Creation & EvolutionForum for the discussion of this important topic. This forum is open to non-believers. There is a Christians-only forum in the Christians-only section too.
B.S. Animal Science (Zoology Minor), Western Illinois University - 1969
M.S. Animal Industries, Southern Illinois University - 1972
Thesis: The Effect of Feeding MHA to Beef and Dairy Steers
Ph.D. Animal Husbandry/Ruminant Nutrition (Statistics Minor), University of Missouri - 1976
Thesis: Amino Acid Nutrition and Blood Amino Acids in Sheep
Seems like he is perfectly qualified to talk about geology eh?
2.Layering in fine-grained sediments can occur very rapidly from hydraulic conditions, rather than slow layer cake deposition. This was demonstrated at Mt. St. Helens.
The Mt. St. Helens volcano has generated more nonsense from YECs than any other recent event. Much of the "layering" that was revealed was due to cutting through unconsolidated deposits from previous eruptions.
"A major lahar flow associated with the 1980 eruption sped down a stream valley on the southeastern side of the mountain and exposed an area with some spectacular deposits of glacial till and pre-existing lahar and pyroclastic flows"
"The bouldery material at the bottom of the sequence is glacial till. The till is overlain by the deposits of two separate pyroclastic flows (yellow and orange colours) and then by pre-1980 lahar deposits. The 1980 lahar deposits are visible at the top."
What is seen is glacial till and two lahar deposits. I don't see anything at all like what the Rockhound described in the OP. There are more pictures at the web site. IMO trying to equate the deposits from a landslide, lateral blast and lahar with the complex sedimentary record seen so many places around the world is just plain silly but YEC "geologists" continue to try to fool their followers into thinking that the St. Helens volcano serves as some kind of model for an alleged worldwide flood. At least at St. Helens one can specifically identify which deposits came from the 1980 eruption, which are glacial till and which came from previous eruptions. YECs can not identify which specific layers which came from the supposed worldwide flood.
Ok, there's a lot to get through... I'll do my best.
1.the interpretation of environmental changes depends on the interpretation of environments, which in turn relies on the assumption that modern depositional environments can provide an analog for ancient ones. Although popular in the late 20th C, many uniformitarians are turning away from that assumption.
2.Rapidly changing depositional conditions would be expected in a Flood, not expected in a uniformitarian setting.
1. False. Modern geology is still based on the principle of uniformitarianism, i.e. that the environments that we see today occurred in the past as well. How else are we supposed to study ancient environments if not be studying their modern equivalents?
2. Also false. A large flood produces a uniform sediment bed. Anyway, the rapidly changing conditions I saw were from non-terrestrial to terrestrial sediments - i.e. from underwater to desert, and back again. This is not consistant with the flood.
Response:
1.If the mudstone is millions of years old, why is it still soft?
2.Layering in fine-grained sediments can occur very rapidly from hydraulic conditions, rather than slow layer cake deposition. This was demonstrated at Mt. St. Helens. The presence of fossil beds indicates that there was a source of fossils and a current powerful enough to transport them and variable enough to deposit them. Ripple marks and cross stratification are bed forms that depend on the hydraulic regime, not on long ages of time.
3.I assume from stormy environment that he means herringbone cross bedding or hummocky cross bedding. See comment 2.
4.Accepting for the sake of argument that the deposit represents a shallow marine setting, how is that inconsistent with the Flood?
1. Millions of years does not = very very hard. The conditions of deposition can vary widely and produce rock of varying hardness - as any geologist knows.
2. Already been answered. I heard about the Mt St. Helens stuff from creationists, and I was disgusted at their dishonesty.
3. Correct. That is what I saw - very well developed too.
4. This marine environment showed layers of sediment, separated by thin fossil beds dominated by a type called Chondrites - a trace fossil left by burrowing worms. This could only have formed and been preserved in the intervals in between the storm environment bedding - they took a long time to form, and only formed on the TOP of the bed. There were hundreds of these beds, separated by dozens of cross-stratified beds. So, if this is to be consistent with the flood, then each layer had to be laid down individually, then burrowed through without interference, then covered by the next layer, etc. etc. Then they had to be broken up by storm environments.
The fact that the environments change should be enough - the flood was supposed to be a year long single event, not a series of little events.
Chondrites would take long periods of time to develop networks only if the assumption of modern conditions is made. Trace fossils may also represent networks created by animals buried rapidly and continuing to make traces until they exhausted their nutrients or were crushed by overburden pressures.
The last sentence again reveals a dependence on the assumptions of conventional geology, which are not applicable in Flood geology.
So instead we are to assume... what exactly? How is an assumption made based on a global flood better than one based on observation? You base yours on a story from a religious text - which is just plain dishonest and not good science.
There is nothing inconsistent with the Flood creating conditions in which the depositional environment changed frequently and rapidly. In fact, a little thought would show that both would be expected.
The lateral extent of the changes has nothing to do with whether a Flood or uniformitarian interpretation is valid. Conditions of localized environments would be predicted by both sets of conditions.
This anwers nothing. WHY is it expected? Can you present anything more than hearsay? Flood geology cannot predict anything, the same as modern geology - it is BASED on the geology, the local conditions, that we see in the field! If it cannot reconcile those conditions, then it has failed.
How does he know the volcanism was terrestrial? New work has indicated that submarine volcanism exhibits the same features as subariel volcanism. Desert conditions? Sounds like a sand deposit, which could also be marine. Geologists have often switched from desert to marine interpretations before for various sand bodies. Rivers? I assume that the rocks show evidence of channeling, a feature that does not need rivers to be produced. And even if there was a transition from terrestrial to marine deposition, many Flood geologists believe that tectonic motions temporarily exposed areas of the continents during the Flood.
Radical changes in depositional environment sounds more like catastrophism than uniformitarianism.
I know that the volcanism was terrestrial because of the condition of the volcanic sediments and the fact that there were terrestrial sediments interbedded with them. What new work is he talking about?
Sand deposit? Sounds like he doesn't know how to tell the difference between subaerial and marine deposits - which is easy even for a non-geologist.
So tectonic motions exposed part of the continents? But how could tectonics work so fast? Where is the evidence that it did? And please don't mention Dr. John Baumgardner and his catastropic plate tectonics - having read his work I find it to be utterly dishonest. Joe Meert knows a bit more than me, having studied it in detail.
Yes, the events that lead to the changing environments were catastrophic, i.e. the closure of the Iapetus suture in Ireland that produced extreme volcanism and uplift.
Structural deformation and tectonics are not the exclusive domain of uniformitarianism. In fact, Flood geology provides a higher level of geologic energy than anything envisioned by uniformitarians, so structural deformation might be expected more readily in a global Flood than in a quiescent modern setting.
False. The difference between slow deformation and fast deformation is easily studied, because we can test the rock itself. In a global flood you might expect a high level of structural deformation - which would leave the appropriate strain markers in the rock. We do not see them here.
I am curious though, as to how a large scale flood would produce a series of synclines and anticlines, as well as normal and reverse thrust faults with various unconformities and disconformities thrown in for good measure - all in only a year.
It is not the field evidence that is against the Flood. It is the a priori assumptions that the Flood never happened and that the rock record is the tale of billions of years of modern processes operating much as they do today. And so, like so many other disagreements between people, this one boils down to a difference in belief systems, not to “science.” As with any area of the rock record, the data deserve far more investigation than this cursory exchange. But until uniformitarians can begin to distinguish between data and interpretation, this type of misplaced confidence will remain with us.
The field evidence IS against the flood. We have no reason to assume that the flood happened except for the fact that there is a story about it in the bible, pure and simple. It is nothing to do with belief - the field evidence does not change, no matter what religion the geologist studying it is a member of.
This is handwaving and nothing more. As well as that, he directs the argument away from the evidence and into a conflict between creationists and 'uniformitarians'! He also neglects the one thing that is most important in science - GETTING ALL THE INFORMATION. I expected someone to ask me for the relevent papers, or even more from my own research - but he has written this 'rebuttal' based on nothing more than a summary written for laymen that's barely half a page long.
Sorry about the length, but I feel this is important.
Ok, there's a lot to get through... I'll do my best.
1. False. Modern geology is still based on the principle of uniformitarianism, i.e. that the environments that we see today occurred in the past as well. How else are we supposed to study ancient environments if not be studying their modern equivalents?
2. Also false. A large flood produces a uniform sediment bed. Anyway, the rapidly changing conditions I saw were from non-terrestrial to terrestrial sediments - i.e. from underwater to desert, and back again. This is not consistant with the flood.
1. Millions of years does not = very very hard. The conditions of deposition can vary widely and produce rock of varying hardness - as any geologist knows.
2. Already been answered. I heard about the Mt St. Helens stuff from creationists, and I was disgusted at their dishonesty.
3. Correct. That is what I saw - very well developed too.
4. This marine environment showed layers of sediment, separated by thin fossil beds dominated by a type called Chondrites - a trace fossil left by burrowing worms. This could only have formed and been preserved in the intervals in between the storm environment bedding - they took a long time to form, and only formed on the TOP of the bed. There were hundreds of these beds, separated by dozens of cross-stratified beds. So, if this is to be consistent with the flood, then each layer had to be laid down individually, then burrowed through without interference, then covered by the next layer, etc. etc. Then they had to be broken up by storm environments.
The fact that the environments change should be enough - the flood was supposed to be a year long single event, not a series of little events.
So instead we are to assume... what exactly? How is an assumption made based on a global flood better than one based on observation? You base yours on a story from a religious text - which is just plain dishonest and not good science.
This anwers nothing. WHY is it expected? Can you present anything more than hearsay? Flood geology cannot predict anything, the same as modern geology - it is BASED on the geology, the local conditions, that we see in the field! If it cannot reconcile those conditions, then it has failed.
I know that the volcanism was terrestrial because of the condition of the volcanic sediments and the fact that there were terrestrial sediments interbedded with them. What new work is he talking about?
Sand deposit? Sounds like he doesn't know how to tell the difference between subaerial and marine deposits - which is easy even for a non-geologist.
So tectonic motions exposed part of the continents? But how could tectonics work so fast? Where is the evidence that it did? And please don't mention Dr. John Baumgardner and his catastropic plate tectonics - having read his work I find it to be utterly dishonest. Joe Meert knows a bit more than me, having studied it in detail.
Yes, the events that lead to the changing environments were catastrophic, i.e. the closure of the Iapetus suture in Ireland that produced extreme volcanism and uplift.
False. The difference between slow deformation and fast deformation is easily studied, because we can test the rock itself. In a global flood you might expect a high level of structural deformation - which would leave the appropriate strain markers in the rock. We do not see them here.
I am curious though, as to how a large scale flood would produce a series of synclines and anticlines, as well as normal and reverse thrust faults with various unconformities and disconformities thrown in for good measure - all in only a year.
The field evidence IS against the flood. We have no reason to assume that the flood happened except for the fact that there is a story about it in the bible, pure and simple. It is nothing to do with belief - the field evidence does not change, no matter what religion the geologist studying it is a member of.
This is handwaving and nothing more. As well as that, he directs the argument away from the evidence and into a conflict between creationists and 'uniformitarians'! He also neglects the one thing that is most important in science - GETTING ALL THE INFORMATION. I expected someone to ask me for the relevent papers, or even more from my own research - but he has written this 'rebuttal' based on nothing more than a summary written for laymen that's barely half a page long.
Sorry about the length, but I feel this is important.
The Rock Hound
OK IRock..I gave you a way to contact Glen who can either get you a dialogue with the geologist on staff and you can report a running dialogue and/or have him debate with you on this cite..for you to think that a non geologist can answer your responses is pretty futile...as you have isues with the geologic model of YEC, I have issues with many of the suppositions of evolution...Maybe your point may not be explainable by the YEC model..but i have yet to get many answers here from evos regarding their theory..and to expect a Geologist to give a detailed response from an anonymous request is intellectually dishonest on your part..I've heard that Dr Vardiman presented
a talk last Dec at UCLA regarding some geological proposals..of which no less than 75 scientists met him and saw issues mostly positive and some negative with the presentations...I can't say I know the man but I can personally attest that I have met and dined with Frank Scherwin a colleague at ICR and
he makes claims about the gaining acceptance of what ICR proposes when they do talks or make presentations...Why don't you call ICR.org and see if you can get them to answer the problems you have with YEC and see if Dr Baumgardner or others on staff will get you answers..claim that you are a geologist and see how another geologist will response in a much more technical way...I have made this request to many evos out there and it always comes back as "you ask them" or "Dr Hovind Says" or "icr is a bunch of quacks"...Just last night I watched a show on the Science Channel called
Creation..in it you have commentaries from leading scientists saying specifically that man must look at the stars not only because of it tells you where man came from and also where man is going...yet the evos here say
evolution has NOTHING to Do with origin of life ..thats abiogenesis..yet you get a scientist like Stephen Hawking who says that man must look to the heavens (astronomically speaking) to know where man has evolved from and where he is going..so who am I to believe? Stephen Hawking's statements or a bunch of evos on this board who say evolution has Nothing to do with the Big Bang..yet you get evos here who claim creationists believe in a flat earth
because some nut has it on his website...the point is Irock is to go to the source if posible and get their answers..don't expect some website to solely give you all the technical answers on your issues..the internet is a great thing but it has limitations..good luck
Steven Hawking is one for grandiose poetic statements. I have a feeling you are taking his statements very much out of context there. If I were to trust anyone with comments on Biology it would be someone like Haldane or Maynard Smith. (personally I would also trust Dawkins to make an educated comment on the relationship between cosmology and evolution, but then he is an out and out atheist and would probably make some cutting remark about the superfluous nature of religion just to round it off)
__________________ MSci MSc ARCS DIC PhD..... yes, I am bragging.
as you have isues with the geologic model of YEC, I have issues with many of the suppositions of evolution...Maybe your point may not be explainable by the YEC model..
JM: The mythical YEC model. No such animal exists! Please point me to the YEC model of geology that answers the following questions:
a. Where can a geologist find, on a global basis, the pre-flood/flood boundary? You will not find a continent-by-continent listing of formational names and type sections for this boundary in the creationist literature.b. Where can a geologist find, on a global basis, strata laid down during the peak of the global flood (i.e. globally correlatable strata all deposited under water)? You will not find a continent-by-continent listing of formational names and type sections for these rocks in the creationist literature. c. Where can a geologist find, on a global basis, the flood/post-flood boundary? You will not find a continent-by-continent listing of formational names and type sections for this boundary in the creationist literature. To be fair, creationists have a little more leeway in defining this boundary since the flood waters receded over a slightly longer time interval, but it still should be possible to provide considerable detail.
but i have yet to get many answers here from evos regarding their theory..and to expect a Geologist to give a detailed response from an anonymous request is intellectually dishonest on your part.
JM: There is no intellectual dishonesty in asking someone to respond. Do you think it's any better to quote from some unknown geologist at AIG??From the looks of things, many geologists have given answers on this board and demonstrated the weakness of YE-creationist geology.
.I've heard that Dr Vardiman presented
a talk last Dec at UCLA regarding some geological proposals.
JM: He's not a geologist either!
...I can't say I know the man but I can personally attest that I have met and dined with Frank Scherwin a colleague at ICR and
he makes claims about the gaining acceptance of what ICR proposes when they do talks or make presentations..
JM: Of course they would make such claims. You don't expect them to tell the brethren that they have nothing, no model and no science do you?
.Why don't you call ICR.org and see if you can get them to answer the problems you have with YEC and see if Dr Baumgardner or others on staff will get you answers..
JM: HOw about somebody from those organizations publishing their work? You see, most geologists don't even know such an ancient myth is still making the rounds. Creationists are hiding their light (if they have one) under a bushel.
claim that you are a geologist and see how another geologist will response in a much more technical way...
JM: They've not published any of their works in scientific journals. When they do it's always old earth. Do you know that Baumgardner's publications are old earth? Do you know that John Woodmorappe's real name is Jan Peczkis and that he has published old earth evolutionary articles in mainstream journals? Do you find it odd that these people claim faith in the YE-model and yet openly criticize it?
Just last night I watched a show on the Science Channel called
Creation..in it you have commentaries from leading scientists saying specifically that man must look at the stars not only because of it tells you where man came from and also where man is going...yet the evos here say
evolution has NOTHING to Do with origin of life ..thats abiogenesis.
JM: THat's correct. Evolution explains what happened to life once it started. Abiogenesis is an interesting and vexing scientific issue, but evolution does not care other than life had to start for evolution to take place.
Stephen Hawking's statements or a bunch of evos on this board who say evolution has Nothing to do with the Big Bang..
JM: Strictly speaking then... creationism has to do with the Big Bang since without the Big Bang we would not be here to discuss the topic. One can make long stretches, but if the Big Bang theory were proven wrong, it would not change the observation that biological evolution happens.
because some nut has it on his website...the point is Irock is to go to the source if posible and get their answers.
JM: In science, the sources are published literature. There is no scientific literature containing a YE-model.
.don't expect some website to solely give you all the technical answers on your issues..the internet is a great thing but it has limitations..good luck
JM: Most of us eschew the internet when it comes to scientific answers. We go to the published sources. YEC'ists do not publish in mainstream journals on the subject of YEC'ism.
OK IRock..I gave you a way to contact Glen who can either get you a dialogue with the geologist on staff and you can report a running dialogue and/or have him debate with you on this cite..for you to think that a non geologist can answer your responses is pretty futile...
Don't think I haven't tried that before. I attempted to contact a geologist through creationresearch.org (as a creationist on another board suggested) with exactly the same question, and was redirected to a site on astronomy and told that they obviously couldn't comment on specific cases.
By the way, why is he trying to answer in the first place if he hasn't got the relevent knowledge?
...as you have isues with the geologic model of YEC, I have issues with many of the suppositions of evolution...Maybe your point may not be explainable by the YEC model..but i have yet to get many answers here from evos regarding their theory...
That is not the case in question. I want a YEC answer to my research, not another debate on evolution. But please, if you have any questions regarding evolution, why not ask them in a thread?
...and to expect a Geologist to give a detailed response from an anonymous request is intellectually dishonest on your part...
Is he a geologist or not? Why didn't he, or you, ask for more information? It's not like it's top secret.
Why don't you call ICR.org and see if you can get them to answer the problems you have with YEC and see if Dr Baumgardner or others on staff will get you answers...claim that you are a geologist and see how another geologist will response in a much more technical way...
Been there, done that. Didn't work.
I have made this request to many evos out there and it always comes back as "you ask them" or "Dr Hovind Says" or "icr is a bunch of quacks"...Just last night I watched a show on the Science Channel called
Creation..in it you have commentaries from leading scientists saying specifically that man must look at the stars not only because of it tells you where man came from and also where man is going...yet the evos here say
evolution has NOTHING to Do with origin of life ..thats abiogenesis..yet you get a scientist like Stephen Hawking who says that man must look to the heavens (astronomically speaking) to know where man has evolved from and where he is going..so who am I to believe? Stephen Hawking's statements or a bunch of evos on this board who say evolution has Nothing to do with the Big Bang..yet you get evos here who claim creationists believe in a flat earth
because some nut has it on his website...
Hmmm... this isn't actually anything to do with the topic.
...the point is Irock is to go to the source if posible and get their answers...don't expect some website to solely give you all the technical answers on your issues...
???
Excuse me?
I'm a qualified geologist. Why should I go looking for answers on the Internet when I can do the field work myself? I wanted a YEC explanation for the field evidence I found - and so far I have nothing solid. I certainly don't expect to find what I'm looking for on a website - I doubt that anyone in ICR has ever heard of Ballyferriter. Or perhaps I'm just misunderstanding you?
Linear Mode
