leoj said:
Sorry I should have researhced more into the dating methods, but it's a bit complicated for me becuase I'm still in secondary school.
No problem. You posted what you thought was honest information and we gave you the correct info. That's what we are here for. I hope it taught you to be a bit more skeptical and cautious about AiG.
But don't let that stop you from asking. We'll give you the best, most accurate info we have. Look, leoj, we [the TEs here] have all looked at the scientific data in detal. If we had really found something that we think would have destroyed Christianity, we would tell you. Instead, none of us have problems with accepting evolution and believing in God and Christianity.
What evidence do you mean by evidence that falsifies the flood?
In 1780, naturalists thought that
all the rocks were formed by the Flood. Basalts and granites were thought to have precipitated from minerals held in solution during the Flood. In 1790 James Hutton published a book on geology and showed that basalts and granites were once molten, not precipitated. That falsified that the Flood was responsible for those rocks.
From 1790-1820 more and more geologists began looking at the rocks and layers. They applied some common sense rules -- the strata on the bottom was laid down before the strata on top of it, for instance. A no-brainer, but you have to start somewhere.
Anyway, geologists noted metamorphic rocks in particular. These had obviously been subjected to heat and pressure. Many of the metamorphic rocks are conglomerates -- they are pebbles embedded in a harder, smoother rock [that once was mud or sand]. Many of the metamorphic rocks also contain fossils -- distorted by the warping of the rock by heat and pressure. Now, metamorphic rocks could not have been deposited by the Flood. They start out as regular sedimentary rock and then are compressed and heated such that the the rock is at least plastic and often partly melted. No way a Flood could do that. So there went any strata with metamorphic rock, and the strata below them, since metamorphic rock would not have enough time to form if the sediments were deposited
after the Flood. With me so far?
Then there are some specific featuresa and locations. One is the volcanic cones near Auvergne, France. These are very delicate but have layers of sedimentary rock around their base. The rocks show that the cones didn't poke up thru the sedimentary rocks, but that they were deposited after the volcanoes formed. Well, if the rocks had been laid down by a Flood, the Flood water would have destroyed the cones. Then there are the coal beds in England. These are not one bed at one level, but several beds at several levels. Well, if the coal was due to the compression of plants killed by the Flood, they should all be at one level -- ground level when the Flood began -- and they should all have the same strata above them. But that isn't what happens. Coal bed A has 10 strata above it while coal bed B only has 7. Do you see the problem for the Flood? Such could not happen
if the Flood was true.
Finally, by 1825 Rev. William Buckland, head of geology at Oxford, published the last gasp of Flood Geology. He said that only the topmost gravels and morraines were due to the Flood. Sediments beneath them were laid down by other processes. He tried to correlate that all around Europe and the Mediterranean. However, there were several problems. As Louis Agassiz showed in the 1830s, most of those gravels and morraines could not have been deposited by running water. They were too compact and together. Instead, they were pushed by ice -- glaciers. So even they weren't caused by the Flood.
There was another problem. Remember, according to the Bible, humans are advanced enough technologically that Noah can build an Ark. That means metal working to make the metal tools to cut and shape the wood and metal nails to hold the planks of wood together. However, no one could find any evidence of such a civilization or even more primitive tools
beneath (before) the strata said to be from the Flood. By 1831 enough searching had been done that such evidence should have been found if it existed. So Rev. Adam Sedgwick, when he retired that year as President of the Royal Geological Society, announced that the Flood had never happened as a world-wide event that explained geology and the fossil record. He left open the possibility of a local flood in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley.
So, that is a quick overview of just the tiniest fraction of geology that falsified the Flood. Biogeography also falsifies the Flood; there is no way that the distribution of animals around the world can be explained by migration from the resting place of the Ark.
