Do Creationists Believe in Talking Snakes?

[Ponderous Curmudgeon]

As I already stated, I'm not a geologist.
If you want to argue with AIG about it here are some quotes:

• They have no experimental or observational evidence that the layers formed one at a time over millions of years.

We have varves being formed today and the pattern is consistent throughout history. Unless you want to argue that the sun rising in the east is not a reasonable assumption in the past, then arguing that things were different in the past is rather lame.

• The very smoothness of the varves speaks against their having been laid down annually—they show that there was no time for the slightest erosion or biological perturbation before the next varve was laid down.

• Uh, varves are layers that are laid down underwater in nonturbid environments. if there was erosion on a regular basis they would not be varves. That environment allows for undisturbed annual layers in the past as in the present.

• [*]There are fossils penetrating many layers. This means that many varves must have formed before the organism had a chance to rot. Operational science shows that fish break down in days even when protected from oxygen and scavengers. And alkali would hardly preserve them; rather, they help break down organic polymers—why else are alkalis used in dishwasher powders?

  One of the side effects of deep still waters where varves form is that the oxygen becomes depleted again today as in the past. In oxygen depleted waters aerobic bacteria that are responsible for the decay of organisms (rotting) does not occur at any normal pace (ever hear of vacuum packed for freshness?) This slowing of decay allows for multiple layers to form above the organisms so that some are eventually preserved.
  
• Another common example of anaerobic preservation you may have heard of is newspapers and even hot dogs preserved in landfills. Here is a piece of newspaper circa 1935 buried in an anoxic environment.
  

“Green River Blues” Raises Red Flag . . .

I suspect circular reasoning on your part...

I suspect wishful thinking on your part. I'm sorry, but AIG is not a good source for information if you wish to argue a point rationally.

 

[Job 33:6]

We have varves being formed today and the pattern is consistent throughout history. Unless you want to argue that the sun rising in the east is not a reasonable assumption in the past, then arguing that things were different in the past is rather lame.

• Uh, varves are layers that are laid down underwater in nonturbid environments. if there was erosion on a regular basis they would not be varves. That environment allows for undisturbed annual layers in the past as in the present.
• One of the side effects of deep still waters where varves form is that the oxygen becomes depleted again today as in the past. In oxygen depleted waters aerobic bacteria that are responsible for the decay of organisms (rotting) does not occur at any normal pace (ever hear of vacuum packed for freshness?) This slowing of decay allows for multiple layers to form above the organisms so that some are eventually preserved.
  
• Another common example of anaerobic preservation you may have heard of is newspapers and even hot dogs preserved in landfills. Here is a piece of newspaper circa 1935 buried in an anoxic environment.
  

I suspect wishful thinking on your part. I'm sorry, but AIG is not a good source for information if you wish to argue a point rationally.

 

[renniks]

Unless you want to argue that the sun rising in the east is not a reasonable assumption in the past, then arguing that things were different in the past is rather lame.

That's an odd statement. We aren't talking about the sun coming up in a different place. Change in the environment happens constantly. If you want to argue that things were the same millions of years ago, seems to me you are being totally unrealistic.

 

[Job 33:6]

That's an odd statement. We aren't talking about the sun coming up in a different place. Change in the environment happens constantly. If you want to argue that things were the same millions of years ago, seems to me you are being totally unrealistic.

Why do you find it reasonable that 5 million varves might form during a flood when this formation isn't sorted by density? For example we have less dense layers above and below more dense layers. But no flood would ever produce something like this.

And not only that, but a flood certainly wouldn't produce 5 million of them. If a flood lasted for A year, that would equate to something like 13, 000 repeating varves per day.

And then to make matters even worse, we have things like bird tracks and bird feeding traces between layers, suggesting that time passed and animals grazed between these layers.

How is it that you come to the logical conclusion that these layers were all laid down in the middle of a flood, when you have things like animal tracks going through them?

And remember, it's not that these tracks are on the bottom and they were simply buried, but rather they are found upward and vertically throughout the sequence, meaning that as these layers were being deposited, animals were walking intermittently with the simultaneous deposition.

You don't have to be a geologist to see that this doesn't make any sense.

If we are in a situation where thousands of layers are being deposited every day, and literally mountains are being pushed up into the atmosphere due to this crazy worldwide flood, then how do you propose that birds might be casually walking around and grazing right in the middle of it?

 

[Job 33:6]

As I already stated, I'm not a geologist.
I suspect circular reasoning on your part...

It seems to me that you're willing to suggest that I'm wrong about these things. And yet, you yourself can't actually say why I'm wrong.

Part of being a scientist involves having an independent mind. Your gut feeling seems to suggest that I'm wrong, but your mind isn't actually presenting any information to back that up.

And that is a flaw in any person's ability to discern truth. If their emotions drive their ideas without the evidence.

Evidence shows us that we have these bird trackways and feeding traces in the rock record. And not just with birds but with other animals as well, and there are other things like complex burrow networks and nests with eggs and resting traces and all sorts of fossils and trace marks that suggest that life had time to do things like casually walk around and dig and rest and feed and make nests and lay eggs etc.

Life had time to do things in between all of the layers throughout the post Cambrian strata.

Before I think I saw you mentioned that things had to be buried rapidly in order to preserve things like dinosaur nests for example.

But they're actually many ways that things can be rapidly buried aside from global floods. For example things can sink into swamps, things can sink into tar pits, things can be buried by avalanches and mudslides. Things can be buried by smaller storm deposits and smaller floods. Things can also be preserved in anoxic environments where there is no sunlight or aerobic bacterial decay, such as in the bottom of a lake or in some anoxic marine environments.

There are actually many potential ways that things can be preserved and rapidly buried without suggesting the need for a global flood.

Alternatively, if we believe that all of these layers were deposited by a global flood, somehow we have to figure out how life lived and made nests and dug burrows and grazed, and for practically purposes appeared to casually live normal lives, vertically through the geologic column and between layers of every post Cambrian period, that was allegedly instantaneously deposited.

And we don't have to be geologists to see that this young Earth position doesn't make any sense. And this isn't including all of the other issues with metamorphic feces and all the issues with physics and structural geology. Yes scientifically the young Earth view doesn't make any sense, but it also doesn't make any sense from a layman casual point of view either.

So how did these animals walk and feed and graze and dig burrows, on top of and below hundreds of layers deposited during a catastrophic flood, all over the world, in ever country, in every period of geologic strata, vertically up through the rock record?

There is no possible explanation, because that's not how the rock record was formed.

 

[renniks]

I suspect wishful thinking on your part. I'm sorry, but AIG is not a good source for information if you wish to argue a point rationally.

So here's what I hear: " Don't trust those guys, trust me- random person on the internet who likes to argue with creationists!. Quite possibly a 15-year-old living in mommy's basement for all I know...

 

[renniks]

So how did these animals walk and feed and graze and dig burrows, on top of and below hundreds of layers deposited during a catastrophic flood, all over the world, in ever country, in every period of geologic strata, vertically up through the rock record?

That question doesn't even make sense. As already stated they had to be caught in some catastrophe so the same question applies either way.

 

[renniks]

There is no possible explanation, because that's not how the rock record was formed

And BTW, creationists don't claim that all fossils were formed during the flood.

 

[Job 33:6]

That question doesn't even make sense. As already stated they had to be caught in some catastrophe so the same question applies either way.

How does this question not make sense?

Let's break it down.

So on earth we have our succession of layers.

And in between these layers, we have things like trackways, feeding traces and complex burrow networks.

This suggests that between deposition of these layers, life walked, grazed and burrowed.


Now, what you are suggesting is that these layers of earth, were not the product of long and gradual processes, such as erosion of a mountain top depositing over environments below, but rather, in your view, there was a catastrophic flood that deposited thousands of feet of sediment, not over millions of years, but rather perhaps in a century or decade or less.

So the question is, how did these animals walk and graze and burrow, literally in the middle, spatially and temporally, horizontally and vertically in the middle, of a flood that was so epic that it pushed mountains into the atmosphere?

If we look at the green river formation for example, we have 5 million varves. That's 13,000 varves per day for 365 straight days, if we assume this flood lasted a year.

How would any animal live and walk in between layers if the layers were accumulating at 13,000 couplets (one dense and another less dense layer) per day? Did these birds travel at the speed of light?

Even if we assumed that this body of varves formed over 10 years, that's still 1,300 couplets per day.

Even if it took 100 years, that's still 130 couplets per day.

Even if it took 1,000 years, that's 13 couplets per day, or 26 individual layers, or about 1 per hour. For 1,000 straight years.

What animals would live and graze and casually roam around in such an environment?

Only when we consider the idea that perhaps it took tens to hundreds of thousands of years, do we begin to visualize an environment in which life can actually live in accordance with how their tracks and feeding traces and burrows, suggest that they did live.

And even with all this aside, this is just 1 formation making up a tiny sliver of an overall much more expansive rock succession. Were talking about maybe 1% of the post Cambrian geologic succession or 1% of the total amount of time that passed from the Cambrian deposition to today.

And somehow young earthers think their ideas can account for all 100%?

If this were a game of baseball, young earthers would be hitting little league home runs, thinking that theyre on the level of the MLB. Their ideas aren't just a little bit shy of making it, but rather, they're orders of magnitude shy of a valid explanation.

 

[Job 33:6]

How does this question not make sense?

Let's break it down.

So on earth we have our succession of layers.

And in between these layers, we have things like trackways, feeding traces and complex burrow networks.

This suggests that between deposition of these layers, life walked, grazed and burrowed.


Now, what you are suggesting is that these layers of earth, were not the product of long and gradual processes, such as erosion of a mountain top depositing over environments below, but rather, in your view, there was a catastrophic flood that deposited thousands of feet of sediment, not over millions of years, but rather perhaps in a century or decade or less.

So the question is, how did these animals walk and graze and burrow, literally in the middle, spatially and temporally, horizontally and vertically in the middle, of a flood that was so epic that it pushed mountains into the atmosphere?

If we look at the green river formation for example, we have 5 million varves. That's 13,000 varves per day for 365 straight days, if we assume this flood lasted a year.

How would any animal live and walk in between layers if the layers were accumulating at 13,000 couplets (one dense and another less dense layer) per day? Did these birds travel at the speed of light?

Even if we assumed that this body of varves formed over 10 years, that's still 1,300 couplets per day.

Even if it took 100 years, that's still 130 couplets per day.

Even if it took 1,000 years, that's 13 couplets per day, or 26 individual layers, or about 1 per hour. For 1,000 straight years.

What animals would live and graze and casually roam around in such an environment?

Only when we consider the idea that perhaps it took tens to hundreds of thousands of years, do we begin to visualize an environment in which life can actually live in accordance with how their tracks and feeding traces and burrows, suggest that they did live.

And even with all this aside, this is just 1 formation making up a tiny sliver of an overall much more expansive rock succession. Were talking about maybe 1% of the post Cambrian geologic succession or 1% of the total amount of time that passed from the Cambrian deposition to today.

And somehow young earthers think their ideas can account for all 100%?

If this were a game of baseball, young earthers would be hitting little league home runs, thinking that theyre on the level of the MLB. Their ideas aren't just a little bit shy of making it, but rather, they're orders of magnitude shy of a valid explanation.

For reference, the light brown or tan layer at the top right is the green river formation.

 

[renniks]

How does this question not make sense?

Let's break it down.

So on earth we have our succession of layers.

And in between these layers, we have things like trackways, feeding traces and complex burrow networks.

This suggests that between deposition of these layers, life walked, grazed and burrowed.


Now, what you are suggesting is that these layers of earth, were not the product of long and gradual processes, such as erosion of a mountain top depositing over environments below, but rather, in your view, there was a catastrophic flood that deposited thousands of feet of sediment, not over millions of years, but rather perhaps in a century or decade or less.

So the question is, how did these animals walk and graze and burrow, literally in the middle, spatially and temporally, horizontally and vertically in the middle, of a flood that was so epic that it pushed mountains into the atmosphere?

If we look at the green river formation for example, we have 5 million varves. That's 13,000 varves per day for 365 straight days, if we assume this flood lasted a year.

How would any animal live and walk in between layers if the layers were accumulating at 13,000 couplets (one dense and another less dense layer) per day? Did these birds travel at the speed of light?

Even if we assumed that this body of varves formed over 10 years, that's still 1,300 couplets per day.

Even if it took 100 years, that's still 130 couplets per day.

Even if it took 1,000 years, that's 13 couplets per day, or 26 individual layers, or about 1 per hour. For 1,000 straight years.

What animals would live and graze and casually roam around in such an environment?

Only when we consider the idea that perhaps it took tens to hundreds of thousands of years, do we begin to visualize an environment in which life can actually live in accordance with how their tracks and feeding traces and burrows, suggest that they did live.

And even with all this aside, this is just 1 formation making up a tiny sliver of an overall much more expansive rock succession. Were talking about maybe 1% of the post Cambrian geologic succession or 1% of the total amount of time that passed from the Cambrian deposition to today.

And somehow young earthers think their ideas can account for all 100%?

If this were a game of baseball, young earthers would be hitting little league home runs, thinking that theyre on the level of the MLB. Their ideas aren't just a little bit shy of making it, but rather, they're orders of magnitude shy of a valid explanation.

So, "today the typical way this is explained is that sand, silt, and clay settled to the bottom of a placid lake or sea, and accumulated over eons of time.
Sedimentologist Guy Berthault’s flume experiments demonstrated that layered sediments deposit rapidly in the manner of a horizontally advancing deposition in the direction of current flow. This is known as progradation. Sideways deposition of strata was first proposed by German geologist Johannes Walther (1860–1937). In the context of a global Flood, strata will form in wide currents of sediment-laden water when a ‘basin’ or lowered area is created. Enormous quantities of loose sediment particles are carried along by the water currents and fall down the advancing ‘face’, or front, of the layer of sediment. This is how the layer grows horizontally. Depositing sideways, the layers are laid down like a layer of cream or icing spread sideways on a cake.
In the year-long global Flood, the world’s deepest and largest sedimentary formations were deposited in just a few months, at mind-boggling speed. Indeed, Berthault’s experiments demonstrate that three layers can form together at the same time. As the layers form, further back (‘upstream’ of the current) another three can simultaneously begin to form horizontally on top of them. Still further back, another three layers can form simultaneously on top of those. Underwater, the growing formation of layers would look something like an extremely wide set of stairs of gentle gradient, advancing in the direction of the current.

The process can repeat until a great depth of sedimentary layers is built up. One likely cause of deposition is a gradual subsidence in areas of the earth’s crust due to tectonic movement. The advancing ‘fronts’ of these layers of sediment may have been hundreds of kilometres across"

I'm not a geologist. But I'm going to guess anything above the flood layers would be laid down quickly by other catastrophes, and that the layers certainly would not be uniform across the planet.

 

[Job 33:6]

So, "today the typical way this is explained is that sand, silt, and clay settled to the bottom of a placid lake or sea, and accumulated over eons of time.
Sedimentologist Guy Berthault’s flume experiments demonstrated that layered sediments deposit rapidly in the manner of a horizontally advancing deposition in the direction of current flow. This is known as progradation. Sideways deposition of strata was first proposed by German geologist Johannes Walther (1860–1937). In the context of a global Flood, strata will form in wide currents of sediment-laden water when a ‘basin’ or lowered area is created. Enormous quantities of loose sediment particles are carried along by the water currents and fall down the advancing ‘face’, or front, of the layer of sediment. This is how the layer grows horizontally. Depositing sideways, the layers are laid down like a layer of cream or icing spread sideways on a cake.
In the year-long global Flood, the world’s deepest and largest sedimentary formations were deposited in just a few months, at mind-boggling speed. Indeed, Berthault’s experiments demonstrate that three layers can form together at the same time. As the layers form, further back (‘upstream’ of the current) another three can simultaneously begin to form horizontally on top of them. Still further back, another three layers can form simultaneously on top of those. Underwater, the growing formation of layers would look something like an extremely wide set of stairs of gentle gradient, advancing in the direction of the current.

The process can repeat until a great depth of sedimentary layers is built up. One likely cause of deposition is a gradual subsidence in areas of the earth’s crust due to tectonic movement. The advancing ‘fronts’ of these layers of sediment may have been hundreds of kilometres across"

I'm not a geologist. But I'm going to guess anything above the flood layers would be laid down quickly by other catastrophes, and that the layers certainly would not be uniform across the planet.

Yes, this is what is repeated by young earthers, but surely you can see that my question isn't actually answered in any of the words above. There is nothing in the above that even begins to discuss the trace fossils and their nature within these layers.

The truth is that the public figures behind the young Earth movement don't have answers for these issues. They just sell their books and hide behind closed doors and vague emails.

But at least the above offers clarity of a time scale. The above statement suggests that this succession would have formed with in one year, or 365 days.

This means that if you actually believe in what is being said above, then you hypothetically would believe that on average, roughly 13,000 varves would have been deposited per day for 365 straight days during this alleged flood. And each varve is 2 layers, one dense layer, one light layer, so that's 26,000 individual layers per day, or about 1,000 individual layers per hour. And that somehow birds had time to casually roam around in between deposition of these layers?

That's 9.5 couplets, or 19 individual layers deposited per minute.

And somehow animals were living in this. Burrowing, constructing nests with eggs. In the green river we have these wandering bird tracks. You have these animal feeding traces. So while 19 layers are being deposited per minute (layers being perhaps 1-2 centimeters in thickness), somehow these animals are just casually walking around and grazing right in the middle of it?

Young earthers try to make this counter argument by suggesting that perhaps multiple varves could form in a single year (therefore millions could form in a single year). But this is all just a deceptive show for their followers. When we actually consider the implications of this counter argument, we realize that it really doesn't make any sense. Because if we logically begin to actually imagine what the world would be like if tens of thousands of layers were deposited every hour, we get into a really "dubious" position where animals are maybe moving at light speed.

And this is just in the very top most thin section of rock, and doesn't include the other 99% of the geologic column.

In this case is being made without even getting into any technical geology, chemistry or physics, it's just simple observation.

We don't even need to use physics or chemistry to point out how blatantly flawed the young earth view is. It's right there before our eyes.

 

[Job 33:6]

Yes, this is what is repeated by young earthers, but surely you can see that my question isn't actually answered in any of the words above. There is nothing in the above that even begins to discuss the trace fossils and their nature within these layers.

The truth is that the figures behind the young Earth movement don't have answers for these issues.

But at least the above offers clarity of a time scale. The above statement suggests that this succession would have formed with in one year, or 365 days.

This means that if you actually believe in what is being said above, then you hypothetically would believe that on average, roughly 13,000 varves would have been deposited per day for 365 straight days during this alleged flood. And that somehow birds had time to casually roam around in between deposition of these layers.

That's 9.5 couplets, or 19 individual layers deposited per minute.

And somehow animals were living in this? Burrowing, constructing nests with eggs. In the green river we have these wandering bird tracks. You have these animal feeding traces. So while 19 layers are being deposited per minute, somehow these animals are just casually walking around and grazing right in the middle of it?

Young earthers try to make this this counter argument by suggesting that perhaps multiple varves could form in a single year. But this is all just a deceptive show for their followers. When we actually consider the implications of this counter argument, we realize that it really doesn't make any sense.

And this is just in the very top most thin section of rock, and doesn't include the other 99% of the geologic column.

In this case is being made without even getting into any technical geology, chemistry or physics, it's just simple observation.

We don't even need to use physics or chemistry to point out how blatantly flawed the young earth view is. It's right there before our eyes.

This reminds me of the case of the graptolite comet:

It's similar in nature to the topic above because it involves observation of fossils that depict this passage of time in between layers.

With the video above, here we have this delicate and fragile shell resting in a shallow marine environment where floating plants casually drift across and get caught on it.

The graptolite being caught along the orthocone indicates that the shell rested in a vertical position against a current for a period of time. And yet the delicate nature of these species suggest that this current could not have been particularly strong at all but rather would have been a casual stream flow or casual current.

The squid species of the orthocone, the cephalopod had to die, its shell had to sink and get stuck in the sediment below, the water would have been relatively shallow (pressure of deeper waters would also have destroyed these orthocones), then the graptolite, moving with this light current, not strong enough to break this delicate shell, would then get stuck on the orthocone prior to burial.

Now if we have a young earth view, we get issues of if this alleged flood has the force to lift mountains into the atmosphere, And yet somehow it doesn't have the force to break this delicate sea shell, as this delicate shell sits vertically against the current for a period of time long enough for the arrival and entanglement of the graptolite.

And then we consider this idea that young earthers might think that this flood was so powerful that it can lift mountains into the atmosphere, but there are some things that we see in the fossil record that clearly demonstrate a different story.

How chaotic could it have truly been, if animals were roaming, grazing, wandering about, burrowing networks of tunnels, building nests etc. right in the middle of it?

And also considered that we can determine the rate that animals are moving based on the spacing of their foot tracks. Birds of course fly when they're in a hurry so if we see their foot track fossils, we can safely conclude that they are casually walking around. And if we see their feeding trace fossils, then we can safely conclude that they are casually grazing. These animals aren't fleeing for their lives. They're just comfortably living right in the middle of what young earthers suggest was, for lack of better terms, the omega of doomsdays.

 

[Dale]

These concepts cannot be debunked beyond mere conjecture.

The fundamentals are quite simple.

Imagine you are in a room with a chair. And you go to sit down. You sit in the chair and all is well.

But imagine you go to sit in a chair, and the chair is not present. You fall to the ground.

Now consider the earth's layers. Much like a cake, and much like a chair, the lower layers must be present in time prior to the upper layers, just as a chair must be present in time, before you sit on it. Else you would fall to the ground.

This is what we call the scientific law of superposition.

It really is somewhat of an axiom. It is utterly true, and it logically conforms with everything we know about physical reality.

Once we understand the temporal order of layers, oldest on the bottom and youngest on the top, we can observe the order of fossils in these rocks. Fossils in deeper rocks pre-existed fossils in shallower rocks.

Paleozoic rock consists or primitive species. Ediacaran biota, trilobites, sponges, corals, early cephalopods, gastropods, arthropods etc. Fish appear early on after annelids. Tetrapodomorps after fish, amphibians, frogamander, turtles with half shells. Eventually reptiles appear by the carboniferous. By the mesozoic you get dinosaurs, reptile/mammal hybrids and reptile/bird hybrids. And by the cenozoic you get diversification of mega fauna and cetaceans.

The key point of all of this however is the summation of phylogenetic trees amongst independent fields of study. Which is to say that phylogenetic trees of paleontology construction by observation of this order, is an identical match to phylogenetic trees construction with use of cladistics in other fields of study, such as in protein studies or genome related studies.

Which is to say that, literally, based on the genetic relatedness of modern day species, and protein studies, studies of cytochrome C or studies of anatomy of modern day living species, we can predict not only where, but when and how deep bones will be in the earth.

Indeed, in studies by Sarich and Wilson on proteins in primates, biologists actually predicted where fossils would be found with a higher precision than even paleontologists themselves, such is the case with the discovery of sahelanthropus.

Deniers of evolution will never have a response to this. Denial is their only option. But unfortunately for them, the truth is grounded so fundamentally and intimately with the real world, that they may as well be denying the fact that a chair must be present before they can sit.

To help explain in very simple terms, a fish is more genetically similar to an amphibian than it is to reptiles, and fish fossils are found closer to amphibians than to reptiles in the rock record and deep in the earth.

Mammals are genetically more similar to reptiles than to amphibians and are more genetically similar to amphibians than to fish.

And mammal fossils are closer to reptiles than amphibians and closer to amphibians than fish deep in the earth in the rock record.

And this is a broad explanation, but it actually is true, even at exceptionally high precision. For example, a cetacean like pakicetus is found closer in the rock record to whales than it is to fish, and ungulates of today are more genetically similar to whales than to fish. And yet whales clearly look more like fish than they do to elephants. Evolution easily explains this.

Think that this all ends with animals? Think again. Flowering plants are genetically more similar to seeding plants than they are to non vascular plants. Can you guess what plant fossils are closer to eachother in the rock record? That's right, seeded and flowering plants are closer to one another than either is to non vascular plants.

All of the above more specifically has to do with initial appearance of fossils. Which is very important to understand.

Anyway,

Our genetics are a 1 to 1 match with the depths of fossils deep in the earth.

And the only possible conclusion for this, is evolution. Well, or denial.

It takes faith to believe in pretty pictures. That is all that is. A picture. It is not proof of any actual observance. You did not live millions of years to observe this happening. So you have faith in what Darwin believed. Darwin did not believe in God when he came up with Evolution. So this is a theory invented to replace God and it was not so much a theory that is based on any actual observance of Science. Just guessing. That is all that is going on here.

BH: “So you have faith in what Darwin believed.”

What Darwin believed has nothing to do with it. No one believes that Charles Darwin was a prophet. Darwin arrived at natural selection by following the facts. Today, scientists are still following the facts.

 

[Dale]

That doesn't reflect reality.
So when these fossilized animals (and plants) are found in the earth’s rock sequences in a particular order of first appearance, such as animals without backbones (invertebrates) in lower layers followed progressively upward by fish, then amphibians, reptiles, birds, and finally mammals (e.g., in the Colorado Plateau region of the United States), it is concluded, and thus almost universally taught, that this must have been the order in which these animals evolved during those vast eons of time.

The vast eons of time are unproven and unproveable, being based on assumptions about how quickly sedimentary rock layers were deposited in the unobserved past. Instead, there is overwhelming evidence that most of the sedimentary rock layers were deposited rapidly.
Put a bone in a field and it degrades very quickly... You need rapid deposits to preserve fossils.

Renniks: “Instead, there is overwhelming evidence that most of the sedimentary rock layers were deposited rapidly.
Put a bone in a field and it degrades very quickly... You need rapid deposits to preserve fossils.”



Where did you get that idea? Just look at limestone. Limestone consists of immense numbers of microorganisms along with other fossils. It is simply impossible for that many organisms to have lived at one time. Only millions of generations of these organisms could do it.

The following source tells us that that the Solnhofen Limestone includes unusual fossils that were preserved because the limestone was formed in “stagnant marine basins.” They weren’t preserved in a violent, world-destroying Flood.

The Encyclopedia Britannica on the Solnhofen Limestone, which is found in Germany:

<< More than 750 plant and animal species have been described from the Solnhofen Limestone. The most common fossils are crinoids, ammonites, fishes, and crustaceans. The most famous fossil from Solnhofen is Archaeopteryx, an ancient bird that left impressions of its feathers preserved in the rock. It is the oldest bird fossil to have been found by paleontologists.
The Solnhofen is well known for the exceptional preservation of soft-bodied organisms such as jellyfish, squid, and insects that are not usually incorporated into the fossil record. The burial of such organisms in the fine-grained sediments of stagnant marine basins allowed even the impressions of internal organs to be preserved. >>
--Encyclopedia Britannica, 2009

 

[coffee4u]

These concepts cannot be debunked beyond mere conjecture.

The fundamentals are quite simple.

Imagine you are in a room with a chair. And you go to sit down. You sit in the chair and all is well.

But imagine you go to sit in a chair, and the chair is not present. You fall to the ground.

Now consider the earth's layers. Much like a cake, and much like a chair, the lower layers must be present in time prior to the upper layers, just as a chair must be present in time, before you sit on it. Else you would fall to the ground.

This is what we call the scientific law of superposition.

It really is somewhat of an axiom. It is utterly true, and it logically conforms with everything we know about physical reality.

Once we understand the temporal order of layers, oldest on the bottom and youngest on the top, we can observe the order of fossils in these rocks. Fossils in deeper rocks pre-existed fossils in shallower rocks.

Paleozoic rock consists or primitive species. Ediacaran biota, trilobites, sponges, corals, early cephalopods, gastropods, arthropods etc. Fish appear early on after annelids. Tetrapodomorps after fish, amphibians, frogamander, turtles with half shells. Eventually reptiles appear by the carboniferous. By the mesozoic you get dinosaurs, reptile/mammal hybrids and reptile/bird hybrids. And by the cenozoic you get diversification of mega fauna and cetaceans.

The key point of all of this however is the summation of phylogenetic trees amongst independent fields of study. Which is to say that phylogenetic trees of paleontology construction by observation of this order, is an identical match to phylogenetic trees construction with use of cladistics in other fields of study, such as in protein studies or genome related studies.

Which is to say that, literally, based on the genetic relatedness of modern day species, and protein studies, studies of cytochrome C or studies of anatomy of modern day living species, we can predict not only where, but when and how deep bones will be in the earth.

Indeed, in studies by Sarich and Wilson on proteins in primates, biologists actually predicted where fossils would be found with a higher precision than even paleontologists themselves, such is the case with the discovery of sahelanthropus.

Deniers of evolution will never have a response to this. Denial is their only option. But unfortunately for them, the truth is grounded so fundamentally and intimately with the real world, that they may as well be denying the fact that a chair must be present before they can sit.

To help explain in very simple terms, a fish is more genetically similar to an amphibian than it is to reptiles, and fish fossils are found closer to amphibians than to reptiles in the rock record and deep in the earth.

Mammals are genetically more similar to reptiles than to amphibians and are more genetically similar to amphibians than to fish.

And mammal fossils are closer to reptiles than amphibians and closer to amphibians than fish deep in the earth in the rock record.

And this is a broad explanation, but it actually is true, even at exceptionally high precision. For example, a cetacean like pakicetus is found closer in the rock record to whales than it is to fish, and ungulates of today are more genetically similar to whales than to fish. And yet whales clearly look more like fish than they do to elephants. Evolution easily explains this.

Think that this all ends with animals? Think again. Flowering plants are genetically more similar to seeding plants than they are to non vascular plants. Can you guess what plant fossils are closer to eachother in the rock record? That's right, seeded and flowering plants are closer to one another than either is to non vascular plants.

All of the above more specifically has to do with initial appearance of fossils. Which is very important to understand.

Anyway,

Our genetics are a 1 to 1 match with the depths of fossils deep in the earth.

And the only possible conclusion for this, is evolution. Well, or denial.

Why do you continually keep posting a video with FRAUDULENT drawings.

 

[honey badger]

Do Creationists Believe in Talking Snakes?

yes and donkeys too

 

[Dale]

Do Creationists Believe in Talking Snakes?

yes and donkeys too

At least you admit that the snake was an animal. Many of the posters on this thread don't seem to think that the serpent was a creature, although Genesis makes this perfectly clear.

If there were talking snakes a few thousand years ago, why is there no sign of them today? We have no talking snakes around today, and we haven't found an extinct snake with a brain large enough for it to talk. Even if it had vocal cords.

It is obvious to me that the Eden story is a parable.

 

[Dale]

Why do you continually keep posting a video with FRAUDULENT drawings.

Coffee, do you doubt that the earth's crust has layers?

 

[coffee4u]

Coffee, do you doubt that the earth's crust has layers?

I am talking about the FRAUDULENT Drawings of embryos!Those drawing were debunked YEARS ago.