Before I start, I'd like the reader to go back and read papa's first post
here. Notice now that his arguments have changed wildly from his first post. He went from 5 simple points, which I refuted, to bringing up everything he can think of, like attacking the scientific community because he doesn't understand how it works. This does nothing but distract from the discussion at hand. I really need only refute one point to dismantle the flood postulate. I've done this, so the remainder of my posts will be for the purpose of education.
cool! may I ask what the field is?
I am a geologist focusing on carbonate stratigraphy, specifically the stratigraphy of reef-rimmed platforms.
I would think the scientist's quickest path to riches and renown would be to quit being a scientist and go be an actor, or something.
That's cute, but then that person wouldn't be a scientist, would they?
but regardless, with pretty much every sub-discipline out there except this one. [SNIP]
I'm not really sure what any of this has to do with a global flood, so I'm going to ignore it and move on to more relevant topics. If there's anything specific you would like me to address from this block of text, please expound upon it.
Of course, I can't speak for anybody but Dawkins, since he is the only one that wrote a book that I can cite, but it is completely reasonable to say that there is a statistically significant percentage of the populace, and scientific populace, that specifically disregard any data that requires a supreme being.
Yes. That would be the
entirety of the scientific community. Supreme beings are inherently un-testable, and science does not deal with that which cannot be tested. Understand that the discipline of science is agnostic: God or no god, science doesn't care because science cannot address it. If a problem or hypothesis incorporates or relies upon god, or an un-testable factor of any kind, it is unscientific.
In fact, I wish I could link it now but the web site is down. The guy that I linked yesterday, ("the game") also has an interesting article where a non-Christian, and non-theist as far as I can tell, had for the goal of his thesis to debunk neo-darwinism. He could not get published because he was labeled a "creationist" by all the publishers.
If his thesis incorporated an un-testable supreme being, then it is most understandable that he couldn't get published in a scientific journal.
The guy was not a creationist. and the guy who was responsible for the web page has no vested interest in Christianity either. It's a good read, hopefully the page will be back up tomorrow.
Please post it when you can.
I said this because it's what I believe.
Your belief is mistaken. Please revise it.
Some of the particular historical examples of this aspect of human nature which I have studied include Galileo and the flat earth controversy
He was prosecuted by the church, not the scientific community.
and the wright brothers, who drew a crowd every weekend where observers came to see heavier than air flight but the respected scientific community didn't believe it because it was not published. (of course the respected scientific community would not even show up to observe it either... I guess they were all waiting for it to get published?)
Do you have any evidence of this? Obviously the Wright brothers were able to fly, thus proving the validity of their theory. If scientists of the day were skeptical it was because powered flight had failed every test until the Wrights succeeded. This is how science works. Does the hypothesis pass its tests? If no, the hypothesis is rejected. If yes, the hypothesis is moved into the 'some evidence supports this hypothesis' category, and the hypothesis continues to be tested.
Other examples of the scientific community opposing new ideas could include changes to the (then) current thinking on aether, phlogiston and the big bang. The last three are not as big of a deal as they did not take as long to rectify. But yeah, it is absolutely narcissistic to disregard a new idea with mockery and ad hominem attacks like those "new" ideas.
Narcissism is prevalent among humans, including scientists. But as I said, new ideas are treated with skepticism until evidence supports their validity. As evidence for the big bang accumulated (red shift of galaxies, cosmic background radiation, etc.), the hypothesis was shown to be a workable one, and was thus accepted by the scientific community.
And yes, it is my opinion that the intelligent design theory and even young earth theory falls into the category of being mocked and attacked ad hominem.
This is because they rely on an untestable supernatural being! They are NOT scientific. Yet their proponents insist on trying to insert themselves into the realm of science. It's like a golfer stepping onto a baseball field with a sand wedge and insisting on being allowed to play simply because both sports involve whacking a ball with a stick. Poor ol' Tiger's gonna get laughed at.
of course, I cited "the game" (which is down today) but the game postulates that "social rules are never, under any circumstances, articulated" so what you are saying is congruent with my pet theory.
That's what we call a 'conspiracy theory'. Isn't it convenient when you can cover all the bases by saying "They've got all these rules, plus A BUNCH THEY'LL NEVER TELL ANYONE ABOUT!" Sure makes it easy to play the victim.
Let me ask you this: Have you ever played a game where there were 'unspoken rules'? What were they? How did you know? What happens when someone breaks an 'unspoken rule'?
Please, for your own good, get rid of this type of thinking. I'm here to tell you that there are no 'unspoken rules' in science (if there were, I'd say so, but I wouldn't tell you what they were
). If you don't believe me, please do something to find out for yourself.
I actrually have a coupel honest questions then. I am a little bummed that I have to resort to creationist websites for this one, but I can't find any better links for this information. If you google "fossil graveyard" you will find that the first 5-10 links all have pictures of masses of discombobulated bones of different species all piled together and fossilized. Now, my own theory handles this fine for me. I think that there was a flood, and stuff of the same relative density, when submerged in water behaves like this
Great Pacific Garbage Patch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. So it isn't a problem for me to think that if there was a flood, then when the water receded, we should expect to find piles of equally dense animals all in clumps.How does the uniformitarian theory handle this?
The phrase 'fossil graveyard' does indeed turn up a bunch of hits on creationist websites. It is a bit harder to find scientific explanations. One of my favorite modes of preservation is the
konservat lagerstatten. In this type of preservation, organisms die (from any number of causes, including childbirth or choking) in a quite-water environment (such as a lagoon or lake), and their bodies sink to the bottom of the body of water. Because the water is calm, there is little mixing, so the water at the bottom does not receive any free oxygen (which is derived from the atmosphere). No oxygen=no bacteria=no decay. The carcass sits on the bottom until it is covered (often by silt or lime mud--fine grained sediment that easily preserves the small features of the organism). The sediments are then buried, lithified, and boom! Exquisite fossils. Read this:
Lagerstätte - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lagerstatten generally preserve marine organisms (although the Archaeopteryx was found in a German Lagerstatte). Terrestrial organisms can be preserved in tar pits (as in the La Brea Tar Pits), or in fluvial deposits as at Dinosaur National Monument. There are many other modes of fossilization, but these provide the best preservation. Google 'modes of fossil preservation' to get the gritty details of fossilization.
As an aside: You'll notice that all of the creationist websites say that fossils were buried 'quickly' by 'avalanches' of material. While this may be true in some cases, in the case of fine preservation of delicate organisms (as of whole trilobites), an avalanche would tend to destroy the organism, rather than preserving it intact.
Another example of something that has never been explained adequately to me is this: the moon is receding, Niagara falls is receding, the spin of the earth is slowing down, and they have to dredge the Mississippi every year or so. So in each of those 4 cases, the uniformitarian has to say "well, it wasn't like that in the past" But when it comes to the rate of speciation, or the rate or erosion or river beds, the uniformitarian says "yeah, I'm cool with that." So my question is on what basis can the uniformitarian say that"Tthe moon has not always been receding at the rate that it currently is but the erosion of river beds has always been receding at a constant rate." As far as I can tell, there is no evidence for either. It is only a conclusion forced out of a bias that the earth must be very old.
Moon recession and negative acceleration of earth spin: PRATT -->
CE110: Moon Receding
Niagara Falls headward erosion: PRATT-->
CD610: Niagara Falls erosion
Mississippi dredging: This is a case of human interference. There has been a massive amount of human engineering to keep the Mississippi in a constant state. This in necessary to maintain the commercial usefulness of this waterway. As a natural system, the Mississippi is pretty variable, and this wreaks havoc on shipping, fishing, and habitation of the delta. So it's been engineered to stay stay where it is, where it would naturally avulse otherwise. Dredging of the waterway prevents this avulsion.
The pacific garbage patch is a result of the Pacific gyre, and collects floating debris. Skeletal material does not float. Thus, a gyre-type accumulation of skeletal debris is not possible. If you disagree, please provide a source that explains why this process would work with heavy skeletal debris.
I
have not written a doctoral thesis on it or anything, but I believe it is that same principle that causes the garbage aggregation in the pacific that I already linked in this same post. Stuff of like density is affected by currents in the same way so it tends to aggregate.
Objects that behave similarly in a particular hydrodynamic condition tend to aggregate, not objects of similar density. If I had a crinoid columnal (calcitic, density ~2.6, cylindrical), i would not expect it to behave the same way as a piece of a fenestrate bryozoan (calcitic, density ~2.6, fan-shaped). This is a principle called 'hydrodynamic equivalence', and it disproves your 'equal densities' theory.
another factor may be the rubber ducky effect. (I just made that effect up, but if you have two rubber duckies in a bathtub, they will stick together like they are magnetic), also applies to pool floaties.
Static electricity.
So I assume the black sand and the white sand are different densities
That's quite an assumption.
The way this applies to the other "paper" I cited is by way of what they have in common. Stratification. In both cases we observe stratification via a suspension.
Stratification in a volcanic eruption such as the one @ St. Helens is due to the principle I just described-- hydraulic equivalence. Except that the medium isn't water, it's air, so in this case it would more accurately be termed aerodynamic equivalence. Stratification in volcanics can also be the result of multiple eruptions, or an eruption that has multiple pulses of material. It can also be produced by flow, the liquefaction you mentioned earlier.
Anyway, stratification in volcanics is a poor analogue for stratification in sediments.
First, if you flood organic soil you will always make mud on the bottom. That is not too difficult, is it?
It is if your flood if violent, as it would be if 'fountains of the deep' were in play. In that case you would most likely strip the soil away, as I've already pointed out.
Second I am not sure if you are being serious here or if you are grasping at straws. If you think I have a problem, you most certainly have a bigger problem. I can go to my ditch outside, collect a jar full of mud from the bottom, and if I set it on my counter for 24 hours it will stratify.
Keep on flip-flopping pal. What you are describing is density stratification. I've already addressed the fact that the sedimentary column, as a whole, is not stratified based on density or grain size.
(I have done it, I found freshwater clams in there the size of bb's and my high school science teacher gave me a jolly rancher for finding clams, but that was years ago) However, If you think the layers are different ages, then one would expect a gradient
http://paint.net.amihotornot.com.au/Features/Effects/Plugins/Render/Multi_Color_Gradient/
however, what we actually find is a color graduation
http://www.gettysburgflag.com/images/OrigRainbow.jpg
We find both in the sedimentary record, because there are a variety of processes that control sediment deposition. In no way is this argument effective in supporting a global flood.
It occurs to me that you are just speculating based on your 'common sense'. This kind of speculation is of no worth in science, and can be very misleading. Do some research. Do some work to learn these concepts rather than just blathering on about whatever you feel must be true.