https://answersingenesis.org/geology/grand-canyon-facts/fossil-evidence-grand-canyon/
This will be the beginning of a string of discussions we will have concerning whether or not young earth claims stand up to scrutiny. Some excerpts:
Flood geologists can simply accept the directly observable evidence for rapid, continuous deposition, the more scientific choice at this point.
There’s further evidence to encourage Flood geologists to think that they have made the correct scientific choice. If individual sediment layers were hardened, uplifted, eroded, then covered again with water, it’s likely that the lower hardened layers would crack in a pattern different from cracks formed in layers above them, and produced and moved millions of years later. In other words, there should be “buried faults,” cracks through one layer not continuing into the layer above, but there are virtually no buried faults above the Precambrian in the Grand Canyon. There are faults, all right, but they cut continuously through the whole sequence of Paleozoic layers present (Cambrian, Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, and Permian), not just part of it. That evidence suggests the whole “layer cake” was formed rapidly and continuously, without a major break in time—just as you would expect from understanding the Grand Canyon in terms of what the Bible says about Noah’s flood.
What do you think?
I have re-posted George's 11 point list into the post discussion category, so we can discuss it there...
https://www.ce-debate.org/forum/post-discussion/george-brooks-fossil-evidence-against-a-flood
Well, I would definitely agree that demeaning other participants is contrary to the guidelines. However, if anyone wants documentation for any point, I am sure that it would be willingly provided on request.
As far as the "large mammal" argument, it still makes little sense to me. What does exact size have to do with it? We have found reasonably sized mammals below the K-T boundary. If that does not disprove the argument, I would be interested in hearing what the argument is actually trying to prove. As the previous posts have shown, the mix of fossils around the K-T boundary does not seem to be so different...At least, to the drastic extents you had specified...
George, I would be happy, since you say our refutations are poorly conceived, to hear how we can improve them...
In short, I hope you end up staying around, George. Your contributions have opened up many new, interesting, avenues of discussion. However, if you feel that you must go, I wish you well...
George, your first post showed contempt for those who did not agree with you. It persists. My first biology adviser told me that a person can be very smart and experienced but if they are not willing to communicate favorable with others, their talents are wasted. I wish you well.
George, maybe it would be better for you to go (as much as that would be unfortunate) if you are going to attack the personal character and knowledge of individuals in the forum. You know nothing about J.E.S. and your statement that "he knows nothing about science" reveals more about you than it does about him. I don't mean that to sound insulting or condescending to you, sir, but personal attacks have no place here.
I was told that there would be experts who provided facts with evidence. In my view, this means citations and specifics.
I did not expect that undocumented sentences would serve as evidence.
And I did not expect someone would consider an animal the size of an opossum to be a serviceable refutation of my extensive presentation regarding "Large Mammals" - - which include bears, giraffes, rhinos, etc.
You folks are exchanging poorly conceived rebuttals amongst yourselves and think you are doing something important. J.E.S. is a great cheerleader, but he has no grasp of science, and yet he is the one who most actively discusses topics he doesn't understand.
Ask yourselves what the K/T barrier means in a flood model. Ask yourselves why the mix of fossils differs so much below and above the K/T barriers.
Back in 1979, my physics professor pointed out that as dramatic as the Grand Canyon may be, it could have been made and filled in, and made again, over and over again in the span of time that geologists have measured out for Earth.
While this is perfectly consistent with your view that the entire structure could have been made in a single flood event, the fact there are hundreds (if not thousands) of terrestrial habitats locked within its rocks, should prove to any casual observer that the Grand Canyon represents many ages of terrestrial life, not a single flood episode that somehow preserves layers upon layers of different terrestrial horizons in perfect unflooded condition.
Just ask yourself where are the hundreds of thousands of human bodies that should be fossilized with drowned animals in the Middle East - - if there was a global flood at any time before or after the first dynasties of Egypt? If there was a flood, it **had** to have been confined to the flood plains of Mesopotamia. Any other conclusion is just silly wishful thinking.
Sorry to see you go, George. Many of your comments encouraged me to do more study on certain topics, and I thank you for that. Like Kirk said, we will continue to discuss and learn here. You are most welcome to join us. One more thing. Your comment about "any level of expertise" being deomonstrated on these pages was not appropriate in a fraternal conversation.
Sorry you feel that way George. If you were told that was the conversation, why did you come over in the first place. You made sweeping generalities about the points you found important such as that in ice core analysis was done "quite well", but in fact, ice core analysis is not settled and many contending opinions are published concerning interpretation of the same data. Particularly below "10,000 years". Also, the Greenland cores do not correlate well with other North American ice core samples. I am finding correlations in core samples in which not all the data is considered, because some of it doesn't fit. In science we call that bias.
We will continue to discuss and learn here.
Gentlemen,
This is the conversation I was told we would be having. I do not find any level of expertise being demonstrated on these pages.
Innuendo, sweeping generalities, and word games is what I find here. I just don't have the time for it.
Have a lovely week.
I have often wondered if different animal types of animals were buried in different levels because of the chronology of their death(even in the same global event) or possibly because of their varying densitites. Depositing water flows may have come from different areas a different times with in a short-term event.
Just a note about marine reptiles that I find fascinating. A few years ago, a team of paleontologists examined ichthyosaur bone fossils from England and Germany. They identified particular species in Cretaceous rocks. They didn't expect this, since other researchers had described similar-looking fossils farther below, in middle Jurassic rocks. The newly found ichthyosaurs were supposedly deposited some 60 million years later, having presumably lived through earlier catastrophic extinctions.
Why did so many other animals apparently became extinct while this variety of ichthyosaurs survived? This question is a problem if you ASSUME that the rock layers in question are separated by millions of years and punctuated by separate extinction events.
Perhaps there is another answer to the question. Perhaps the local fossil-bearing rocks in England and Germany were deposited in rapid succession by tsunami-like waves associated with a global catastrophe, burying various groups of creatures in a sequence of quickly formed strata. This scenario needs no imaginative add-ons to explain why only certain species survived for "millions" of years longer than others, since the dogma of vast time doesn't encumber it.
A global flood scenario explains why there are even ichthyosaur fossils in the first place. Only a powerful catastrophe can cover swift and strong-swimming animals quickly enough to completely bury them and prevent them from natural rapid decay.
By the way, the same researchers also examined ichthyosaur fossils taken from the Cambridge Greensand Formation in England. This same rock layer has ankylosaur dinosaurs, duckbill dinosaur teeth, extinct diving birds, flying reptiles, tiny crustaceans, clams, and ammonites. Back in 2011, workers learned of ankylosaurs, ichthyosaurs, clams, and ammonites packed in a Canadian sandstone. I remember reading the article. Those creatures originally lived nowhere near one another. What could have buried such diverse creatures together in the sand? It seems very plausible that sea and land creatures were mixed in an immense global catastrophe.
The energy and extent of the Flood provides a compelling answer to these eclectic fossil assemblages. In the global flood that covered the entire planet, the muddy process of ocean water inundating the land would have caused many sea creatures like ichthyosaurs and ammonites to be buried together with those land creatures like ankylosaurs. This is indeed what we find in the fossil record.
Let us start here. "All" is such a strong word. Given such drastic terminology, if any fossils of "medium to large" sized dinosaurs are found above the K-T (K-Pg) boundary, thesis 1 is proven incorrect. In fact, dinosaur fossils have been found above the cretaceous layer, in the Paleocene. Around 34 fragments of a hadrosaur (now those things are by no means small!) fossil have been discovered above the K-T boundary within the Ojo Alamo formation in the San Juan Basin (see map below)...
Some scientists tried to say that the fossils had been "re-worked," but that is highly unlikely due to the fact that the bones were consolidated to some degree. Also, some of the bones are quite large, such as the femur which is over 3 ft. long, and does not show signs of abrasion, which would be expected with re-working.
The irony is that evidence that goes against a dogma of evolution (possibly such as this) is likely to be dismissed outright, or explained away. Science is based on forming views based on the facts. Evolution (umbrella term, so let us please not argue over the terminology) is one of the few scientific phenomena that I know of where the facts are liable to be modified in order to support it as opposed to the theory being modified so as to accurately describe the facts.
P.S:
I feel that this point is disproved with the refutation of point 1 (keywords: "all" "only")
Also, a question for when you get back (or for T_aquaticus)...How do scientists say that dinosaurs went extinct as of late? Is the asteroid impact idea still widely believed, or have they moved on to other things? (This will help me get a better grasp on where you are coming from here).
See you then, George. I will keep the thread open and in existence for you...Anyhow, I will take the liberty of re-posting your 11 point list so that I (and others) may peruse it more conveniently at my leisure...
J.E.S.
I have time to address another posting (and will go back to make sure I respond to all the unique responses as well). You write this rather sweeping generalization about ice core analysis:
https://www.ce-debate.org/forum/article-discussion/answers-in-genesis-the-grand-canyon-evidence-for-the-flood
" Also, a note about ice cores is that when scientists try to determine the number of layers, they often account for hundreds of thousands of years worth of compression at the bottom (if the ice cores are only a few thousand years old, the compression would be much less). This could skew the numbers to make the declared ages of the ice cores much greater than they may actually be. "
You can say this, J.E.S., but articles have been published which outline exactly how these ice cores are analyzed,. They talk about the boundary layers that are formed within years (due to the seasonal melts of Spring and Summer). They talk about how distinctive these layers are from the annualized layer boundaries.
They talk about synrchonizing the annual boundaries produced in areas of low-snow fall, vs. areas of more constant snow-fall. In other words, they have procedures for making 3 feet of ice from area comparable (and synchronized) with 20 feet from other areas. All this is very analagous to how botanists take tree rings from giant oak trees, and synchronize them with the very different set of tree rings of large pine trees. Some trees grow faster than others. Other trees are in constant environments (always cold or always mild) compared to trees that suffer the insult of extremes more frequently. If science was easy, we wouldn't need scientists. But comparisons become easier when sound methods are applied to comparing one set of data with other sets of data.
J.E.S., maybe providing scientifically-sound rebuttals isn't really your area of strength. I would never dream of trying to sweep ice core data results under the rug with one paragraph of generalizations with no evidence or citations of evidence anywhere apparent.
George Brooks
J.E.S.
Regarding your recent posting on a "so-called" large mammal...
https://www.ce-debate.org/forum/article-discussion/answers-in-genesis-the-grand-canyon-evidence-for-the-flood
I hope you don't think I'm being fussy when I point out that it is only large in compared to a mouse or shrew!
The Wiki article on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repenomamus
" Individuals of the known species in Repenomamus are the largest known Mesozoic mammals represented by reasonably complete fossils (though Kollikodon may be larger, and Schowalteria, Oxlestes, Khuduklestes and Bubodens reached similar if not larger sizes), adults of R. robustus were the size of a Virginia opossum with an estimated mass of 4–6 kg (8.8–13 lb) while the known adult of R. giganticus was about 50% larger with a total length of around 1 m (3 ft 3 in) and an estimated mass of 12–14 kg (26–31 lb). These finds extend considerably the known body size range of Mesozoic mammals. "
I provided the sense of scale I was looking for when I mentioned "like" bears, lions, hippos, rhinos... you know ... Big Mammals. Finding a mammal the size of an opossum, while interesting from an evolutionary viewpoint, is hardly meeting the challenge.
By the way, I will be away from my computer for the weekend and Monday... traveling across two states (twice!) ... and so I hate to abandon a thread when it is just getting started.... but this will give you more time to discuss and research. I will go through the thread and start up again when I get back ... (probably Tuesday am).
George Brooks
I am glad that all affirm our standard of gracious dialogue. That should make the conversation more profitable for all!
Also, a note about ice cores is that when scientists try to determine the number of layers, they often account for hundreds of thousands of years worth of compression at the bottom (if the ice cores are only a few thousand years old, the compression would be much less). This could skew the numbers to make the declared ages of the ice cores much greater than they may actually be.
"Tons of flowers" are probably not sufficient forage for Mammoth sized creatures. What would they have eaten in the winter? Most of the Mammoths recovered were not in glaciers and the like, they are buried in the permafrost. If it is really permafrost, how did they get in there? Much of the soil the Mammoths are buried in are windblown dusts. the preservation that is seen in the recovered mammoths indicates that they were quick frozen, possibly as the stood and portions of their bodies are flattened because the weight of the sediments on top of them(Berezoka), yet frozen quickly enough to stop decomposition of food items in their upper guts.
Mammoths also have some features that would not be conducive to living in extremely cold climates: Large ears and a trunk stick out. Though they have long hair the lack of underfur is problematic.
As I examine the ice core studies, they are not as conclusive as you indicate. There are also a couple airplanes in Greenland that are under 250 feet of ice. At that rate of accumulation the current total depth ice layers would have only taken 1000 years to occur. I have also found that few of the cores are counted visually all the way to the bottom. Estimating techniques are used.
Regarding our earlier discussion, I can get a little testy too sometimes. Even more testy than Kirk (smirk). Sorry. Also, I find the above fossil (and many others like it) to be compelling evidence that dinosaurs and mammals did indeed exist together.
Let's start here...
A fossil has been found of a large mammal ( Repenomamus robustus ) with the dinosaurs...well, at least one large enough to prey upon dinosaurs! A Psittacosaurus fossil was found within the stomach of this fossilized dog-like creature...How interesting.
No worries, Kirk Peters. Thus far your participation has been exemplary.