Challenge: Explain the fossil record without evolution

[Loudmouth]

The old earthers like to look at today...and assume it has always been depositing at the same rate. I believe they are in error.

Again, reality doesn't give two hoots about what you believe.

 

[Hoghead1]

Much depends on what you mean by miracles, Doveaman. To many, teh world of nature, the universe, is wondrous and inspires deep feelings of awe. To others, strange, seemingly inexplicable events may be due to underlying principles of the natural order we have yet to fully encounter or understand. Much depends on the metaphysical system you are working from.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

You forgot I don't believe in the old earth dating techniques.

I don't think it matters whether or not you accept the conclusions of dating techniques. It is empirically observed that certain rocks have certain isotopic ratios that differ from rocks above and below them. This is true regardless of whether or not you accept that these ratios indicate an age of X million years. So how did the flood produce this arrangement? Certainly none of the mechanisms you've proposed so far would suffice.

 

[Doveaman]

Is there any phenomenon in nature where this doesn't apply?

The theory of gravity is wrong, because . . . . MIRACLES.

The germ theory of disease is wrong, because . . . MIRACLES.

Strawman.

Of course, your posts are probably the best evidence we have. The only reason you have to invoke miracles is because the evidence is so strongly on our side.

Miracles are the most reasonable and logical explanation for historical events unexplained by science or contradicted by science.

You cannot explain away history.

When the science contradicts the history, the science takes a hike.

 

[Doveaman]

Much depends on what you mean by miracles, Doveaman.

God did it directly instead of doing it through nature.

The creation of man, the virgin birth and the resurrection are three examples.

 

[AV1611VET]

God did it directly instead of doing it through nature.

* Que request for evidence. *

 

[-57]

If you don't believe in the Earth moving about the Sun, does the Sun start moving about the Earth?

We are talking about reality. Reality doesn't care what you do or don't believe in.

What??????

 

[Loudmouth]

What??????

Do you really think that facts go away if you announce that you don't believe in them?

"I don't believe the Moon exists!!!"

Will the Moon disappear since I don't believe in it? Why would you ever think "I don't believe in that" is a valid way of refuting facts?

It is a fact that rocks above and below dinosaur fossils have very specific ratios of isotopes. These facts don't disappear if you announce that you don't believe in them. If you can't explain how a flood would arrange the fossil record so that rocks with specific isotopes would be correlated with specific species, then a flood is not a valid explanation for the fossil record.

 

[Loudmouth]

Strawman.

How is it a strawman?

Miracles are the most reasonable and logical explanation . . .

Just stop and think about that. When have miracles EVER been a reasonable or logical explanation for ANYTHING?

for historical events unexplained by science or contradicted by science.

When have miracles ever been a valid explanation for things that we were ignorant of? At one time, we had no explanation for lightning. Is lightning supernatural? No. It never was.

You cannot explain away history.

That is exactly what you are doing. The use of miracles is an attempt to explain away history.

When the science contradicts the history, the science takes a hike.

That is so backwards, I am surprised you can say it with a straight face.

 

[Hoghead1]

Then why did God create nature, Doveaman, if it is something he has to avoid, work over and against, in order to get the job done? Also, it is up for grabs exactly what is meant by the Virgin Birth? It appears only in Matthew and Luke? Was it, then, a later addition to Christianity? Is virgin the most accurate translation? How would it justify Christ being of the line of David if Joseph is not his natural father?

 

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian observes:
Magic is indeed beyond nature. But since we know that God does almost everything by natural means in this world, we don't have to consider magic in our investigations.

Magic is indeed beyond nature, but miracles are not since the existence of nature is a miracle in itself:

But we still don't have to account for magic, when studying nature. He made it to work in a consistent, predictable way.

Since the very existence of nature is by miracle, then miracles are very much a part of nature.

Nope. If Jesus does a miracle in extending the mass of fish for distribution, that does not mean that miracles are part of a fish.

To ignore miracles, then, will often lead to wrong conclusions in your investigations of nature.

We have a good deal of data on that. And it all says you're wrong. We discovered, for example, how to make computers out of dirt, without once considering a miracle.

Likewise, we correctly expected to find feathered dinosaurs, and whales with functional legs, without any recourse to magic. Think about it, and I'm sure you can figure out why.

 

[Hoghead1]

Much depends upon what you mean by magic. it seems to be the case that the more science progresses, the closer to magic we become. What do you think our distant ancestors would say if they came back today and walked into a room and clapped their hands and the lights came on?

 

[-57]

Do you really think that facts go away if you announce that you don't believe in them?

"I don't believe the Moon exists!!!"

Will the Moon disappear since I don't believe in it? Why would you ever think "I don't believe in that" is a valid way of refuting facts?

It is a fact that rocks above and below dinosaur fossils have very specific ratios of isotopes. These facts don't disappear if you announce that you don't believe in them. If you can't explain how a flood would arrange the fossil record so that rocks with specific isotopes would be correlated with specific species, then a flood is not a valid explanation for the fossil record.

Your facts are fiction.

 

[Jimmy D]

Your facts are fiction.

And that is a baseless assertion - If you can't refute the following fact will you withdraw it?

It is a fact that rocks above and below dinosaur fossils have very specific ratios of isotopes

 

[-57]

And that is a baseless assertion - If you can't refute the following fact will you withdraw it?

Baseless assertions? Surely you jest.
...seriously...baseless assertions? Do you not know there are tons of websites that show the many problems with radiometric dating? AND, you say my position is baseless? Get real please.

 

[Armoured]

Baseless assertions? Surely you jest.
...seriously...baseless assertions? Do you not know there are tons of websites that show the many problems with radiometric dating? AND, you say my position is baseless? Get real please.

It's on the internet, it must be true.

 

[The Barbarian]

Miracles are the most reasonable and logical explanation for historical events unexplained by science or contradicted by science.

Hence, plagues were attributed to the supernatural, lightning was God tossing bolts at His enemies, and earthquakes were His justice against evil cities. History shows that there has been a continuing progress of finding natural causes for things once considered miraculous.

You cannot explain away history.

Yep.

When the science contradicts the history, the science takes a hike.

See above. There are real miracles. But we do a great disservice to God and to the truth, when we attribute miracles to anything we don't understand.

 

[The Barbarian]

Baseless assertions? Surely you jest.
...seriously...baseless assertions? Do you not know there are tons of websites that show the many problems with radiometric dating? AND, you say my position is baseless? Get real please.

It's always amusing when creationists skim books written by scientists about the necessary safeguards required when employing radioisotope data, and then assume the same scientists aren't aware of these.

 

[Atheos canadensis]

As to explaining the fossil record without using evolution....I have already present 2 methods of creating the fossil record.

The first was hydrololic sorting and the second was the position of animals relative to the sea. Now, you ATHEIST think the creationist believe there was only one method concerning the formation of the fossil record.....which make you atheist wrong once again.

1) Hydrolic sorting (presented above)
2) Zonation
a. Ecological
b. biogeographic
3) Chance
4) Selective preservation
5) Differential escape

First, you must understand the model. The single event was called the flood. This flooding event consisted of many smaller events over the time period of the flood. An anolgy would be the single event called the Olympics, which had other events happening over the time period of the olympics.

The great flood of Noah was not like a bathtub where it is filled up then the plug pulled at the end. The great flood of Noah started with local flooding and then grew to a world wide flood. During the growing period one of the events that would have occured is that trapped basins of water would break through their natural dikes emptying them and flooding other areas. This event would cause localize mudslides and flooding. Anything in it's path would be buried quickly or washed down stream where it would then have a chance to settle and form a layer. Later as the flood waters rise this type of sedimentation would not occur as often. Eventually the entire earth would be covered with water. During this period sedimentaton would have more than likely been at it's peak. As the waters receded the flowing currents would cut gorges in the still soft sediment and in other areas re-work the topography once more. As the waters continued to recede the land would once more be subjected to local flooding and events similar to what was described above would occur once more. Portions of what is described could happen many times in various areas of the earth. The above is by no means a complete flood scenerio but instead presents just one small possibility within the flood of Noah.

There are a few quick examples of organisms whose positions in the fossil record are not readily explained by the mechanisms you list. Let's look at coral. Specifically, let's look at two major groups of coral, Rugosa and Scleractinia. The former appears in the Ordovician whereas the later doesn't show up until a couple hundred million years later in the Triassic. Corals are sessile so obviously we can immediately dismiss the differential escape mechanism as an explanation for why rugosans appear in the rock record long before the vast majority of scleractinians do and vanish shortly (geologically speaking) after they appear.

What about hydrologic sorting? Let's take a look at a couple examples of the two groups:

You can see pretty clearly that scleractinians and rugosans overlap significantly in their morphologies, so hydrological sorting would not differentiate between the two groups based on shape alone. You could make an argument that density is the deciding factor because scleractinians tend to be more porous and rugosans more dense, thus one might argue that the more dense rugosans should be expected to appear lower in section. All things being equal this would make sense, but it fails to account for why we don't find large scleractinians appearing in the record prior below small rugosans. A scleractinian colony 2m in diameter is still going to settle out before a 8cm rugosan colony. So in the end hydrological sorting fails to explain why rugosans always appear before scleractinians.

What about selective preservation? While rugosans and scleractinians have skeletons composed of roughly the same material, the calcite that composes rugosan skeletons is somewhat more easily preserved than the aragonite comprising the scleractinian skeleton. Perhaps one might argue that this is why scleractinians are not found lower in section. But this does not explain why rugosans all but disappear near the Permian boundary. So selective preservation fails to explain the arrangement of these two groups.

What about biogeographic and ecological zonation? We know that modern scleractinians, depending on the type, inhabit both warm, shallow, sunlit waters as well as cold, deep, dark waters. They inhabit every ocean on the planet. The same is true of their fossil counterparts. And as you can see in these Excel spreadsheets (actually just screencaps, I can't figure out how to upload the actual xls file), scleractinians and rugosans inhabited the same environments in the same areas of the world. This means that ecological and biogeographic zonation also fail to explain why rugosans always appear in the rock record prior to scleractinians.

That leaves us with random chance. This seems like a weak argument to me, but let's look at the numbers. If you look at the spreadsheet you will see that there are 35,248 occurrences of scleractinians in the Palaeobiological database (PBDB) and 175,857 rugosans. And this is by no means a complete count; the PBDB only contains records that researchers and institutions have uploaded. Even so, these numbers make it very unlikely that pure chance caused rugosans and scleractinians to be arranged as they are.

So what say you? I look forward to a substantive rebuttal.

 

[-57]

There are a few quick examples of organisms whose positions in the fossil record are not readily explained by the mechanisms you list. Let's look at coral. Specifically, let's look at two major groups of coral, Rugosa and Scleractinia. The former appears in the Ordovician whereas the later doesn't show up until a couple hundred million years later in the Triassic. Corals are sessile so obviously we can immediately dismiss the differential escape mechanism as an explanation for why rugosans appear in the rock record long before the vast majority of scleractinians do and vanish shortly (geologically speaking) after they appear.

What about hydrologic sorting? Let's take a look at a couple examples of the two groups:

You can see pretty clearly that scleractinians and rugosans overlap significantly in their morphologies, so hydrological sorting would not differentiate between the two groups based on shape alone. You could make an argument that density is the deciding factor because scleractinians tend to be more porous and rugosans more dense, thus one might argue that the more dense rugosans should be expected to appear lower in section. All things being equal this would make sense, but it fails to account for why we don't find large scleractinians appearing in the record prior below small rugosans. A scleractinian colony 2m in diameter is still going to settle out before a 8cm rugosan colony. So in the end hydrological sorting fails to explain why rugosans always appear before scleractinians.

What about selective preservation? While rugosans and scleractinians have skeletons composed of roughly the same material, the calcite that composes rugosan skeletons is somewhat more easily preserved than the aragonite comprising the scleractinian skeleton. Perhaps one might argue that this is why scleractinians are not found lower in section. But this does not explain why rugosans all but disappear near the Permian boundary. So selective preservation fails to explain the arrangement of these two groups.

What about biogeographic and ecological zonation? We know that modern scleractinians, depending on the type, inhabit both warm, shallow, sunlit waters as well as cold, deep, dark waters. They inhabit every ocean on the planet. The same is true of their fossil counterparts. And as you can see in these Excel spreadsheets (actually just screencaps, I can't figure out how to upload the actual xls file), scleractinians and rugosans inhabited the same environments in the same areas of the world. This means that ecological and biogeographic zonation also fail to explain why rugosans always appear in the rock record prior to scleractinians.

That leaves us with random chance. This seems like a weak argument to me, but let's look at the numbers. If you look at the spreadsheet you will see that there are 35,248 occurrences of scleractinians in the Palaeobiological database (PBDB) and 175,857 rugosans. And this is by no means a complete count; the PBDB only contains records that researchers and institutions have uploaded. Even so, these numbers make it very unlikely that pure chance caused rugosans and scleractinians to be arranged as they are.

So what say you? I look forward to a substantive rebuttal.

I find it rather amusing how you dismissed...simply waved off...processes that evolutionism uses.