"Geology, Creation and the Flood"

[wattsr1]

Hi All,


What we need is for some YECs who claim an actual interest in geology, to read books like this:-

http://www.answersingenesis.org/Publ...,6438,226.aspx

and then come here and "compare models".

No point in claiming to be creation scientists or to have an interest in creation science, but have no idea as to what your own side teaches, and instead restricting your science to PRATTs* against much of mainstream science, particularly ToE, ancient earth, cosmology, and various aspects of astrophysics.

This book apparently is:-

... the long-awaited update to the Morris/Whitcomb classic, The Genesis Flood! This huge 2-volume set is filled with up-to-date geological evidence that demonstrates the authority and accuracy of the Bible’s account of creation and the Flood. Step by step, respected Australian geologist Dr. Andrew Snelling examines evolutionary interpretations of the geologic record and deconstructs the misplaced assumptions and conclusions on which those interpretations are based. With in-depth scholarly research and insight, he then constructs a biblical geologic model for earth history and concludes that the claims of Genesis 1–11 are true. Topics covered include:

The biblical record of the Flood
Arguments used against the global Genesis Flood
Noah, the Ark, and the animals
The framework for a scriptural geology
A biblical geologic model of earth history

This is the kind of stuff you guys should be reading, if you are at all half serious in what you claim. The other half of your reading should be mainstream science, so that you know what we think and why we think it.

No point in telling us how wrong we are, running from half baked ideas and ignorance, is there?



Regards, Roland

* Point Refuted A Thousand Times

[NeilUnreal]

The original Genesis Flood deserves to be remembered and studied. Regardless of one's view of the contents, the ripples it started have had a huge impact on the American cultural and political landscapes. It has influenced nearly every facet of the American religious dialog since its publication.

-Neil

[wattsr1]

The original Genesis Flood deserves to be remembered and studied. Regardless of one's view of the contents, the ripples it started have had a huge impact on the American cultural and political landscapes. It has influenced nearly every facet of the American religious dialog since its publication.

-Neil

Yes.

It is a very good point you raise Neil.



Regards, Roland

[rogue06]

Hi All,


What we need is for some YECs who claim an actual interest in geology, to read books like this:-

http://www.answersingenesis.org/Publ...,6438,226.aspx

and then come here and "compare models".

No point in claiming to be creation scientists or to have an interest in creation science, but have no idea as to what your own side teaches, and instead restricting your science to PRATTs* against much of mainstream science, particularly ToE, ancient earth, cosmology, and various aspects of astrophysics.

This book apparently is:-




This is the kind of stuff you guys should be reading, if you are at all half serious in what you claim. The other half of your reading should be mainstream science, so that you know what we think and why we think it.

No point in telling us how wrong we are, running from half baked ideas and ignorance, is there?



Regards, Roland

* Point Refuted A Thousand Times

I strongly suspect that "the long-awaited update" will itself mainly merely consist of the PRATTs being repeated.

[wattsr1]

I strongly suspect that "the long-awaited update" will itself mainly merely consist of the PRATTs being repeated.

I was going to reply and note that I read the original, decades ago, and that there, Morris seemed not to be into PRATTs.

Then I realised that you are correct:-

1) Morris' book was the one that launched a thousand PRATTS, and hence

2) The latest book will probably be a representation of them.



Regards, Roland

[magellan004]

Hi All,


What we need is for some YECs who claim an actual interest in geology, to read books like this:-

http://www.answersingenesis.org/Publ...,6438,226.aspx

and then come here and "compare models".

No point in claiming to be creation scientists or to have an interest in creation science, but have no idea as to what your own side teaches, and instead restricting your science to PRATTs* against much of mainstream science, particularly ToE, ancient earth, cosmology, and various aspects of astrophysics.

This book apparently is:-

This is the kind of stuff you guys should be reading, if you are at all half serious in what you claim. The other half of your reading should be mainstream science, so that you know what we think and why we think it.

No point in telling us how wrong we are, running from half baked ideas and ignorance, is there?

Regards, Roland

* Point Refuted A Thousand Times

Why do we need that? I wasn't aware that I needed that. Perhaps you could explain why Roland needs 'some YECs who claim an actual interest in geology, to read books like this ... '

'No point in claiming ...'
'No point in telling... '
This is the kind of stuff you guys should be reading ...'
So how come there's a point to you telling other people what they should and shouldn't be doing?

Lastly, we note that evolution is chock full of PRATTs. I have lots of advice for evolutionists, if any of them are interested.

Regards,
Magellan

[Tiggy]

Why do we need that? I wasn't aware that I needed that. Perhaps you could explain why Roland needs 'some YECs who claim an actual interest in geology, to read books like this ... '

'No point in claiming ...'
'No point in telling... '
This is the kind of stuff you guys should be reading ...'
So how come there's a point to you telling other people what they should and shouldn't be doing?

Lastly, we note that evolution is chock full of PRATTs. I have lots of advice for evolutionists, if any of them are interested.

Regards,
Magellan

Trolling clown is trolling.

- T

[wattsr1]

Why do we need that? I wasn't aware that I needed that. Perhaps you could explain why Roland needs 'some YECs who claim an actual interest in geology, to read books like this ... '

'No point in claiming ...'
'No point in telling... '
This is the kind of stuff you guys should be reading ...'
So how come there's a point to you telling other people what they should and shouldn't be doing?

Lastly, we note that evolution is chock full of PRATTs. I have lots of advice for evolutionists, if any of them are interested.

Regards,
Magellan

Perhaps you could tell me why I need answer you beyond what I write here, M004?

Your posts and behavior are their own testimonial.


Regards, Roland

[USIncognito]

Does the newest version include a credit to George McCready Price and 7th Day Adventism for their inspiration?

[Kelp]

Does the newest version include a credit to George McCready Price and 7th Day Adventism for their inspiration?

Well, if the wiki is anything to go on:

Morris, in his 1984 book History of Modern Creationism, spoke glowingly of Price's logic and writing style, and referred to reading The New Geology as "a life-changing experience for me".

[Vertetuesi]

How interesting that this thread lasted one day before people got bored of it - all way back in January when the book had only just come out and hardly anybody could have had a chance to read it.

And doncha just love all the above snide remarks by some of the forum's most notorious elephant hurlers, none of whom had seen the book. The question is, has any of you got hold of a copy since then?

I received mine last week and shall be working through it as time permits. I'd strongly recommend everyone here does the same, particularly those who keep on making out how they know so much.

Just to whet your appetite with something which I definitely wouldn't count as a "PRATT". I consider myself fairly well-informed in this field but hadn't previously come across the following - it isn't in AiG's list of young age evidence for example.

This example comes from Vol. 1, ch. 52, entitled "Patterns and Trends in the Geologic Column - Involving the Fossil Record", p. 355-356:

Fossilized footprints and tracks of vertebrates are indeed found in the rock record, and the pattern of their stratigraphic distribution potentially has important significance. Figure 24 (page 451) summarizes the available data on the stratigraphic distribution of fossilized vertebrate footprints. [footnote 23, Brand and Florence, 1982] Many additional fossil track sites have been reported in the literature since the analysis summarized in Figure 24 was completed, but these new discoveries only reinforce the stratigraphic distribution pattern already depicted in the diagram. Fossilized amphibian footprints are almost entirely limited to the upper Paleozoic rock sequences and the Triassic and lower Jurassic strata. These fossilized footprints are the right size and shape to have been made by the labyrinthodonts and other now extinct amphibians (Figure 23b). Beyond the top of the lower Jurassic rock sequences, it is rare to find fossilized amphibian footprints; only a very few have been identified in the upper Jurassic-Recent strata. This is both puzzling and pontentially significant, given that body fossils of amphibians are still found in reasonable numbers in these sequences that are higher in the record.

On the other hand, the greatest diversity of fossilized reptile footprints occurs in Triassic and lower Jurassic strata, while reptile body fossils (bones) are most abundant higher up in Cretaceous and Tertiary rock sequences. When the data pertaining to reptiles is split into the two subsets, dinosaurs and other reptiles (Figure 24b), it can be seen that the great diversity of fossilized reptile tracks in Triasic and lower Jurassic strata is dominated by fossilized dinosaur tracks, and yet, the greatest diversity of dinosaur body fossils is in Cretaceous strata. Fossilized dinosaur tracks are very abundant and have yielded many insights into the lives of these animals. [footnote 24, Gillette and Lockley, 1989] Fossil tracks of small dinosaurs and other reptiles almost cease to occur above mid-Jurassic strata, but abundant large dinosaur tracks are found in the late Mesozoic, only to disappear abruptly at the top of Cretaceous strata, as do the body fossils of all dinosaurs. The reason why so few fossilized amphibian or reptile tracks (compared with those in Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata) [have] been found preserved in all of the Cenozoic rock sequences is an unresolved mystery in the uniformitarian model.

By contrast, a great diversity of mammal and bird fossils occurs only in Cenozoic rock sequences, although even here bird fossils tend to be rare. Furthermore, the greatest abundances of mammal and bird trace fossils are found only in upper Tertiary and Quaternary strata (Figure 24b). Such trace fossils include fossilized corkscrew-shaped burrows of extinct giant beavers. Many types of fossilized mammal footprints have been found, almost all of them made by carnivores, ungulates (hoofed mammals), or elephants. Fossilized bird footprints are not as common. Since there are mammal and bird body fossils in Mesozoic rock sequences, it is curious why so few fossilized bird and mammal tracks have been found in Mesozoic strata. Furthermore, there are at least two reports in the literature of trace fossils that appear to be bird tracks, but since they are found in Paleozoic rock strata (where they are not supposed to be, according to evolutionary theory), they were labeled merely as unidentified tracks. [footnote 25, Gilmore, 1927; Sternberg, 1933]

In a nutshell: while old-earth geology allows for fluctuations in size of population of, say, dinosaurs, and while any individual stratum might contain more tracks than bodies, or vice-versa, or even one to the exclusion of the other; over the long run, say a stretch of ten million years involving thousands of generations of the animals, you would expect the ratio of tracks to bodies to be essentially the same as for any other long stretch of time supposedly represented in the record.

But that is not what we find. Over the total stretch of the rock record that shows evidence of dinosaurs, the earlier part is trace-heavy, and the later part is body-heavy. It's amazingly easy to account for this in terms of Flood geology - the earlier part represents an earlier stage of the Flood during which dinosaurs were scrambling to escape to higher ground (while their tracks didn't run away), while the later part repesents a later stage where they've been overwhelmed and buried, having given up the unequal struggle (dead dinos leave no footprints). It also explains why the tracks of larger dinos are found more abundantly further up than those of smaller dinos and other reptiles: larger ones kept going longer before succumbling.

On the other hand I can't think of how to account for the large-scale trends Snelling documents (pity I can't show you the figures - hard to scan off a thick volume!) in terms of any old-earth model. It really is the "unresolved mystery" he suggests.

Or is it? Can any of you facile scoffers suggest a way out?

[Faid]

How interesting that this thread lasted one day before people got bored of it - all way back in January when the book had only just come out and hardly anybody could have had a chance to read it.

And doncha just love all the above snide remarks by some of the forum's most notorious elephant hurlers, none of whom had seen the book. The question is, has any of you got hold of a copy since then?

I received mine last week and shall be working through it as time permits. I'd strongly recommend everyone here does the same, particularly those who keep on making out how they know so much.

Just to whet your appetite with something which I definitely wouldn't count as a "PRATT". I consider myself fairly well-informed in this field but hadn't previously come across the following - it isn't in AiG's list of young age evidence for example.

This example comes from Vol. 1, ch. 52, entitled "Patterns and Trends in the Geologic Column - Involving the Fossil Record", p. 355-356:



In a nutshell: while old-earth geology allows for fluctuations in size of population of, say, dinosaurs, and while any individual stratum might contain more tracks than bodies, or vice-versa, or even one to the exclusion of the other; over the long run, say a stretch of ten million years involving thousands of generations of the animals, you would expect the ratio of tracks to bodies to be essentially the same as for any other long stretch of time supposedly represented in the record.

But that is not what we find. Over the total stretch of the rock record that shows evidence of dinosaurs, the earlier part is trace-heavy, and the later part is body-heavy. It's amazingly easy to account for this in terms of Flood geology - the earlier part represents an earlier stage of the Flood during which dinosaurs were scrambling to escape to higher ground (while their tracks didn't run away), while the later part repesents a later stage where they've been overwhelmed and buried, having given up the unequal struggle (dead dinos leave no footprints). It also explains why the tracks of larger dinos are found more abundantly further up than those of smaller dinos and other reptiles: larger ones kept going longer before succumbling.

On the other hand I can't think of how to account for the large-scale trends Snelling documents (pity I can't show you the figures - hard to scan off a thick volume!) in terms of any old-earth model. It really is the "unresolved mystery" he suggests.

Or is it? Can any of you facile scoffers suggest a way out?

There is not much to get out from. The preservation of tracks demands specific conditions, like arid enviroments with prints preserved in sand, or muddy surfaces that later dry out and harden, to be covered in the next mud deposition.
That means there are very specific enviroments that facilitate the preservation of tracks. For example, we have an abundance of tracks in the Coconino sandstone, not because more animals were running around then, but because of the sand dunes that received their prints. It's the same for the Morrison formation, where tracks were preserved on the floodplains of the time.
So, any statistical evaluation of a track/fossil ratio must take into account the kinds of strata available in each case. Without that, it can tell us nothing of substance. Calling it an "unresolved mystery" does not make it one.

On the other hand, Snelling has to deal with a couple "unresolved mysteries" in his model: If those tracks present animals running away from the Flood, then why do they appear in all directions, with animals occasionally stoppping and lying down, getting up again, turning and crossing paths? How were the tracks preserved, under those mile-high tsunamis of boiling mud? How were even spider tracks and raindrops preserved, if they didn't have time to harden first? How did they get covered, and then another layer filled with tracks was deposited over them, and then another, with each set of tracks being preserved? How did many tracks end up almost vertical, without being destroyed, if the layers they were on were not already hard rock?
And that's not even dealing with the other known issues of the flood escape model- sloths overtaking raptors, clams outrunning trilobites, mammals climbing higher than pterosaurs, even one type of tree "outrunning" another...

[wattsr1]

In a nutshell: while old-earth geology allows for fluctuations in size of population of, say, dinosaurs, and while any individual stratum might contain more tracks than bodies, or vice-versa, or even one to the exclusion of the other; over the long run, say a stretch of ten million years involving thousands of generations of the animals, you would expect the ratio of tracks to bodies to be essentially the same as for any other long stretch of time supposedly represented in the record.

But that is not what we find. Over the total stretch of the rock record that shows evidence of dinosaurs, the earlier part is trace-heavy, and the later part is body-heavy. It's amazingly easy to account for this in terms of Flood geology - the earlier part represents an earlier stage of the Flood during which dinosaurs were scrambling to escape to higher ground (while their tracks didn't run away), while the later part repesents a later stage where they've been overwhelmed and buried, having given up the unequal struggle (dead dinos leave no footprints). It also explains why the tracks of larger dinos are found more abundantly further up than those of smaller dinos and other reptiles: larger ones kept going longer before succumbling.

On the other hand I can't think of how to account for the large-scale trends Snelling documents (pity I can't show you the figures - hard to scan off a thick volume!) in terms of any old-earth model. It really is the "unresolved mystery" he suggests.

Or is it? Can any of you facile scoffers suggest a way out?

Didn't this explanation seem completely contrived when you read it?

Those layers date to completely different times don't they. How do you manage to get them all to about 4,500 years ago? What kind of physics are you invoking?

Besides, how do you know that the tracks were made by organisms scrambling to get to higher ground? Is there some general vertical direction indicator in those tracks?

And there are layers of bones and tracks belonging to non-dinosaurian animals below those of the dinosaurs. Where did they come from? A pre flood flood? And there are tracks and bones of animals above those of the dinosaurs. Did they come from a post flood flood?



Regards, Roland

[rogue06]

How interesting that this thread lasted one day before people got bored of it - all way back in January when the book had only just come out and hardly anybody could have had a chance to read it.

And doncha just love all the above snide remarks by some of the forum's most notorious elephant hurlers, none of whom had seen the book. The question is, has any of you got hold of a copy since then?

I received mine last week and shall be working through it as time permits. I'd strongly recommend everyone here does the same, particularly those who keep on making out how they know so much.

Just to whet your appetite with something which I definitely wouldn't count as a "PRATT". I consider myself fairly well-informed in this field but hadn't previously come across the following - it isn't in AiG's list of young age evidence for example.

This example comes from Vol. 1, ch. 52, entitled "Patterns and Trends in the Geologic Column - Involving the Fossil Record", p. 355-356:



In a nutshell: while old-earth geology allows for fluctuations in size of population of, say, dinosaurs, and while any individual stratum might contain more tracks than bodies, or vice-versa, or even one to the exclusion of the other; over the long run, say a stretch of ten million years involving thousands of generations of the animals, you would expect the ratio of tracks to bodies to be essentially the same as for any other long stretch of time supposedly represented in the record.

But that is not what we find. Over the total stretch of the rock record that shows evidence of dinosaurs, the earlier part is trace-heavy, and the later part is body-heavy. It's amazingly easy to account for this in terms of Flood geology - the earlier part represents an earlier stage of the Flood during which dinosaurs were scrambling to escape to higher ground (while their tracks didn't run away), while the later part repesents a later stage where they've been overwhelmed and buried, having given up the unequal struggle (dead dinos leave no footprints). It also explains why the tracks of larger dinos are found more abundantly further up than those of smaller dinos and other reptiles: larger ones kept going longer before succumbling.

On the other hand I can't think of how to account for the large-scale trends Snelling documents (pity I can't show you the figures - hard to scan off a thick volume!) in terms of any old-earth model. It really is the "unresolved mystery" he suggests.

Or is it? Can any of you facile scoffers suggest a way out?

Well first it’s kind of interesting that a YEC should be talking about “over the long run, say a stretch of ten million years involving thousands of generations of the animals”

If you knew anything about ichnofossils such as fossilized trackways you’d realize that conventional geology does not expect to find an equal number of them compared to bones (which are far more likely to become fossils as well as be discovered).

Think of it this way... Go to a Civil War battlefield anywhere in the U.S. What do you think you’ll have a better chance of finding, some bone material or preserved footprints from the battle?

So no there is absolutely no reason to expect to find a “ratio of tracks to bodies to be essentially the same.”

And I’d also really like to see their evidence for the claim that the fossil record wrt dinosaurs “the earlier part is trace-heavy, and the later part is body-heavy” as well as point out that the author keeps mixing up dinosaurs with reptiles in general (obviously not all reptiles are dinosaurs) and this may be skewing his numbers.

Also dinosaurs were generally much larger in the Jurassic and Cretaceous than they were during the Triassic meaning we are more likely to find the remains of larger dinosaurs from later times than we are of smaller earlier ones.

I think the reason we hadn’t heard this one before is because it’s demonstrably crap.

[shunyadragon]

Lastly, we note that evolution is chock full of PRATTs. I have lots of advice for evolutionists, if any of them are interested.

Regards,
Magellan

Why should any scientist listen to a layman that has a very poor understanding of basic science, and has a strong bias toward an ancient Biblical view of everything?