Creationist Challenge: Plate Tectonics

[caravelair]

Not to those who believe God.

actually, they are useless to those people too, except those who are desparate to find some way to be able to ignore the findings of science, like you.

Unfalsifiable claims such as yours are useless, however! We can't falsify your past and future as this physical only present claims. Can't be done!! Ha ha ha

just like you can't falsify last-thursdayism! HA HA HA! i guess it must be true then.

 

[dad]

actually, they are useless to those people too, except those who are desparate to find some way to be able to ignore the findings of science, like you.

No science will I ignore, it is a tiny shadow of the great eternal realities, and nothing about it needs be ignored in any way, in the least. Not by me. You, on the other hand seem to have a predisposition to your own beliefs of some strange sameness in the past which science cannot support! Please do us a favor here, and stop ignoring the real limitations of our good science.

just like you can't falsify last-thursdayism!

Your bizarre last week creation claims, and weird same past and future for no apparent reason, other than yousaysoism cannot be falsified, and have no place being taught as science. Now admit this, and let's move on to something more interesting than your unsubstansiated fantasies you just really want us to call science.

 

[Gracchus]

I note, dad, that your avatars have been comedians who pretended to be God. Your wit is considerably short of that of the sly Mr. Burns. It is even short of the mindless mugging of Mr. Carey. I think you aspire unavailingly to wit. I think you are a troll.

 

[The_Horses_Boy]

Assume the world is 30, 000 years old. On average tectonic plates move 4 inches per year. This means that since the beginning of time the plates have shifted around 10, 000 feet, a little less then two miles. Obviously, this poses a problem for the idea of a Pangea.

Challenge: Explain

1. Coal deposits in Antarctica showing fossils of tropical plants. Tectonics explains this since that land was at one point nearer to the equator at a latitude that allowed for such growth. Growth of these plants at the latitude of Antarctica is nearly impossible.

2. Continental ice sheets- glacial striations on rocks show that glaciers moved from south America towards the Atlantic ocean and from the Atlantic ocean towards Africa. Since it is highly unlikely that glaciers swim, how is this gap explainable if the continents were not joined at some point?

3. Identical fossil species along the South American and African shores, both on the Atlantic side. Fossils from these species are not found in north America, Asia, or the western side of Africa.

ON AVERAGE is key. How long have we been keeping track to make that average?

Your point is fundamentally flawed. If I were to say that, from a study of the last 100 years, (I'm pulling this number out of thin air) 250,000 people have been killed each year by guns, so through the time of the Roman Empire 3,7500,000 people must have been killed by guns... You get the idea.

 

[dad]

I note, dad, that your avatars have been comedians who pretended to be God. Your wit is considerably short of that of the sly Mr. Burns. It is even short of the mindless mugging of Mr. Carey. I think you aspire unavailingly to wit. I think you are a troll.

I think you are a bore. One who aspires to appear as if he knows the least bit about what he is talking about. Any more off topic thoughts?

 

[rmwilliamsll]

ON AVERAGE is key. How long have we been keeping track to make that average?

Your point is fundamentally flawed. If I were to say that, from a study of the last 100 years, (I'm pulling this number out of thin air) 250,000 people have been killed each year by guns, so through the time of the Roman Empire 3,7500,000 people must have been killed by guns... You get the idea.

what is flawed is your example.
you know that guns were only invented roughly 300 years ago. that knowledge makes extrapolation invalid past that date.

if you have knowledge of a similiar event that would invalidate plate tectonics then it too would be invalid extrapolation, but AFAIK no such information analogous to your knowledge of the invention of guns occurs in the geology.

 

[caravelair]

No science will I ignore...

you ignore virtually all science. geology, cosmology, biology... whenever it becomes inconvenient for your beliefs.

You, on the other hand seem to have a predisposition to your own beliefs of some strange sameness in the past which science cannot support!

you have a predisposition to your own beliefs of some non-existent time before last thursday which science cannot support!

Please do us a favor here, and stop ignoring the real limitations of our good science.

the real limitations of our good science are last thursday. they do not apply before then, and you cannot prove otherwise! therefore it is true!

Your bizarre last week creation claims, and weird same past and future for no apparent reason, other than yousaysoism cannot be falsified, and have no place being taught as science.

Your bizarre merge/split physical/spiritual duality for no apparent reason, other than yousaysoism cannot be falsified, and have no place being taught as science.

Now admit this, and let's move on to something more interesting than your unsubstansiated fantasies you just really want us to call science.

 

[The_Horses_Boy]

what is flawed is your example.
you know that guns were only invented roughly 300 years ago. that knowledge makes extrapolation invalid past that date.

if you have knowledge of a similiar event that would invalidate plate tectonics then it too would be invalid extrapolation, but AFAIK no such information analogous to your knowledge of the invention of guns occurs in the geology.

"I know nothing." -Plato

It still works. We know when guns were invented (over a thousand years ago). We don't know everything about plate tectonics. They don't work on averages. Need some other examples? Temperatue. About ten thousand years ago the earth was supposed to be covered in ice, now we're worrying about it burning up. Averages, buddy?

What you don't seem to get is that your basically making a guess and saying "let's see the creationists beat that!" It's a guess.

Also Pangea is, while commonly accepted, still only a theory. There are other theories that answer the same questions that Pangea does, they just aren't quite so common.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

We know when guns were invented (over a thousand years ago)

do you have a reference for this?


are you defending his example then?
it is not true. that many people did not die from gun shots.

 

[The_Horses_Boy]

We know when guns were invented (over a thousand years ago)

do you have a reference for this?


are you defending his example then?
it is not true. that many people did not die from gun shots.

I actually looked it up and I was mistaken. Gunpowder is very old, and the Chinese in 994 AD used the practical eqivalent of a gun, powered by gunpowder, but the weapon was an arrow. Rockets were also used by Chinese and the Mongols such as Ghengis Khan, if you would consider that.

http://www.esa.int/esaMI/Mars_Express/SEM1WR274OD_0.html

And it was an example. In my post I said that I made those numbers up.

 

[The_Horses_Boy]

OK, here is a much better example: guns have been around for about 1000 years then. Can we take the average for how many have been killed a year in the last 100 years and apply it to the previous? No. Things change. It's the way our world works. Even nature is like that: unpredictable.

 

[KerrMetric]

OK, here is a much better example: guns have been around for about 1000 years then. Can we take the average for how many have been killed a year in the last 100 years and apply it to the previous? No. Things change. It's the way our world works. Even nature is like that: unpredictable.

Do you know what stochastic and deterministic mean?

 

[The_Horses_Boy]

Do you know what stochastic and deterministic mean?

why?

 

[notto]

ON AVERAGE is key. How long have we been keeping track to make that average?

We know from independent lines of evidence that the average has been fairly consistent for millions of years.

We don't need to 'keep track' in the way you suggest. We can base the average on evidence of the movement in the past.

 

[The_Horses_Boy]

We know from independent lines of evidence that the average has been fairly consistent for millions of years.

We don't need to 'keep track' in the way you suggest. We can base the average on evidence of the movement in the past.

Could you please give me a source?

 

[notto]

Could you please give me a source?

http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_formation.html

We can see from the relationship of mountain (island) building, erosion and radiometric dating that the techtonic movement of the plates are fairly linear over a long amount of time.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

ONLY in the present. You assume the past was the same. There lies your fatal error.

In post 32 of this thread I wrote

So we see that young earth creationists are entirely unable to answer the challenge of plate tectonics. The heat released by the cooling of the crust and lithosphere would have cooked the earth to death, the pattern of sediments on the sea floor is consistent with deposition over millions of years and not with super rapid movement, the depth profile of the oceans is consistent with slow movement and not fast and the crystal structure of sea floor rocks such as gabbros is consistent with slow spreading and conductive cooling. and is not consistent with rapid cooling that would be required to solidfy the crust during rapid plate movement.

We have had a thread on this forum discussing how the Hawaiian Island seamount is consistent with slow and not rapid plate movement.

Patterns of paleomagnetism on the seafloor are also consistent with slow plate movement and not rapid plate movement.

Overall there are several lines of evidence that overlap to show conclusively that plates have been moving slowly for many millions of years.

PS I see Notto just posted the Hawaiian Island data.
The Frumious Bandersnatch

 

[The_Horses_Boy]

http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_formation.html

We can see from the relationship of mountain (island) building, erosion and radiometric dating that the techtonic movement of the plates are fairly linear over a long amount of time.

Oh I see... So a guess, based on a guess, based on a guess. Hmmmmm...

I'd like to know how they got those ages. I've got a hunch, but it's very important to know.

 

[dawiyd]

Oh I see... So a guess, based on a guess, based on a guess. Hmmmmm...

I'd like to know how they got those ages. I've got a hunch, but it's very important to know.

No research, not guessing.
And Radiometric dating.

 

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Oh I see... So a guess, based on a guess, based on a guess. Hmmmmm...

I'd like to know how they got those ages. I've got a hunch, but it's very important to know.

Ages of the Hawaiian Island volcanoes can be measured by isochron dating. Radiometric dates are consistent with paleomagnetic data and with dates obtained from index fossils as well as with the amount of erosion on the islands.

Let me make a guess, you a YEC who will reject any and all facts that disagree with an interpretation of the Bible which you guess to be the only correct one.

Now do you have anything substantive to say on the topic of plate tectonics?