Hi Jim-- I'll start with your numbered list ...
1) I agree. I never asserted this.
1a) I agree. I never asserted this.
You implied it by acting as if an anomoulously deep burrow was somehow representative of normal burrowing activity or capability. If you agree, then you admit your arguments were fallacious. In general, burrows tend to occupy the 1st meter or so of depth. This has been said over and over again in this thread. It has also been mentioned over and over that burrows exist trhoughout the column - over hundreds if not thousands of meters. Since the typical burrow depth of a living organism is less than a meter, this represents not simply the set of burrowers alive at the time of the flood, but hundreds or thousands of generations of burrowers living at different times and on different seabeds - something incompatable with the flood. The statistical anomaly you throw into the mix has no impact on this implication.
2) I agree. I never asserted this.
3) I agree. I never asserted this
Again - for the fact some burrows may have inorganic origin to have any impact on solving the problem of burrows for the YEC, you must be able to show there is some statistically significant set of burrows thought to be organic that in fact are not. By pointing out that some burrows might be of inorganic origin as a counter to the fact the number of extant burrows is incompatable with a YEC explanation, you must be proposing enough burrows are of inorganic origin so as to provide some measurable influence on the number of burrows which must be explained in the YEC paradigm. Again, you agreeing implies your use of this argument is useless and you have no case. I can only conclude you are playing some kind of lawyer word game here. The point of you bringing this up was to attempt to reduce the number of burrows which must be explained in the YEC paradigm, and that can only happen if this anomalous situation you raised is in fact NOT anomalous but in fact a norm which will impact the overall arguments being made.
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4) My assertion is that burrowers are poorly studied. I cited a recent study which stated this explicitly (which Glenn took and misrepresented me about) and this fact is also clear from searching the literature.5) The study I cited is quite recent (2005) LINK HERE.
There are a great many implications which can follow from the phrase 'poorly studied'. And many of those have nothing to do with the average depth of burrows. For example, in the case of your cited paper:
macroinvertebrate burial by sediment has been poorly studied
Your case rests on being able to explain the number of burrows found in the geological column within the context of a single years flood event. To explain these burrows, you have to invoke burrowing capabilities and behaviours many orders of magnitude beyond any observed so far in nature. This study and this statement do not give you that kind of free hand for extrapolation. Indeed, I sincerely doubt burrowers are so poorly studied as to allow for that egregious a misdiagnosis of their general behaviour and capability. After all, living things have parameters in which they can operate, and though one might expect extraordinary behaviour under duress, one can't expect the kinds of extensions you need. What you are doing is grossly mischaracterizing the implications and meaning in the context of this paper of that one phrase. Again, at best this implies you do not understand how to connect the dots or draw meaningful conclusions from a dataset or paper.
As for your assertion that the "OE position explains ALL KNOWN BURROWS" I think you are seriously mistaken. I don't think you (or Glenn or anyone else) has really tried to explain the entire geologic record including animal burrows from an OE perspective. I have found no such complete explanation anywhere ever and I have been looking a long time. I've seen lots of just so stories, but very few actual explanations ... especially ones that hold up under scrutiny. I would challenge you to start a thread if you like and change my perception, but I'm telling you, you're going to have your work cut out for you. What real geologists are finding more and more is evidence of catastrophism everywhere they look. And more and more "just so" stories in geology are being overturned every year. The pendulum is truly swinging back to Henry Morris and The Genesis Flood.
Bag the midnight infomercial style. No, there is no pendulum swinging 'back' to Henry Morris. There is evidence of various catastrophes
of limited scope distributed throughout the geologic column, but they do not conform to any single, global event. What I meant by "ALL KNOWN BURROWS" is explained in the text of my post: It explains burrows that formed
both by the normal life cycles of burrowers and those formed as a result of a catastrophe. What the YEC model can not explain are those formed by the normal life cycle -
because there are too many of this type of burrow distributed too widely across the geologic column.
For you to say that YEC cannot explain those things is your opinion and it's probably wrong.
I have yet to see a viable explanation from a YE perspecitive of Lake Suigetsu, or the things like the complete 1-1 correlation between c14 dates/tree rings/lake varves etc. Of course, the issue here is burrows, and you have yet to explain how the burrows which Glenn has presented can be explained by a global flood event. The best you could say about this debate is you have found a few oddities that
if they were the norm might reduce the dataset which would need to be explained by a YEC flood model.
Now you would be closer to the truth to say that there are many aspects of the Global Flood that have not yet been explained in a rigorous manner by YECs. That is true. There is a massive amount of work to be done and, as you know, there aren't many YECs around because being one is often dangerous to your career. But there are few brave souls and these few are turning mainstream geology on its ear in much the same way that a stubborn German monk and a few brave helpers turned Catholicism on its ear 500 years ago. We YECs are on to something big here and we're not letting go.
Infomercial again. No - you are not. You are trying desparately to fit a square peg into a round hole and having a party over the fact the first millimeter of the 4 meter long peg has been shoehorned in.
BACK TO THE BIG PICTURE
I joined this thread because Glenn Morton asserts many things that are downright false.
1) He says that YECs have not addressed animal burrows but they have as I have shown.
I will repeat what has already been said: The term 'addressed' is being used very differently by you and by Glenn. For Glenn, and for mainstream science in general, to 'address' animal burrows is to have a theory which explains them. YEC's do not have a theory which can explain any of the major issues associated with animal borrows. That is, the number of burrows indicative of the normal borrower life cycle and their distribution throughout the column. In addition the implications of multiple sea floor environments in which burrowers lived out normal burrower lives all stacked one on top of the other.
2) He makes the bad assumption that pre-Flood burrowers would generally penetrate only the top meter of pre-Flood sediment.
I tend to think Gleen probably has evidence that burrowers in the past actually tended to behave similarly to burrowers today. That evidence would be the structure, depth, and content of the burrows left in the sediment. This is not an assumption but an observation.
3) He ignores the fact that burrowers are poorly studied and thus stands by his assumption anyway.
Here you again twist the statement in the paper you reference beyond credulity. The statement made does not imply the normal behaviour or burrowing depth of burrowers is poorly studied. It only implies that macroinvertebrate burial by sedimentation is poorly studied. You can't legitimately make this extension, and if you are aware of the fact you can't then you are being deceitful.
4) He assumes that his "burrows" in his core pictures are all animal burrows. Bad assumption as the 2 studies I cited proves.
Again, The burrows Glenn references have likely been thoroughly studied and identified. I don't have the full list of references given by Glenn (nor am I going to search the thread to find them all), but the OP references a specific burrower and discusses the fact fecal pellets are found in these burrows. It is highly unlikely a burrow lined with fecal pellets is going to be reclassified of inorganic origin. What you are assuming is that all burrows are tentatively identified and likely to be reclassified at some future date. An assumption that is false. Indeed, it is more likely that the 2 studies you reference exist because the burrows in question were already known to be of dubious biological origin - necessitating further study.
5) He ignores the clear statement in the shrimp article that these burrowers were thought to be rare, but this was only because they are so difficult to study. He didn't even know about this shrimp study before I showed it to him.
Again, to counter Glenn's claims, you must show that the majority of the burrows in the geologic column were made by burrowers with this particular burrower's capabilities, and you must show that this burrower, even though fast, could actually be expected to be able to produce the number
and type of burrows seen in the column as it was being destroyed by a flood laying down hundreds of feet of sediment per day. Something which is likely far beyond even this anomolous little critter's capabilities.
6) He completely ignores in his calculations the YEC position that the pre-Flood biosphere was at least 100X as large pre-Flood as the modern biosphere.
That is because this is an assumption that has little or no supporting evidence ...
He obviously has not read anything about this from GRISDA (fairly well respected organization even by non-YECs)
7) He thinks that all burrowing animals would be "sand blasted" and "rock tumblered" in a Global Flood and in support of this he asserts that people die in flash floods because they get beat to death. Then he changes and decides a YouTube video of a mudslide is better support for his point.
I think the tsunami of 2005 also makes the point. Most of those people where killed by the debris carried in the flows, not drowing in the water per se. If you are in a major turbulent flow, debris capable of pulverizing you is also in there with you. Odds are you and the debris will connect, and whichever is harder will break or smash whichever is softer. After being incapacitated by the debris, you can no longer stay afloat and drown before the injuries kill you. Marine organisms, though the don't drown, will still succomb to the injuries thus inflicted. Though if the flow is turbulent enough and saturated with sufficient silt and debris, the marine organisms gills also will not function properly and they too will drown.
8) He is very arrogant and rude.
Actually - he isn't. He comes across that way sometimes in writing, but not if you listen to him talk. But he has little tolerance for the kinds of distortions of statements like those I pointed out above per the 'poorly studied' burrowers. What I notice with Glenn is that if you are honest with the data and respectful, he will generally return the favor.
In short, Glenn is great for the YEC position. He's so wrong on so many things it's hard to keep track of it all. And if he persists in his obnoxious attitude, he's going to keep getting lots of negative press from me. I'm going to keep analyzing his other articles and shining the spotlight on all the errors and misrepresentations. When people Google "Glenn Morton burrows" now, his burrows page doesn't even come up but my ctritique does. And this debate does. So it doesn't even matter much that he refuses to link to this debate or my critique at my blog because people will find it anyway. And this will happen on many more of his topics as well in the future.
You want to defend Glenn? Be my guest. But I don't think you can.
Actually - I don't need to defend Glenn. But I can point out where you have simply not grasped what Glenn has told you. Your debate of Glenn coming up in a google search is fine - though I think you gloating is yet another indication of you not being able to grasp information, data implications and connections, and consequences. There are plenty of links to Glenn's web page in here, as well as multiple analysis of your 'debate' - more than sufficient for anyone fairly well versed in the sciences to determine which of you is on the mark.
Glenn's web site is one of the best on the web for geological information that counters YEC claims. You can deny that with your words, but the website stands on its own and needs no assessment by you positive or negative to be able to make its mark.
Jim
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Baumgardner's needs to explain burrows
