Richard Dawkins disappoints again

[Job 33:6]

With an understanding of relative dating methods (inclusions, cross cutting relations, faunal succsession, superposition etc.) And an understanding of features such as the ones we are discussing, it becomes evident that the planet is extraordinarily old.

For example, we can see these deep meanders cut out by a river. Meanders that cut through dense rock at an observably slow rate, by a river that post dates the deposition and formation of the rock.

The rock formed by numberous environments, deep oceans, forests, ice ages etc. Rock that contains features that would take millions of years to form (stream deposits, ocean deposits, terrestrial land deposits, cyclothems, cycles...deep time). And millions more years to be eroded away by a river.

You don't have to be a scientist to recognize that the planet is ancient.

Once you study enough to recognize the sheer number of independent features in the rock record and the succession by which they occurred, only then could you understand how it is known that the planet is at least millions of years old.

If you are stuck at step 1, trying to figure out how a river could erode meanders into the grand canyon (a relatively simple concept), then you will not be able to understand how old the earth is.

 

[dcalling]

With an understanding of relative dating methods (inclusions, cross cutting relations, superposition etc.) And an understanding of features such as the ones we are discussing, it becomes evident that the planet is extraordinarily old.

For example, we can see these deep meanders cut out by a river. Meanders that cut through dense rock by a river that post dates the deposition and formation of the rock.

The rock formed by numberous environments, deep oceans, forests, ice ages etc. Rock that contains features that would take millions of years to form. And millions more to be eroded away by a river.

You don't have to be a scientist to recognize that the planet is ancient.

Once you study enough to recognize the sheer number of independent features in the erock record and the succession by which they occurred, only then could you understand how it is known that the planet is at least millions of years old.

If you are stuck at step 1, trying to figure out how a river could erode meanders into the grand canyon, then you will not be able to understand how old the earth is.

If planet is ancient or not has nothing to do with how certain things are formed. The meander will be too young compare to the ancientness of the planet.

You got it all backward, i.e. you are almost thinking that because planet is ancient, there for the XYZ meander must be millions year old.

The planet can be really old but the meander might be only 100k year old. We are discussing some meander why bring the planet into this? It won't help you at all.

Look at the scablands formations, everyone laughed at Bretz when he proposed his theory, because all the educated people in the field is so limited by their education that they can't accept something can change that rapidly.

 

[The Barbarian]

You got it all backward, i.e. you are almost thinking that because planet is ancient, there for the XYZ meander must be millions year old.

"Almost thinking?" But not really? What does that mean?

The planet can be really old but the meander might be only 100k year old.

Not that far down into rock.

Look at the scablands formations, everyone laughed at Bretz when he proposed his theory,

Right. But the key is, as more evidence accumulated, more and more scientists realized he was right. That's pretty much the way science works. In my lifetime, plate tectonics was like that. A hundred years ago, evolutionary theory was like that. In the end, evidence wins.

 

[Job 33:6]

If planet is ancient or not has nothing to do with how certain things are formed. The meander will be too young compare to the ancientness of the planet.

You got it all backward, i.e. you are almost thinking that because planet is ancient, there for the XYZ meander must be millions year old.

The planet can be really old but the meander might be only 100k year old. We are discussing some meander why bring the planet into this? It won't help you at all.

Look at the scablands formations, everyone laughed at Bretz when he proposed his theory, because all the educated people in the field is so limited by their education that they can't accept something can change that rapidly.

Could you describe my last post, to demonstrate that you understand what I said?

I suspect that you don't understand what I said.

 

[dcalling]

"Almost thinking?" But not really? What does that mean?



Not that far down into rock.



Right. But the key is, as more evidence accumulated, more and more scientists realized he was right. That's pretty much the way science works. In my lifetime, plate tectonics was like that. A hundred years ago, evolutionary theory was like that. In the end, evidence wins.

Excatly, so even when his theory is there, no one believed in him and all believed the formation must have took millions of years. Not after they found evidence of lakes that identified as glacier dam did they finally back down.

Look at the pictures below, one from Grand and one from Scab, see how stricklying similar the 2 are? The only difference is one has the evidence of an ice dam, the other might have an ice dam but the evidence got destroyed by flow/earthquake/erosion/uplift or other reasons.

 

[dcalling]

Could you describe my last post, to demonstrate that you understand what I said?

I suspect that you don't understand what I said.

You are saying with various methods, we know the earth is old.

And I suspect you don't understand what I was talking about.

I said if the earth is old or young has NOTHING to do with how old the grand canyon is. And you seems to fixated on using the age of the Canyon to establish that the earth is old.

 

[The Barbarian]

Excatly, so even when his theory is there, no one believed in him and all believed the formation must have took millions of years. Not after they found evidence of lakes that identified as glacier dam did they finally back down.

That's not quite correct. Just a couple of years later, geologists were trying to figure out how that sudden flood happened:

However, when Bretz went to visit this area a couple years later he found that Pardee's "glacial" deposits were actually flood bars. What is even more interesting is that, after hearing of Bretz's ideas, Pardee seemed to change his mind. He actually wrote to Bretz in 1925 suggesting that Bretz consider the draining of a glacial lake as a possible source for his suggested cataclysmic flood. In reference to this communication, Bretz wrote the following to J. C. Merriam:

Mr. Pardee of the Federal Survey, who has seen much of the scablands, has suggested that his glacial Lake Missoula might have afforded the water for these enormous rivers if it were suddenly drained out across the plateau. This comment indicates that his former view of the scablands by land ice and concomitant subglacial drainage under ordinary climatic melting has been abandoned. Even our ultraconservative in Pleistocene geology, Dr. Alden, wrote that the phenomena I describe certainly appear to be river work "if you could only show where all the water came from in so short a time."
J Harlen Bretz - And the Great Scabland Debate

Look at the pictures below, one from Grand and one from Scab, see how stricklying similar the 2 are?

The land looks very different. In the first, the land is flat. In the second, we see typical scabland topology.

down in the channels of the ancient rivers, they look more similar, as you'd expect. The main difference is the canyon surfaces are all rounded and smoothed, as you'd expect if there was a sudden catastrophic flood.

These pictures do your argument no small amount of damage.

 

[Job 33:6]

You are saying with various methods, we know the earth is old.

And I suspect you don't understand what I was talking about.

I said if the earth is old or young has NOTHING to do with how old the grand canyon is. And you seems to fixated on using the age of the Canyon to establish that the earth is old.

Clearly you do not understand what I was saying in my last post.

My point was that, clearly we can see that the grand canyon took many years to form. But the reality is that, throughout the geologic succession, there are countless features that pre date and post date features of the grand canyon, that also took extraordinarily long to form. When you begin putting together the chronology, much like those of genesis, you begin stacking one long age on top of another, until you find yourself easily stumbling across countless millions of years of time.

Also, if the canyon is old, which it clearly is, then the planet is by default old as well. And when you come to realize that the canyon is actually relatively young in comparison to other geologic features that super positionally pre date the canyon, you come to find that the planet is even older than the canyon.

For example, there are structural features in the grand canyon, extensional faulting and propogating compressional faults, that both predate the erosion that formed the canyon, one predating the other. With erosional features and unique faunal groups, unique lithological features, cyclothems for example...

When you examine these features independently, they themselves are extraordinarily old, millions of years, And in combination with things like the grand canyons age which itself is millions of years old, the planet must be exceedingly old.


Regular everyday angular unconformities require deposition, orogenic processes, erosion and more deposition. This kind of feature alone are most certainly older than 6000 years, and they are found everywhere, even in rocks that predate the formation of the canyon.

Young earthers propose that the planet is 6000 years old, but they have to literally ignore all of these features to do that. They even have to ignore things like meanders in the grand canyon, because a river couldn't erode thousands of feet of dense rock in such a brief amount of time, unless the river itself was a river of some sort of acid. But a river of acid wouldn't meander so...

 

[dcalling]

That's not quite correct. Just a couple of years later, geologists were trying to figure out how that sudden flood happened:

However, when Bretz went to visit this area a couple years later he found that Pardee's "glacial" deposits were actually flood bars. What is even more interesting is that, after hearing of Bretz's ideas, Pardee seemed to change his mind. He actually wrote to Bretz in 1925 suggesting that Bretz consider the draining of a glacial lake as a possible source for his suggested cataclysmic flood. In reference to this communication, Bretz wrote the following to J. C. Merriam:

Mr. Pardee of the Federal Survey, who has seen much of the scablands, has suggested that his glacial Lake Missoula might have afforded the water for these enormous rivers if it were suddenly drained out across the plateau. This comment indicates that his former view of the scablands by land ice and concomitant subglacial drainage under ordinary climatic melting has been abandoned. Even our ultraconservative in Pleistocene geology, Dr. Alden, wrote that the phenomena I describe certainly appear to be river work "if you could only show where all the water came from in so short a time."
J Harlen Bretz - And the Great Scabland Debate

You have mistaken. Look at Channeled Scablands - Wikipedia, Pardee is one of the few early acceptors. Most of the scientific community rejected:
"Pardee's and Bretz's theories were accepted only after decades of painstaking work and fierce scientific debate."

The land looks very different. In the first, the land is flat. In the second, we see typical scabland
topology.

down in the channels of the ancient rivers, they look more similar, as you'd expect. The main difference is the canyon surfaces are all rounded and smoothed, as you'd expect if there was a sudden catastrophic flood.

These pictures do your argument no small amount of damage.

You must be kidding... What do you mean the land is flat in the first? Both looks remarkably the same, flat top, zigzag valleys with stiff cliffs:

 

[dcalling]

Clearly you do not understand what I was saying in my last post.

My point was that, clearly we can see that the grand canyon took many years to form. But the reality is that, throughout the geologic succession, there are countless features that pre date and post date features of the grand canyon, that also took extraordinarily long to form. When you begin putting together the chronology, much like those of genesis, you begin stacking one long age on top of another, until you find yourself easily stumbling across countless millions of years of time.

Also, if the canyon is old, which it clearly is, then the planet is by default old as well. And when you come to realize that the canyon is actually relatively young in comparison to other geologic features that super positionally pre date the canyon, you come to find that the planet is even older than the canyon.

For example, there are structural features in the grand canyon, extensional faulting and propogating compressional faults, that both predate the erosion that formed the canyon, one predating the other. With erosional features and unique faunal groups, unique lithological features, cyclothems for example...

When you examine these features independently, they themselves are extraordinarily old, millions of years, And in combination with things like the grand canyons age which itself is millions of years old, the planet must be exceedingly old.


Regular everyday angular unconformities require deposition, orogenic processes, erosion and more deposition. This kind of feature alone are most certainly older than 6000 years, and they are found everywhere, even in rocks that predate the formation of the canyon.

Young earthers propose that the planet is 6000 years old, but they have to literally ignore all of these features to do that. They even have to ignore things like meanders in the grand canyon, because a river couldn't erode thousands of feet of dense rock in such a brief amount of time, unless the river itself was a river of some sort of acid. But a river of acid wouldn't meander so...

No, you clearly misunderstood me. As I again and again point out to you that I don't care about the age of the earth, you again and again trying to put the number 6000 in my mouth.

It is super clear the first 6 days are not actually days, because before there is sun we don't have 24 hour days. Adam has a basically endless life span before his fall, just the naming of all items on earth will take him thousands of years (in our time scale).

Now with that cleared up, look at how similar it is on the above post from me to Barb the 2 images, one from grand canyon and the other from scablands

 

[The Barbarian]

You have mistaken. Look at Channeled Scablands - Wikipedia, Pardee is one of the few early acceptors. Most of the scientific community rejected:
"Pardee's and Bretz's theories were accepted only after decades of painstaking work and fierce scientific debate."

Just pointing out that Bretz began getting support for his theories shortly after he published. Pardee was sharp enough to point out to Bretz that he'd have to come up with an explanation for where all that water originated. And when it became clear that there was a source, then geologists started coming over to his ideas. Same thing happened with plate tectonics. Few accepted it until the cause of the motion could be identified. That's how science works.

You must be kidding... What do you mean the land is flat in the first? Both looks remarkably the same, flat top,

Nope. Grand canyon. Notice flat plains above the ancient canyons.

Scablands. Notice the irregular eroded terrain away from the canyon. Notice the canyon itself is different, having been rounded and scoured out by the catastrophic flood. Compare it to the rougher profile of the Grand Canyon.

Arial views to get a better look...
Scablands:

Grand Canyon:

 

[Job 33:6]

No, you clearly misunderstood me. As I again and again point out to you that I don't care about the age of the earth, you again and again trying to put the number 6000 in my mouth.

It is super clear the first 6 days are not actually days, because before there is sun we don't have 24 hour days. Adam has a basically endless life span before his fall, just the naming of all items on earth will take him thousands of years (in our time scale).

Now with that cleared up, look at how similar it is on the above post from me to Barb the 2 images, one from grand canyon and the other from scablands

If you aren't a young earther, then my business here is finished.

You can question ideas all you want in your own time. I'll be busy with all the other scientists publishing research, running classroom lessons and leading the world in scientific advances.

As always, it's been fun.

 

[Job 33:6]

Just pointing out that Bretz began getting support for his theories shortly after he published. Pardee was sharp enough to point out to Bretz that he'd have to come up with an explanation for where all that water originated. And when it became clear that there was a source, then geologists started coming over to his ideas. Same thing happened with plate tectonics. Few accepted it until the cause of the motion could be identified. That's how science works.



Nope. Grand canyon. Notice flat plains above the ancient canyons.

Scablands. Notice the irregular eroded terrain away from the canyon. Notice the canyon itself is different, having been rounded and scoured out by the catastrophic flood. Compare it to the rougher profile of the Grand Canyon.

Arial views to get a better look...
Scablands:

Grand Canyon:

@dcalling

Geologically, the grand canyon and the scablands are remarkably different.

Seems clear as day.

Ultimately though, even just images do not do their differences any justice. Geologically speaking, if you read research on either, you will find vastly different geologic qualities between the two. Who told you that they formed the same way?

 

[dcalling]

To Barb and also @KomatiiteBIF The top of scablands is pretty flat, maybe not as flat as
Grand Canyon, but that is not as important as how the rocks are cut.

Look how the bare stone are all layered, and how clean the river bed is.

You just can't deny how similar they are (the rock layers)

Just pointing out that Bretz began getting support for his theories shortly after he published. Pardee was sharp enough to point out to Bretz that he'd have to come up with an explanation for where all that water originated. And when it became clear that there was a source, then geologists started coming over to his ideas. Same thing happened with plate tectonics. Few accepted it until the cause of the motion could be identified. That's how science works.



Nope. Grand canyon. Notice flat plains above the ancient canyons.

Scablands. Notice the irregular eroded terrain away from the canyon. Notice the canyon itself is different, having been rounded and scoured out by the catastrophic flood. Compare it to the rougher profile of the Grand Canyon.

Arial views to get a better look...
Scablands:


Grand Canyon:
[/QUOTE

 

[Job 33:6]

It doesn't really matter if you perceive them to be the same or of similar origins. The simple fact Is. they are not. If you think they look the same on the surface, then why not share a cross section and we can take a closer look?

 

[The Barbarian]

I don't see how anyone could think of them as remotely alike.

 

[dcalling]

I don't see how anyone could think of them as remotely alike.

 

[The Barbarian]

The area around the Grand Canyon is flat and smooth. The area around the canyon in the scablands is bumpy, gouged out, with most of the soil removed.

The Grand Canyon has rugged edges and sharp discontinuities. The edges in the scabland canyon have been rounded and smoothed by the huge flow of water.

 

[Job 33:6]

There are also glaciofluvial deposits, u shaped valleys and glacial erratics at the scablands.

The scablands also do not cut through 5000 feet of varying geologic formations as the grand canyon does.

They really don't look similar at all. The below image looks nothing like the grand canyon. @dcalling , you can't just keep pointing at one zoomed in photo to make the case.

 

[The Barbarian]

There are also glaciofluvial deposits, u shaped valleys and glacial erratics at the scablands.

The scablands also do not cut through 5000 feet of varying geologic formations as the grand canyon does.

They really don't look similar at all. The below image looks nothing like the grand canyon. @dcalling , you can't just keep pointing at one zoomed in photo to make the case.

I think I got what has him confused. He thinks that canyon running through scablands wasn't there before the flooding. He thinks that canyon was formed suddenly. And he just kind of dismisses the actual scablands as being irrelevant to the discussion.