Amazing Testimony of a former leading Creation Scientist

[SIXDAYCREATIONIST]

the lies were listed, for u to not admit it is just being a weasel and getting out of it. you made two false claims - both of which are at fault. michael denton was an agnostic NOT a creationist, and even your fellow evolutionists in the forum had pointed that out in the thread - which again, your deceit is why it was removed.

you and i both saw the thread, the others didn't. i saw your deceit and hence it was removed for the lies it contained.

 

[grmorton]

the lies were listed, for u to not admit it is just being a weasel and getting out of it. you made two false claims - both of which are at fault. michael denton was an agnostic NOT a creationist, and even your fellow evolutionists in the forum had pointed that out in the thread - which again, your deceit is why it was removed.

If you are referring to me, I pointed out exactly the opposite. Denton was a creationist

 

[Dust and Ashes]

I agree that Adam must be historical. I handle it in a way that nobody likes, but hey, that is the way life is sometimes. My suggestion can be seen at (and here again, I am too new to give you a link

home.entouch.net/dmd/synop.htm

Fascinating reading! I wasn't able to finish but I plan to read the whole thing after getting some sleep. Peace.

Forgive me.

 

[United]

I agree that Adam must be historical. I handle it in a way that nobody likes, but hey, that is the way life is sometimes. My suggestion can be seen at (and here again, I am too new to give you a link

home.entouch.net/dmd/synop.htm

Hi Glenn,

Thanks for your comments and the link. I need some time to digest it, but you make some very interesting points which deserve to be thought through.

 

[Vance]

the lies were listed, for u to not admit it is just being a weasel and getting out of it. you made two false claims - both of which are at fault. michael denton was an agnostic NOT a creationist, and even your fellow evolutionists in the forum had pointed that out in the thread - which again, your deceit is why it was removed.

you and i both saw the thread, the others didn't. i saw your deceit and hence it was removed for the lies it contained.

What thread was removed? I am still not sure what you are talking about. In one thread, I said that Denton had been a Creationist, and that may or may not be true after all. We had some saying he had been agnostic, some saying he had been a Creationist, with some evidence that he WAS a Creationist. Here again, in this very thread, we have someone who was intimately familiar with the Creationist movement saying that Denton was a Creationist. To my mind, this is still an open question, yet to be answered, which can only be from Denton himself.

It is definite that YOU haven't answered the issue, that is for sure.

Again, you have called me a liar, which is very serious. A liar is someone who makes a knowingly false statement with the specific intent to deceive. Now, provide proof of the two things I mentioned above or retract with an apology:

1. That Denton actually was NOT a Christian and a Creationist at the time he wrote that book.

2. That I knew he was not, but said it anyway.

Unless you can prove these points, you should never have asserted that I was a liar. You don't seem to realize how serious it is to call a fellow Christian (or anyone for that matter) a liar. And now you are calling me "a weasel".

Amazing.

 

[adam149]

I would ask that you tell me how 'often' I can be found posting on skeptics forums. You are simply wrong and this is a scurilous charge. I post most often on ASA and TheologyWeb. I have posted a few times on T.O. and infidels, but not very often. so will you correct your statement or will you stick to falsehood?

No, I will not correct my statement, because it's absolutely true. You just misunderstood it. I wrote "After leaving YEC, Morton became a leading spokesperson for skeptics, and can often be found posting on forums such as these."

I stated "forums such as these," aka, like the ones we are currently on. Similar to this forum is the TheologyWeb forum. I most certainly was not accusing you of posting on "skeptics forums" as you claim; hence I have nothing to retract.

Please then explain what river channels are doing in the middle of flood deposited sediments. If my problems are a complete misunderstanding, then I am sure that you can correct them. here are some rivers and canyons buried in the geologic column. Can you put your explanation where your boast is, and explain how these formed in the flood?

That, naturally, takes time, and I have not yet researched that particular argument. However, since I cannot at this precise time address that issue, let us take the issue of your claims regarding Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study which you posted on TWeb recently, which I saw but did not have time to answer at that time:

Claim: Woodmorappe believes "Magic Jewels" illuminated the ark[1]
Reality: He does no such thing. You here quotes a passage from Woodmorappe’s book, Noah’s Ark: Feasibility Study, as follows:

"I now consider non-biological sources of flameless illumination. There are many references to 'luminous gems' in ancient literature, along with an apocryphal account of luminous pearls being used on the Ark"[2].

But what you don't tell those reading your post is that this is an incomplete quote from the very last paragraph preceded by three pages of discussion on the various possibilities of lighting, including a discussion on whether they would have needed all that much lighting anyway, with Woodmorappe stating that "near-total darkness would have been advantageous for several purposes"[3].


Here is the rest of the quote which you left out (bold words left out of your quote):

"I now consider non-biological sources of flameless illumination. There are many references to 'luminous gems' in ancient literature, along with an apocryphal account of luminous pearls being used on the Ark (von Wellnitz 1979, p. 45). If accurate, these descriptions may refer to some fluorspars which light upon being scratched, or else phosphors (Needham 1962, p. 76). However, owing to the difficulty of evaluating this matter, I cannot consider it further"[4].

Thus we can see that Woodmorappe thought it was a possible way it could have been done, but does not "consider it further" and does not apply it to the rest of his work. Not only that, but you ignore Woodmorappe’s references; where he got his information. If there is any fault to be had, it is with the references and not with Woodmorappe. Not only that, but in your post[5], you clearly place the period at the end of "Ark" and avoid quoting Woodmorappe’s reference, making it appear that he had completely made the idea up himself. Generally, references are either included or signified with a [ref.] or [references].

You write about your quote of Woodmorappe when you write: "He will say he doesn't evaluate them, but the fact that he even brought them up says he thinks they are a possibility"[6]

Yes, exactly the purpose of feasibility study; to examine every possible feasible way in which the problems for the event could have been solved! Yet Morton consistently misuses the study as if Woodmorappe were claiming that every possibility were the way it actually occurred!

References:

1. gmorton, Woodmorappe’s Ark, TheologyWeb post, accessed July 24, 2004 http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/t24578

[2] Ref. 3, first quote by Morton, reproduced precisely as quoted by Morton from J. Woodmorappe, Noah’s Ark: A Feasability Study, ICR, 1996, p. 44
[3] J. Woodmorappe, Noah’s Ark: A Feasability Study, ICR, 1996, p. 43

[4] Ref. 3, p. 44

[5] Ref. 1, first post by Morton

[6] Ref. 1, first post by Morton

 

[adam149]

Are you purposefully trying to twist what I am saying or are you just not understanding my point?

I have said repeatedly that I do not believe we should alter our beliefs or withold our beliefs from anyone. We should not do or say ANYTHING that is not true just to make Christianity more appealing. This is a ridiculous concept and you know that is not what I am saying.

I agree. THe question is, what does the Bible teach? To the YEC, evolution and long ages are a compromise to attract people in, or to avoid being mocked, or some other reason. Naturally, to the TEer, this is not the case.

Again, the only thing that every Christian should do in these cases is NOT present the YEC or the TE view as if it is the only one believed by Christians. This is WAY TOO DANGEROUS an area for that.

Put that way, I agree, but my authority doesn't come from what other Christians believe. THey have believed in tarrot cards, occultism, spiritism, Bigfoot, UFOs, and many other things. The question is: what does the Bible say, and then teach that as the only way Christians "should" believe. See the difference (regardless of whether you believe it?).

Souls ARE being lost. God may know what we will decide, but He does not pick and choose and create situations for some chosen to be saved. There are those who WILL be lost because they didn't hear the right thing or did hear the wrong thing.

Naturally, I disagree in the highest terms, since I am a Reformer. Unfortunately, I cannot be dragged into a Free Will/Predestination argument on this forum. If you wish to discuss it, PM me.

Odd how Creationists yell and scream that schools should "teach the controversy", but they are not willing to "preach the controversy" from their pulpits or in their own home.

This is interesting, considering that one has to acknowledge the controversy in order to even discuss the topic with people. They do "preach the controversy" in the pulpit and in the home, but they make a distiction between what is believed by others and what the BIble teaches. We all do this, to one extent or another, so you really should not chastize the YECs for being something that we all are to some degree (since we all believe that we are right, ultimately).

 

[adam149]

Maybe you should look at my articles in CRSQ. I argued against the vapor canopy and, indeed, was a major reason ICR gave it up in the late 1980s and 1990s.

I'm not a subscriber to the canopy theory, but I should point out that it would only fail if it were required to produce all of the water for the flood. I happen to subscribe to Walt Brown's excellent theory, which Morton has also addressed and misrepresented equally well.

and I wrote an article showing that the quantity of organic carbon on earth was far more than could be accounted for by one single global flood. These things were published in CRSQ. While my solutions to those problems won't fly, the problems were quite real. If Adam49 would like to explain them, then I would be interested in hearing them.

I really don't feel I should have to do anything at all, considering that Woodmorappe has answered every one of your carbon problems over 18 years ago, yet you still bring them up (see Woodmorappe, J., "The Antediluvian Biosphere and its Capability of Supplying the Entire FOssil Record," Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Creationism, 1986, vol. 11, pg. 205-213; reprinted in Woodmorappe, J., Studies in Flood Geology, ICR, 1993 (1996), pg. 15-20).

 

[rmwilliamsll]

i wrote this on my blog several months back in response to another YEC cry of compromiser

you evidently haven't read any of glenn morton's threads in the natural science forum. The evidence is conclusive that there was never any such thing as a global flood

If Glenn is a christian he has fallen to the spirit of the age. This is the point chickenman, there is a force in the universe that seeks to undermine the biblical witness. There is plenty of good evidence for a global flood:

http://www.icr.org/cgi-bin/search/search.cgi?Realm=Entire+ICR+Website&Terms=global+flood

But that evidence will be dismissed by the carnal mind. Being influenced by the Father of lies.



I'am convinced it is a compromised position. Not that these people are evil or something. But let me ask, when the Westminister Confession of Faith was written, what do you think the authors had in mind? Long day ages or literal days? I personally do not know - but it is a valid question.

from: http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?p=487023#post487023

This charge of compromiser, accommodationist, concillatory, to AiG's favorite label of churchian, is an interesting one.

Partly a debate technic, partly a way to immunize people against thinking. As a debate technic it is the error of poisoning the well, the idea is to paint your opponent as being so wrong, so off base that the very thought of actually dealing with the ideas he/she proposes is unthinkable. As an immunization technic it is designed to enable people to catagorize people quickly, maybe in the first few lines of an essay as compromisers so that you can safely and in good conscience just skip the rest of the essay because you just know that there can be nothing there for you to interact with.

As a technic of debate they are truely functional, for they save time and energy in not even interacting with opposing viewpoints, but if in fact your position is partly true, or that you are interested in learning, these technics stink. For they limit your intake of things contrary to your position and give you a false confidence that all the right people believe similiar things to what you believe.

As a Christian who struggles with these issues all the time, for i dont work at a job because these things interest me and demand my time for reading and study. I am amazed that people who call themselves Christians seem so afraid to read the book of nature and have that study influence their hermeneutics in any way. The relationship of the Scriptures to the rest of the world's knowledge is a little like the relationship of faith to works. As the best analogy of faith i know of, compares faith to an eye, for an eye alone is the organ of sight, but yet any eye on a table, alone, doesn't see anything. The Scriptures alone present us with the only path to salvation, for they are God's revelation to us concerning redemption. But the Scriptures alone, by themselves on a table are silent. Even worse the attempt to read the Scriptures, by ourselves, without helps is bound to lead to serious and complete failure if not gross heresy. Simply to understand the words requires dictionaries, to find similiar passages requires concordances, to visualize Jerusalem requires maps and historical texts. To understand Egypt and Babylonian requires historical,archeological science....well you get the point. Scripture alone leads us to God, but it is not alone on our desks nor in our minds, for it is surrounded and embedded in a framework of language, culture, commitments, knowledge, values, worldview etc etc .... Just untangling this Gordian knot is a lifetime of study.

This is not compromise, this is not concillatory, this is required wisdom. This is part of our task as believers to rightly interact with the Word in the World. The issue is authority and pre-eminence not interaction.

And this is the issue of the creeds. I can subscribe to the Westminster Confession as containing the body of doctrine as taught in Scripture. Which is exactly the promises made by my ruling and teaching elders (i'm PCA). the framework interpretation takes the days as 24 hours, but they have no historical or scientific content, only a literary form to organize the chapter to present a particular set of ideas, not biological nor physical science. The creation report and subsequent discussion effectively modifies the WCF to allow our elders to subscribe in such a way. But the YEC in the denomination will not allow this solution, but are pressing the issue on subscriptionism, and may very well divide the denomination in this way. Sadly it stems from this use of radical polarization to put everyone into one of two boxes; YEC or compromisers with atheistic materialist scientism.

Not only is it sloppy thinking,or worse as argumentative and debate technics become divisive, but it doesnt do justice to the idea of general revelation. This is God's world, certainly sin is a dark veil that blinds people to the truth, but no where in Scripture are we to believe that Satan so blinds Christian's eyes that they are blind to the realities of the world. And this is why the YEC attack OEC and TE much harder than they do scientism, for the testimony of the OEC and TE BRETHREN is that God has used some form of evolution to create this world, both living and material. And the fact that these people sit next to you in the pew on Sunday morning, worshipping the same God as do you is the reason for the compromiser label. The YEC must stop people from looking at the issues because their position can not stand on its own, on the facts, on the issues, it can only be a drawing of firm lines, a division that keeps out the voices.

To me this is sad, for it is the value of not-reasoning over reasoning, the value of not-studying of not-learning over scholarship, the value of emotion over than of intellect. But mostly it shows the value of appealing to emotion and unreason to form, build and sustain political and social movements even among people who ought to know better.

it appears to address the issues here as well.
GM is a magnet for the cry-compromiser, i admire the way he keeps on going....energizer-bunny of the CED boards *grin*
it is sad that the same things keep coming up and we seem to make no progress....

 

[grmorton]

No, I will not correct my statement, because it's absolutely true. You just misunderstood it. I wrote "After leaving YEC, Morton became a leading spokesperson for skeptics, and can often be found posting on forums such as these."

I stated "forums such as these," aka, like the ones we are currently on. Similar to this forum is the TheologyWeb forum. I most certainly was not accusing you of posting on "skeptics forums" as you claim; hence I have nothing to retract.

I will accept that and stand corrected.

That, naturally, takes time, and I have not yet researched that particular argument. However, since I cannot at this precise time address that issue, let us take the issue of your claims regarding Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study which you posted on TWeb recently, which I saw but did not have time to answer at that time:

Why do you think that YECs never ever explain geology, things like channels in the geologic column or trails like the one below which shows a horseshoe crab in his death throws. He needed time to do that slow spiraling dance of death. If sediment were raining down at the rate of 50-100 feet per day, there is no way that the guy would have had the time to make that walk. 50 feet per day is 2 feet per hour, 3 inches every 15 minutes.

Claim: Woodmorappe believes "Magic Jewels" illuminated the ark[1]

Reality: He does no such thing. You here quotes a passage from Woodmorappe’s book, Noah’s Ark: Feasibility Study, as follows:



But what you don't tell those reading your post is that this is an incomplete quote from the very last paragraph preceded by three pages of discussion on the various possibilities of lighting, including a discussion on whether they would have needed all that much lighting anyway, with Woodmorappe stating that "near-total darkness would have been advantageous for several purposes"[3].

So what? He gave credence to glowing pearls. Woodmorappe cites Von Wellnitz in the CRSQ June 1979, p. 45. Woodmorappe doesn't tell his readers what else this guy says.

[box] Light was provided by the stones or the pearl. When it was light outside they would shine dimly and brighten up when it was night-time. Thus, the days and nights were indicated and the inhabitants of the ark knew how much time had passed and could also feed the animals at the proper times." Marcus Von Wellnitz, "Noah and the Flood: The Apocryphal Traditions," CRSQ, 16(1979):1, p. 45 [/box]

Here is the rest of the quote which you left out (bold words left out of your quote):

But Wellnitz said nothing about phosphors and other things. Woodmorappe is citing Wellnitz for something Wellnitz didn't say. How exactly do phosphors brighten and dim, my friend?

Thus we can see that Woodmorappe thought it was a possible way it could have been done, but does not "consider it further" and does not apply it to the rest of his work. Not only that, but you ignore Woodmorappe’s references; where he got his information. If there is any fault to be had, it is with the references and not with Woodmorappe.

It is the responsibility of an author to critically examine the sources he cites and supports. Woodmorappe didn't do that as I have just documented.

Not only that, but in your post[5], you clearly place the period at the end of "Ark" and avoid quoting Woodmorappe’s reference, making it appear that he had completely made the idea up himself. Generally, references are either included or signified with a [ref.] or [references].

The point of the post was what Woodmorappe was responsible for. It is unseemly to cite someone as support and then hide behind them if they are wrong. One is responsible for what one writes and the ideas he cites favorably. In my mind it is what John wrote that is important, not who he cited. If you or others think I messed up by not including the source of the material I am sorry. I don't put reference numbers in quotes either. Why would I? No one can access them without getting the actual book.

You write about your quote of Woodmorappe when you write: "He will say he doesn't evaluate them, but the fact that he even brought them up says he thinks they are a possibility"[6][/qote]

I stand by that.

Yes, exactly the purpose of feasibility study; to examine every possible feasible way in which the problems for the event could have been solved! Yet Morton consistently misuses the study as if Woodmorappe were claiming that every possibility were the way it actually occurred!

But Woodmorappe doesn't examine every possibility. He totally ignores the possibility that God did it all miraculously. Seems a strange possibility for a supposed supporter of God to ignore, but that is what he did.

 

[grmorton]

Adam149 I bring up these claims about the amount of carbon being a problem because Woodmorappe has bamboozled you. He really hasn't answered the problems.

Here is a letter from my files which was written as a review of Woodmorappe's ICC article:



Review of John Woodmorappe's "The Antediluvian Biosphere and its Capability of Supplying the Entire Fossil Record"

by Glenn R. Morton

This review will touch on four areas of concern in Mr.
Woodmorappe's article. These are: the accumulation of a worldwide
peat layer, the formation of the crinoidal limestones, the rates of
accumulation cited, and the prediluvial co-existence of the various
mechanisms proposed.





In accounting for coal and oil in the sedimentary record, Mr.
Woodmorappe postulates a 20 m layer of peat all over the earth. In order to arrive at the figure of 1.18 x 10 exponent 21 g of carbon
calculated in the article one must postulate that this 20 m layer
covered not only the land area but also the oceans. It seems rather
difficult to visualize exactly how peat could have covered the oceans
and still allowed life to exist in the seas. But apart from that
difficulty is the difficulty of affixing that much carbon in the 1656
years between creation and the flood. The present atmosphere
contains7 x 10 exponent 17 grams of carbon.(1) Dividing this into the
total carbon contained in the hypothesized peat layer means that
26,000 atmospheres of carbon must have been affixed in 1,656 years.

This means that 15.5 atmospheres were affixed each year. Presently
only 1/7 to 1/10 of the atmospheric carbon dioxide is affixed each
year.(2) This means that the biosphere was 108 times more productive
in affixing carbon and animals were no more or even less productive in
releasing this stored carbon. In fact Mr. Woodmorappe explicitly
states that to accumulate the peat in the time stated that he is
assuming no decay--a very questionable assumption in itself.

When it comes to oil, Mr. Woodmorappe once again uses the peat
layer to calculate how much peat would be necessary for the formation
of the observed amount of oil. But since, as he points out, nearly no
one believes peat is chemically capable of forming petroleum, the
entire calculation is irrelevant to the issue.

Mr. Woodmorappe calculates the area necessary for the growth of
crinoids found in the crinoidal Burlington limestone and concludes
that not much area is necessary for crinoidal limestone production.

He further states that crinoidal limestones are not abundant in the
Paleozoic. Ausich states,


"Crinoids were very abundant in many marine Mississippian
settings, thus giving the Mississippian the common
appellation, 'the Age of Crinoids'.(3)

Crinoidal limestones are not only found in the midcontinent under
the name of Burlington but also in the same area under the name
Keokuk. Further south east a crinoidal limestone of Mississippian age
is known as the Ft. Payne in Tennessee, Georgia and Kentucky. In
Texas this same crinoidal limestone is called the Chappel; in New
Mexico, the Hachita; in Arizona, the Redwall; in Colorado north of the
Uncompahgre uplift it is called the Leadville limestone; in Wyoming it
is the Mission Canyon; in southern Alberta crinoidal limestones are
known as the Livingstone limestone- further north as the Rundle. In
Alaska these same crinoidal limestones are known as the Lisburne.
Crinoidal limestones are found in Britain and can be traced across the
English Channel to Germany, Poland and on to the Urals. Mississippian
crinoidal limestones are found in Central Asia and on to China,
Kashmir and even to Australia. Crinoidal limestones are even found
throughout North Africa. How anyone can claim that they are not
abundant in the Paleozoic is beyond me.(4)


One very disturbing item in the article concerns the rates cited
by Mr. Woodmorappe. It seems that only the very fastest rates
observed today and only the very lowest estimates of carbon content
are used for his calculations. For instance, Bolin's estimate of
carbon in petroleum, coal and gas is used. Mr. Woodmorappe is
uncertain as to whether Bolin's estimate includes disseminated
occurrences, but he goes ahead and assumes that it does. Hunt's value
of organic carbon in coal, oil and gas which was used by Morton
definitely does include disseminated occurrences.(5) Even though
Bolin stated that his value was a lower limit, Mr. Woodmorappe uses it
as if it were an upper limit.


Mr. Woodmorappe also uses the rate of production of 35 million
coccoliths per liter as his average production rate of chalk. Rates
of dinoflagellate production as great as this are found only for very
short periods of time over very limited areas. The occurrences are
known as red tides and due to the massive use of oxygen in waters
infested with such numbers of microorganisms, all fish in the area
die. Eventually even the microscopic animals die from too much
crowding and not enough food and CO2. To assume that such
concentrations could occur for 1,656 years ignores the fact that we do
not see endemic populations like this today.



Mr. Woodmorappe when discussing limestone production uses a rate
of limestone formation which is ten times that observed today and he
has the entire ocean and land areas producing limestone at these
accelerated rates.

Finally, the article has the problem of accounting for all of the
productions simultaneously. For instance, Mr. Woodmorappe postulates
a worldwide layer of peat covering both oceans and land in order to
account for the origin of coal and oil. But at the same time, in
order to account for the carbonates, he has the whole world, land and
sea producing carbonates. This does not mention the problem of also
having the crinoids grow all over the northern hemisphere and parts of
the southern hemisphere, simultaneously with peat accumulation and
other carbonate production. Where were the Karoo animals during this
time. Chalks also had to have been growing abundantly reducing the
area available for peat, crinoid and limestone production. It seem
incredible that all the earth could be producing two or three
different types of sediments simultaneously!

Two miscellaneous remarks. First, why does Mr. Woodmorappe reject
the 1% fossil content of limestones at the end of his paper while
accepting it when discussing the crinoidal limestones. This seems
inconsistent. Secondly, Boreal forests as those found in the Pacific
northwest are not the most prolific producers of fixed carbon
according to Woodwell. Woodwell shows that the plant mass is greatest
in the Tropical Rain Forest, followed by the Tropical Seasonal Forest,
followed then by the Boreal Forest.(1)



References
1. George M. Woodwell, "The Carbon Dioxide Question", SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, 238:1(1978), p. 34-43.
2. Ibid.
3. William I. Ausich and N.Gary Lane, "Crinoids from the Edwardsville formation (Lower Mississippian) of Southern Indiana", JOURNAL OF PALEONTOLOGY, 56:6(1982), p. 1343.
4. G. R. Morton, "Global, continental and Regional Sedimentation
Systems and Their Implications", CREATION RESEARCH SOCIETY QUARTERLY, 21:1(1984), p. 23-33.
5. J. M. Hunt, "Distribution of Carbon in Crust of Earth", A.A.P.G. BULLETIN, 56(1972), pp. 2272-2277.



Glenn R. Morton
16075 Longvista Dr.
Dallas, Texas 75248
May 12,1986

That is an old address


I will post a picture of a crinoidal limestone from the Lake District of England. You can see that the entire rock is made of fossils. I will also post a picture of a limestone hash (the second pic) which shows huge quantities of living forms making up the limestone. One can't ignore this kind of data when trying to explain the flood. Woodmorappe does. Look at what a large percentage of these rocks are from living creatures. These rocks are from more than half way through the geologic column and thus should be after most of the living creatures had died. Afterall, shell fish can't flee the flood like a mouse supposedly can according to Henry Morris.

 

[Micaiah]

I had a look at your photos of burrows, and read some of your comments Glenn.

1. What kind of animals do you think made these burrows?

2. Can they survive for long periods of time in their burrows deep in the ground? How about in the presence of sloppy mud?

3. What kind of evolutionary time scale do the burrows represent from the deepest to shallowest rock?

4. What do you suggest are realistic animal burrowing speeds?

5. What do you suggest would be a typical animal population size?

 

[grmorton]

I had a look at your photos of burrows, and read some of your comments Glenn.

1. What kind of animals do you think made these burrows?

A whole variety of animals have made burrows in the geologic column and they all have different speeds of burrowing. Lungfish have been found in burrows in the Karoo of South Africa, I can show you cicada and termite burrows as well as burrows dug by mammals to get to the termites--all of this is in the middle of the geologic column which supposedly was being deposited in a one year flood and requires an average depositional rate of 50-100 ft per day. Such burrows are not explainable with current YEC concepts.

The burrows you were mostely seeing on my web page were made by worms of various sorts.

2. Can they survive for long periods of time in their burrows deep in the ground? How about in the presence of sloppy mud?

This approach won't work with the global flood. The burrows show now decrease as one looks higher and higher up the rock column. If the worm burrrows were created in a global flood and a significant fraction of them were buried, then they wouldn't be available to make burrows in the higher layers. One should see a decrease in burrowing as one goes up, but we don't.

3. What kind of evolutionary time scale do the burrows represent from the deepest to shallowest rock?

The earliest burrows are found in the Precambrian about a billion years ago. Indeed sediment burrowing appears long before we find fossil forms, which should be the case if the burrowers are soft bodied forms. Worm fossils are quite rare. Originally the burrows were horizontal but when predation appeared on earth in the uppermost Cambrian, the burrowers started digging deeper and the burrows became vertical. (see Simon Conway Morris, The Crucible of Creation, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 158-159)

The earliest vertebrate burrows are found in the Devonian about 400 million years ago. They are lungfish burrows. (see Gideon H. Groenewald, Johann Welman, James A. MacEachern, “Vertebrate Burrow Complexes from the Early Triassic Cynognathus Zone (Driekoppen Formation, Beaufort Group) of the Karoo Basin, South Africa,” ,” Palaios, 16(2001):148-160, p. 149)

The global flood advocate must ask himself why there are no precambrian/preflood vertebrate burrows! They must also ask why the form of the burrows change over time.

4. What do you suggest are realistic animal burrowing speeds?

They are quite variable. It depends on the hardness of the rock being burrowed, the size of the animal etc. Mammals can dig feet per hour. Clionid sponges which dig into hard limestone can't move quite so rapidly. Below is a picture of my favorite burrow from my personal collection. This is a burrowed limestone. It was hard when it was burrowed. It was also near the ocean surface because the crack filled with the whitish material is celestite, an evaporitic mineral. These animals were digging in hard limestone on a substrate that was periodically exposed to the air. This is not something you should expect in a global flood.

5. What do you suggest would be a typical animal population size?

The Haymond formation has billions of burrows in 15000 vertical layers over an area of a couple hundred square miles. The total population in this small area must have been amazing.

 

[Micaiah]

By my reckoning, if you had one worm who produced a hole of 5 mm, 'burrowing' at an average rate of 50 mm per minute, then in one year it would have burrowed through about 0.5 m3 of ground. In 1 million years, it would have burrowed through 516 007 m3 of ground. (When the worm died it was immediately replaced by another.)

If you imagine the volume as a cube which has equal side length, then the length of the side for a volume of 516 007 m3 is about 80 m.

Do the values seem realistic? Why or why not?

 

[adam149]

I will accept that and stand corrected.

I apologize if my sentence was not clear enough.

Why do you think that YECs never ever explain geology, things like channels in the geologic column or trails like the one below which shows a horseshoe crab in his death throws. He needed time to do that slow spiraling dance of death. If sediment were raining down at the rate of 50-100 feet per day, there is no way that the guy would have had the time to make that walk. 50 feet per day is 2 feet per hour, 3 inches every 15 minutes.

Could it possibly be because there aren't very many of them and they do their research on their own time while trying to make a living? Hmmm, yep. Your arguments are interesting and answerable if Flood Geology is true; however just because creationists haven't written a paper discussing it in no way implies that they are unable to do so. As a student studying geology and history at university, I am, in my spare time (which isn't much), investigating such matters.

Furthermore, this horseshoe crab example is a perfect demonstration of what I have been saying. This is only a problem for the flood if every last impression, geologic feature, and fossil fragment were a result of the flood. THis is most certainly not what creationists are arguing. Rather, most are a result of the flood. Creationists do not exclude regional and local catastrophes that will reshape the surface of the rocks, fossilize trapped animals, and deposit further sedimentation. For example, hurricane Ivan caused the Ohio river to flood in our town and cover over a third of it. When the water receded two days later, it left behind anywhere from 2 to 10 inches of sediments (my geology profs are having a heyday examining what the flood did to the geology of the region).

Creationists posit that there were many large post-flood lakes and inland seas which burst, thus significantly reshaping the surface of the earth, such as the catastrophic drainage of Hopi and Grand lakes to form the Grand Canyon (documented by Steve Austin, Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, and Walt Brown, In the Beginning), or the legendary Missoula flood (see Oard, M., 2004, The Missoula Flood Controversy and the Genesis Flood, Creation Research Society Books), or the the flood that resulted when the Mediterranean breached its boundary and carved Bosporus and Dardanelles straits and flooded the shore of the Black sea (see Ryan and Pitman, Noah's Flood, Simon and Schuster, 1998; they misidentify this as being Noah's flood rather than a result of the flood). Most of your evidence against a flood fails to take this simple fact into account.

So what? He gave credence to glowing pearls. Woodmorappe cites Von Wellnitz in the CRSQ June 1979, p. 45. Woodmorappe doesn't tell his readers what else this guy says.

[box] Light was provided by the stones or the pearl. When it was light outside they would shine dimly and brighten up when it was night-time. Thus, the days and nights were indicated and the inhabitants of the ark knew how much time had passed and could also feed the animals at the proper times." Marcus Von Wellnitz, "Noah and the Flood: The Apocryphal Traditions," CRSQ, 16(1979):1, p. 45 [/box]

But Wellnitz said nothing about phosphors and other things. Woodmorappe is citing Wellnitz for something Wellnitz didn't say. How exactly do phosphors brighten and dim, my friend?

Again, you are misunderstanding what Woodmorappe was arguing. He wrote (as I have already quoted) "There are many references to 'luminous gems' in in ancient literature, along with an apocryphal account of luminous pearls being used on the ark (von Wellnitz, 1979, pg. 45)." (Woodmorappe, 1996, pg. 44). This is where he is referencing to the work of von Wellnitz. It is basically saying "here is a place to which you can go to get information on this apocryphal account of the flood." He is not saying that he supports anything that is said in the paper in quesion. He then assumes their accuracy ("if accurate", pg. 44) in order to examine how this would be possible if it was a method Noah used. He then writes: "these descriptions may refer to some fluorspars which light upon being scratched, or else to phosphors (Needham 1962, p. 76). However, owing to the difficulty of evaluating this matter, I cannot consider it further."

Notice that it is to Needham and not to von Wellnitz that Woodmorappe is refering. So no, von Wellnitz did not say anything about phosphors, but neither was Woodmorappe inplying that he did. Woodmorappe neither implied, nor cited von Wellnitz, as if he were saying anything at all about phosphors.

Yet the point I was making was that Woodmorappe spent three (large) pages discussing various lighting options, and then in the last short paragraph makes mention of a specific method of doing this, and qualifies this with "I cannot consider it further," yet you implied that this is the only way Woodmorappe thought the ark could have been illuminated.

It is the responsibility of an author to critically examine the sources he cites and supports. Woodmorappe didn't do that as I have just documented.

As I have just shown, you did no such thing. But, yes, I absolutely agree with the first sentence. Nevertheless, many people are taken in by many nonsensical things (UFOs; magic, geocentrism, etc) on account of what they read.

The point of the post was what Woodmorappe was responsible for. It is unseemly to cite someone as support and then hide behind them if they are wrong. One is responsible for what one writes and the ideas he cites favorably. In my mind it is what John wrote that is important, not who he cited. If you or others think I messed up by not including the source of the material I am sorry. I don't put reference numbers in quotes either. Why would I? No one can access them without getting the actual book.

That's why most writers use the [ref] or [referenses] to indicate that the author cites a source. For example, "these descriptions may refer to some fluorspars which light upon being scratched, or else to phosphors[ref]. However, owing to the difficulty of evaluating this matter, I cannot consider it further."

I agree with you that our ideas and writings are our own, but when a source is cited, the author is saying "this idea did not originate with me, and here is where you can find my source." Sure, if the source is wrong, the author is as well, but s/he is wrong because of their information.

I stand by that.

I know. I agree; they are a possibility. I think the other ways Woodmorappe discussed are more likely (and he agrees), but they are certainly a possibility. Woodmorappe was not claiming to believe in "magic rocks" but in certain fluorspars and phosphors which are known to light upon scratching.

But Woodmorappe doesn't examine every possibility. He totally ignores the possibility that God did it all miraculously. Seems a strange possibility for a supposed supporter of God to ignore, but that is what he did.

Actually, Woodmorappe discusses this in the introdction to his work:

...scripture does not give us details about the manner or extent of supernatural involvement during the Flood. Since we do not know and cannot know, this side of eternity, about miracles connected with the ark, I focus almost exclusively on non-miraculous solutions to alleged problems with the Ark account. --Woodmorappe, pg. xiii

Why would he do such a thing? Because invoking God takes something from the realm of naturalistic investigation and skeptics would have harshly attacked him for invoking miracles to save the Ark.

 

[grmorton]

By my reckoning, if you had one worm who produced a hole of 5 mm, 'burrowing' at an average rate of 50 mm per minute, then in one year it would have burrowed through about 0.5 m3 of ground. In 1 million years, it would have burrowed through 516 007 m3 of ground. (When the worm died it was immediately replaced by another.)

If you imagine the volume as a cube which has equal side length, then the length of the side for a volume of 516 007 m3 is about 80 m.

Do the values seem realistic? Why or why not?

50 mm per minute is awfully fast. That is about 2 inches per minute. what do you think these guys are, race cars?

 

[grmorton]

Could it possibly be because there aren't very many of them and they do their research on their own time while trying to make a living? Hmmm, yep. Your arguments are interesting and answerable if Flood Geology is true; however just because creationists haven't written a paper discussing it in no way implies that they are unable to do so. As a student studying geology and history at university, I am, in my spare time (which isn't much), investigating such matters.

There aren't many yecs because the data doesn't support that position. I too have to make my living and do research on my own time. I have managed to look at most areas of import to the creation\evolution issue. so such excuses, are, just excuses.

Furthermore, this horseshoe crab example is a perfect demonstration of what I have been saying. This is only a problem for the flood if every last impression, geologic feature, and fossil fragment were a result of the flood.

this is a Jurassic trail. That means it is in the middle of the geologic column. Do you propose that the Jurassic strata to the present strata is not from the flood? Or do you propose that the Cambrian through Jurassic isn't deposited by the flood? Which is it?

THis is most certainly not what creationists are arguing. Rather, most are a result of the flood. Creationists do not exclude regional and local catastrophes that will reshape the surface of the rocks, fossilize trapped animals, and deposit further sedimentation. For example, hurricane Ivan caused the Ohio river to flood in our town and cover over a third of it. When the water receded two days later, it left behind anywhere from 2 to 10 inches of sediments (my geology profs are having a heyday examining what the flood did to the geology of the region).

Think about this. The flood would have had to deposit over 30,000 feet of sediment. That means it had to erode 30,000 feet of sediment from somewhere else. Since all the rocks past the uppermost Precambrian are fossiliferous, where did the flood start and where did it end? That is something that YECs never seem to answer. so what is your opinion?

Creationists posit that there were many large post-flood lakes and inland seas which burst, thus significantly reshaping the surface of the earth, such as the catastrophic drainage of Hopi and Grand lakes to form the Grand Canyon (documented by Steve Austin, Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, and Walt Brown, In the Beginning), or the legendary Missoula flood (see Oard, M., 2004, The Missoula Flood Controversy and the Genesis Flood, Creation Research Society Books), or the the flood that resulted when the Mediterranean breached its boundary and carved Bosporus and Dardanelles straits and flooded the shore of the Black sea (see Ryan and Pitman, Noah's Flood, Simon and Schuster, 1998; they misidentify this as being Noah's flood rather than a result of the flood). Most of your evidence against a flood fails to take this simple fact into account.

And what you are ignoring is that those events didn't deposit 30,000 feet of sediment. Thus they can't be due to the flood.

P.s. I know places where there are 75,000 feet of sediment.

Again, you are misunderstanding what Woodmorappe was arguing. He wrote (as I have already quoted) "There are many references to 'luminous gems' in in ancient literature, along with an apocryphal account of luminous pearls being used on the ark (von Wellnitz, 1979, pg. 45)." (Woodmorappe, 1996, pg. 44). This is where he is referencing to the work of von Wellnitz. It is basically saying "here is a place to which you can go to get information on this apocryphal account of the flood." He is not saying that he supports anything that is said in the paper in quesion. He then assumes their accuracy ("if accurate", pg. 44) in order to examine how this would be possible if it was a method Noah used. He then writes: "these descriptions may refer to some fluorspars which light upon being scratched, or else to phosphors (Needham 1962, p. 76). However, owing to the difficulty of evaluating this matter, I cannot consider it further."

It is silly to raise things like luminous gems and talk of them as he does unless he thinks it will influence someone to believe that they actually happened. Most science books don't raise the possibility of leprechauns, Faeries or Banshees because the authors don't think there is that proverbial snowball's chance that they exist.

Yet the point I was making was that Woodmorappe spent three (large) pages discussing various lighting options, and then in the last short paragraph makes mention of a specific method of doing this, and qualifies this with "I cannot consider it further," yet you implied that this is the only way Woodmorappe thought the ark could have been illuminated.

he could have avoided my barbs by being more scientific than he is. surely you don't think that magical rocks which brightened and dimmed diurnally were on the ark do you?

As I have just shown, you did no such thing. But, yes, I absolutely agree with the first sentence. Nevertheless, many people are taken in by many nonsensical things (UFOs; magic, geocentrism, etc) on account of what they read.

On this we agree. and that is why it is important for YEC authors not to give credence to things like magical jewels or geocentrism.

That's why most writers use the [ref] or [referenses] to indicate that the author cites a source. For example, "these descriptions may refer to some fluorspars which light upon being scratched, or else to phosphors[ref]. However, owing to the difficulty of evaluating this matter, I cannot consider it further ".


I agree with you that our ideas and writings are our own, but when a source is cited, the author is saying "this idea did not originate with me, and here is where you can find my source." Sure, if the source is wrong, the author is as well, but s/he is wrong because of their information.

No, the author is telling people where to get more information, not "I am not responsible for what I wrote", which is what you are trying to say Woodmorappe is. If he didn't want to be barbequed for this, he shouldn't have raised the issue without saying plainly that he thinks it is a bunch of crock. He just said he couldn't comment on them.

I know. I agree; they are a possibility. I think the other ways Woodmorappe discussed are more likely (and he agrees), but they are certainly a possibility. Woodmorappe was not claiming to believe in "magic rocks" but in certain fluorspars and phosphors which are known to light upon scratching.

Actually, Woodmorappe discusses this in the introdction to his work:

Why would he do such a thing? Because invoking God takes something from the realm of naturalistic investigation and skeptics would have harshly attacked him for invoking miracles to save the Ark.

If I understand you correctly, it sound like you are saying that magical jewels are a possibility. Why not simply say God provided the light miraculously rather than doing and saying such nonsense?

 

[Didaskomenos]

As I have just shown, you did no such thing. But, yes, I absolutely agree with the first sentence. Nevertheless, many people are taken in by many nonsensical things (UFOs; magic, geocentrism, etc) on account of what they read.

Hey, who says UFO's are nonsensical?

 

[Micaiah]

50 mm per minute is awfully fast. That is about 2 inches per minute. what do you think these guys are, race cars?

Okay, tell us what you believe the rate to be and why you consider that a reasonable rate.

In addition to that you can tell us the expected life span of the worms, and how many offspring they typically produce during their life.

Given that you consider the evidence to be impossible to reconcile with the creation account, you must have some insight into these parameters.

 

[notto]

Okay, tell us what you believe the rate to be and why you consider that a reasonable rate.

In addition to that you can tell us the expected life span of the worms, and how many offspring they typically produce during their life.

Given that you consider the evidence to be impossible to reconcile with the creation account, you must have some insight into these parameters.

I think you are missing the point of the evidence.

1) The burrows are found under thousands of feet of rock
2) The burrows were dug through solid rock

If the deposits that make up this layer were deposited by a flood, how did the animals that dug the burrows get to them after the layer had turned to rock (along with the layers above it) and how did they live under thousands of feet of additional rock (mud).

The main point is that these burrows needed to be made by animals living near the surface and burrowing through already solid rock, whether it was under water or on land. Animals don't (can't) live under hundreds of feet of solid rock or hundreds of feet of mud.

You seem to be suggesting that the animals may have been buried and continued to dig. If this is the case, then do you accept that all of the rock below these types of burrows was laid down pre-flood? If so, how did it get there in a few thousand years? Why aren't all of the burrows under a specific layer and why are they distributed throughout the geologic column?

Glenn points out in another response that creationists will never consistently identify which layers are pre and post flood. There responses when dealing with things like the Grand Canyon (which shows signs of life such as burrows throughout the column) are ad-hoc based on each specific piece of evidence in isolation (usually with a handwave), yet never explaining all of it consistently.

How do you explain the burrows in a flood model. Please be specific as when the material was turned to rock, how the animals got to the layer, and how the material above and below the layer was put in place.