it might have had a very tiny population size which later increased, as you propose. And I'm sure we could think of other scenarios.The question becomes one of how to tell the difference between your proposal of a world where all species were created at one time and then their population sizes fluctuated, versus a world where evolution occurs.One argument against your proposal is that if it were true, then among all the millions of species that have ever existed there should be a fair number of species whose population fluctuated between very small and very large more than once over the course of time. This would mean we would find fossils of these species in widely separated geological layers. This *is* something that we occasionally find. For example, the Coelecanth disappeared from the fossil record millions of years ago, yet a couple species of Coelecanth still live. But there is no pattern in the fossil record of population fluctuations indicated by a number of species which keep appearing and disappearing as you ascend the geological layers, and it should be there if the ordering in the fossil record were merely an expression of populuation fluctuation and nothing else.Another serious problem for your proposal is that fluctuations in population size are influenced by a number of mostly environmental factors having nothing to do with how closely organisms are related to earlier residents of the region. Yet as we ascend the geological layers, what we find is gradually increasing differences from original forms, rather than a random pattern. If your proposal were true, then we should find at least some forms of long, long ago that at least vaguely resemble modern forms, but we don't. This evidence is contrary to what one would expect under your proposal.Another similar problem is the predator/prey ratio. In general, prey species exist in great numbers, while predator species exist in very small numbers. This ratio is necessary because each predator animal must kill many prey animals during a year in order to survive. If elk actually existed billions of years ago but simply weren't fossilized for the first 3 billion years of their existence because they existed in numbers too small to make fossilization likely, then the numbers would have been too small for the predator species to survive.Another problem for your proposal is that even if all the mammal species that ever existed were in numbers too small for fossilization to be likely, that is still such a huge number of mammals over such a large span of time that it is simply impossible that no mammal was ever fossilized until 130 million years ago. And not a huge mammal either like a mammoth or giant sloth, but just an extremely tiny ground dwelling creature.Your proposal is inconsistent with too much real-world evidence to merit serious consideration.--Percy