The list of extinctions compared to the list of 'evolved' organisms

[valkyree]

No primary research is done without the researcher visiting their field site. It doesn't work that way. And this isn't even about the fact that he didn't visit the sites, it's about the fact that he is either deliberately misleading or massively untalented as a stratigrapher-- there are mistakes and omissions throughout his article, as I pointed out.


And I destroyed it. Sorry.


But he discounted the 'uniformitarian' example using faulty logic and selective omission. He hasn't shown the classic geology interpretations to be wrong, or his interpretations to be better. That has to happen in order for his interpretations to be valid.


It's not about whether one can make multiple interpretations; there are INFINITE interpretations for everything.
It's about the fact that he hasn't shown his interpretation to be BETTER THAN the other. If he cannot do that, his interpretation is of no value.


Nobody denies this. It's just that nothing works better than the 'uniformitarian' approach, so there's no reason to use anything BUT the uniformitarian approach.

you don't want to consider another model for the earth than the one you know - that's your choice but doesn't necessarily make you right

there is plenty of evidence overlooked or unexplainable by your model - way too much in fact

so something is wrong with your model

this was not a primary research article - this was an article suggesting another possible interpretation paving the way for more open-minded research

 

[florida2]

you don't want to consider another model for the earth than the one you know - that's your choice but doesn't necessarily make you right

Pot, meet kettle.

there is plenty of evidence overlooked or unexplainable by your model - way too much in fact

Care to share that with us? (With links from serious scientific publications, not creationist sites which you're getting your arguments from)

 

[valkyree]

There is an entire thread on polystrate fossils here.

Also, you repeat the assertion that there was a lot of volcanic ash involved in the flood. Could you please explain why, when we see volcanic ashes in the rock record, they often appear to have been deposited by airfall rather than subaqueously?

great uplifts of the crust were the catalyst for the flood

huge volcanic ash formations such as the Morrison Formation in western USA were deposited upon such uplifts at late stage of cataclysm after water had atleast partially run off - though many remnant lakes and general wet conditions would remain

uniformitarianism has had trouble explaining the uplift of the Colorado Plateau - the flood model does not




If the flood was such a tumultuous place, shouldn't the ash have been dispersed, rather than forming very nice, thin, coherent layers ?

you've prob seen the dispursment maps for the Yellowstone caldera eruptions - they are huge - no lack of disbursement




Again, just saying that the ash was deposited during a period of calm isn't enough- even if it was, it should have been reworked when the next high-energy event came about, right?

yes during the cataclysm and we see a lot of reworked volcanics - nearer to the end of the cataclysm not so much - such as Morrison Formation mentioned above

i'll look at the other thread

 

[valkyree]

There might be further local unconformities inside the the flood deposits, what you need it a global unconformity between the flood strata and preflood rock. Finding unconformities themselves are not evidence of the flood, because they would also be formed by ordinary geological processes. What would distinguish flood geology from ordinary geology is the global unconformity. Which doesn't exist.

preCambrian / Cambrian boundary

what is ordinary geology?

flood events are big - on a global scale and they take a global picture of sediments to see them

most geologists are used to what you call ordinary geology - geology on such a small scale they can't see the bigger global picture

They don't have to stay covered. Once you have 15 cubit seas washing over the tallest mountains in a region, all the animal there are going to drown. You won't have any left to leave footprints in higher layers of sediment, there with be nothing alive to build nests, dig burrows and plants will not have time to grow roots through the soil before the next layer of flood sediment washes in.

Actually creationists vary considerably over when the flood strata start. Obviously the higher up the geological column you place it, the more sedimentary rock you had befor the flood, either created or formed by preflood geology. But the further back you place it the more life you have to explain in the flood sediments.

Actually once you buy into continental drift, even if it is the creationists superfast model, you buy into underwater sediments forming rock and being pushed to very high altitudes by tectonic movement. A problem with creationism is that they hold onto old arguments for a flood, even if newer ideas contradict it. An old argument was fossilised fish and shellfish found in the mountains. Only possible explanation is being washed there by a flood. Until creationists took plate tectonics on board which completely explains how marine fossils end up as part of mountains. But you still get the old argument being used alongside it.

Actually there is simply too much for one planet to support at one time.

there had to be an immense amount of vegetation to feed the giant animals of all types found in the fossil record

the pre-flood world was very different from our post-flood world

No, it does show what I said, that all life on the face of the earth would have drowned and nothing would have been left to leave footprints nests roots and burrows.

some sea creatures would survive

some birds would survive

some insects would survive

and Noah preserved land animals on the ark

atleast that's what God told us

maybe your footprints nests roots burrows are misinterpreted - it's not an area I know much about but I do know sed structures can look like animals may have left them

No I am not using the old earth model. I am looking at the young earth model and showing that the evidence doesn't fit it.


Sure there is evidence you can make fit. It is the evidence that doesn't fit that is the problem.


It is not being older that is the problem, it is that the ages that different dating methods give are consistent. If our understanding of the rates in the past is wrong, why do they give the same answer?

answered already - they all use the same assumption of constant decay rates - they are consistent by making the same error


If it was only one wrong dating method the the answers would be consistently wrong. But we are talking of wildly different dating methods from nuclear decay to tree rings. There is an infinite number of ways to be wrong, each dating method has its own infinite number of ways to be wrong. How can they give the same answers? Unless the rates we use are the right ones.

dating oldest rocks is only done w radioactive elements and the same assumption is used

No. because there are different ways nuclei decay, alpha decay is very different from electron capture. There is no reason, even if you changed universal constants, for the rates of decay to by the same amount. And how does that make continental drift change at the same rate?

continental drift is measured by sea floor spread using volcanic rocks - same as with dating older volcanic rocks on continents


How would that possibly make tree ring growth change at the same rate, or varves be laid down thousands or millions of time faster? How does a change in the decay rates of isotopes make seasonal deposits of of ice we see in ice cores so much faster in the past?

tree rings and ice cores do not date old rocks

So the rates of decay all changed in just a year?

good question - apparently so - like an explosion w a big burst of destructive energy then it subsides - can't explain it

THe question is why the rates match? answered above

It is only a problem for the model that cannot be tested - like creationism, not for a model that can be tested and passes the tests.

so a model that claims to go back for 4.5 billion years can be tested

and the model that says the earth is younger - maybe a lot younger can't be tested

not logical

think about that one

 

[valkyree]

Pot, meet kettle.



Care to share that with us? (With links from serious scientific publications, not creationist sites which you're getting your arguments from)

read my posts - i can't repeat it all

 

[Keachian]

preCambrian / Cambrian boundary

Do you mean the Cretaceous / Tertiary boundary or the K-T boundary?

One thing about this is that there are no fossils of mammals, birds or humans below this boundary

 

[valkyree]

Do you mean the Cretaceous / Tertiary boundary or the K-T boundary?

NO

One thing about this is that there are no fossils of mammals, birds or humans below this boundary

that's correct

 

[Keachian]

that's correct

You know that that's an even worse place to suppose aflood boundary right? Instead of not having mammals and birds not present before the flood you have no evidence of vertebrates at all

 

[valkyree]

You know that that's an even worse place to suppose aflood boundary right? Instead of not having mammals and birds not present before the flood you have no evidence of vertebrates at all

sure there were plenty of vertebrates - you can see them all in the fossil record!!

buried deep in flood sediments thousands of feet thick

geesh - what more could you want

 

[valkyree]

You know that that's an even worse place to suppose aflood boundary right? Instead of not having mammals and birds not present before the flood you have no evidence of vertebrates at all

2nd Peter King James Bible

5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

 

[Keachian]

sure there were plenty of vertebrates - you can see them all in the fossil record!!

buried deep in flood sediments thousands of feet thick

geesh - what more could you want

No vertebrates before the Cambrian era, that's what I'm saying

 

[Keachian]

2nd Peter King James Bible

5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

I do find it good that the story of the flood is used quite frequently in juxtaposition to the judgment of Christ. Doesnt really tell us whether the Apostles thought it was a literal narrative

 

[razeontherock]

Care to share that with us? (With links from serious scientific publications, not creationist sites which you're getting your arguments from)

How can you possibly not realize that "serious scientific publications" aren't about to disclose the problems with the status quo?

Critical thought took a holiday for the Superbowl?

 

[sfs]

How can you possibly not realize that "serious scientific publications" aren't about to disclose the problems with the status quo?

What the heck do you think a scientist does when he or she finds a problem with the status quo? And what do you think happens to a scientist who documents such a problem -- other than getting publications, tenure, prestige and grants, that is?

Critical thought took a holiday for the Superbowl?

The ability to catch a thrown football seems to have taken a holiday for the Superbowl, at least for the Patriots.

 

[razeontherock]

Yeah, a few of those dropped balls might have made a difference. I don't think employed scientists are really looking for holes in everybody's pet theory.

 

[sfs]

I don't think employed scientists are really looking for holes in everybody's pet theory.

Looking for holes is hardly a full-time scientific occupation, but there are a lot of hungry (metaphorically speaking) young scientists, and not a few older ones as well, out there who would love to make a name for themselves by showing that some well-established idea is wrong. Not to mention that nearly all scientists really do like to know how the world works -- that's why they're scientists -- and that they can't stop talking about what they find.

 

[Orogeny]

you're right!!

I know!

i was referring to carbonates in general and i shouldn't have done that because you specifically referred to shallow water bioherms

That is correct.

I said: ''the pre-flood seas were shallow - the earth's crust had not broken up into tectonic plates yet"
​

and you asked: Do you have evidence to back this assumption?''

yes - you just presented it for me

You see, THIS is where you go wrong (well, one of the places). You think that because something fits your assertions, it is evidence for a global flood and BOOM you win. But you haven't 'explained' the origin of the reef complex, all you've done is say 'aha, it is shallow water, and there was shallow water before the flood! EVIDENCE!!' Meanwhile, modern geology explains the origins of the reef itself (you haven't), documents and explains the evolution of organisms composing the reef (you haven't), explains the morphology of the reef and associated sediments (you haven't), provides petrographc and geochemical constraints on the diagenetic history of the reef (you haven't), explains why the reef complex died, giving SPECIFIC PROCESSES leading to its demise (you haven't) explains why the reef was preserved (you haven't), explains why the reef was exhumed (you haven't), when it was exhumed (you haven't), and why caves have developed in it since it was exhumed (you haven't).

Modern geology does all of this, but you just say 'oceans were shallow before the flood, then the flood happened'. But even ignoring all of the above, your 'shallow preflood seas' assertion falls flat on its face, because the reef complex is directly associated with penecontemporaneous deep-basin highstand turbidite fans (SOURCE).

So no, none of this is evidence for your flood. And even if it were, you would have to explain both the preflood geologic processes necessary for deposition of the Capitan Reef Complex AND the synflood processes necessary for preservation and exposure of the complex. Also, since the reef complex is Permian, that would mean that everything Permian and older is preflood deposits, which pretty much shoots your 'Precambrian/cambrian boundary is the base of the flood' hypothesis right in the foot.

........using the yec/global flood model that involved huge cataclysmic tectonic movements of the crust of the earth this uplifted reef makes sense - using the old earth/slow process model this deposit makes no sense!!

Yes it does. Modern geology provides explanations for the formation, preservation, and exposure of this reef complex, citing specific evidences and detailing specific processes. All you've done so far is make assertions.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention-- you said:

a global flood accompanied by great tectonic upheavals which included the opening up a new ocean (Atlantic) would certainly break up coral reefs and at the later stages could deposit them at the convergent margins of continents thru subduction - it doesn't need to be more technical than that

The Capitan Reef complex isn't on a convergent margin, so is it safe to assume you're retracting this statement? Is it also safe to assume you're retracting the bit about 'breaking up coral reefs and depositing them', since you've directly contradicted this in the post I'm replying to now?
And as an aside, YES, it DOES have to be 'more technical than that.' If you make an assertion, you back it with specific evidence. Real geologists try to be as specific as possible- why don't you?

yes bioherms are very common in the fossil record all over the planet

and some of them from the earth's pre-flood shallow seas got uplifted just like this one did

Two unbacked assertions, the first already proven wrong, the second in direct contradiction to a previous post. Yikes.

slow earth processes of the old-earth model did not do this!!!!

Another unbacked assertion, in the face of the mountains of evidence gathered in support of modern geology's explanation of this feature.

 

[Orogeny]

transported and deposited? ....doubtful even to a flood geologist

But that's what you claimed. Are you retracting the claim?

more likely uplifted in place from shallow seas - and erosion from receding flood waters removed surrounding rock

More assertions. Please, just once, back your assertions with EVIDENCE!

this explains much of the Colorado Plateau - places like Monument Valley

How? Provide a mechanism (something more process-based, more descriptive than 'cataclysm during the flood', please) for uplift of the CP, providing evidence that your assertion is correct.

 

[Assyrian]

they are untestable assumptions!!

we cannot test the conditions of the past because we cannot go back there and bring back samples

..........so we have to make assumptions about the past and then proceed

assumptions are by their very nature untestable

So if you read on a pack of burger 'Made from 100% beef' we cannot test that because we cannot go back in the past and see what the animals were chopped up to make the burgers? You couldn't test a claim about the past with say a DNA test?

see post 114

ok

yes and creationists are correct to do so

losing sight of the assumptions involved in any endeavor is not a good practice - and yet this is what has happened

i looked at the entire category of radiometric dating at wiki and only K-Ar listed the assumptions:

K–Ar dating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ....list of assumptions for K-Ar dating - not a creationist source

Lets have a look:

K–Ar dating - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Assumptions

According to McDougal and Harrison (1999, p. 11) the following assumptions must be true for computed dates to be accepted as representing the true age of the rock [4]
​

The reference is Ian McDougall and T. Mark Harrison (1999), Geochronology and thermochronology by the [sup]40[/sup]Ar/[sup]39[/sup]Ar method, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oxford University Press sounds pretty reputable. Fortunately that book is accessible through Amazon. Lets see how the Wikipedia article compares with the original, see if anything significant is left out. Wikipedia is not a usual place to find quote mining, but you never know. I will go through it point by point and highlight where the wiki article changes the book in blue and when I quote the book, I will use red to show where it differs from wiki.

• The parent nuclide, 40K, decays at a rate independent of its physical state and is not affected by differences in pressure or temperature. This is a well founded major assumption, common to all dating methods based on radioactive decay. Although changes in the electron capture partial decay constant for [sup]40[/sup]K possibly may occur at high pressures, theoretical calculations indicate that for pressures experienced within a body of the size of the Earth the effects are negligibly small.[1]

Here is what the book says, I have added in the bit Wikipedia leaves out in red:

1. The parent nuclide, 40K, decays at a rate independent of its physical state and is not affected by differences in pressure or temperature. This is a well founded major assumption, common to all dating methods based on radioactive decay; the available evidence suggest that it is well founded (Friedlander et al., 1981). Although changes in the electron capture partial decay constant for [sup]40[/sup]K possibly may occur at high pressures, theoretical calculations Bukowinski (1979) indicate that for pressures experienced within a body of the size of the Earth the effects are negligibly small.
​

Instead of simply claiming the assumption was well founded, as we have in the wiki article, the original say it is supported by all the available evidence and gives a reference for this. Next bullet:

• The [sup]40[/sup]K/[sup]39[/sup]K ratio in nature is constant so the [sup]40[/sup]K is rarely measured directly, but is assumed to be 0.0117% of the total potassium. Unless some other process is active at the time of cooling, this is a very good assumption for terrestrial samples.[5]

This seem to have been extensively re written:

2. The K/K ratio in nature is constant at any given time. As the [sup]40[/sup]K is rarely determined directly when ages are measured, this is an important underlying assumption. Isotopic measurements of potassium in terrestrial and extraterrestrial samples indicate that this assumption is valid, at least to the extent that no authenticated differences greater than about 1.3% have been reported in the 39K/41K ratio. The evidence for the essentially constant isotopic ratios for the potassium isotopes will be presented in more detail subsequently in section 2.3.]
​

The first bit left out "at any given time" throws the meaning of the paragraph considerably. It isn't that scientists assume the proportion of [sup]39[/sup]K was the same in the distant past as it is now, which doesn't make sense since[sup]39[/sup]K is the radioactive isotope. The assumption is that the isotopes of potassium are well mixed and you have the same proportion of isotopes everywhere you go. Again the wiki article leaves out the discussion of how this assumption has been authenticated.

• The radiogenic argon measured in a sample was produced by in situ decay of [sup]40[/sup]K in the interval since the rock crystallized or was recrystallized. Violations of this assumption are not uncommon. Well-known examples of incorporation of extraneous 40Ar include chilled glassy deep-sea basalts that have not completely outgassed preexisting [sup]40[/sup]Ar*,[6] and the physical contamination of a magma by inclusion of older xenolitic material. The Ar–Ar dating method was developed to measure the presence of extraneous argon.

This paragraph is relatively unchanged.

3. The radiogenic argon measured in a sample was produced by in situ decay of [sup]40[/sup]K in the interval since the rock crystallized or was recrystallized. Violations of this assumption are not uncommon. Well-known examples of incorporation of extraneous 4[sup]40[/sup]Ar include chilled glassy deep-sea basalts that have not completely outgassed preexisting radiogenic argon and the physical contamination of a magma by inclusion of older xenolitic material. Further examples will be discussed later, as the [sup]40[/sup]Ar/[sup]39[/sup]Ar dating method allows the presence of extraneous argon to be recognized in some cases.
​

However the next paragraph was completely left out.

4. "Corrections can be made for nonradiogenic [sup]40[/sup]Ar present in the rock being dated. For terrestrial rocks the assumption generally is made that all such argon is atmospheric in composition with 40Ar/36Ar = 295.5, and although this commonly is so, there are exceptions. Various ways of assessing this assumption are available including the use of isotope correlation diagrams. Extraterrestrial samples such as meteorites and lunar rocks have nonradiogenic argon of quite different composition to that of atmospheric argon, but corrections often can be made satisfactorily, particularly as the nonradiogenic contributions usually are minor."
​

The following chapter in wiki is not from the book at all.

• Great care is needed to avoid contamination of samples by absorption of nonradiogenic [sup]40[/sup]Ar from the atmosphere. The equation may be corrected by subtracting from the [sup]40[/sup]Ar[sub]measured[/sub] value the amount present in the air where [sup]40[/sup]Ar is 295.5 times more plentiful than [sup]39[/sup]Ar. [sup]40[/sup]Ar[sub]decayed[/sub] = [sup]40[/sup]Ar[sub]measured[/sub] − 295.5 × [sup]39[/sup]Ar[sub]measured[/sub].

Wiki continues...

• The sample must have remained a closed system since the event being dated. Thus, there should have been no loss or gain of [sup]40[/sup]K or [sup]40[/sup]Ar*, other than by radioactive decay of [sup]40[/sup]K. Departures from this assumption are quite common, particularly in areas of complex geological history, but such departures can provide useful information that is of value in elucidating thermal histories. A deficiency of [sup]40[/sup]Ar in a sample of a known age can indicate a full or partial melt in the thermal history of the area. Reliability in the dating of a geological feature is increased by sampling disparate areas which have been subjected to slightly different thermal histories.[7]

The last two sentences are not in the book and look like the wiki writer is expanding on the previous sentence.

5. The sample must have remained a closed system since the event being dated. Thus, there should have been no loss or gain of of potassium or radiogenic argon, other than by radioactive decay of 40K. Departures from this assumption in fact are quite common, particularly in areas of complex geological history, but such departures can provide useful information that is of value in elucidating thermal histories.
​

Notice how (1) we can tell if there has been loss or gain of these isotopes and (2) how that tells us even more about the history of of the rock? The wiki article leaves out the next paragraph, which while it is not a numbered paragraph is pretty important as the conclusion of the section:

"These basic assumptions must be tested and assessed in each study that is undertaken. This is usually best done by measuring a suite of rocks or minerals from the area under study. The consis[bless and do not curse]tency or lack of consistency of the results, together with knowledge of the geology of the area, allows assessment of some of these assumptions, and provides the basis for conclusions as to the reliability and meaning of the measuredages. As will become evident later, animportant advantage of the [sup]40[/sup]Ar/[sup]39[/sup]Ar dating method is that the assumptions underlying calculation and interpretation of an age are more readily assessed than is the case for conventional K-Ar age measurements."​

You see, you want 'assumption' to mean something completely unverifiable. But what McDougall and Harrison meant by assumption, at least in the original version, was a basis for the dating method that needs to be, can be, and has been, verified.

Looking at the history of the Wikipedia page, the reference was added, and further edited down, by a user called Christian Skeptic, whose account has been blocked as a sockpuppet of another user blocked for 'abusive use of one or more accounts'. Your evidence for radiometric dating being based on unverifiable assumptions may be a case of wikiality.

this link below may be a creationist source but that does not mean the info presented is not valid

Radiometric Dating

Few people realize it but all radiometric dating methods require making at least three assumptions. These are:

1) The rate of decay has remained constant throughout the past.

As we have seen this had been tested and confirmed.

2) The original amount of both mother and daughter elements is known.

3) The sample has remained in a closed system...

Isochron dating deals with these.

 

[florida2]

How can you possibly not realize that "serious scientific publications" aren't about to disclose the problems with the status quo?

Critical thought took a holiday for the Superbowl?

What do you think scientists have always been doing? Challenging current ideas and exploring new ones is the whole driving force of science. If scientists never challenged the status quo, we would know so so little. Read a bit of the history of science, in particular the 19th century. It is littered with hundreds of examples of scientists going against long-established ideas, often facing ridicule, but eventually being proved right. The dream of any ambitious scientist is to come up with a new theory and overturn the current situation.

Superbowl? Oh, that's some American sports thing, isn't it?