Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The Age of the Earth - Geological Evidence

By Dr. Don Batten

Geological evidence for a young age of the earth

Eastern beach syncline

Radical folding at Eastern Beach, near Auckland in New Zealand, indicates that the sediments were soft and pliable when folded, inconsistent with a long time for their formation. Such folding can be seen world-wide and is consistent with a young age of the earth.

  1. Lack of plant fossils in many formations containing abundant animal / herbivore fossils. E.g., the Morrison Formation (Jurassic) in Montana. See Origins 21(1):51–56, 1994. Also the Coconino sandstone in the Grand Canyon has many track-ways (animals), but is almost devoid of plants. Implication: these rocks are not ecosystems of an “era” buried in situ over eons of time as evolutionists claim. The evidence is more consistent with catastrophic transport then burial during the massive global Flood of Noah’s day. This eliminates supposed evidence for millions of years.
  2. Thick, tightly bent strata without sign of melting or fracturing. E.g. the Kaibab upwarp in Grand Canyon indicates rapid folding before the sediments had time to solidify (the sand grains were not elongated under stress as would be expected if the rock had hardened). This wipes out hundreds of millions of years of time and is consistent with extremely rapid formation during the biblical Flood. See Warped earth.
  3. Polystrate fossils—tree trunks in coal (Auracaria spp. king billy pines, celery top pines, in southern hemisphere coal). There are also polystrate tree trunks in the Yellowstone fossilized forests and Joggins, Nova Scotia and in many other places. Polystrate fossilized lycopod trunks occur in northern hemisphere coal, again indicating rapid burial / formation of the organic material that became coal.
  4. Experiments show that with conditions mimicking natural forces, coal forms quickly; in weeks for brown coal to months for black coal. It does not need millions of years. Furthermore, long time periods could be an impediment to coal formation because of the increased likelihood of the permineralization of the wood, which would hinder coalification.
  5. Experiments show that with conditions mimicking natural forces, oil forms quickly; it does not need millions of years, consistent with an age of thousands of years.
  6. Experiments show that with conditions mimicking natural forces, opals form quickly, in a matter of weeks, not millions of years, as had been claimed.
  7. Evidence for rapid, catastrophic formation of coal beds speaks against the hundreds of millions of years normally claimed for this, including Z-shaped seams that point to a single depositional event producing these layers.
  8. Evidence for rapid petrifaction of wood speaks against the need for long periods of time and is consistent with an age of thousands of years.
  9. Clastic dykes and pipes (intrusion of sediment through overlying sedimentary rock) show that the overlying rock strata were still soft when it happened. This drastically compresses the time scale for the deposition of the penetrated rock strata. See, Walker, T., Fluidisation pipes: Evidence of large-scale watery catastrophe, Journal of Creation (TJ) 14(3):8–9, 2000.
  10. Para(pseudo)conformities—where one rock stratum sits on top of another rock stratum but with supposedly millions of years of geological time missing, yet the contact plane lacks any significant erosion; that is, it is a “flat gap”. E.g. Coconino sandstone / Hermit shale in the Grand Canyon (supposedly a 10 million year gap in time). The thick Schnebly Hill Formation (sandstone) lies between the Coconino and Hermit in central Arizona. See Austin, S.A., Grand Canyon, monument to catastrophe, ICR, Santee, CA, USA, 1994 and Snelling, A., The case of the “missing” geologic time, Creation 14(3):31–35, 1992.
  11. The presence of ephemeral markings (raindrop marks, ripple marks, animal tracks) at the boundaries of paraconformities show that the upper rock layer has been deposited immediately after the lower one, eliminating many millions of “gap” time. See references in Para(pseudo)conformities.
  12. Inter-tonguing of adjacent strata that are supposedly separated by millions of years also eliminates many millions of years of supposed geologic time. The case of the “missing” geologic time; Mississippian and Cambrian strata interbedding: 200 million years hiatus in question, CRSQ 23(4):160–167.
  13. The lack of bioturbation (worm holes, root growth) at paraconformities (flat gaps) reinforces the lack of time involved where evolutionary geologists insert many millions of years to force the rocks to conform with the “given” timescale of billions of years.
  14. The almost complete lack of clearly recognizable soil layers anywhere in the geologic column. Geologists do claim to have found lots of “fossil” soils (paleosols), but these are quite different to soils today, lacking the features that characterize soil horizons; features that are used in classifying different soils. Every one that has been investigated thoroughly proves to lack the characteristics of proper soil. If “deep time” were correct, with hundreds of millions of years of abundant life on the earth, there should have been ample opportunities many times over for soil formation. See Klevberg, P. and Bandy, R., CRSQ 39:252–68; CRSQ 40:99–116, 2003; Walker, T., Paleosols: digging deeper buries “challenge” to Flood geology, Journal of Creation 17(3):28–34, 2003.
  15. Limited extent of unconformities (unconformity: a surface of erosion that separates younger strata from older rocks). Surfaces erode quickly (e.g. Badlands, South Dakota), but there are very limited unconformities. There is the “great unconformity” at the base of the Grand Canyon, but otherwise there are supposedly ~300 million years of strata deposited on top without any significant unconformity. This is again consistent with a much shorter time of deposition of these strata. See Para(pseudo)conformities.
  16. The amount of salt in the world’s oldest lake contradicts its supposed age and suggests an age more consistent with its formation after Noah’s Flood, which is consistent with a young age of the earth.
  17. The discovery that underwater landslides (“turbidity currents”) travelling at some 50 km/h can create huge areas of sediment in a matter of hours (Press, F., and Siever, R., Earth, 4th ed., Freeman & Co., NY, USA, 1986). Sediments thought to have formed slowly over eons of time are now becoming recognized as having formed extremely rapidly. See for example, A classic tillite reclassified as a submarine debris flow (Technical).
  18. Flume tank research with sediment of different particle sizes show that layered rock strata that were thought to have formed over huge periods of time in lake beds actually formed very quickly. Even the precise layer thicknesses of rocks were duplicated after they were ground into their sedimentary particles and run through the flume. See Experiments in stratification of heterogeneous sand mixtures, Sedimentation Experiments: Nature finally catches up! and Sandy Stripes Do many layers mean many years?
  19. Observed examples of rapid canyon formation; for example, Providence Canyon in southwest Georgia, Burlingame Canyon near Walla Walla, Washington, and Lower Loowit Canyon near Mount St Helens. The rapidity of the formation of these canyons, which look similar to other canyons that supposedly took many millions of years to form, brings into question the supposed age of the canyons that no one saw form.
  20. Observed examples of rapid island formation and maturation, such as Surtsey, which confound the notion that such islands take long periods of time to form. See also, Tuluman—A Test of Time.
  21. Rate of erosion of coastlines, horizontally. E.g. Beachy Head, UK, loses a metre of coast to the sea every six years.
  22. Rate of erosion of continents vertically is not consistent with the assumed old age of the earth. See Creation 22(2):18–21.

Source: Creation.com

<< Part 1 | < Part 2 | Part 4 >

16 comments:

  1. 3). Polystrate fossils - we know damn well how they got there and what caused them and have known for more than 100 years. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/trees.html.

    as most of the other questions relate to specific examples for which i simply dont have the time to refute at this stage (dont worry i will be back) i will instead ask some questions, for which i have never gotten satisfactory answers.

    if there was a biblical flood:

    - where did all the water go? i mean where talking about something that would cover virtually every surface including Everest where the hell did it all go?

    - how were all the animals within walking distance of Noah's house?

    - how do you explain the undeniable order in the fossil record, we have Never Ever found a human on the same level as a dinosaur, surely a flood would result in a mismatch of fossils all over the place.

    - and lastly how big was the ark and what was it made of? i'd be inclined to believe that buoyancy would dictate that something of the size required would not be able to float under it's own weight.

    - also what is the biblical definition of Kind? relate it to taxonomy if you can because the word kind has no biological definition whatsoever.

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  2. Dear A,

    Thanks for the comments. You asked the following questions, that if there was a biblical flood:

    - where did all the water go? i mean where talking about something that would cover virtually every surface including Everest where the hell did it all go?

    An excellent question, and one that plagues a lot of people. Firstly, I must point out that the world that now exists (topographically) is NOT the same as the world that existed prior to the flood. The majority of creationists believe that the world's current topography was created in the aftermath of the flood. This theory is called the "catastrophic plate tectonics model", so perhaps you could consider doing a search for materials on the subject.

    To put it simply, the creationist view is in line with the Biblical teaching of what happened after the flood, namely "The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them." Ps 104:8. This passage is in context to the Flood, "He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight." Ps 104:5-7

    Now this is not to say there were no mountains BEFORE the flood, the Bible makes it clear that there was (Gen 7:19-20, Ps 104:6 above). I just want to make it clear that we do not believe that the mountain ranges, as they now are, existed before the Flood. The current mountain ranges were formed after the Flood, as the Catastrophic Plate Tectonics Model will demonstrate (if you choose to research it), and is also plainly testified by the fact that there is an abundance of marine fossils upon the world's highest peaks, indicating that these were, at some time in their past, underneath the ocean.

    Now after God determined the end of the Flood, it says that He rebuked the waters, and caused the mountains to rise, and the valleys to sink down. These are the current mountain ranges we now see and observe today. Interestingly, if the world's current topography was levelled; the mountains cut down and the valleys (including the deep ocean trenches) filled in, the world would be covered by water 3km deep. There is also a huge supply of subterranean water beneath the earth's mantle, which is testified by the research of Bergeron, L. (Deep Waters, New Scientist 155(2097):22–26, August 30, 1997.)

    That being so, it is no small thing for God to send the waters to their place again, from whence "they might not again cover the earth" (Ps 104:9). Also interesting is that this is the place the Bible says that the waters came from to cause the flood (Gen 7:11, "Fountains of the great deep"), the same place geologists today have ascertained that there is 10-30 times more water located there than in the oceans, in the earth’s mantle. Volcanologists will confirm this in part, as 70% of the vapour released during eruptions is steam, the source of which can only be the earth’s mantle (the source of volcanic lava).

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  3. - how were all the animals within walking distance of Noah's house?

    The Bible tells us that God brought them all to Noah. Noah did not have to go and fetch them:
    “Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground, according to its kind, two of every sort shall come to you to keep them alive.” (Gen. 6:20)

    You also need to realize that according to the creationist perspective, animal behaviour had not yet changed to be like we see it today, animals became afraid of man after the flood:
    “The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.” (Gen. 9:2)

    So Noah would have had no difficulty taking the animals God brought to him onto the Ark.

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  4. - how do you explain the undeniable order in the fossil record,

    The "order" in the geologic record agrees quite readily with the creationist interpretation. The creationist interpretation of the geologic column is that it represents the order by which organisms perished in the Flood. Dr Jonathan Safarti, in his book Refuting Evolution 2, writes:
    "'The fountains of the great deep'... would logically have buried small sea floor creatures first. Water plants would generally be buried before coastal and mountain plants. Land creatures would be buried last, especially the mammals and birds that could escape to higher ground. The more intelligent creatures would find a way to escape until the very end, leaving their bodies nearer the surface, where post-Flood erosion would destroy most evidence of their existence." (p129)
    Now you might protest at this and call it nonsense, but consider for a moment the evolutionary view of the geologic column. The evolutionary interpretation says that over millions of years, creatures evolved and changed from simple sea-dwellers to animals, some died and were fossilised, others went extinct, others yet continue on living today. But where are the transitional forms of those evolutionary changes? In 150 years of modern palaeontology over 100 million fossils have been extracted and analysed, and sit in the world's museums today. Of those 100 million fossils, about 250,000 species of creatures have been identified. However, of the 100 million fossils, only a handful of hotly disputed transitional forms have ever been discovered.
    If the evolutionary interpretation of the geologic column were the correct one, of the 100 million discovered fossils there should be hundreds of thousands of intermediary and transitional forms. However, this is not the case, as Dr Colin Patterson (1933-1998), senior palaeontologist of the British museum confesses in a private letter in response to his book, Evolution, and why it contained no photographs of transitional forms:
    "I fully agree with your comments about the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them... I will lay it on the line - there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument" (published in Darwin's Enigma, Green Forest AR: Master Books, 4th ed. 1988)
    That single creatures only make an appearance on the scene in the geologic column is clear, as pointed out by G.G. Simpson, in his book "The Evolution of Life":
    "It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa appear abruptly. They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptible changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolution." (p 149)
    This fact reinforces the creationist position that "each creature reproduces after its kind", a matter to be brought up later. This is precisely what the geologic column tells us, the fossils extracted from it appear exactly as they are in the world today, even supposed "extinct" forms (such as the Wollemi pine, coelacanth, etc) have not changed at all, a testimony that they have indeed been "reproducing after their own kind." If it were not so, and evolution was true, it ought to be reflected in the geologic column, but is not.

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  5. - we have Never Ever found a human on the same level as a dinosaur,

    Dr Safarti, continuing the quote above, says:
    "Humans would have been most resilient of all, clinging to debris and rafts, before they died of exposure; their floating bodies would have made easy meals for scavenging fish, so would not have fossilized readily." (Ibid, p129)
    Regardless, the Evolution Handbook (Vance Ferrel, 2001, p557-574) reports that there have been several discoveries of skeletal remains in geologic strata, and that it contradicts the evolutionary interpretation concerning the appearance of mankind. They are notably as follows:
    1.Guadeloupe Woman: Discovered in 1812 in the French Carribean, located inside a limestone formation dated (according to modern evolutionary interpretation) at 28 million years old.
    2. Calaveras Skull: Discovered in 1876 in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, CA. It was certified by J.D Whitnet, then chief of the California Geological Survey, as having been found in the Pliocene stratum. Dr W.H. Holmes presented the findings to the Smithsonian Institute in 1899.
    3. The Castinedolo Skull: Sir Arthur Keith commented regarding this find,
    “As the student of prehistoric man reads and studies the records of the Castinedolo finds, a feeling of incredulity is raised within him. He cannot reflect the discovery as false without doing injury to his sense of truth, and he cannot accept it as fact without altering his accepted beliefs. It is clear that we cannot pass Castinedolo by in silence: all the problems relating to the origin and antiquity of modern man focus themselves round it.” (The Antiquity of Man, p43.)
    4. The Moab Skeletons: Discovered at the Big Indian Copper Mine at Moab, Utah, close to the Colorado border. The discovery was detailed by Clifford L. Burdick, “Discovery of Human Skeletons in Cretaceous Formation”, Creation Research Society Quarterly, September 1973 p110.
    There are also many references of human footprints being found in “old” stratum. (Evolution Handbook, p557-574)

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  6. - surely a flood would result in a mismatch of fossils all over the place.

    Ironically, this is exactly what palaeontologists have been digging up for the last 150 years. Someone once said, “If there really was a world-wide flood, what would the evidence be? Millions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water, all over the earth!” And that is exactly what the palaeontologists find, and in no specific order. One of the greatest difficulties for evolutionary palaeontologists is explaining the creatures they have found in a certain stratum, which was NOT supposed to be there (according to their interpretation). Plenty of examples of these abound in scientific literature, and I can provide specific ones at your request.

    - and lastly how big was the ark and what was it made of? i'd be inclined to believe that buoyancy would dictate that something of the size required would not be able to float under it's own weight.

    The Bible describes Noah creating the following vessel:
    “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks.” (Gen. 6:14-16)
    Put into today’s terms, it was about 135m long, 22.5m wide and 13.5m high, with a total displacement of about 21,000 tonnes. It was also made from wood, a self-buoyant material. Consider that the Titanic was about twice as large as this, yet had no difficulties with buoyancy, despite being made of steel (a non-buoyant material). It also is comparable to the massive 150m Zheng He Treasure ships, built by the Chinese in 1420. Those wooden ships had little difficulty travelling across the sea to Africa and back. Finally, that the ark was indeed a seaworthy vessel was tested by a group of Korean maritime engineers in the following technical article.
    http://creation.com/safety-investigation-of-noahs-ark-in-a-seaway
    You can compare the Ark to other ships at the following link, just to see how massive it really was:
    http://www.worldwideflood.com/ark/compare_ships/compare_ships.htm

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  7. - also what is the biblical definition of Kind? relate it to taxonomy if you can because the word kind has no biological definition whatsoever.
    A kind, as referenced to earlier, I would liken to the natural genetic limitation of any given creature. We notice in the geologic record that no transitional forms exist, because “every creature reproduces after its own kind.” From a purely taxonomic point of view, this is very difficult to determine without extensive research, and no non-creationist would want to research this hypothesis as it rings the death knell of Darwinism. However I will point out a couple of practical examples. Firstly, that bottle-nose dolphins have been crossbred with false killer whales to produce a “wholphin”. This indicates at the very least that these two different species are the same created kind, since the creationist position is that “every creature reproduces after its kind”, creatures of different “created kinds” cannot therefore interbreed and reproduce. Some more examples could include a mule, the cross between a donkey and a horse. Despite the fact that mules themselves are infertile, it doesn’t disprove that both donkeys and horses are the same created kind, since they can produce offspring together. From the plant kingdom we can see that a lychee can be crossed with a longan, despite the fact they are regarded as different species. Hence, as a creationist would conclude, they are the same created kind, since they are able to produce offspring.
    This, then, becomes the litmus test of determining a created kind, as each kind will only reproduce after its own according to the creationist interpretation of the world (which just happens to fall in line with what is actually observed in empirical science). It can also be noted that there is no exception to this rule, bacterium always produce bacterium, roses produce roses, cats give birth to cats, etc; although the natural genetic variation within each “kind” will produce the different species, eg: tigers and lions, different types of dogs, etc. I would recommend the following article for further reading on “kinds”.
    http://creation.com/ligers-and-wholphins-what-next
    That a “kind” will never change into another “kind” has been testified by empirical research. The unfortunate subject was the ever so popular Drosophila melanogaster, or the common fruit fly. Scientists tried ever so hard to force them to mutate into a new species. Jeremy Rifkin comments on the experiments:
    “The fruit fly has long been the favourite object of mutation experiments because of its fast gestation period (twelve days. X-rays have been used to increase the mutation rate in the fruit fly by 15,000 percent. All in all, scientists have been able to ‘catalyse the fruit fly evolutionary process such that what has been seen to occur in drosophila is the equivalent of many millions of years of normal mutations and evolution.’” (Algeny, 1983 p134)
    After decades of studying and forcing mutations in the small flies, 400 different mutational features were identified. Maurice Caulery notes that “Out of 400 mutations that have been provided by drosophila melanogaster, there is not one that can be called a new species. It does not seem, therefore, that the central problem of evolution can be solved by mutations.” (Genetics and Heredity, 1964 p119).

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  8. Indeed, an apt conclusion to the research was the following quote:
    “Fruit flies refuse to become anything but fruit flies under any circumstances yet devised.” (Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, 1982 p 61)
    Perhaps you could protest about the methods of the experiment, or that evolution takes much longer, or whatever. But I would honestly challenge you, friend, with this consideration: Why, after 150 years of technological advancement, is evolution not able to be repeated and tested empirically in a laboratory? Why is it you can combine two hydrogens and oxygen to create water, empirically testable and true, yet evolution you cannot repeat in the lab? If it is true, why can’t it be repeated? If mindless nature did it, why can’t intelligent scientists repeat it? Why is it that drosophila refuse to be anything except drosophila? Could it be that “every creature was created according to its kind”, just as the Bible says in Genesis chapter 1?
    I hope you give these things some thought. I did it over four years ago, and never looked back.

    Kind regards from an ex-evolutionist,
    Josh

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  9. I read the article and I must say there are a few glaring inconsistencies that I must point out Ayden.

    Firstly there is the comment to the effect that "we know that these polystrate fossils were caused by rapid sedimentation"

    * ok even if that is granted why should that be an evidence against a world wide flood? rapid sedimentation occurs then doesn't it?

    *as a sub point to the above the arguement can thus come back against the old agers in this. If this type of fossil could have been rapidly buried and the layering effect is caused in a rapid sedimentation senario.... then old agers need to stop using the old and tired arguement that the layering of fossil bearing sediment is evidence of millions of years passing!

    *in the case of rapid then slow sedimentation on a marshy or aluvial flood plain it is extremely odd that there is paleo-soil under the tree fossils and then none afterwards (see stratigraphy illustration. This is a major flaw in his hypothesis

    Secondly his comment on the religious worldview of the involved scientists is redundant. The theistic evolutionary perspective has nothing to do with the evidence supporting old or young age for the world. This is a red herring.

    The comment on floating forests lastly is misleading, the writer appears to believe that this is the only possible explanation that a creation-fall-flood model could come up with for this type of fossil. This (as evolutionists are so fond of pointing out) is a theory of how it could have happened not the linch pin of the arguement or perspective. By refuting it all he does is refute the hypothesis not the model.

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  10. Notes on the biblical flood:

    1. The biblical flood model includes massive geological disturbance at the same time is the basic answer, for more read this
    http://aufiles.creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter12.pdf

    2. That is just a red herring - how do you have any idea what the distribution of animals were before the flood? Also if you are going to assert Noah had to herd them in that is falacious too - God brought them to him.

    3. In a flood setting it is often the most intelligent creatures that survive the longest, (but after a year of flood over the whole earth smaller vessels would have been destroyed) and thus human remains should only be found in the top strata of rock.

    4. Modern sea liners are made of steel Ayden - boyancy is not only related to materials used but also to the displacement of water. The ark was designed on similar lines to most sea liners and would have been not only floatable but also emnensely stable in rough seas (read genisis the stats are all there).

    5. There are many examples of people working on this but basicly the theory is that there are groupings of animals that can interbreed and produce many variations within that kind. For example the bear kind - many north american and arctic bears have been able to produce fertile offspring when bred. If you want further I'll get you some articles but here is a review with some information.
    http://aufiles.creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter12.pdf

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  11. It’s ‘Aydan’.

    “ok even if that is granted why should that be an evidence against a world wide flood? rapid sedimentation occurs then doesn't it?” – this has nothing to do with evidence for or against a worldwide flood, it is well known to biologists rapid sedimentation can and has occurred, however it has always been localized. The article refutes the creationist claim that biologists don’t know how to deal with polystrate fossils and how IT IS NOT EVIDENCE OF A FLOOD.

    However while we are on the subject of fossils I would like you to explain how a flood model would produce the incredible order present in the fossil record .ie humans never found on the same level as dinosaurs.




    1). ‘geological disturbance at the same time’ doesn’t really cut it, and I’d really like to see the sciences behind your sources answer which implies ‘the mountains rising up’ as a result of God’s direct intervention and if it wasn’t as a result of his direct intervention why they weren’t doing that already.

    2). red herring my foot. Polar bears can’t live in the desert and camels can’t live in the arctic, they have specialized temperature and food requirements and God teleporting them to Noah’s location is not a viable answer.

    3). Your statement seems to resemble the Hovindism (debunked Kent Hovind claim) of the smarter animals moving to higher ground…this is rediculous for two reasons.

    - Intelligence does not make up for speed, illness, disabilities or unfortunate circumstances. Ie. A smart person with a broken leg trapped under a log would not be able to get away from the water and would be fossilized with whatever else was around them. However we do not see anything out of its respective time period ANYWHERE in the fossil record.
    - Regardless of how slowly this flood allegedly occured the moving water would result in fossils being positioned willy-nilly throughout the layers.

    4).
    There is a point at which a wooden boat can reach such a size that it collapses under it’s own weight. I would like to know how big the arc supposedly was to determine this. Genesis seems to mention something about cubits, but some creationists sources I’ve heard from have said that measurement of cubits was different back then. So how big was it?


    5).
    It’s not a theory in any sense of the word…
    So according to you:
    “A kind is a group of animals that can interbreed and produce variation within that kind”

    The definition of kind you have provided is identical to that of a species (ie. A group of animals that can interbreed). However you seem to have imposed some sort of limitation. Now keeping in mind that the ONLY thing that separates a given organism from any other is the amount of genetic variation could you please state the mechanism that prevents variations and mutations from accumulating (it’s a loaded question I know there isn’t one).

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  12. Joshua could you email me on davidgee@operation513.com? I'd like to chat to you further.

    Thanks for your comments - great work.

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  13. “There is also a huge supply of subterranean water beneath the earth's mantle” – significant, but not huge, and there is a working scientific explanation for how it got there, but if you would like to put a creationist spin on it be my guest.

    “geologists today have ascertained that there is 10-30 times more water located there than in the oceans,” – no, that’s part of the ‘The Hydroplate theory’. Which is actually not a theory, it’s a hypothesis put forth by creationists based on centuries of conjecture. Other than the likes of Ken Ham you’d be lucky to find one geologist who prescribes to it.


    Im sorry, as a rational person I find it hard to believe that a God directly intervened to teleport all animal ‘kinds’ to a particular destination, his intervention would have also been necessary to keep them alive on the boat due to their specific requirements…if this was the case then why would there need to be a boat at all, God could have simply elevated a piece of ground and put all the animals (and Noah) on top of it until he chose to directly intervene again and make the flood recede, or better yet, just skip the flood and just magic all the bad people out of existence. It really doesn’t make sense.


    “The "order" in the geologic record agrees quite readily with the creationist interpretation” – the creationist interpretation being that everything was fossilized by a massive flood? Don’t kid yourself, a flood would toss and turn everything caught in it and we would expect atleast one smart animal to be caught at the lower levels, or atleast one smaller ‘stupider’ animal to be at the higher levels placing it outside of it’s respective time frame, however we don’t find a single instance of this.

    “But where are the transitional forms of those evolutionary changes?” –
    Depends what you would like to see, we have intermediate forms from virtually every major stage of evolution

    Dinosaur to birds = archopteryx

    Fish to land animals = tiktaalic

    Land mammals to sea mammals = Ambulocetus

    What transitional would you like to see? Whatever you point out I’m confident it has already been found, but go for it, pick one.



    “there should be hundreds of thousands of intermediary and transitional forms.” –
    Punctuated equilibrium 101:
    - There is a large population of organisms with a large amount genetic variation through the organisms in that population.
    - A major change in environment occurs resulting in greater/alternate selective pressures which in turn results in a mass extinction where only the organisms best suited to the new conditions survive.
    - Beneficial mutations spread rapidly in the greatly reduced population
    - The population spreads
    - The organisms that survived the extinction are out competed by their even more well adapted offspring.


    “"It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa appear abruptly. They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptible changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolution."” – which ones might those be? Give an example and I’ll find the *missing* links for you.

    "reproducing after their own kind." – lol, I will deal with your woefully inadequate understanding of taxonomy in a moment.

    “Dr Safarti” – refer to first paragraph.


    “there have been several discoveries of skeletal remains in geologic strata, and that it contradicts the evolutionary interpretation concerning the appearance of mankind. They are notably as follows:” – the trouble when you copy and paste something as ridiculous as this from a clearly biased creationist source that cares nothing for intellectual honesty is that it gets debunked very very quickly: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_anomaly.html

    The above site contains complete refutations of everything you mentioned.


    “Ironically, this is exactly what paleontologists have been digging up for the last 150 years.” – incorrect, you have already acknowledged the indisputable order of the fossil record and are now saying that it is a mismatch. Get you story straight.

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  14. Polystrate fossils and other have already been explained and it really isn’t that difficult, what would be interesting is if you could provide one that hasn’t been explained…and actually look it up before you post because I guarantee you it has been explained.


    “The Bible describes Noah creating the following vessel” – currently investigating the point at which a wooden vessel as described would collapse under it’s own weight, will reply back soon 


    “A kind, as referenced to earlier, I would liken to the natural genetic limitation of any given creature” – such genetic limitations do not exist. Variation occurs and no mechanism has been identified to stop these changes from accumulating.


    “We notice in the geologic record that no transitional forms exist, because “every creature reproduces after its own kind.” – I have already named several transitional forms and will name any that you purpose are gaps.


    “Firstly, that bottle-nose dolphins have been crossbred with false killer whales to produce a “wholphin”. This indicates at the very least that these two different species are the same created kind” – incorrect, speciation occurs all the time and can be found by typing observed instances of speciation into google. That is to say a population of a given animal can be observed to accumulate so many genetic differences over successive generations that it can nolonger breed with the original populous…essentially going against what you have said and breeding out of it’s kind.

    “Despite the fact that mules themselves are infertile” – funny isn’t it? Evolution predicts that animals will become less and less compatible as the variation between them increases, that is to say they will fist be able to breed, then breed with difficulty and then not be able to breed at all. Isn’t it interesting that this is what is observable fact?


    The definition of kind you have given is actually the definition of species but with a bizsare limitation on genetic variation.

    “each kind will only reproduce after its own according to the creationist interpretation of the world” – and here you demonstrate your ignorance of evolution. Evolution occurs in populations over time, whereby the next generation is seemingly identical to the one that proceeded it except for a few mutations. This is what is observed. Given this at what point would you define something as mutating out of it’s kind?

    Macroevolution = the cumulative effect of microevolution overtime.


    “Fruit flies refuse to become anything but fruit flies under any circumstances yet devised” – the taxonomic classification that defines them as a fruit fly does not change as it imposed by man. Evolution of a single species is best shown on a continuum.


    “But I would honestly challenge you, friend, with this consideration: Why, after 150 years of technological advancement, is evolution not able to be repeated and tested empirically in a laboratory?” – the short answer is that it is. You left out observed which is the only real thing evolution cant be, because of the timescale it needs to occur. It can be tested and it can be repeated.
    A test I commonly refer to is endogenus retrovirus’ which only arise when a virus fails to replicate in a sex cell. If evolution is correct then we would expect to have more ERV’s in common with animals evolution predicts are related to us and less with those more distantly related to us and we do.

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  15. @a "Im sorry, as a rational person I find it hard to believe that a God directly intervened to teleport all animal ‘kinds’ to a particular destination, his intervention would have also been necessary to keep them alive on the boat due to their specific requirements…"

    This is merely a distortion of what we have said Aydan. Firstly God used the migratory instincts or similar to get animals to move to the ark and secondly the animals would have been unafraid of Noah and his family so that is no problem either. There was no teleportation - that is your misunderstanding not our theory. As for on the ark and feed requirements, most animals go into a state of hibernation during poor weather so a large portion of them would require no food or very little. You are quite wrong.

    @a "...placing it outside of it’s respective time frame, however we don’t find a single instance of this."

    Were you not listening? This is exactly what Joshua has said has been found, go look at the resources he quoted to you.

    @a "Dinosaur to birds = archopteryx" - in the words of Dr Alan Feduccia evolutionist and world authority on birds ancient and modern "Paleontologists have tried to turn Archaeopteryx into an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur. But it's not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of ‘paleobabble’ is going to change that."

    @a "Land mammals to sea mammals = Ambulocetus" - firstly on my reading of your quoted (and often emensely biased) resources Aydan this is a land based mammal that is in a line of supposed mammals to whales. The line of mammals is so varied in size that it makes any discussion of transition idiotic. So first it is a mammal and second in it's "series" it is out of place and definitely not a transitional fossil in that sense.

    @a "Fish to land animals = tiktaalic" - same point on Ambulocetus applies regarding it's transitional series with the added problem of the quoted fossils being all out of order. Second there are currently animals that live lives that match this fossil's characteristics - the mud skippers, fish that live in and out of the water. This fits with the creationist worldview perfectly, they were designed to live in the intertidal areas of the world and forfill a God given purpose.

    @a "...Punctuated equilibrium 101"

    This theory is one I have studied and is just a cop out pure and simple, an evolutionary loop-hole to appeal to when the facts don't match the theory. Please try again.

    @a "...the trouble when you copy and paste something as ridiculous as this from a clearly biased creationist source that cares nothing for intellectual honesty is that it gets debunked very very quickly."

    Ok this is were all your comments get you into some strife Aydan. I have avoided commenting on your clearly biased source material before now but this opens it for discussion. Most of your sources are found on athiest sites, the majority from www.talkorigins.org. The problem with your comment above is the fact that you are doing what you claim is wrong for us to do! The talkorigins site is biased in the extreem with its stated aims to be the promotion of the evolutionary worldview and debunking any other views (creationist or ID or....). If this is your view on the validity of our sources then I suggest you quit being hypocritical and start citing non-atheist sites for your materials - or should we ignore those posts as irrelevant from now on? A site you may wish to examine: http://www.trueorigin.org/to_deception.asp
    As a further note, it should be said that the talkorigins site provides no peer review articles (for all the ones they cite) and the articles are written often by people from completely unrelated fields eg computer techs! Creation.com on the other hand has qualified experts in the fields they write on and offers research and peer reviewed articles. Seeing peer review is so great at removing bias in your opinion Aydan you should reassess your attitude to these guys.

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  16. Comments on your second post:

    @a "...Polystrate fossils and other have already been explained and it really isn’t that difficult"
    Explained - yes, explained away - no. There is a complete lack of explanation of the problems with the article you quoted on your part here Aydan. Get on with the answers already!

    @a "Variation occurs and no mechanism has been identified to stop these changes from accumulating...The definition of kind you have given is actually the definition of species but with a bizsare limitation on genetic variation...Macroevolution = the cumulative effect of microevolution overtime."
    Ok! There is a concept you have snuck in here Aydan and it is time to address it front on. You rightly claim that there is variation over time in populations - no brainer. What you then do is sneak in the idea that these variations are related to genetic gain in information leading to new traits and then new forms. The arguement between the two views is related not to change but to genetically trackable information gain from mutation related to selection pressure. Until you provide an example (any example Aydan) of a confirmed information gain due to selection pressure all your comments amount to a large pile of nothing. Come up with something, until then you are quit wrong.

    @a "A test I commonly refer to is endogenus retrovirus’ which only arise when a virus fails to replicate in a sex cell."
    Endogenous retrovirus' is a old idea that is another pat just so story that is lacking any support at all. In fact there is evidence to suggest that endogenous retrovirus'/junk DNA is functional within the genome as regulatory genetic material. Another reference for you: http://creation.com/large-scale-function-for-endogenous-retroviruses (basic with more technical links)

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