Looking for Evidence for Atheistic Evolution

[Loudmouth]

The observation was made, that catastrophic events are needed along the way, for deposition of fossils to happen. However I do not see how evolutionist geology can accomodate this.

There is no such thing as evolutionist geology. It is just geology. In the history of science, modern geology preceded the theory of evolution.

Also, geology happily accomodates catastrophic events. What you fail to grasp is that a catastrophic event does not need to be worldwide. Local catastrophic events spread over the billions of years of Earth's history do a fine job of explaining the geologic record. There is no worldwide geologic layer from a catastrophic event that dates to 4,000 years ago.

Evolutionist geology simply means, geology interpreted in the framework of evolution. E.g. old earth, macroevolution, and related theories that belong to the evolutionist framework.

The framework that led to the conclusions of an old Earth and a lack of a recent global flood came from geology, not evolution. Before Darwin published his work, geologists had already concluded that the Earth was ancient and that Noah's flood didn't happen.

Do you know of a university teaching geology in the floodist framework, then I will probably be able to point you to several people like that.

Do you know of a university teaching astronomy in the Geocentrist framework? Why would a university teach an idea that was shown to be wrong 200 years ago?

Well, the thing is, he would only be misleading me if he guided me into a belief that I did not want. I accept his evidence, because this is what I want to believe.

Scientists accept the conclusions that fit the evidence, even if it isn't the conclusion they wanted. That's the difference.

But I have seen quite a number of examples of evolutionists scrapping knowledge that did not fit into their framework. So do not only accuse floodists of doing such a thing.

For one example, to give you some meat here, from my field, scientists disapprove of the theory of one common ancestor:
http://ncse.com/book/export/html/2281
"More recently, researchers are suggesting that that ancestral population of bacteria was not composed of a single species, but of multiple species which swapped genes freely."
While others still continue to believe in the universal common ancestor, the "first living organism". Did you know, that the idea of a single common ancestor has been scrapped? I find that very interesting. P.s. take note of the religious language here. There is even a scientist who is now "molecular evolutionist". Fascinating title hmmm .....

How would that change the age of the Earth or the lack of a recent global flood?

 

[Atheos canadensis]

The observation was made, that catastrophic events are needed along the way, for deposition of fossils to happen. However I do not see how evolutionist geology can accomodate this.

As Loudmouth pointed out, catastrophic is not synonymous with global. Instead it simply refers to something like a river in flood or a a glacial lake suddenly draining or a mudslide etc. i.e. something that is a break from the normal levels of deposition and erosion.

Evolutionist geology simply means, geology interpreted in the framework of evolution. E.g. old earth, macroevolution, and related theories that belong to the evolutionist framework. Likewise I use the term floodist geology to mean, geology interpreted in the framework of flood theory / creation theory.

Well call me a pedant, but I really think you should just be saying mainstream geology. That term is more accurate and meaningful and will avoid these unnecessary tangents where we clarify that an old Earth is not the product of evolutionary theory. You are of course free to keep using the nonsense term "evolutionist geology", but I guarantee you it will continue to be the source of unnecessary debate.

It definitely is something to consider. Someone who believed in the Flood could no longer do so after learning about geology. Your supposition about the opposite situation seems doubtful and speculative at best. There are of course some geologists who are Floodists, but can you point to a single person who became a Floodist only after studying geology?
Do you know of a university teaching geology in the floodist framework, then I will probably be able to point you to several people like that.

A university teaching Flood geology would almost certainly be attended exclusively by people who already believed in the reality of the Flood. Our example was of a Floodist who, upon learning geology, could no longer maintain that belief. I am challenging you to provide an example of the opposite situation, to point to a single example of a person who disbelieved the reality of the Flood but become a Floodist after learning geology in the same way the ex-Floodist did.

Well, the thing is, he would only be misleading me if he guided me into a belief that I did not want. I accept his evidence, because this is what I want to believe. I had the idea however to start a thread on his claims, but I believed that most people in here would be bored and not take part.

That strikes me as a strange attitude. I suppose if your explicit desire is to be convinced the validity of your preconceptions (because that is what I gather from the above quote) then I guess he is not being misleading. If your desire to obtain from him an accurate representation of geology, you are definitely being mislead.

Apparently evidence exists that cannot be easily reconciled to floodist theory (according to your an others opinion).

But I have seen quite a number of examples of evolutionists scrapping knowledge that did not fit into their framework. So do not only accuse floodists of doing such a thing.

For one example, to give you some meat here, from my field, scientists disapprove of the theory of one common ancestor:
http://ncse.com/book/export/html/2281
"More recently, researchers are suggesting that that ancestral population of bacteria was not composed of a single species, but of multiple species which swapped genes freely."
While others still continue to believe in the universal common ancestor, the "first living organism". Did you know, that the idea of a single common ancestor has been scrapped? I find that very interesting. P.s. take note of the religious language here. There is even a scientist who is now "molecular evolutionist". Fascinating title hmmm .....

This example doesn't address what you think it does. Not having read the research in question or been provided with the work of those who dispute its findings, I can only speculate, but I suspect that those who dispute the findings have doubts about the data or its interpretation. This is not ignoring the data, this is being critical of the data. Eventually it will be worked out to a broad consensus. Floodists like Hovind (and posters in this forum) have to ignore vast amounts of lithological and fossil data to support their theories. Even Floodists know the fossil record doesn't look like it is the product of a signle worldwide event. That's why they invoke rescue mechanisms like differential escape or ecological zonation. But these only work as explanations if you ignore the easily found plethora of examples that refute them, a miniscule fraction of which I presented to you here.

 

[Loudmouth]

As to catastrophic events, I like bringing this one up on occasion. This is a polystrate telephone pole caused by a catastrophic event, the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.

In the background, you can also see a polystrate factory. I don't know about anyone else, but I was under the impression that there were no telephone poles in Noah's time. It would seem to me that the types of deposits that creationists point to as evidence for a flood don't require a global flood, that is unless everyone missed the global flood of 1991.

 

[PeterDona]

Just one comment on Loudmouth final post:
This is exactly why I do not understand you evolutionists. There are trees that go through those layers that according to your theory are hundreds of millions of years in between ???? How can you ignore such evidence? To me, that is impossible to understand. The fossil record did not take 100s of millions of years to deposit, that is my understanding.

But for my own emotional stability I should stop now. I feel that the conversation is going wrong. Thanks for the conversation anyway. I enjoyed it along the way. best regards.

 

[Loudmouth]

Just one comment on Loudmouth final post:
This is exactly why I do not understand you evolutionists. There are trees that go through those layers that according to your theory are hundreds of millions of years in between ????

No geologist is saying that there are hundreds of millions of years between those layers where the trees are found. That is a fiction that creationists have invented.

 

[bhsmte]

Just one comment on Loudmouth final post:
This is exactly why I do not understand you evolutionists. There are trees that go through those layers that according to your theory are hundreds of millions of years in between ???? How can you ignore such evidence? To me, that is impossible to understand. The fossil record did not take 100s of millions of years to deposit, that is my understanding.

But for my own emotional stability I should stop now. I feel that the conversation is going wrong. Thanks for the conversation anyway. I enjoyed it along the way. best regards.

Probably a good choice.

 

[justlookinla]

No geologist is saying that there are hundreds of millions of years between those layers where the trees are found. That is a fiction that creationists have invented.

How many years do they claim?

 

[Loudmouth]

How many years do they claim?

Which formation are you enquiring about?

 

[justlookinla]

Which formation are you enquiring about?

Where ever the trees in question are located.

 

[Loudmouth]

Where ever the trees in question are located.

And where is that?

 

[justlookinla]

And where is that?

That's what I asked.

 

[Loudmouth]

That's what I asked.

That's what I asked you.

Part of the lesson is in learning that creationists tell stories. Trying to track down their stories about polystrate trees to any specific formation is hard enough since half of it is made up.

If you are interested in real science and real examples, the buried forests in Yellowstone are a really cool example.

http://www.yellowstonepark.com/2013/10/yellowstones-petrified-forest/

There are nearly 50 forests, on buried on top of another. These were produced by volcanic eruptions burying one forest which provided the soil for the new forest above it. Each forest is buried in ash that takes just a week or so to deposit, not hundreds of millions of years. The 50 or so forests are spread of tens of thousands of years, not hundreds of millions of years.

 

[justlookinla]

That's what I asked you.

Part of the lesson is in learning that creationists tell stories. Trying to track down their stories about polystrate trees to any specific formation is hard enough since half of it is made up.

If you are interested in real science and real examples, the buried forests in Yellowstone are a really cool example.

http://www.yellowstonepark.com/2013/10/yellowstones-petrified-forest/

There are nearly 50 forests, on buried on top of another. These were produced by volcanic eruptions burying one forest which provided the soil for the new forest above it. Each forest is buried in ash that takes just a week or so to deposit, not hundreds of millions of years. The 50 or so forests are spread of tens of thousands of years, not hundreds of millions of years.

Ok, I'll read up on it.

 

[AV1611VET]

You can perform acts with far more improbable odds by using a deck of cards. Calculating the odds after an event and then declaring it impossible due to probability is ridiculous.

Let's see someone shuffle a deck of cards, then predict the order they are in ahead of time.

Like God did.

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

And for the record:

1. You only have 24 hours to shuffle & predict.
2. You have to get the order correct the first time.

 

[PeterDona]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polystrate_fossil
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/trees.html
http://www.icr.org/article/classic-polystrate-fossil/
Seems that polystrate fossils is not a new discovery. However, of course the evidence may be disputed. My questions would be something like
1) Is it, that polystrate fossils are not found in the same sediment layers that are by radio-dating believed to be billions of years? So is it always, that polystrate fossils appear in sediments that can be ascribed to a single catastrophic event?
2) how many places in the world are polystrate fossils found (relative to beds with no polystrates)
3) how about the polystrate fossil in link 3 ICR. Can you track that one?

best regards Peter

 

[RocksInMyHead]

1) Is it, that polystrate fossils are not found in the same sediment layers that are by radio-dating believed to be billions of years? So is it always, that polystrate fossils appear in sediments that can be ascribed to a single catastrophic event?

They are not always attributable to a single event, but every example I've seen has either been from a single event or in an environment where we would expect to see rapid (feet per decade) deposition rates - deltas, marshes, etc. They have never been found spanning layers that date billions (or millions, or hundreds of thousands) of years apart.

2) how many places in the world are polystrate fossils found (relative to beds with no polystrates)

They are very uncommon. I don't know the number off the top of my head, but they are found in only a few locations worldwide.

3) how about the polystrate fossil in link 3 ICR. Can you track that one?

There's really not much information in that link, so it's pretty hard to do so. Judging by the pictures though, the article is being rather misleading when it talks about the shale and peat layers being indicative of deep sea deposition. While it appears that there are some very thin shale/peat layers, the formation looks to be dominated by fairly thick (1-2 ft) packages of sandstone or mudstone and I even see something that looks like cross-bedding (which you would not expect to see in deep sea deposits) in the center right of the banner image. Thin layers of shale and peat can easily form in a delta environment though, which is consistent with thick sandstone/mudstone packages that exhibit cross-bedding and is somewhere that we would expect to see very rapid deposition.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Of course it would be rare. How many things when they die usually stay upright? And standard explanations don't foot the bill. If a tree died without being covered quickly it would not undergo the fossilization process. They are found only in what were once marshes after a cataclysmic event. But to prove me wrong simply go to Florida and show me trees that are dead beginning the fossilization process while they are not buried.

Or in a lab you can cover two feet of the trunk every 10 years or so and show me how it begins to fossilize. I predict it will rot and not fossilize at all.

 

[Mr Strawberry]

How many things when they die usually stay upright?

I know it's off-topic but my immediate thought when I read that was of Branwell Bronte. He was the brother of the Bronte sisters and lived something of a checkered life. From wikipedia:

Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte reports an eye-witness account that Branwell Brontë, wanting to show the power of the human will, decided to die standing up, "and when the last agony began, he insisted on assuming the position just mentioned."

Always makes me chuckle when I read it.

OK, carry on.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Of course it would be rare. How many things when they die usually stay upright? And standard explanations don't foot the bill. If a tree died without being covered quickly it would not undergo the fossilization process. They are found only in what were once marshes after a cataclysmic event. But to prove me wrong simply go to Florida and show me trees that are dead beginning the fossilization process while they are not buried.

Why are you assuming that the tree was dead before it began to be buried? The best modern analogue to something like this would be a mangrove swamp. The trees were steadily buried while still alive, then died, probably lost their tops, and were buried. Then fossilization began.

I predict it will rot and not fossilize at all.

Not in an anaerobic/anoxic environment.

For those of you curious about polystrate fossils, I would strongly suggest reading this thread HERE (click the link), especially starting on page 11. It's a few years old, but we discussed pretty much the same points that are being raised here, as well as some of the same articles.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Let's see someone shuffle a deck of cards, then predict the order they are in ahead of time.

Like God did.

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

What is being predicted here? And when was this prediction recorded?