Benjamin Franklin said, "You will observe with concern how long a useful truth may be known, and exist, before it is generally received and practiced on."

I think a slight modification of that might be applicable here.

Originally posted by Dr.GH

Originally Posted by Dave Hawkins at the "Rants and Raves" BB
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LOL, really, out loud.

LOL ROL!!

While everyone is laughing at afdave's post at "Rants and Raves" I feel kind of sorry for him. Obviously he is delusional and that isn't funny but sad.

Originally posted by rogue06

While everyone is laughing at afdave's post at "Rants and Raves" I feel kind of sorry for him. Obviously he is delusional and that isn't funny but sad.

Looks like Dave has cut and run from this thread too. Nothing new at all; it's his standard MO when faced with scientific data he can't explain.

I am surprised we didn't get the standard Davie BOLDED ALL CAPS SUMMARY OF HIS POSITION where he just rehashes all his refuted arguments in one big steaming pile. It's normally the last thing he "deposits" before he flees.

- T

Originally posted by Tiggy

Looks like Dave has cut and run from this thread too. Nothing new at all; it's his standard MO when faced with scientific data he can't explain.

I am surprised we didn't get the standard Davie BOLDED ALL CAPS SUMMARY OF HIS POSITION where he just rehashes all his refuted arguments in one big steaming pile. It's normally the last thing he "deposits" before he flees.

- T

Or he may be working on a magnum opus....

GLENN MORTON IS MISTAKEN: BURROWS DO NOT CAUSE A PROBLEM FOR THE YEC/DILUVIALIST VIEW

GLENN MORTON: OUTSPOKEN CRITIC OF YECs
Glenn Morton is a professional geophysicist who is involved in oil exploration for major oil companies. He is also a former YEC (Young Earth Creationist) who has had fairly high level contact with prominent YEC scientists such as John Baumgardner, John Morris, Steve Austin and others. At some point, Mr. Morton decided that the YEC view is wrong and he became an OEC and an outspoken critic of the YEC view. His criticism is quite vehement: he claims YECs are dishonest, hide data and are "cowards." Here's a typical example of his strong language ...

"Yes, I will make more serious allegations about YEC leaders. I have challenged any of them to come here and debate with me one on one in the gym so that they won’t be swamped. Not one of them will do it. They are all cowards. They play you like a fiddle telling you nonsense and letting you and your fellows go out and take the heat for them. Baumgardner is the only one I have ever seen come out on very rare occasions. And this is only the second time I have seen it in 12 years. Why do you think these cowards huddle out of the light? Like cockroaches, they can’t stand the light of scientific data and so run for cover quickly when it comes their way." http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...&postcount=482

Morton seeks to promote his view by writing articles and selling books from his website. http://home.entouch.net/dmd/dmd.htm

MORTON IS MISTAKEN ABOUT YECs ADDRESSING THE BURROW ISSUE
In addition to the above, Morton claims on his website that " YECs have not addressed the burrow problem" (http://home.entouch.net/dmd/burrows.htm) but he is wrong. The truth is that Morton either has not done his homework, or he chooses to ingore the YEC work in this area. He apparently was completely unaware of John Woodmorappe's paper entitled, “Are soft-sediment trace fossils (ichnofossils) a time problem for the Flood?" (Journal of Creation 20(2) 2006, p. 113). LINK HERE. I pointed this paper out to Glenn at the beginning of this discussion, but he has not seen fit to remove the erroneous information from his website as of yet. Now Glenn may come back and say that this paper doesn't really address the issue. In other words, it doesn't answer all of Glenn's questions. Fair enough. Maybe it doesn't, but it's pretty disingenuous to characterize YECs as he has and at the same time ignore their very attempts to do exactly what he is asking them to do. In spite of any shortcomings the paper may have, the paper does show that there are many baseless assumptions that Glenn makes and many erroneous ideas to which he clings.

MORTON'S ERRONEOUS IDEAS ABOUT ANIMAL BURROWS IN THE FOSSIL RECORD
1) Morton apparently was not even aware of the burrowing shrimp article discussed in the YEC article mentioned above (which Glenn was also not aware of). In other words, he is very poorly informed, yet he loudly proclaims that YEC papers are of less value than toilet paper (LINK HERE), and that YECs are dishonest and hide like cockroaches (LINK HERE). So Morton was completely unaware of burrowing organisms that burrow much deeper than his imagined "top 1 meter only" and burrow quite happily under heavy over pressure (several hundred meters of water). Morton points to burrowing studies to support this "top 1 meter only" idea but fails to appreciate that these studies were studying the normal behavior of burrowers, not the response behavior to being buried under tons of sediments. When I pointed out a recent study that acknowledges that this is poorly studied, he missed the point completely--that burrowers are poorly studied--and accused me of dishonesty because the study talks about burrowers being buried in millimeters of sediment, not hundreds of meters. Glenn compared the problem of marine burrowers to a human skiier getting buried in an avalanche. He ignored my point that marine burrowers are adapted for burrowing in sediment under heavy over pressure. Humans skiiers are not.

2) Morton thinks that all burrowing organisms would have been "sandblasted" and "rock tumblered" to death in the Global Flood. So how, he asks, could all those burrows could have been formed? In an attempt to support Morton's point for him, Dr. Gary Hurd asserted that the cause of human death in flash floods is being smashed to death, not drowning. Morton defended this idea and ridiculed me for being so stupid. No studies. No explanations. Just assertions and ridicule. I supplied a study which completely demolished this claim, but Morton persisted with his idea and supplied a YouTube video of a mudslide in China. So apparently he wants to change the subject from flash floods to mudslides. Through all this, Morton ignores the obvious facts that a) marine organisms don't drown in floods like humans do, b) rocks which supposedly would smash these organisms would roll along the bottom of a channel, often much lower than organisms that can swim, c) sand that is carried by water flow would also tend to be at the bottom and would be flowing in the same direction as the organisms, thus the "sandblasting idea" fails.

3) Morton thinks that everything that resembles a burrow in the fossil record is, in fact, a burrow made by an organism. But again, if he had read the YEC study which he a) thinks doesn't exist and b) if it did exist, would be of less value than toilet paper, he would know that there is significant discussion in the Ichnology literature about the true nature of these "burrows." Many of them--no one knows yet what %--are probably not of a biogenic nature at all. Gas escape structures are one possibility for many of these "burrows." Plants root traces are another possibility.

4) Morton wants to do "burrower math" based on unsupported assumptions. I've been through this already and explained in painful detail why his assumptions are not supported, but he charges on anyway, "fine tuning" his calculations in response to other posters, ridiculing me about not being able to do math, all the while completely ignoring the fact that he has some serious fundamental issues to address before starting to do math.

MORTON AND FRIENDS CHANGE THE SUBJECT TO AVOID THE PROBLEMS WITH HIS ASSERTIONS
Morton and several of his new found friends (whose story he has bought uncritically about how "dishonest" I am) have tried to change the subject on this thread repeatedly with questions to me about everything from Lake Suigetsu to detailed questions about every facet of the Flood scenario. Well the truth is that I am honest and I continue to demonstrate my honesty every day in writing on the web and I will be honest again here and say frankly that there are many details about the Flood that we just do not know about yet. But the things we cannot explain about the Flood number far fewer than the unexplained and unexplainable items in the Flood Denier scenario. Furthermore, I will not discuss these items in a thread where a Flood Denier like Glenn Morton issues a challenge to YECs about a single topic--burrows. You picked the topic, Glenn. As the saying goes, "You made your bed. Now you have to lie in it." And I see that it is very uncomfortable indeed to lie in it. Your erroneous ideas and poor research, not to mention your biased rhetoric have been shown for all to see and it's not a pretty picture. The honorable thing to do would be to acknowledge all these problems, take responsibility for them like a man and post some retractions on your website. I have done this on several occasions when I was shown to be wrong and you should too.

SUMMARY
For some reason, Glenn Morton thinks the Global Flood of Noah never happened. Never mind the abundant evidence from world literature which describes one. Never mind the clear testimony of the rock record which contains thousands of feet of water-laid sedimentary rock bearing every mark of rapid, catastrophic deposition, not calm, placid deposition. Never mind the oldest living tree, Methuselah, (LINK HERE) which is about 4700 years old, the approximate date of the Flood. Never mind the recent revival of catastrophism and the concomitant repudiation of the Lyellian "present is the key to the past" dogma with which Darwin was so enamored. Never mind all that. Glenn thinks it didn't happen. I suppose he thinks the descriptions in Genesis refer to a Local Flood or some such thing. And because of his belief, Glenn has attempted to come up with various "insurmountable obstacles" to the Global Flood scenario. I can't speak for all his objections because I have not yet studied them all, but I can now speak quite clearly about his "burrows" objection.

It is bankrupt.

What other objections on his website are bankrupt as well?

The best explanation for the geologic record is the Global Flood of Noah. Exactly how the Flood happened is a matter of ongoing study. The Institute for Creation Research has built upon the foundation laid by it's founder, Dr. Henry Morris, and is continuing to build upon this foundation. In addition to the well-publicized RATE project, ICR recently launched the FAST project which stands for "Flood Activated Sedimentation and Tectonics" (LINK HERE) which consists of geological field research to discover, describe, and interpret catastrophic, Flood-activated sedimentation and tectonic processes.

It's an exciting time to be a YEC! Come join the fun!

SOME LINKS I THINK ARE IMPORTANT TO THIS DISCUSSION
My First Long Post
Glenn's Response
My Second Long Post
Glenn's Response
My Third Long Post
Glenn's Response
My Fourth Long Post
Glenn's Response
Did a Comet Cause the Great Flood?
Glenn Resorts to Name-Calling
Sedimentation Articles from Gary Hurd

All of that, and no responses to any of the polite questions that were asked of AFDave by the many posters here...

Gee, is it any wonder you're viewed as dishonest, Hand-wavey Davey?

Originally posted by ck11

Or he may be working on a magnum opus....

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!

And right on time, the DaveTrain comes chugging into the station pulling its huge load of recycled manure!

Dave, you're nothing if not predictable.

Now that you've had your last word, we need the expertise of a YEC geology expert on the "Exhumed River Channels" thread. Can you please help there? Thanks!

- T

Oh Dave, in your massive BOLDED ALL CAPS SUMMARY you completely forgot to mention the problem of

HYDRODYNAMIC SORTING

and how all the little shrimpies managed to avoid the sorting that YECs claim placed all the other animals into neat geologic layers.

Tsk tsk tsk Dave - such intellectual dishonesty is so unbecoming a Christian, wouldn't you agree? Good thing you're not a Christian.

- T

I just reported Dave's 'summary' to the staff as impugning Glenn's posts.

Beyond the fact that AFDave couldn't muster the requisite honor and honesty to address the many questions by other posters, I suppose the truly sad thing is that AFDave's site itself is largely ignored.

And when I say it is largely ignored, I mean by both YECs and Non-YECs. I mean it is ignored by most people, period, regardless of their religious views.

Look on his site for comments...you'll find virtually none that support AFDave, and the few comments that are present are largely derogatory.

This leads me to my final point...Dave has asserted many times that he had told his friends and even family about his site, along with his pseudo-"discussions" that he works his trickery in. So...why have none of his friends, acquaintances and supporters made themselves known? Only one person has ever shown up to support Dave : some guy back at AtBC who quickly took off. That's it. Other "support" was from the usual site trolls that are found at Dawkins, IIDB, etc., and even that was sparse...perhaps three or four altogether.

Now, that's a total of perhaps five people, mostly trolls...in nearly two years of Davey plying his dishonesty.

That's a telling figure -- indicative of the repulsiveness of your tactics, AFDave.

Edit: I'll also be reporting your post, AFDave...for rank dishonesty and unmerited inflammatory insult

Originally posted by Augustine2004

I just reported Dave's 'summary' to the staff as impugning Glenn's posts.

I don't want Dave's posts censored or altered in any way, shape, or form. Dave's ignorance-based rantings are the best arguments for science education I've ever seen on the web.

He's probably convinced more people of the stupidity of the YEC position in claming scientific evidence for a literal Noah's Flood than a dozen Dawkins.

You go Davie-doo!

- T

Originally posted by afdave

GLENN MORTON IS MISTAKEN: BURROWS DO NOT CAUSE A PROBLEM FOR THE YEC/DILUVIALIST VIEW

Dave, all through this big dump you've just deposited, no mention of the fact that the conditions proposed by your own hypothesis are what basically amounts to a giant mudslide. Your "flood" is approximately 70% sediment (clay, sand, pebbles, gravel, rocks, boulders), and 30% water. Clearly no organisms could survive immersion in such an abrasive slurry for more than a few minutes, let alone for a year.

Until you address this issue, nothing else you say about burrows has any credibility at all. I have no expectation that you will even acknowledge this post, let alone address it, but you will read it, and so will everyone else. Everyone can draw their own conclusions from your failure to address this fatal problem with your entire "hypothesis" with respect to burrows in the geological column.

Which means that burrows do, indeed, amount to a huge and insurmountable problem for the YEC/Diluvialist view.

Originally posted by Augustine2004

I just reported Dave's 'summary' to the staff as impugning Glenn's posts.

I think that the 'mods' have done an excellent job of "hands off."


I see no reason for them to change that now. Glenn and I are big boys, and have become accustomed to far worse than AFDave.

I just like the idea of a largely Christian site rebuking the dishonest, low behavior which AFDave engages in

It's not a big deal to me, I'm used to it. Eh, but maybe I won't report him...Tiggy has a point there -- it's good to be able to point to the end-game tactics of people like AFDave.

Originally posted by Augustine2004

I just reported Dave's 'summary' to the staff as impugning Glenn's posts.

I reread my post and see nothing unethical there. Also nothing in violation of rules. What specifically do you see that you think warrants reporting? I am not here to break forum rules or make unethical posts. Point it out to me and I will consider editing it. What do you mean by 'impugning' Glenn's posts and why is that a foul?