Science Disproves Evolution

[Dinwar]

the GLOBAL flood never happened. But the MYTH most probably has origins in a real event (or series of events), obviously, a NATURAL event, with no intervention from any god/gods.

This brings up an interesting question--do we know that it has to be a natural event? Do we know it ever actually occured? I mean, Aesop's Fables never occurred; neither did Jesus' parables. We know that the ancients had a concept of fiction, and that they frequently used it to demonstrate morality/ethics. This is pretty much what the Flood story did. It's entirely possible that this myth is based on NOTHING, just a story that someone told to illustrate a point and which grew with the telling. Floods aren't uncommon, after all, particularly in that region, and the idea of someone putting their goods on a boat to protect them isn't that unusual (Penn and Teller discuss one example of such an event).

I'm not saying you're right or wrong here. I'm merely questioning the practice of accepting that there's something to explain here. It could just as easily be that it's a story taken out of context, and expanded well beyond what it started as.

 

[Marduk]

This brings up an interesting question--do we know that it has to be a natural event? Do we know it ever actually occured? I mean, Aesop's Fables never occurred; neither did Jesus' parables. We know that the ancients had a concept of fiction, and that they frequently used it to demonstrate morality/ethics. This is pretty much what the Flood story did. It's entirely possible that this myth is based on NOTHING, just a story that someone told to illustrate a point and which grew with the telling. Floods aren't uncommon, after all, particularly in that region, and the idea of someone putting their goods on a boat to protect them isn't that unusual (Penn and Teller discuss one example of such an event).

I'm not saying you're right or wrong here. I'm merely questioning the practice of accepting that there's something to explain here. It could just as easily be that it's a story taken out of context, and expanded well beyond what it started as.

The Biblical flood which is based on the Gilgamesh flood which is based on the Atrahasis flood is attested on the Sumerian kings list as coinciding with the end of the reign of Ubara-Tutu of Shuruppak around 4900 years ago
His regn is marked with the legend "Then the flood swept over."

Excavations in Iraq have revealed evidence of localized flooding at Shuruppak (modern Tell Fara, Iraq) and various other Sumerian cities. A layer of riverine sediments, radiocarbon dated to ca. 2900 BCE, interrupts the continuity of settlement, extending as far north as the city of Kish. Polychrome pottery from the Jemdet Nasr period (3000-2900 BCE) was discovered immediately below the Shuruppak flood stratum.

This is an area of approximately 40,000 square miles taking the distance of 200 miles between Kish and Shuruppak as a side,

That was a great riverine flood. In later times the network of canals set up to feed the fields meant that flooding wasn't as damaging. Failing to upkeep the section of dam you were responsible for became a serious offense with a statute punishment of enforced slavery.
The mesopotamias were as used to floods as we are to fast food. Its not an assumption to imagine that the flood story was based on a real flood. Yet that flood story starts with a river flood and gets greater in the retelling. It would be like asking, if historians found we had a record of mass poisoning on Big Macs, is there any history of hamburgers in our culture

 

[Pahu]

Chemistry, physics and geology. Oh, and some simple arithmetic.

It has already been observed that it takes a year to lay down one layer of some sedimentary deposits, and that each layer is only a fraction of an inch thick. So let's go with a simplified example in a hypothetical location. Let's say it lays down one fine deposit per year, say 10 per inch. Geological observation at that point shows thousands of feet thick of such layers - let's say 1000 feet. So that's 1000 feet at 12 inches per foot and 10 years per inch. That's a total of 120,000 years of deposits. Agreed? You understand how that works?

OK, now let's look at a real live example: Green River formation in Utah. And what do we find? Exactly that.
[link removed so I can respond]

Now you need to explain rationally to the world how the so-called "flood creation" produced these formations. And I will emphasise the word "rationally". Away you go.

How can we compare and test the two conflicting explanations: liquefaction versus uniformitarianism and the principle of superposition over billions of years?

Edited by LashL: 

Snipped for compliance with Rule 4.

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Liquefaction6.html


7. Varves are extremely thin layers (typically 0.004 inch or 0.1 mm), which evolutionists claim are laid down annually in lakes. By counting varves, evolutionists believe that time can be measured. The Green River Formation of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, a classic varve region, contains billions of flattened, paper-thin, fossilized fish; thousands were buried and fossilized in the act of swallowing other fish. [See Figure 7 on page 11.] Obviously, burial was sudden. Fish, lying on the bottom of a lake for years, would decay or disintegrate long before enough varves could bury them. (Besides, dead fish typically float, deteriorate, and then sink.) Most fish fossilized in varves show exquisite detail and are pressed to the thinness of a piece of paper, as if they had been compressed in a collapsing liquefaction lens.

Also, varves are too uniform, show almost no erosion, and are deposited over wider areas than where streams enter lakes—where most lake deposits occur. Liquefaction best explains these varves.

[From "In the Beginning" by Walt Brown (link removed so I can post)]

 

[Pahu]

You are on the verge of going in the silly bucket.

That seems to be a strange way for limestone to form, but you are entitled to your opinion.

 

[Pahu]

Perhaps Pahu has an alternative model of how limestone can form.

And perhaps not. But, yanno, we ought to ask.

Pahu?

It is my understanding that limestone is laid down by sorting during liquefaction. We saw that happen within hours of the explosion of Mt. St. Helens. During the flood, multiple layers of strata containing different minerals, was laid down in days. For details, go to: "In the Beginning" by Walt Brown and click on "Part II: Fountains of the Great Deep."

 

[Pahu]

Look up plate tectonics.

Plate tectonics conflicts with known laws of physics. For details go to "In the Beginning" by Walt Brown and click on: "Part II: Fountains of the Great Deep."

 

[John Jones]

It is my understanding that limestone is laid down by sorting during liquefaction. We saw that happen within hours of the explosion of Mt. St. Helens. During the flood, multiple layers of strata containing different minerals, was laid down in days. For details, go to: "In the Beginning" by Walt Brown and click on "Part II: Fountains of the Great Deep."

Link?

 

[Pahu]

I've run in to this guy quite a few times on other forums. Researching the quotes cited to support some of this trash can be quite amusing. It's apparent someone went to a lot of trouble to get his out of context quotes. Also apparent is that no honest person could have failed to notice that the context when doing the quote mining.

Pahu has admitted that he doesn't read the quotes he cites in their original context. Got to wonder about the mindset of someone who won't check his facts after hundreds and hundreds of people have pointed out wrong they are.

I don't know where you get your figures. Many have made the same accusation you make but have yet to produce one context that is changed by the quotes.

 

[Pahu]

Welcome to the JREF Pahu, here we discuss the merits of ideas and theories and examine the basis of support for them. That is critical thinking, so here 'appeal to authority' is a fallacy of argumentation, you should know the ideas and try to defend them.

I disagree. I am just the messenger. The facts come from conclusions of scientists who have examined the merits of ideas and theories and examined the basis of support for them. Their conclusions are based on known laws of physics. The problem is not the facts, but the unwillingness to accept them when they threaten pre-conceptions.

 

[Pahu]

Both the Flood and Intelligent Design resort to "Goddidit" as the explanation, so I don't see the difference.

The information I am sharing is based on known laws of physics, not the Bible.

 

[DC]

I disagree. I am just the messenger. The facts come from conclusions of scientists who have examined the merits of ideas and theories and examined the basis of support for them. Their conclusions are based on known laws of physics. The problem is not the facts, but the unwillingness to accept them when they threaten pre-conceptions.

the pre-conceptions they learned in the Bible?

 

[Vortigern99]

Well, okay, if that's the approach you want to take, here is a partial list of scientists who believe the evidence strongly supports evolution. And that's just the ones named "Steve."

And you are acquainted, I presume with Project Steve?
It is a group of over 1100 scientists who deny creationism and biblical versions of science. The kicker? They're all named Steve, Steven, Stephan or some variation of "Steve". If you're trying to impress us with your thimbleful of scientists, you have failed horribly. Embarassingly.

Brown is an engineer, not a scientist. I hope he is more competent as an engineer than he is a scientist. My experience is that he has been a complete failure in his "scientist" disguise. See my short article On Walter Brown and Plate Tectonics (1997). It's 13 years old now, but still quite applicable I think. Brown uses rock properties from his engineer's handbook to guess how rocks should behave under extreme conditions of temperature and pressure. Using the handbook might be a good idea when building things on the surface of the Earth, as engineers commonly do, but it is a really stupid thing for a "scientist" to do, when it is well known that rocks behave remarkably differently under extreme conditions. I also refer to Brown's poor understanding of plate tectonics in another equally old piece, On Creationism and Plate Tectonics.

Brown also screwed up remarkably on his assessment of the recession of the moon from Earth. Like other creationists, he uses a simplified formula that underestimates the age of the Earth-moon system by ignoring the effects of tidal dissipation; see my article The Recession of the Moon and the Age of the Earth-Moon System (1999, 2000) for details.

It has been 10 years and more since I wrote my critiques of Brown & other creationists, but they are still valid. Creationists seem to love really stupid ideas and never let go of them, even as their level of stupidity becomes increasingly evident. Walter Brown is incompetent as a "scientist", and his critique of the age of the Earth is just plain stupid.

I disagree. I am just the messenger. The facts come from conclusions of scientists who have examined the merits of ideas and theories and examined the basis of support for them. Their conclusions are based on known laws of physics. The problem is not the facts, but the unwillingness to accept them when they threaten pre-conceptions.

Pahu, you are the messenger of a single scientist, an engineer, Brown, whose conclusions have been shown to be erroneous within the larger context of the scientific method. If you would like to compare authority to authority, Brown is vastly outnumbered by the thousands of biologists, geneticists, geologists, paleontologists, archeologists etc. who strongly disagree with his opinions.

 

[joobz]

1. A sedimentary layer often spans hundreds of thousands of square miles. (River deltas, where sediment thicknesses are greatest, are a tiny fraction of that area.) Liquefaction during a global flood would account for the vast expanse of these thick layers. Current processes and eons of time do not.

please provide an example of what you are describing here. superlative terms are meaningless when the comparisons aren't clear.

2. One thick, extensive sedimentary layer has remarkable purity. The St. Peter sandstone, spanning about 500,000 square miles in the central United States, is composed of almost pure quartz, similar to sand on a white beach. It is hard to imagine how any geologic process, other than global liquefaction, could achieve this degree of purity over such a wide area.19 Almost all other processes involve mixing, which destroys purity.

This is flawed because
1.) Appeal to ignorance.
2.) crystal purity is enhanced through slow processes, which allows for diffusional exclusion of impurities. Global liquification doesn't at all explain this.

3. Today, sediments are usually deposited in and by rivers—along a narrow line. However, individual sedimentary rock layers are spread over large geographical areas, not along narrow, streamlike paths. Liquefaction during the flood acted on all sediments and sorted them over wide areas in weeks or months.

THis is contradicted by your point 1 which highlighted river delta sedimentation as a significant source of sediments. While river beds may be the most dramatic, oceanic sedimentation does occur. Time allows for significant effects.

4. Sedimentary layers are usually thin, sharply defined, parallel, and horizontal. They are often stacked vertically for thousands of feet. If layers had been laid down thousands of years apart, surface erosion would have destroyed this parallelism. Liquefaction, especially liquefaction lenses, explain these sharp boundaries.

Layers are laid down OVER thousands of years, NOT thousands of years APART.

5. Sometimes adjacent, parallel layers contain such different fossils that evolutionists conclude that those layers were deposited millions of years apart, but the lack of erosion shows that the layers were deposited rapidly. Liquefaction resolves this paradox.

layer deposition and erosion are not temporally exclusive processes. The relative rate is what determines the overall observed effect. (thickness increase vs. thickness decrease).

 

[joobz]

I disagree. I am just the messenger. The facts come from conclusions of scientists who have examined the merits of ideas and theories and examined the basis of support for them. Their conclusions are based on known laws of physics. The problem is not the facts, but the unwillingness to accept them when they threaten pre-conceptions.

Your inability to address the logical counterarguments which completely destroy the theories you present is your problem. Not mine or anyone else's. You must ask yourself why you are so sure that your "experts" are just that? If you, as you clearly admit, are completely ignorant of what you post, how would you recognize the difference between sound science and pure drivel?

 

[Pahu]

Pahu, if you are still here. It is hard to wrap your mind around evolution once you have been indoctrinated with Creationism. I used to be in the same boat as you. I actually thought that Duane Gish was a great scientist at one point. However, Walt Brown? He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He should stick to building engines, not explaining how geochemistry works.

Where did you get the idea mechanical engineering is not science? Engineers are real scientists. Why limit the term “scientist” to professors of evolutionary biology? Jim Rieger used this method to distinguish a scientist from an engineer:

When a scientist makes a discovery, he immediately thinks, “This is an amazing new discovery. Where should I publish it?” When an engineer makes a discovery, he immediately thinks, “This is an amazing new discovery. How can I make a buck with it?”

Engineers are scientists who use scientific knowledge to design products (or invent procedures) that are commercially profitable. Scientists may speculate about how planets are formed, but not one of them has ever actually made a planet. On the other hand, when engineers claim they know to how to build a space probe that can reach those planets, they actually have to build it. This means that engineers tend to be brought back to reality more often than college professors.

[From "Some Real Scientists Reject Evolution" by Do-While Jones http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v5i10f.htm]

It's easy to attach yourself to a few so-called experts or doctors that claim they have the right answer. However, how thoroughly have they tested their claims? If their claims are valid, then the main scientific world should be able to back the claim. The way I see it, Creations Scientists seem to be looking for an answer that will fit their theories before it can be proven wrong by other reliable scientists. Real scientists are expecting their theories to be tested and possibly be proven wrong. The areas that are proven wrong are usually picked apart and re-worked by the scientific community until the theory either passes or fails.

Most of the scientists Walt Brown quotes are not creationists, and he does expect his conclusions to be tested and evaluated by other scientists. He also has a standing offer to debate his conclusions with other scientists.

 

[Resume]

Plate tectonics conflicts with known laws of physics. For details go to "In the Beginning" by Walt Brown and click on: "Part II: Fountains of the Great Deep."

Nope.

 

[Dancing David]

only a theory, or better yet, an speculation. As valid as mine about the end of the ice age rising sea levels.

(both speculations regard Atlantis... that the sea levels rose or that the Minoan eruption happened, there is no doubt)

The theran explosion was more likely to be known by historic people than something 8000 years older.

 

[X]

See Gish.
See Gish gallop.
Gallop Gish gallop!
Gash galloped.

 

[Dancing David]

I disagree. I am just the messenger. The facts come from conclusions of scientists who have examined the merits of ideas and theories and examined the basis of support for them.

Then buddy, you are in the wrong place, it is still appeal to authority, and as your claim the burden is on you.
this is not a forum for the faint of heart.

Their conclusions are based on known laws of physics.

You have yet to demonstrate how they work so that is just further appeal to authority.

The problem is not the facts, but the unwillingness to accept them when they threaten pre-conceptions.

You haven't explained how they work so political spin rhetoric just really weakens your case at this point.

If you are 'just a messenger' then this is the wrong bulletin board for you.

Your message is weak and based upon an unexplained appeal to authority.

 

[Pahu]

May violate the JREF rules too.
I had not heard of Walt Brown, but he's been around for a while according to the Wiki article. He has a PhD in mech engineering from MIT! Went to West Point. I have an image in my mind of a very strange but smart old dude (83) who just couldn't get past his childhood religious indoctrination. We've all known a few.

If you will read all of his biography, you will learn he was not indoctrinated into religion, but evolution, which he rejected after examining the hypothesis.