If this thread is being hijacked it's not by me. If someone wants to move this discussion then move it.
You CANNOT do any experiment or analysis of experiment that would prove that the fossils represent the only living things in a particular time period,
We can't do experiments or controlled experiments to find extra-solar planets. Instead we rely on observation. Observational science has been around for a long time. More, nobody claims that the fossils that we do find are the only things that were living at the time. The actual claims about which life forms were present at any time are, moreover, testable by collecting more observations (in this case, by looking for more fossils), just as we would expect of valid observational science.
Experimental science and observational science are basiclaly the same thing. Astronomy IS an observational science, but historical geology is not. The planets and stars move in relation to each other and in relation to Earth, observations over time can tell you all kinds of things about them. In the case of historical geology you have a stack of inert sediments that just lie there, and their fossil contents are dead and motionless. Everything you come up with in this case is just a lot of wild guesswork that can't be validated by independent tests or independent observations. You can all built on each other's notions but if they happen to be illusions all you will be doing is expanding the illusion. It's not like watching the stars where the stars themselves are doing things that can change your mind.
My statement remains true: You CANNOT do any experiment or analysis of experiment that would prove that the fossils represent the only living things in a particular time period. But let me add: there is nothing observable about these fossils that could prove this either.
and if your radiometric methods ARE contaminated or otherwise untrustworthy you'd have no way of knowing that all the strata were laid down in a relatively short period of time, which is patently the case
Apart from the structure of the rocks themselves. Which, in fact, is the major reason for concluding the time taken for deposition. Geologists DO study how sediment is deposited in the present day, and extrapolate that backward.
Yes they do and if the way it is deposited today in fact is really not the same as the way it was deposited in the geologic column they're going to get the whole thing wrong, which of course they do.
And the idea that the "structure of the rocks" tells you about the time taken for their deposition is some kind of fantasy. Layer after layer of sediment tells you NOTHING about how long it took. It could have taken anything from a few days to a few billion years for all you really know.
Even worse for you, radiometric dating methods have been extensively tested, by checking both the assumptions under which they operate and cross-correlating with other dating methods (mainly including other radiometric methods, admittedly, but the physics of decay makes an undetectable systematic error extremely unlikely).
The physics of decay is not in dispute. It's the circumstances of the rocks that are being tested, and the many assumptions and unknowns about their condition at the time of their deposition. If that deposition occurred 4300 years ago you'd be off by millions of years. Which you are.
Even worse, the errors that are detected tend to indicate dates that are YOUNGER than the real date, or rely on the presence of older material. Both of these problems count against your position.
The problem at root is that you have no way of testing your test. All you can do is make assumptions about it in relation to a horde of unknowns. That is how this is NOT an observational OR an experimental science. You can ONLY impose your assumptions on the natural phenomena, you cannot test them in relation to that phenomena.
Some things are just something you have to SEE. The idea that the strata represent time periods during which nothing lived but the peculiar fossil forms present in the rock IS just plain bonkers, but you have to open your eyes and SEE it.
And the idea that you could get away with such an obvious strawman is equally bonkers. But still you try it. Nobody says that the fossil record is exhaustive, everyone with any sense says that the fossil record is a limited sampling of the lifeforms living at any one time. But sampling - including the sampling produced by the processes of fossilisation - is quite well understood. We can make justified conclusions on the classes of lifeforms present from what we find - and do not find. Not at the level of species, certainly, but the higher up the taxonomic tree we go, the more certain we can be.
Unfortunately for you your sampling is done WITHIN the boundaries of your assumptions that these ARE time periods. And you DO make assumptions about how a particular time period introduced such and such a creature, which simply happens to be present in this rock but not the rocks below, and about how a particular creature went extinct because it isn't in this rock though it was in the rocks below. Your samplings are meaningless because they are part of your whole wrongheaded theory.
Again, all you need to do is LOOK at the form of the strata and the weirdly limited collection of fossils from layer to layer to see that the whole thing is bonkers. This is the TRUE observational science.
Sometimes it seems like nature gave you a chest of drawers and you find socks in one and say Oh, this is the Era of the Socks, and another is the Era of the Underwear and another the Era of the shirts or the sweat pants, as if the contents of the whole chest of drawers all existed in separate different eras.
But they are SLABS OF FLAT ROCK THAT EXTEND FOR MILES IN ALL DIRECTIONS. Really, it's like you haven't noticed the obvious.
It's a matter of judgment about the size and shape of the strata themselves, so nicely horizontally deposited by water, so many different kinds of sediments too as if particular time periods produced one and just one kind of sediment; and the fact that the fossils are a bunch of dead things in the bazillions, which is exactly what we'd expect of a worldwide Flood It's not a matter of some OTHER evidence. Your "detailed explanations" are RIDICULOUS, truly like a fairy tale.
Except for the strata that weren't deposited by water, the strata that include rock eroded from earlier formations, the strata formed by evaporation.
This all looks very different once you realize they were all the product of the Flood and that all you have done is impose your wrong theory on them so you are getting wrong ideas about how they were deposited. You're missing the forest for the trees at the very least.
Except for the order in the fossil record, except for the many transitional fossils.
The order is at least partly also an artifact of the theory. Fossils of the same Species found at different levels are interpreted in terms of those in the higher levels having evolved from those in the lower levels, but all it really shows is the normal sorting of normal microevolution and that the different races of the same Species simply got buried at different levels. Trilobites for instance occur in a great variety of races and are found in many levels. You ASSUME the higher evolved from the lower, but in actual reality it may be the parent species that happened to get buried in the highest layer. The idea that there is a progression from one Species to another is also assumed, it's a matter of judgment, not a matter of knowledge. You focus on particular features of a Species that look like they might be genetically related to another Species and ignore features that are unique because well, those "evolved." It's all a mental game, you have no evidence, it's all theory, all invention, all hot air.
And there are NO transitional fossils in the abundance Darwin knew they would have to be found to prove his theory. They do not exist. And what you CALL transitional fossils are simply Species unto themselves, or naturally occurring races of a given Species.
I could go on. Misrepresenting or even suppressing evidence that contradicts your views or strongly supports opposing views isn't "real science".
Eh? You must be talking about how the "science" of evolution works, and it's certainly true of that; otherwise I have no idea what you are talking about.
And now on another thread we have a model of deposition by rising sea level, which is somehow supposed to accord with this ridiculous fantasy of time periods? YES, this is something you have to SEE, it's ABSURD!
In fact it is entirely reasonable, and good science too. And i can SEE that.
Oh I like that model too, I think it's truer than many other things that have been said about the deposition of the strata. It shows how the strata formed mechanically by water. Associating time periods with those strata is something you impose on that simple model.
Obviously you'd rather call ME names than be honest about the terms of the argument
Sure let's REALLY be honest about the terms of the argument, On our side we have evidence and reason,
Here we go again, the Recitation of the Creed, though the actual facts, the real evidence, and Reason itself totally belie this comforting pledge of allegiance you all recite from time to time.
while you have misrepresentation, extreme prejudice and a hatred for any truth which contradicts your sacred commentaries. That's the reality of the situation. And of course you hate that truth, too.
Only because it's in reality a Pernicious Lie that applies better to you than to me.
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