Jim Kakalios says the new Watchmen movie is going to be good…and we can trust Jim.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Jim Kakalios says the new Watchmen movie is going to be good…and we can trust Jim.
So what? It was not a particularly deep insight on my part. You just make it very clear that you have many short comings.
Will Athiesm take you further than you want to go?
This is long but you need to learn about your forefathers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Fisher
Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, FRS (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was an English statistician, evolutionary biologist, and geneticist. He was described by Anders Hald as “a genius who almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science”[1] and Richard Dawkins described him as “the greatest of Darwin’s successors”.[2]
He famously showed that the probability of a mutation increasing the fitness of an organism decreases proportionately with the magnitude of the mutation. (An argument opposing punctuated equilibrium?)
In 1911 he was involved in forming the Cambridge University Eugenics Society with such luminaries as John Maynard Keynes, R. C. Punnett and Horace Darwin (Charles Darwin’s son). The group was active, and held monthly meetings, often featuring addresses by leaders of mainstream eugenics organizations, such as the Eugenics Education Society of London, founded by Charles Darwin’s half-cousin, Francis Galton in 1909.[4]
In 1933 he left Rothamsted to become a Professor of Eugenics at University College London.
Between 1929 and 1934 the Eugenics Society also campaigned hard for a law permitting sterilization on eugenic grounds.
Fisher played a major role in this movement, and served in several official committees to promote it.
[What is the UNESCO Statement?]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Race_Question
The Race Question is a UNESCO statement issued on 18 July 1950 following World War II. Signed by some of the leading researchers of the time, in the field of psychology, biology, cultural anthropology and ethnology, it questioned the foundations of scientific racist theories which had become very popular at the turn of the 20th century, alongside eugenics.
The statement included both a scientific debunking of race theories and a moral condemnation of racism. It suggested in particular to “drop the term ‘race’ altogether and speak of “ethnic groups.”
Ronald Fisher was opposed to the UNESCO Statement of Race. He believed that evidence and everyday experience showed that human groups differ profoundly “in their innate capacity for intellectual and emotional development” and concluded that the “practical international problem is that of learning to share the resources of this planet amicably with persons of materially different nature,” and that “this problem is being obscured by entirely well-intentioned efforts to minimize the real differences that exist.”
Fisher was opposed to the conclusions of Richard Doll and A.B. Hill that smoking caused lung cancer.
To quote Yates and Mather again, “It has been suggested that the fact that Fisher was employed as consultant by the tobacco firms in this controversy casts doubt on the value of his arguments. (-Alan may be on to something about objectivity)
Roger with more irrelevant posts. Gee, what a loser. Get a grip on reality by tossing your god and religion. See the real world without imaginary sky-clods.
I see Roger has chosen option 1. Not very honest, but then again he is a creationist.
So you’ve dug up a proponent of evolutionary theory who held some distasteful personal views. Big deal. As an evolution denier, do you really want to play that game? Think about it.
RogerS,
Do you intend to continue to play the game of logical fallacies or to actually answer the scientific criticisms of your assertions?
Alan Clarke condescendingly blathered:
Earlier Alan Clarke spewed: I believe the pre-flood Earth had hills and shallow ocean basins.
Listen you condescending shit, when you start doing science you can talk. Instead all you are doing is denying evidence and claiming fantastical unsupported nonsense. That isn’t science, nor should you even pretend it to be.
This brings me back to what you said earlier about the galaxies. If you are right, then those distant galaxies we have observed are wrong by a factor of 2 million times. Plug that into e=mc² and see what happens. Unless of course you believe Einstein is wrong, and the world of theoretical physics is waiting for your input. But I digress, you complained about an irrelevancy to dismiss solid science. The speed of light as been shown to be experimentally constant, so the only problem when measuring distant objects is the accuracy of measurement. And are you saying that all those astrophysicists, all those cosmologists, all those astronomers, they are all off by a factor of 2 million? That when we observe the andromeda galaxy that is 2.5 million light years away, our measurements of that are off by a factor of ~500? That the large magellenic cloud when measured absolutely was 168,000 light years away was off by a factor of ~28? Do you have any idea what happens when we put 1011 galaxies containing ~1011 stars all sitting 6,000 light years away? We wouldn’t have a solar system now.
We need a large universe in order to survive. A large universe means an old universe because of Einstein’s famous equation. That is doing “science” and that is why your attempts to dismiss it as “We don’t know what the speed of light was at t=0” to explain everything thereafter is fucking pathetic. Are you going to admit that all you do is have faith in your bible rather than in your God? Because to all of us to actually look at what science is, to all of us who have had to do the mathematics – what you are proposing is nothing short of complete absurdity.
So be a condescending shit all you want, when you dismiss all scientific data the way you do, you create unreasonable doubt on data you should be paying more attention to. You aren’t doing science, science is about following the evidence to whatever conclusions it may push. Instead you have your conclusion, you have faith in your bible story and you are willing to grossly distort anything you can to support that. You are a liar, another Liar for JesusTM
And in that you show just why you’ll never get the point. Of course people can’t be truly objective, but what is great about the scientific process is that it’s so strongly based on evidence. When we see galaxies 13 billion light years away, we have to base any theory we have to take account that information. In only the last 100 years we have seen the world go from euclidean space-time in an infinite universe to a finite expanding relativistic universe. And why? Because the evidence supports it. You won’t get anywhere denying the facts of distant galaxies, nor will you get anywhere denying the reality on Einstein’s equation from your computer chair. If you think Einstein’s formula is wrong, then demonstrate it!
So you mean you didn’t enjoy Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
Or the line in Demolition Man (retranslating from German): “Hey! We’re in the future here! Where are the phaser guns!?!”
Or Django, which shows us what the Wild West ought to have looked like…
Nah. In the German-speaking countries, comics are automatically regarded as “for children” by practically everyone at least before my generation. It’s horrible. Even the translations are sometimes dumbed down. TSIB.
It is true, however, that superhero comics are very rare over here. The first thing you’ll see are Disney comics (mostly produced in Italy and then translated).
Homo sapiens. Two words, the first with a capital letter, in italics, and the whole thing is a singular — that -s is not a plural ending (it’s not English).
Who is a liar but he that denieth that Luke Skywalker is a Jedi? He belongs to the Dark Side, that denieth…
Need I go on?
Less than 60,000, but still…
It is immoral to complain about Wikipedia. You find a mistake, you click on “edit”. Simple.
Hey, if you have time to talk to somewhere between the ears of two creationists, you have time to edit Wikipedia, too :-)
Wow.
Just… wow.
This moron of a meteorologist (…note how he’s not a glaciologist…?) doesn’t even know that the annual layers are visible. You can just put your fucking finger on them and fucking count them!
Instead, he believes they are calculated into a completely uniform block of ice!
The ignorance! It burns!!!
Note to Mr Oard: That the annual layers get thinner and thinner toward the bottom is not an assumption. It is an observed fact.
Morons.
It’s incredible what morons exist!!!
Concerning the Oort Cloud, do try to keep in mind that “hypothetical” does not mean “speculative”. “Hypothetical” means that an idea is testable, and that there is evidence for it.
No further replies to you, Alan, as long as you haven’t read the article on radiometric dating and demonstrated that you’ve understood it.
Not always. There’s a phenomenon called an annular eclipse.
An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon’s apparent size (angular size in astronomy-speak) is slightly less than the Sun’s apparent (angular) size. Therefore, when the Moon is directly in front of the Sun, the edges of the Sun are still visible. The angular sizes of the Sun and Moon change slightly because the Moon’s and Earth’s orbits are both elliptical.
BTW, the linked photograph is my present desktop wallpaper.
rogerS #503
An imminent biologist had some racist views. So what? Does that shed the least bit of doubt over evolution? The famous equation e=mc² explains how the Sun shines and how nuclear weapons make really big bangs. Does that mean that relativity is wrong because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Josh: The flood hypothesis is long dead and we have been continually stomping on its rotting carcass for more than 200 years.
Josh adds a new twist to the story. He stomps on the carcass for 200 years (if a carcass can last that long) while insisting on his sanity.
Biblical flood theory has NEVER died and it is in full force to haunt you. Notice how it permeates to the core this uniformitarian explanation of mountain formation:
The only piece missing from the above narrative is the author looses track of time while he is stomping on the carcass.
Ice cores:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icecores.html
More ice cores:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Seely.pdf
Citing from the PDF (boldface below is mine; italics are in original):
…and we’re done with Michael J. Oard.
… and that’s the damn airplanes under the snow.
Yeah, that’s terrific reasoning there, Alan. Use the evidence that supports the idea you had before looking at the evidence, but ignore those data that argue against the idea you walked in the door with before looking at the evidence.
Let me ask you this–how do you know that the rocks high on Mt. Everest are ancient seafloor? Have you seen them? Have you personally held a hand sample of this rock in your hand? Why do you believe those rocks are ancient seafloor? On what basis do you make your decision?
You idiot. You quote a source for what it tells you then you deny the very thing that explains it. Namely the 40 million years.
Alan, a completely irrelevant post, but what else is new. You had nothing, have nothing, and you will never have anything. YAWN. Fool, tool and bore. And still no physical evidence for your imaginary god. TSK, TSK. Any true theorist would have given up creationism due to lack of evidence by now.
So Alan lets say you ignore the 40 million years. What catastrophic event in the geologic history can you point to that would raise the sea floor 8000 meters in 4400 years?
Yes, like a zombie or a ghost or any other fake, fraudulent thing that only exists in the imaginations of the superstitious and gullible.
No. That’s not the Biblical flood. That’s geology, using the radiometric dating systems that you hate so much.
The only ones losing track of time are the liars and morons who claim that the Himalayas were formed by magic practically instantaneously … with no evidence whatsoever.
Voodoo science!
Owlmirror, you are violating Nerd’s Law:
What I want to know is this: Was Nerd traumatized as a child by Elmer’s glue?
No Alan, you cut and paste. Owlmirror finds real evidence. Not fake evidence like you do. More avoidance by the man who has nothing.
Whose forefathers? Certainly not mine. I repudiate and reject Fisher’s racism. I repudiate and reject his tobacco denialism, which is actually much like Creationist denialism of science.
How about your forefathers? How about all of the Christians who claimed that the curse of Ham in the bible gave them the right to enslave human beings and treat them like animals?
How about God, who cursed all the world, murdered a world full of people using the flood you love so much, murdered children in Egypt, explicitly permitted the torture of Job and the murder of his children, and gave clear and repeated instructions to kill and murder and show no mercy to innocent children?
I repudiate and reject the murderous God of the Old Testament, and I repudiate and reject the parent-hating, anti-family Jesus, who also called for the death of all who did not accept him as king.
Do you accept and approve of them, in all their bloody and bloodthirsty cruelty?
Josh: Let me ask you this–how do you know that the rocks high on Mt. Everest are ancient seafloor? Have you seen them? Have you personally held a hand sample of this rock in your hand? Why do you believe those rocks are ancient seafloor? On what basis do you make your decision?
Josh, the website that I used for my source of the Himalayan mountain formation is endorsed by the following organizations:
CNN
BBC
Brittanica Online
Discover Magazine
National Geographic Society
NOAA
NASA
National Science Teachers Association
National Science Foundation
Schools of California Online Resources for Education (SCORE)
UC Berkeley
USDA
US Dept. of State
USGS
If you don’t agree with them, then perhaps you’re on the wrong side. Looking at all of those names and thinking of the money involved… Never mind.
What’s this? Alan doesn’t know the difference between citing and cutting-and-pasting?
Colour me unsurprised.
Here’s a hint, Alan – one is done by someone who understands the content of what they’re posting; the other is done by someone who doesn’t understanding anything other than the sentence at the top of the page they’re plagiarising from.
Which of the two do you think you’re doing?
Alan Clarke,
Did you even look at that source you praise so highly and which you brag has been endorsed by Uncle Tom Cobley and all? Here’s a sample quote:
The source says that the Himalayas have risen over tens of thousands of years. Not your piddly 4400 years but a whole lot longer. But wait, it gets worse:
That’s right, Alan. The article you like so much says that the Himalayas started rising 40 million years ago. Your miniscule 4400 years is off by a factor of almost 10,000. Explain that, flood boy.
Alan @522:
Well then, why does not Alan agree with this:
“It is theorized that the true age of the earth is about 4.6 billion years old, formed at about the same time as the rest of our solar system. The oldest rocks geologists have been able to find are 3.9 billion years old.
[…]
When did “life” first appear and how did it happen? It is estimated that the first life forms on earth were primitive, one-celled creatures that appeared about 3 billion years ago.” (my bold)
They very source you quoted also said 40 million years.
Alan what geologic event cause the Himalayas to rise 8000 meters in 4400 years
Bushmills Black>nose>monitor
Alan are you going to quote a website that says that that there are for sure areas of the world that were underwater but then explain that it was Katrina, the great flood of the Mississippi 1927 and the Tsunami of 2004 as sources that support your claim of awesome fludness?
Come on Alan, enough bullshit about the speed of light. Show empirically or mathematically that Einstein’s formula is wrong, and that the farthest galaxies measured are off by a factor of over 2 million!
Biblical flood theory has NEVER died and it is in full force to haunt you.
shouldn’t you have posted that in the “Creationists in Denial” thread, Alan?
I sure think so.
You will understand one day why I have taken this path because you will realize that if I disclosed certain things to you at this time you would not be able to “metabolize” it.
I’m still cracking up over this.
Thanks Rog, that was a good one
…
…
…
ROTFLMAO!!
Greatest Quotes from Nerd of Redhead
God’s Existence
First you have to show evidence for your god.
Get a grip on reality by tossing your god and religion.
And your god is imaginary, existing only between your ears.
Here is the truth. Your god doesn’t exist and your bible is work of fiction.
Until you understand your god doesn’t exist, and your bible is fiction, you will…
Until you show acceptable evidence for your god will will [sic] remain a lying loser.
Lying to One’s Self
Why do you keep lying to yourself Alan?
Quit lying to yourself, so you quit lying to us.
Alan, still lying to yourself that your god exists
You have to stop lying to yourself before you can stop lying to us.
Alan, you are lying to yourself in attempting to force fit your non-existent god…
I’ve never met Nerd in person but here are two of his outstanding features:
1) He never gives up on demanding evidence for God’s existence.
2) He has an unwavering concern, almost like a mother, that I don’t “lie to myself”.
Nerd, I’ll try to accommodate you but you must describe the type of evidence you are looking for. Secondly, before I can be assured that you really care about me, I need to know more about you. What could be worse than receiving advice from one who “lies to himself” also? Can you give me a brief autobiography? Childhood, teens, college, marriage, goals, successes, failures, etc. The more you can provide the better.
Alan, very simple, and it had been explained to you numerous times. You are really avoiding the question with your post. Physical evidence for god that will pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers as being of divine, and not natural, origin. In other words, something equivalent to Moses’ eternally burning bush. Not some stupidity like “look in the mirror” or “look around you”. Or some silly philosophical only god. Your god must interacts with the real world, so traces of him must be present.
And Alan, you lie to yourself on what is evidence. For example, quote-mining is not evidence, but a falsehood (lie). You have presented quote-mines, which means you lied to yourself before posting them by not checking the their authenticity and accuracy, and by posting them you lied to us. Simple concept. Make yourself the gatekeeper for the accuracy of what you post. That is something real scientists like Josh, David Marjanović, and myself are trained to do, and the other posters on the thread understand this too.
So, Alan, you’re utterly incapable of responding to countless substantive criticisms. You flee in abject terror from the fact that YOUR OWN SOURCE contradicts you. Revealed as a fraud, a nutcase, and an utter, dismal failure, you retreat to demanding personal information and making baseless attacks in a desperate attempt to throw up a smokescreen and hide your shame. It’s not going to work. It doesn’t matter what idiotic demands you make. They won’t change the facts. The fact that you have not the slightest speck of evidence for your imaginary god. The fact that every scrap of evidence is against your flood bullshit. The fact that you keep quote-mining and citing known frauds. The fact that your precious faith is so weak and worthless it cannot survive an encounter with the evidence, so you must run, hide, and lie.
Fuck off and die, asshat. You have nothing worthwhile to say. You are a worthless parasite, denying science while typing on a computer, stealing the fruits of learning that you despise.
Alan, there is no shame is just ceasing posting at this blog. Just remove us from your bookmarks and forget about us. Think about it.
You will understand one day why I have taken this path because you will realize that if I disclosed certain things to you at this time you would not be able to “metabolize” it.
simon said it better:
“Your Jellimeat is not big enough!”
Ichthyic, my sincere apologies for not including you with the scientists. I will say five “hail ramens” for penance. May the FSM forgive my transgression.
Secondly, before I can be assured that you really care about me, I need to know more about you. What could be worse than receiving advice from one who “lies to himself” also? Can you give me a brief autobiography? Childhood, teens, college, marriage, goals, successes, failures, etc. The more you can provide the better.
No Nerd! Don’t do it! It’s a trap!
He’ll get you alone with him and his bible, and he’ll look all patient and kind and full of compassion and understanding and gentle good humor and then . . . he won’t talk about science at all! He’ll tell you about his friend Jesus, and how the bible is the word of God if only you will believe, and then he’ll try to get you to feel bad about yourself and get you to cry and feel lonely—and then he’ll talk about Jesus some more!
IT’S A TRAP!!!!!
There seems to be a gross misunderstanding of my reason for using texts from evolutionist/uniformitarian websites:
The reason I quote this stuff is so people won’t experience their usual knee-jerk reaction when they see the source is jesus.org. How else can I communicate on such a forum? For me it is actually quite challenging and interesting because I’m looking at the exact same evidences as you but I’m coming up with a different interpretation. I am juggling two theories whereas you seem to think in only one dimension: your theory. And I know this for a fact because of Josh’s following questions which are elementary to young-earth creationism: Where did the water come from? Where did it go? What seems so absurd about this is that uniformitarianists can’t come up with a believable answer themselves for how the Earth got its water. One million comets? There are some features to both theories which intersect which I yellow highlighted in the above text. I posted the text for this reason only despite my disagreement with the extremely old ages.
What is scaring me about Josh is he doesn’t seem to know his own theory: Let me ask you this–how do you know that the rocks high on Mt. Everest are ancient seafloor? Maybe I shouldn’t criticize Josh because he might be a true independent thinker who doesn’t swallow the hype from every Nova or National Geographic episode. Josh, in one of your posts, you wondered why if a single global flood accounted for most of the Earth’s sedimentary strata, then why isn’t there one single layer of deposition instead of many multiple layers? Because of the water’s height, the continents didn’t act as barriers to the tides. Each tidal shift could result in unabated tidal waves. It has been hypothesized that the sea shifts in some places may have achieved cataclysmic harmonic oscillation. From Genesis 8, we learn that the flood water assuaged for 4 months. The wave motion accompanying 4 months of residing waters can create many layers of deposition. The major limestones were created far inland during this period by the amassed quantity of dead sea fauna. Hydrologic sorting would occur but it would be interrupted by a multitude of local gigantic back washes during the four month period. Yellowstone Park’s Specimen Ridge is such an area that appears as multiple forests, one on top of another. The multiple layers are explained by multiple tidal actions and/or backwashes during assuaging flood waters. Why are the trees vertical? The uprooted trees were floating in vertical positions with the heavier rooted ends down, so they look as if they were “planted”. This exact same phenomenon occurred during the Mt. St. Helen’s eruption where a million trees were washed into Spirit Lake:
Sinking Logs Look Like Many Aged Forests in Just Ten Years. A million trees were washed into Spirit Lake the day of the main eruption. As the years go by one by one they become waterlogged and sink to the bottom. Dense root wood is still a part of 10% of the logs. Those logs sink to the bottom in an upright position and their roots quickly become covered by the continuing sedimentation washing into the lake. They give the appearance they grew and died where they are deposited, one forest on top of another over long periods of time. (source)
When two hydrogen atoms inside a star love each other very much, they fuse into higher elements. Some of these elements are unstable – as what happens when the daddy isn’t around so they join to other atoms. When two hydrogen atoms come across an oxygen atom, they form water.
So to answer your question, the water came from stars.
fixed
Ah yes, two organisations well known for their sensationalism and dubious scientific credentials. Just like that headline- grabbing, glory hound hack David Attenborough, huh?
If you could only turn this energy of yours to the side of good, Alan – you could achieve so much.
LOL! Yeah, science has to stick with the real world, while YECs get to make shit up and ignore the fact that their made-up shit would have effects in the real world if they had actually happened and YECs ignore real world science at the same time!
YEC: Voodoo science from out of the fourth dimension!
Of course it’s elementary — because YECs don’t have to provide any evidence or apply any sort of logic to constrain their imagination.
Because you have an a priori ASSUMPTION that the Earth cannot be old, and an a priori ASSUMPTION that there was a flood.
LOL. Josh knows the geology because he’s a geologist. He wasn’t using “you” as in the universal “you”; he was asking you, a moron who wouldn’t know schist from shinloa, how you know anything at all about the real science of geology.
All you want to do is cherry-pick little phrases from the hard work of real scientists. There’s no sanity or reason invovled, just voodoo. Cargo-cult science. Ooga booga!
Case in point:
For example, YECs are so utterly ignorant of oceanography that they have no idea that “tidal waves” have nothing to do with tides.
Wow! That sounds scary — just like all the made-up science of YECs. Magic voodoo harmonic oscillation! Magic voodoo tidal waves! Ooga booga! Big Juju drown world and wreck it, like tiny child throwing big temper tantrum!
Because of course a sentence in a made-up story is just as good voodoo science as evidence in the real world. Oooga-booga, Big Juju!
No. They weren’t. Because in the real world, the world outside the imagination of YECs, the limestone formed slowly over millions of years, millions of years ago.
No. It would not. Because in the real world, the world outside the imagination of YECs, there is no evidence for “hydrologic sorting”.
Oh, hell NO. Most of the forest fossilized in place millions of years ago.
The Jesus, Food, Zombie, Grilled Cheese Sandwich Connection
cool I was wondering how yall were doing that, nice shameless self promotion, huh?
Hi Josh,
I was wanting to keep the displacement analogy simple as an estimate, as others have done in their assumptions:
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/NEWSV2N1/martha1.html
“However, consequences of H2O and CO2 in silicic magmas during transport and ascent through the crust have been ignored in most fluid dynamic and heat transfer treatments of the problem. Instead, these models usually assume constant magma properties, and the volume of the system is also assumed to be constant. This article describes efforts to evaluate the assumption of constant volume during ascent of granitic magma using a model based on the albite-H2O and albite-H2O-CO2 systems.”
Actually, taking compression into account would favor my displacement analogy.
Consider the total volume of water in comparison to volume of land above sea level today:
mean continental height = .840 km
land area = 148.94 million sq km
land volume = 148.94 million sq km x .840 km = 125.11 million cu km
Oceans volume = 1.3-1.5 billion cu km = 1.4 billion cu km (using average)
Ratio of volumes, ocean : land = 1.4 billion cu km / 125.11 million cu km = 11.2
As we can see, we have 11.2 times more water or only 8.9% land volume as a comparison. If we take in account the compressibility of magma, the average ocean depth pressure is 5,364 psi while magma being displaced on the land would be at 14.7 psi (neglectable) creating a greater amount of uplift or land volume for the same volume amount of displaced ocean water. After a hyphotized flood, a 8.9% of magma displacement from under the oceans to under the land area (sorry for leaving out compression, that would be UNDER 8.9%) to account to the entire continental land volume. Now I know the water was above the highest mountain (elevation unknown) and terrain was not all an average level so let’s go back to OVER 8.9%. Now we agree that mountains are formed by plate tectonic action, I just disagree with gradual formation and favor rapid geological changes during and after catastrophism which then slowed as things settled.
Conclusion:
Considering there is currently unknown volumes of subterranean water and also the information above, I would conclude that an inadequate amount of water today as “proof” against a global flood is a fallacy.
Not only is that terrible garbage fake science, it’s terrible garbage fake grammar as well. You’re even less coherent that usual.
Really, this is completely confused sentence construction.
Fixed, more or less.
I knew I shouldn’t have gone to bed. I have a couple of drinks, chill for a bit at the end of a long week, and look what happens.
*sigh*
Alan wrote:
What’s scaring me about Alan is that he doesn’t seem to know how to read.
Others have jumped on this already, but since the majority of Alan’s most recent blithering was addressed to me I feel compelled to respond. My apologies for lengthening the thread with what might be seen as a redundant contribution. Nevertheless, that contribution is coming.
Alan Clarke wrote:
You come up with a different interpretation by ignoring most of the evidence. Here’s a quote where you highlighted certain parts (I’ve bolded rather than highlighted because I don’t know the code for yellow):
You’re ignoring the first phrase in this sentence: “Over millions of years”. Sediment wasn’t deposited for just a few months but for millions of years. The reason you come up with a different interpretation is that you’re quote mining. The sentence says something completely different from what you’re pretending it says.
In short, you’re using a fradulent argument. How can you possibly expect us to accept what you’re trying to sell if you’re being blatantly dishonest?
Alan says he’s looking at evidence, but he’s ignoring the ~1023 stars that have been observed in the known universe. Just imagine if all those stars were within 6000 light years what effect that would have on the earth…
As usual neither Alan nor RogerS provided anything remotely resembling evidence. And still no evidence for their imaginary creator. Ignorant wimps.
My reply to Alan here gets a bit repetitive to try to get some stuff to sink in–bystanders might want to move on.
Alan copied my question (from #514) to him (this is me writing):
The following text is Alan’s reply to me (notice that he didn’t actually answer my questions (apparently they’re too elementary to bother with)):
MY REPLY TO ALAN:
Wow, Alan. Reading comprehension really isn’t your strength, is it? Or at the very least, you seem a little weak on the whole attention to detail bit. Perhaps, instead of you spending time on Pharyngula, we could suggest an online course that might help you improve those skills? Of course, doing something like that would fall into the general area of learning and, as we are repeatedly seeing, learning apparently makes the baby Jesus cry.
Did you just happen to completely miss the first paragraph of that same comment (#514)? Let me remind you if you did. I wrote:
What? That wasn’t clear enough? Did I write that paragraph in language that was too complicated for you to understand? Well then let me clarify:
I wasn’t disagreeing with the content in that website. I was pointing out to you, Alan, that you, Alan, had cherry-picked information in that website to agree with while simultaneously ignoring other information in that same website that you didn’t agree with. This isn’t something you get to do when you’re trying to make a scientific point (like assert that we haven’t falsified the flud hypothesis).
Clear? No? Well, okay, then, let’s recap one more time:
In comment #512, you posted a link (and also copied text) from a more or less responsible source that discusses specific aspects of the geological history of the Himalayas. You then did two things, using both text and highlighting.
1. You used information that you took from that source to support your position.
2. You denied information from that same source (indeed, in part from the same paragraph that you copied) that didn’t support your position (specifically, the age relationships of the rocks and events involved).
You made the decision about which data to accept and which data to ignore based on the assumption that you had formed before you read the text. Cherry-picking data based on an a priori assumption is terrible reasoning in science (and I can call you on this because comment #514 was supposed to refute my assertion that we have falsified the flud hypothesis–a scientific discussion).
Given that, and given that you have consistently demonstrated little to no understanding of geology in your comments on this blog,* I asked you if you had ever seen Himalayan geological samples first hand. I asked you this to try and get you to SEE that:
You are deciding which geological evidence to accept and which to ignore based on your assumption that the flood happened. BUT YOU ARE NOT USING ANYTHING OTHER THAN THAT ASSUMPTION TO MAKE YOUR CHOICES. You can’t do that. Not if you’re going to run around telling everyone that the flood hypothesis hasn’t been falsified while using our data to try and make your case. Cherry-picking the data you like and ignoring those you don’t isn’t playing by the rules of science. You are doing this while insisting that your argument about the flud is a scientific one. You’re being dishonest.
The simple facts are:
-You didn’t collect any of these data.
-You haven’t seen the rocks, and you don’t know how to study them systematically anyway (would you even be able to identify a graywacke if I put a hand sample of it in front of you?).
-You haven’t compared sequences to each other (Hell, do you even know how to read a strat column? How about a geological map? Seismic profile?).
You’re sorting information that you didn’t collect and saying that “you guys are right over here, but you’re wrong over there” all the while ignoring that it was all done using the same methodology. And what’s more, you have shown us NO EVIDENCE that you have any basis what-so-ever in making the judgment in the first place. You say that you’re juggling two theories at once, but you’ve shown us over and over again that you have no idea what the hell you’re even talking about. Unless you can show us some valid evidence to support your rejection of radiometric age dating that is separate from your general assumption that it just can’t work, then your just being dishonest in your argument.
As I’ve said before though, you don’t have to do any of this. You can simply rely on miracles and be done with it. You can explain the world by having god erase all evidence of the flood and create a deceptive rock record that indicates no flood happened. But if so, then stop talking about “evidence” and leave the rocks, and the science, alone. If you’re going to bring the rocks into it, then you need to be honest about what the they actually say. And you must play by the rules of science in making your case. So far, you’re not doing this. You’re cherry-picking data to support an assumption and calling it science. That’s fraudulent and it’s dishonest.
*which is further demonstrated by this blurb of word salad from comment #539:
Alan wrote:
You refer to tides. I presume this means that you’re talking about the local rise and fall of sea-level related to the gravitational attraction going on within the Earth/Moon/Sun system? And you’re relating this to “tidal waves?” You do realize, right, that we don’t really use “tidal waves.” The word is tsunami. And you also realize that tsunamis are not generated by this same Earth/Moon/Sun gravitational attraction that results in things like “high tide” and “low tide,” right? These are two very different animals.
See perhaps:
URL LINK: http://www.tsunami.noaa.gov/
URL LINK: http://www.geophys.washington.edu/tsunami/general/physics/physics.html
You also might realize that tsunamis produce a pretty distinct type of sedimentary deposit.
See perhaps:
URL LINK: unit.aist.go.jp/actfault/english/nature.pdf
URL LINK: http://www.springerlink.com/content/t61530243j5065p1/
URL LINK: http://www.springerlink.com/content/r081w3g4m7531qg4/
URL LINK: geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/29/4/347-a
URL LINK: http://www.nioz.nl/public/mcg/publications/van_den_bergh_2003.pdf
If the hypothesis is that unabated “tidal waves” (=tsunamis) were responsible for lots of intracontinental deposition from a major worldwide deluge, then we should find ample evidence of tsunami deposits spread across the interiors of all of the continents. Indeed, you seem to be offering this up as a major mechanism of generating the sediments that veneer the continental interiors, so then we should expect to see a whole heck of a lot of these tsunami deposits.
Can you provide citations for the reports describing numerous/vast/abundant tsunami deposits in the continental interiors? We can start with just North America if you like.
Where were those hypotheses written down? Citations?
Wow, a tsunami laying down an nice fine layer of sediment with no foreign inclusions. Wishful thinking at best, delusional thinking most likely. These guys don’t get it. There was no flud. Your feeble attempts to even demonstrate that there was one is both amusing and irritating. Amusing because of the comic value, irritating because of the way you lie about the evidence you present. As I said, quit lying to yourself that the evidence you cite supports the flud, and by not presenting that non-evidence you don’t lie to us.
I’m still curious if RogerS and/or Alan can point me to the great geological even that took place sometime between 4400 years ago and at least recorded history in the Himalayas that caused the range to rise 8000 or so meters.
Anything would be nice.
Imagine that.
With all the talk about how “OMG – a flood!” stories permeate all cultures, there’s been very little talk about how “Holy crap, look at that mountain range! That wasn’t there yesterday! Where the heck did THAT come from?” stories don’t.
Just sayin’.
One can only imagine the first guy that tripped over K2 while out walking his yak.
“Holy shit, that wasn’t there last week. Someone have that removed.”
I actually welcome your comment and one by Janine that my grammer is lacking and that higher standards are expected when conversing with people of your caliber.
I acknowlege my wife is also right that I should wear my glasses more often. Being up until 3:53 is unacceptable as well. I basically know what is required, but I sometimes just fail to do it, similar to a sinful nature. Striving against it requires constant vigilance.
Owlmirror: Not only is that terrible garbage fake science, it’s terrible garbage fake grammar as well. You’re even less coherent that [sic] usual.
Terrible grammar? Less coherent that [sic] usual? This is the most extreme case of a cracked pot calling a kettle black that I have ever witnessed:
Owlmirror: Ooga Booga! Believer in Big Juju know that Big Juju create flat world make world all bumpy after Big Flud! the magical tantrum by Big Juju and also Big Juju can do magic because I like make-believe about Big Juju more than your “evidence” and “reality”, which are just too hard to understand..
My father lived through the depression, lost his mother at age 7 to tuberculosis, saved money carrying newspapers, paid for his own university education, became an officer in the Navy, paid 50% of the cost for sending every one of his four sons through the university. He died early from lung cancer even though he never smoked, probably from radiation during the atomic bomb development. Why do I know Owlmirror’s above paragraph would never have registered with my father? No science, no sense, no honor.
What a dishonor you are to him and the education he paid for.
Owlmirror’s typo verses your avalanche of bad ideas. Yeah, that’s on equal footing.
The facts of your father’s life does not distract from your abysmal use of facts, knowledge and ideas.
Still avoiding the physical evidence for their imaginary god. TSK, TSK. Boys, there is a lot of avoidance going on, and no real evidence being presented to back up your inane assertions. Since no real evidence has been presented, we can’t even call it a hypothesis. So Alan, you are not a theoretician, but rather an assertician.
My father lived through the depression, lost his mother at age 7 to tuberculosis, saved money carrying newspapers, paid for his own university education, became an officer in the Navy, paid 50% of the cost for sending every one of his four sons through the university. He died early from lung cancer even though he never smoked, probably from radiation during the atomic bomb development.
And you, Alan Clarke, reward reward your father’s sacrifice by verbally pissing your pants in public here every day, pooting and pasting and drooling and burbling reams of cut and pasted fucktardery in order to leave no doubt in anybody’s mind about what a deeply demented fuckwit you are, you thread-jacking, god-botting waste of human life. Piss off and pollute somebody else’s blog, you insane, reality-denying moron.
Which is a nice story, not un-similar to ones in my family.
Now tell me again what that has to do with anything?
Hey Alan and RogerS.
Where’s that catastrophic geologic event that caused the rapid rising of the Himalayas to their current elevation that happened post “grat flud”?
Alan wrote:
Janine: The facts of your father’s life does not distract from your abysmal use of facts, knowledge and ideas.
This could very well be true. Nevertheless, regardless of whether I attain to my father’s example, or the greatest example ever, Jesus Christ, the latter example, as the former, indeed exists for all to partake.
John 5:19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
Actually, you’ve provided a warning against the dangers of life constructed around appeals to authority.
Alan Clarke, in all honesty, when a person uses Scripture in order to justify their actions, I just move on past it. You may believe it is the last words in any situation but I see that as a sign the person has nothing to offer.
Nevertheless, regardless of whether I attain to my father’s example, or the greatest example ever, Jesus Christ, the latter example, as the former, indeed exists for all to partake.
I can’t figure out whether Alan Clarke, the cannibal cultist, is inviting us to partake of his father’s corpse, or partake of the corpse of zombie Jesus.
Janine, the scripture has condemned my actions many times and perhaps now. I’ll think about it. But what is your standard for living? Yourself? By your own admission you identify yourself as an “insulting sinner”. I know you take it as a joke, but a joke isn’t funny unless it is mixed with truth.
Alan, we are atheists. You quoting the bible is just as authoritative as us quoting The Journal of Irreproducible Results. It says I have nothing, and I am trying to be funny.
The names I have used are insults that people have used for me. Do not try to imply that the names used by me is any reflection of any TRUTH you are fixated on.
In either case Ken, Alan’s merely demonstrating his belief in sympathetic magic.
He believes his proximity to the traits in those individuals (whether real or fictionalised is irrelevant) entail them in himself.
It’s one of the reasons so many Christians fail to demonstrate any of the behaviours they themselves claim are integral to the religion. They don’t feel they need to.
It’s the world’s largest high school clique in which everyone draws their status from being BFFs with Jesus, who they see as the coolest kid in school.
Why bother being a good and decent human being when you’re tight with JC and can claim his rep as your own?
Ahem,
And to amplify NoROM’s point, quoting from Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen would be more authoritative and truthful here than anything from your barbaric book, and would have the advantage of actually being on topic for this thread.
Alan, was your father a creationist? Is that the problem here? You’re still trying to register with your father by tearing down science? Is that the reason you jump up and down pretending that you’re “juggling two theories” when all you’re doing is waving your hands about wildly?
You have any idea how odd your non-sequitur was?
But Ken, I would not understand what was going on.
My father was born in a third world country, eldest in a family of 9. He was very bright and went to medical school. During his studies a civil war erupted. His father and 8 month pregeant mother were killed. At the age of 19 he became the head of his family. He saw his homeland ruined from the war and his hometown suffered greatly from an earthquake. He later went to the United States as a war refugee.
The US did not recognize his medical degree so he had to do medical school all over in Canada. During his time at medical school he had to also work enough hours to provide for his four kids, his 2 youngest brothers who lived with us and his wife. He eventually became a successful practicing physician.
Since my appeal to emotion is more moving than yours the Great Flood never happened.
win
He believes his proximity to the traits in those individuals (whether real or fictionalised is irrelevant) entail them in himself.
That’s true, Brownian. It’s primate pack behavior, a beta animal hoping to obtain any leftover status, food and sexual partners, by finding the biggest bully and ingratiating himself in various humiliating ways.
Rev. BigDUmbChimp, why do these Christains never, ever, get how to Matthew 6:6 it and clamp their piehole?
Alan Clarke wrote
I do hope so. The Christian scripture is so hideous from a moral perspective that anyone who consistent acted in accordance with it would have to be a monster. Of course nearly no Christians do so and so they are able to be good people.
a la carte bible.
It’s
the new rageold hat.To the young earth cretinists
From the Answer in Genesis web page – “Finally, to reiterate, while there are many kinds of trees that grow more than one ring per year, there is no evidence that adult bristlecone pines can ever do this.”
When Prometheus, a bristle cone pine was cut down, 4,844 rings were counted on a cross-section of the tree, making Prometheus at least 4,844 years old, predating the date of the biblical flood by 500 years which occured in 2348 BC, according to James Ussher. Methuselah, another bristle cone pine is about the same age.
And according to the AIG quote, they could not be younger due to multiple growth of rings in a year!
So how did they survive a flood lasting over 100 days?
When Noah let the dove out of the arc, it came back with an olive branch. How did the olive tree survive the flood?
The 5th Egyptian dynasty lasted from 2465 BCE until 2323 BCE. The last pharoah of the dynasty, Unas, lived from 2356 BCE until 2323 BCE. 2348 BCE, the year of the biblical flood happened in the middle of his reign. What did he do for 100 days, tread water?
So let me get this clear, history, geology, common sense, ice core dating, common sense, dendrochronology, cosmology, astronomy, common sense, physics, common sense, etcetra, etcetra all say the biblical account of the flood is wrong. And yet you still insist on believing these bronze age myths?
But Ken, I would not understand what was going on.
Wouldn’t that be because of what it says in the rulebook of the monster AC wants us to grovel at with him, that you wouldn’t understand because you’re onlyjustagurl?
The problem that Christians fail to see with this line of attack is that they’d have to demonstrate that they actually possess the standard of living they claim to strive to.
It’s easy to demonstrate (and has been done so ad nausea) that the Bible cannot provide such a standard, as it’s self-contradictory. Thus, at some point any believer has to choose which prescriptions to keep and which to discard. But what possible criteria can they use to make these decisions in a manner that’s consistent with the concept of a standard? You can’t use the Bible, because it’s already the source of inconsistency your’re trying to reconcile. (What do you do, play a numbers game? “OK, Jesus made forty-three “turn the other cheek”-like statements, but only twenty-two “I have come to set brother upon brother”-like statements, so “turn the other cheek” it is. Gee, thanks, Tome of Absolute Guidance!” Yet, amazingly, most Christian do exactly this when they make their vague references to the core tenets of Christianity.)
There are two other possibilities. One can assume divine revelation, or one can assume some personal and wholly material source of revelation. The former is a nearly universal claim among theists, and it is its universality that weakens it. As Dawkins and others have pointed out, the strongest predictor of what you feel to be God’s own Truth is what your parents think it is. A fool can and does mistake his own certainty for Divine certainty in a world of conflicting Divine certainties, but only the truly out-of-touch are perplexed when their Divine certainty isn’t compelling to others. So without anything else to corroborate it, the claim that something is true because one feels it so certainly that God (or angels, or saints, or witches or demons or sprites or nymphs) must have put it there is incredibly unlikely to be true (and how could anyone know) and utterly meaningless as an argument.
Thus we’re left with the most likely source of morality, the very one that Alan described as if to insult Janine, but is in fact the very same one he uses himself, namely one’s material self.
How this is possible is an active field of study, with much evidence from the social and natural sciences to be analysed and tested, and is the subject of Hauser’s book “Moral Minds”. Since at this point Alan is ponderously studying his belly button, wondering to himself “but I gave them John 5:19. Those words are magic. Why aren’t they working?” and I’m just preaching to the choir, as it were, I’ll stop now.
No. Because Elfquest, Buffy and Angel are the only comics I have followed regularly. And the last two was because of the shows. Let’s just say that went the geeks and Xander went off on comics, I had no idea what was going on.
Brownian, I have tried to point out to some christians that on the issue of morality, plenty of people from non christian societies have lived moral lives. If that is the case, is it not possible that ethics is not connected to Jesus? It has been unsatisfactory. But I do thank you for going after the question. I took it as an insult and left it alone.
Oh Elfquest. Damn I hadn’t heard that name in years.
Brownian, nice.
Well, it’s an argument that bears repeating, as it was an integral component aspect of my faith that I struggled with for two decades before it triggered my full-blown apostasy.
Even as a whelp of single-digit age, I thought it suspicious that I believed in the one true religion because I was born to the right family. No amount of apologetic hand-waving can turn an arbitrary god into a just one, and what system of ethics worth following can be derived from serving an unjust god, other than to hope to curry favour for oneself at the expense of others?
I read ElfQuest when it came out.
(Hey, I’m complex, okay?)
Me too.
I still have some Elfquest I inherited from an ex-girlfriend. As for Watchmen, it had been perhaps 15 years since I’d paid serious attention to a comic book when it came out and a co-worker gave me the first three issues and got me hooked again on comics for awhile. Watchmen really ought to be at your public library, and copies are certainly clogging the big chain bookstores now. It doesn’t require any familiarity with any particular universe of superheros, just an awareness of what the cliches are. I’m guessing though, that you’d probably have more fun starting with Neil Gaiman’s trade paperback collections of his Sandman run. Before committing to reading the series in order, you might look at Dream Country, collected independent stories, before you decide if you’d like to start at the story’s beginning.
Janine: The names I have used are insults that people have used for me. Do not try to imply that the names used by me is any reflection of any TRUTH you are fixated on.
Janine, I assume you realize that words mean things, right? I assume you understand that when you type, there is information contained therein. You seem to abhor the idea that anyone can read between your lines. Don’t you do the same? Just look at what you’ve written: You’ve disclosed the fact that people in your environment, (whether by your choice or not) have hurled at you the following insults:
Ignorant Slut
Insulting Sinner
Vile Bitch
You used the word, “insults”, so I take it that all of the above are interpreted by you as negative connotations. At least we agree on that. Presently, you adorn yourself with a placard hanging from your neck with no fewer than three names. My impression of my first psychology teacher (university level 101) was formed when I noticed each time he taught, he came with a different brand of cigarettes. He was unsettled in his choices but confided in me later that he was trying to stop smoking. As a young Christian, I was highly impressionable and immediately tuned to one particular contradictory cigarette brand he had chosen, “True”. During the same period of time, I had a roommate from Chicago who lived in a continual state of debauchery. Illegal use of drugs required his father’s presence to bail him out of jail. Unrestrained sex resulted in his girlfriend having at least two abortions. I benefited by his life because he was always asking me to leave the room which left me with no options other than studying. When I became a Christian, I saw for the first time his untenable position when he justified himself by describing everything wrong with his girlfriend. After praying for strength to confront him, I did so and he retorted, “You think you’ve got me figured out? You don’t. Nobody’s got me figured out. I hide myself so that nobody understands me.” You probably think I am paraphrasing or exaggerating his statement, because it almost sounds too childish or unbelievable, especially the admission of, “I hide myself…” I couldn’t believe it either and thought perhaps my prayer had something to do with uncovering him completely.
Janine, as much as you hate it, you are revealed by your words. Perhaps you can assemble something fancier than, “I hide myself…”, but why bother? If you take pleasure in insults, then please don’t take my words as such because that is not my intention. If you insist upon receiving me that way, then you can add “Hidden Behind a Mask” to your list of identifying names.
Rev 2:17 …To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it.
Rev 3:12 …and I will write upon him my new name.
Alan Clarke, I am revealing that fact that insults from fools do not bother me.
I have no idea what the story about your roommate has to do with anything. And than ending with more scripture. Congratulations, you just gave me a pile of nothing.
Nothing new there.
For fuck’s sake Alan. Go back to mangling science. Your little parables you think are imparting some sort of lesson are not. They aren’t even really addressing anything.
If anything they’re just allowing you to feel smugly self important.
Plus shut up on these and get back to showing us how wrong you are on the science.
plus should be please.
As In Please shut the fuck up with these lame ass personal stories that go no where and mean less.
Even as a whelp of single-digit age, I thought it suspicious that I believed in the one true religion because I was born to the right family. No amount of apologetic hand-waving can turn an arbitrary god into a just one, and what system of ethics worth following can be derived from serving an unjust god, other than to hope to curry favour for oneself at the expense of others?
That was part of my unease with it. When I was learning to read, I read the Bible almost as much as I read Silver Age comic books, and the moral minefield of the Bible made less sense to me than comics did. What really alarmed me was how few adults could read aloud in church from their holy book, much less profess to understand what they read. I was ready to abandon it until I discovered the woo section of the public library, became obsessed with ESP and Eastern Religions, and, just in time for 60’s psychedelic mysticism, stifled any nascent skepticism by deciding that the only problem with theism was that mainstream fundamentalist Xtianity had just gotten it all wrong. By the time my theism got sophisticated enough to prefer Zen to Vedanta, where I wouldn’t want any mental concept to blind me to an apperception of reality, it finally occurred to me that models and simulations built from the best scientific consensus had to be worth considering too. Getting them from Carl Sagan and his books and TV, and Richard Dawkins’ Selfish Gene and Blind Watchmaker was almost enough to snap me completely out of the woo, but once I started actually growing a brain and learning how to think for myself, apostasy was inevitable.
Brownian, #585 was well said. I enjoyed reading that. Thank you for it.
Ken Cope,
I was ready to abandon it until I discovered the woo section of the public library, became obsessed with ESP and Eastern Religions, and, just in time for 60’s psychedelic mysticism, stifled any nascent skepticism by deciding that the only problem with theism was that mainstream fundamentalist Xtianity had just gotten it all wrong.
I’ve noticed this pattern in many others, including myself.
Even after admitting what deep down I had figured out years before but was too afraid to think out loud—that Christians had tripped themselves up over Jesus, and that it was mostly bullshit, I was still saturated with supernatural thinking. I still lived in a world where Edgar Cayce could go into a trance and transmit information from the astral plane, and if he said that reincarnation happened then maybe reincarnation actually happened. And maybe his information on Atlantis and all the other goofy stuff he said should be looked at seriously because, you know, he was connected to the astral plane and all. And what about the Himalayan yogis, those guys that float in the air while they meditate and are guiding the spiritual progress of the world? Every New Age advocate knows there’s something to that—even though not one of them has ever, ever seen it.
Religion inculcates one in a world of magical thinking that is very difficult to get out from under—even when you grow up with a deep appreciation of science!
And now, even more years later, I’m finally realizing that the real world, with all it’s natural laws—and without all the supernatural, whimsical crap—is still just as mysterious as anything religion has ever come up with. Why existence? Why anything?
There is one reality, and you either want to know what it is, and you love truth for its own sake—whatever it is—or you don’t. If you love the truth, and if you love the process of being as alert and aware as possible in order to be as perceptive as possible then watching people like our pals Alan and Roger here discard intellectual integrity in order to feel the emotional comfort of acquiescing to other people’s beliefs is incredibly disturbing.
Janine: Congratulations, you just gave me a pile of nothing.
Where is your pile of “something”?
Right. Because in science, such questions are settled by seniority, not by the weight of the data, adherence to good technique, and replication of results.
Odd that you should mention Baumgardner’s seniority, though. His career is based on doing computer models which support the standard scientific claim of an old moon. I don’t see how that necessarily prepares one for doing hands-on radio-isotope dating. As Larry Vardiman states, “there are no young-earth geochronologists in the world.” And Baumggardner’s time outside of academia does not seem to have helped him in being able to distinguish one type of rock from another, which seems a crucial capability for someone who aspires to overturn the entire field of geochronology.
Alan,
Pharyngula isn’t here so people can read about your personal life. It’s here so so people can read about Walton’s. Stop telling your stories.
Owlmirror: Mark David Chapman was a religious Christian psychotic who hated Lennon because Lennon dared to suggest that he was more popular than Jesus Christ. Mark David Chapman thought that God wanted him to commit murder. Gee, who does that sound like?
I’m surprised you go to such great lengths to find “natural” explanations for every cause, but stop short in your inquiries of a person’s character as soon as your goals are reached. How can you call yourself a “scientist” if your modus operandi is so obviously flawed? What did Chapman have in his possession at the murder scene besides a gun? What was his foundation for life? Jesus? The Bible? Or something else?
Wikipedia – “Mark David Chapman”
What could be more disingenuous and devious than to place Jesus Christ (“religious Christian psychotic”) at the root of Chapman’s disintegration? In a court of law, you would be referred to as a “false witness”. This is what gives me confidence that the Bible is true. The same people who collaborated against Jesus 2000 years ago with false witnesses and accusations are among us today. Why would an innocent person be so maligned? Why is the image of Jesus’ torn body hanging from a cross so despised? Answer: For unbelievers, his presence is a reminder of their failure. He was unwelcomed 2000 years ago. He is unwelcomed today. Half the world loves him. Half the world hates him. He is the most divisive character in human history.
Mat 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Reginald Selkirk: Right. Because in science, such questions are settled by seniority, not by the weight of the data, adherence to good technique, and replication of results.
Your cutting sarcasm has truth in it so I will withdraw my foolish appeal to “credentials” and “seniority”. After all, Jesus was only 33 years old when he had turned Palestine upside down. His formal education was nothing like the apostle Paul’s yet his teachings resound throughout the world after 2000 years. Why was he so different? His parents didn’t seem extraordinary.
Alan, still irrelevant posts, and still no evidence for you deity. PZ is probably getting very bored with your avoidance, and potential banning is in store for such behavior. Either show your evidence or shut up. That is how science works. If you can’t put up the evidence or shut up, you are a liar and bullshitter. Right now you are lying and bullshitting. You need to stop lying to yourself that you have evidence, so you can stop lying to us with your continued avoidance.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Feymaniac winz the intertoobz!
And yet he was also an atheist, according to you. You rejected his naturalistic outlook because he didn’t understand the emotional crisis you went through when you were younger and took barbituates with alcohol and then drove over your yard. Or something like that, according to you @#149 above.
Of course, the last time you brought up your father, you had a psychotic breakdown a few posts later. Are you going to do that again?
I absolutely agree that Creationism has no science, no sense, no honor. That’s why I wrote that mockery of it. That’s why it deserves to be mocked.
Assuming you described him truthfully and correctly earlier, I’m pretty sure your father would have agreed that Creationism has no science, no sense, no honor — regardless of whether he would have openly mocked it or not.
Alan Clarke:
Despite both his and all his followers’ (including you) claims to the contrary, his parents weren’t anything special. Just a carpenter and a lady.
Alan:
On the very same Wikipedia page that you cited was this:
And this from “Simple English Wikipedia”:
What exactly was your point again about being “disingenuous and devious” and being a “false witness”?
You’re not used to dealing with people who actually do investigation, are you? You don’t even really get the concept of getting to the truth through investigation, do you?
Wait, are you suggesting that Alan cherry picks bits of info from sources ignoring the rest of it and the actual conclusions to be formed correctly from it?
And he wonders why we don’t believe him. Alan, this is exactly what I mean when I said your should be the gatekeeper. Your failed in not looking at the bigger picture, which negated your idea. Hence you lied. That is called quote-mining, and is only used by liars and bullshitters. Guess what you own actions showed you to be?
Hypocrite. Look what you left out:
Psychotic and Christian, both at the same time.
Your hypocrisy, psychosis, and lies give me ever-greater confidence that the bible is false.
See? More hypocrisy, defeating your own argument: You cite one of the verses where Jesus calls for murder and war. I am sure that Mark David Chapman would have agreed with that verse; he would have proudly claimed that he was killing for Jesus.
You are the false witness; you perjure yourself by your own testimony.
I can resist everything but temptation. You do know I have to do this.
Josh: Can you provide citations for the reports describing numerous/vast/abundant tsunami deposits in the continental interiors? We can start with just North America if you like.
1) Athabasca Oil Sands (poorly explained by peat accumulation over millions of years)
2) Morrison Formation
3) Bedford Limestone (my home State of Indiana)
Josh, I hope you understand by now that I am linking you to secular websites which will naturally interpret these evidences as being millions of years old, but the age is not what I am currently arguing. You wanted evidences of “numerous/vast/abundant tsunami deposits in the continental interiors”. My position is that these were all created in a relatively short period of time during the global flood. One obvious feature of limestone is that it is composed of crushed and compressed skeletons of marine life. If you don’t think a catastrophe created the vast amount of limestone throughout the world, then could you please provide me a link with photo evidence of where it is being created today? If it isn’t “being created”, then perhaps you could at least provide a link were it is in residence “waiting to be created”. Keep in mind that limestone makes up about 10% of the total volume of all sedimentary rocks in the world.
Josh: Where were those hypotheses written down? Citations?
When I originally stated “tidal” waves, I meant what I said but tsunamis are an abundant part of the global flood model as well. In the following article, look for the frequent use of the word “resonance”.
http://www.icr.org/research/index/researchp_jb_patternsofcirculation
More lies from Alan the creobot, “I THINK NOT.”, Alan Clarke.
Alan, I’ve been reviewing the sedimentation layers in the Michigan basin. Next door to your alleged home state (we take nothing you say at face value). You need to reconcile the whole Michigan Basin collection with a one-off tsunami. It just can’t be done. Otherwise, you can’t have the number of evaporite layers, most of which are used by a very large chemical company to make different chemicals depending on the composition of the salt layer. Stop lying to yourself Alan, then you can stop lying to us.
Cosmic Teapot, #583, wrote:
I like to add ‘logic’ to this list. What I always ask creationists who mention the flood – and, funnily enough have never been answered – is why?
Why did their god need to flood the earth?
Why didn’t he just wave his magic wand and poof the bad people (and, presumably, bad animals and plants and bacteria etc.) away?
Why did he need to have Noah take any animals anywhere when he could could have used aforementioned magic wand and poofed all new animals into existence, without anyone having to build a boat or make their kids spend countless hours shovelling elephant crap out of it?
How is it that a being that could have created the universe had his power so severely retarded that he was limited to only the ability to talk, make it rain and create fucking rainbows?
Alan, please explain why, if the Morrison Formation and the Indiana Limestone represent tsunami deposits from the Flood, then, how come no contemporary animals, such as porcupines, pronghorns or buffalo are intermixed with the dinosaur fossils, or why there are no modern marine animal remains found with the crinoids of the Indiana Limestone?
Also, if these were tsunami deposits, then why do the crinoids tend to be intact, and not smashed to pieces by the violent wave action?
Oh for fucks’ sake.
Without looking at any of those in the light of the correct time scale, they do not make sense.
You should maybe go to the emergency room. The holes you are shooting in your own feet must be bleeding pretty seriously by now.
Your “position” doesn’t mean shit if you can not back it up with a something that explains the shorter time scale. Something backed by actual empiricism. Something you have not done.
Owlmirror: Hypocrite. Look what you left out: At age 16, Chapman became a born again Christian, and distributed Bible tracts.
So this is what drove him to kill? Or is it the abandonment of Christian principles that drove him to kill? Jesus taught “Do good to those who despitefully use you. Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek.” and “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” The law teaches, “Thou shalt not kill.”
So you must be way off track. I think his downfall was embracing the philosophy of “The Catcher in the Rye”. Isn’t the winner of a race determined by how a person finishes? Using your philosophy, we should close the book on everyone’s fate when they confess a childhood sin. Or should we release from prison every individual who performed a good dead in their youth? I’m telling you Owlmirror, you have an axe to grind with Christianity. Your hate for it has blinded you to any possible objectivity. You are looking at it as being the root of all evil. You got burned somewhere early in life and now your life’s goal is to make everyone share equal in your misery. You are as equally religious and devoted as I (maybe more). The only difference is the god you worship.
Alan, in dealing with the Michigan basin, you have to allow for four stages of glaciation to account for all the surface features. Also, keep in mind that north America has been populated for at least 13,000 years, if not 30,000 years. Oral records of the alleged flud should be there from all the tribes.
You do have the ability to just fade into the bandwidth. I suggest you do so.
and create fucking rainbows?
“Get outta my ass you stupid rainbows!”
Alan Clarke frothed at the mouth:
Ladies and gentlemen (and Christians) – I present to you the twin failings of egocentrism and projection!
He’s devoted to truth, Alan – and, despite the bleating of the religious, truth has nothing whatsoever to do with gods, yours or anyone else’s.
If heavy rains were falling and tsunamis were sweeping hither and yon on the waters upon which the ark was floating, how did the ark remain in one piece? I spent several years at sea in the Navy and I’ve raced sailboats in ocean races. I can tell you from experience that even a large ship is not safe in a major storm.
Here’s a picture of the heavy cruiser USS Pittsburgh having lost her bow in a 1945 typhoon. Pittsburgh was built of steel, was 673 feet long and displaced 13,700 tons. She was a whole lot larger than Noah’s ark. She was in the typhoon for less than two days.
It was a miracle that the ark didn’t sink during the flood.
wow…the colors, man…the colors…
Nerd of Redhead: Alan, in dealing with the Michigan basin, you have to allow for four stages of glaciation to account for all the surface features.
Got it covered:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/where-does-ice-age-fit
http://www.answersingenesis.org/search/?q=ice+age
And remember, in your theory, you have to account for why limestone isn’t being currently formed. How about granite? I don’t think it can even be manufactured in a laboratory. Those nasty polonium halos are buggers.
Science is not a religion as science changes as more evidence is found and new ideas come through to explain the evidence better. Religion on the other hand has a pre-conceived conclusion. When there are 1023 stars in our universe, some of which are 13 billion light years away – it demonstrates that the universe is both big and old. To call for a young earth / universe is manifestly false. This says nothing about the existence of God. So what do we get from Alan here? A denial of evidence in order to keep his pre-conceived conclusion.
Nerd of Redhead: Alan, in dealing with the Michigan basin, you have to allow for four stages of glaciation to account for all the surface features.
Got it covered:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/where-does-ice-age-fit
http://www.answersingenesis.org/search/?q=ice+age
And remember, in your theory, you have to account for why limestone isn’t being currently formed. How about granite? I don’t think it can even be manufactured in a laboratory. Those nasty polonium halos are buggers.
With AIG, he has it covered.
‘snicker’
Let’s start with this one. I wasn’t previously familiar with this unit, but some quick checking provided an indication of the overall sedimentary character. Seems to be a pretty uniform sand, probably deposited in a braided river environment proximal to the coast (i.e., sea-level was higher at the time).
Mossop GD, 1980, Geology of the Athabasca Oil Sands. Science 207:145-152, described the sorting (page 145) of the sandstone making up the unit as follows:
Pemberton, SG et al., 1982, Trace Fossils from the Athabasca Oil Sands, Alberta, Canada. Science 217, 825-827, described the rock as:
Fig. 2. Schematic representation of the three facies that characteristically make up the McMurray Formation sequence at outcrop: thick-bedded sands at the base, grading into epsilc cross-strata, overlain by horizontally bedded argillaceous sands.
They also (page 826) discuss the likely environment of deposition as being river channel bars:
See also:
URL LINK: www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119543871/abstract
URL LINK: search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/AD462BAF-16F7-11D7-8645000102C1865D
URL LINK: bcpg.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/50/1/178
I couldn’t find any indication that there were tsunami deposits within this unit.
Remember, tsunamis make a mess. This is a very high energy event. We’re going to expect to see a sequence with an initial depositional phase (the highest energy depositional phase) that’s just all fucked up. Extremely poorly sorted (a jumble of particles of different sizes, with sand and pebble and cobble and silt sizes all mixed together) with lots of detritus (plant pieces at least) mixed in. Quite possibly chunks of other rocks units that have been ripped up and redeposited as part of this new deposit. On top on top of this basal horizon, there might be a thick sand overlain by muds (as the tsunami water began to lose energy and drop smaller and smaller grain sizes of particles in sequence) depending on how much water and how long it took to recede, but there will be that initial high energy phase.
The Athabasca Oil Sands seems to be pretty much the opposite of what we expect a tsunami to do (check those sources I provided earlier).
Can you provide me some links/citations of reports where people have identified what they think are tsunami deposits in the Athabasca Oil Sands? What I’d really like to see is a strat column.
why limestone isn’t being currently formed.
wtf?
ever heard of cocolithophores and forams?
Limestone is being formed in massive amounts as I write this, and has been continuously forming such for hundreds of millions of years.
In fact, if those little buggers didn’t exist to fix CO2 into an inert form, I doubt you would even exist.
that’s the problem with getting your info from AIG. Not only do you only get one small part of the story, even THAT part is most often wrong.
pathetic.
Fuck! Alan knows about the Polonium halos! The jig is up; we might as well throw in the towel. We’re fucked: he’s found our Achilles heel. Damn it!
But it is currently being formed. Who told you it wasn’t?
check out the links I provided above in comment #479
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/02/science_of_watchmen.php#comment-1463469
What’s next?
Alan, Still a liar and bullshitter. AIG is equivalent to you quoting your bible. (See talkorigins for refutation.) That is, nothing of consequence, already shown to be false. Why do you keep shooting yourself in the foot? Stupidity perhaps? Or just wishful thinking of a deluded idiot?
Still to physical evidence for your imaginary deity. You can’t avoid not showing evidence forever. You will have to put up or shut eventually. The sooner the better. If you want us to take you seriously, stick to the peer reviewed primary scientific literature, and don’t quote-mine.
You’ve never been to the Cascades, huh?
For some reason the picture of the bowless Pittsburgh didn’t link. Here’s another picture that should link.
Talkorigins on polonium halos.
if those little buggers didn’t exist to fix CO2 into an inert form
more accurately:
fix CO2 into a non-soluble or non-circulating form.
whether it’s inert or not is irrelevant.
RamblinDude @600:
What a gateway drug that Edgar Cayce bullshit was! I was so into Cayce that I checked out and read Plato’s Republic, right after Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis, while gobbling up as much Heinlein and Tolkien as I could get my hands on. So, I’ll see your Cayce, and raise you a T. Lobsang Rampa (who was an inspiration for a Pterry Night Watch story) and a Urantia Book. Joseph Campbell eventually talked me down from all that, making me realize that myth is metaphor and truthiness can be independent of facts; why rob a story of its magic by being a literalist demanding that it be merely factual dry documentary? Finally, what people are doing now in the real world is so much more astonishing than any of those bronze-age goat-herding campfire tales could ever be, stories that so held me under their sway when I was younger and more credulous. It’s only taken me a lifetime to recover, treasuring the capacity to think critically, out here beyond the pale.
I’m glad I’ve still got my comic books though. There is more and superior ethical and moral exploration in the comic books of the last 50-60 years than in anything contained in 2000 year old Jesus Comix, plus, nobody expects you to believe that they actually, really, literally happened.
I can’t believe we’re in a 600-comment thread with people who support their claims by linking to AIG.
Well, I hope the lurkers get something out of it.
Josh for Pharyngulan Geology Department Head!
I was so into Cayce that I checked out and read Plato’s Republic, right after Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis, while gobbling up as much Heinlein and Tolkien as I could get my hands on.
Heh. Oh yeah, Heinlein and Tolkien!
I’ll see your T. Lobsang Rampa and raise you Carlos Castaneda. His books were pure magic for me. The ideas he explored and the characters he wrote about were (and still are) incredibly appealing to me, but for the longest time I was in limbo as to whether they were actually true or not (non-organic beings? Leaping from a cliff into an abyss?) Finally, the critical thinking skills developed (thanks to people like James Randi) and I had to admit they were works of fiction. I still feel let down.
One thing is great about being a hard-nosed truth-seeker, though: the lack of fear. I’m not afraid to say “I don’t care” when told that Jesus died for my sins. What a relief.
Do you have a source for this 10% figure? Does it refer to ancient carbonates only or does it include modern? Marine limestones only or also freshwater? Cave deposits? What about hot-water precipitated limestones (travertines) like the ones being deposited in Yellowstone today? Since something like 75% of the entire world’s surface is covered with sedimentary material* and a large percentage of that is in the ocean, I would think that 10% is a rather low estimate.
*see, for example,
Nichols G., 1999, Sedimentology and Stratigraphy. Blackwell Science, Oxford.
Blatt et al., 1980, Origin of Sedimentary Rocks. Prentice-Hall, Englewood.
I think the name ‘Polonium Halo’ would be an awesome name for a band – or, failing that, the title of an album.
God was responsible for creating Rainbow!
http://www.funny.co.uk/stuff/art_53-1664-Rainbow-The-Innuendo-Script.html
I think it would make a terrific album title.
Okay, before we return to tsunamis, just a couple of housekeeping details:
1. In #615, Alan wrote: 1) Athabasca Oil Sands (poorly explained by peat accumulation over millions of years).
Alan, when I discussed the sedimentology of the Athabasca Sands in #630, I neglected to address your parenthetical about peat. However, in looking through the literature, I couldn’t find any support for the idea that these deposits resulted from peat accumulation. I actually found no mention of it at all. So, while you’re hunting around for references that report on probable tsunami deposits in the Athabasca, could you also please get the source that proposed peat accumulation as a probable formation history for these deposits? Thanks.
2. In #615, Alan also wrote:
Alan, I do understand that, and I’m willing to let it go for the moment and just talk about rock types. HOWEVER, if I do that, you need to understand that we’re only talking about half of the story and we’re back to my comment #551, which you might want to read again (I also refer you to similar comments from others on the same issue). To recap: if you just grab rock type information from a source and then present that source to me, then you’re not evaluating the source’s accuracy. You’re just trusting that the folks who put that information together got it right. So, to trust the source and cherry-pick the information that supports your flood hypothesis while at the same time ignoring, say, paleoenvironmental interpretations or age interpretations that argue against your flood hypothesis, is dishonest. In short, you need to SHOW ME that you have some reason to accept rock information from a “secular” source while rejecting radiometric age dating interpretations from that same source other than your a priori assumption that a flood happened.
Right. Okay, back to tsunami deposits:
I wrote:
Alan replied, in #615,
and cited Blabbapedia.
*sigh*
The Morrison Formation, Alan? Seriously? The Morrison?
Okay, first, go back and re-read the links I provided you in #552. I didn’t put those links in there for me; I already know this stuff. I put them in there for you.
Second, read these:
URL LINK: contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd1392.pdf
Spend some time comparing the strat columns in here with those in the links I provided in #552 (especially that Nature article). It doesn’t matter if you understand all of the symbols; what matters is that the symbols are very different. Also study the photographs in this thesis. Does this lithology look anything like what I was describing in #630?
URL LINK: http://www.wyomingpaleo.org/pubs/papers/Lovelace_2006_DebrisFlow.pdf
This paper actually discusses a debris-flow deposit. Again, though, does this seem like something a tsunami would do? Look also at the rocks around the flow deposit? High energy or low energy?
URL LINK: bio.fsu.edu/~amarquez/Evolutionary%20Morphology%20fall%202004/Dodson/180-%20Dodson%20et%20al%201980%20-%20taphon%20&%20paleoecol%20Morrison%20Fm.pdf
This paper is a classic. I know you’re not a geologist, but you can understand what the Lithology & Texture column of Table 2 is talking about. If not, then ask. Dodson et al. (1980) surveyed a lot of Morrison outcrop to produce this work. Where is the indication of high-energy crazy tsunami-type deposits therein?
We’ve been working on the Morrison for like 170 years. It is one of the most well-studied surface-cropping sedimentary units in North America. We have this formation basically figured out in the broad scale. The environments of deposition were proximal to the coast at the time, so it’s entirely possible that we’ve got tsunami deposits somewhere within it. Where are they? The Morrison isn’t what I personally work on, so if those papers are out there, I have likely missed them. Can you produce citations?
If you’re going to try and assert that the entire formation represents a tsunami, well than I’ll go out on a limb and just say you’re wrong. That interpretation is completely contrary to the evidence at hand. But a couple of them within it? Sure–could be. Why not? Where are they? Show me the papers. There’s a ton of stuff out there. Do a Google search on Morrison Formation and sediment and go to war. I’ll wait.
A related question, of course, is that if you’re under the impression that the entire formation represents a tsunami deposit, then why do you think that? Where did you get that idea from? Please provide that citation, because I have simply got to see the mental gymnastics that the authors went through to arrive at that interpretation.
It cannot be stressed often enough.
Scientists look for evidence that disproves their positions. And when they fail, they publish, so that other people can help them look!
Scientists are nothing, nothing, nothing but nattering, nitpicking, nagging, naysaying nabobs of negativity. I know what I’m talking about — I am one! :-) You should try it sometime, it’s fun. :-)
The reason is that science cannot prove, only disprove — so, what scientists do all day is to try to disprove everyone else’s hypotheses and first of all their own. When confronted with a conclusion, scientists ask if it really follows from the data, and if so, if it’s the only conclusion that follows from the data, and if that’s not the case, they ask if it’s the most parsimonious conclusion that follows from the data; when confronted with data, scientists ask “is that really the case?”.
Scientists know that the easiest person for you to fool is yourself. Science is nothing but a workaround around this very problem.
Now go read the article on radiometric dating, you incredible coward.
Fisher’s support for eugenics and his belief in races come neither from atheism nor from the theory of evolution. They come from ignorance.
Fisher was wrong for the exact same reason you and Alan are: once he left his field, he simply didn’t know what he was talking about, and he didn’t know that he didn’t know what he was talking about. Think about that.
More like tiny child noticing that big science project got way out of control because, not having been through puberty yet, he had forgotten about the existence of sex.
Where did you get that nonsense from?
The interesting thing about this one is that we’ve been through this! Alan brought up the Morrison Fm on the Titanoboa thread as a water-laid and (in YEC logic) therefore automatically tsunami-laid deposit, I pointed out that it consists mostly of river channels and contains paleosols — fossil soil –, I asked Alan to reconcile that (…let alone the overlying dinosaur-bearing Early Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Fm) with it being a tsunami deposit, and he never did.
And now he brings this disproved argument up again!!!
Alan, if you’re trying to discuss with us, why the fuck don’t you fucking read what we fucking write?
Alan and the underpants gnomes have a lot in common in formatting their tactics
Underpants gnomes
Phase 1: Steal underwear
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit!
Alan
Phase 1: Make unsupported assertion not backed by any modern science using cherry picked bits from various actual sources ignoring the conclusions of said sources
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Claim Victory!
Quite forgetting that I hadn’t read a few hundred comments on this page, I asked Alan earlier if his father was a creationist. Going back and skimming through the comments, I see that his father was instead (possibly) an atheist, an engineer, and supposedly, a rationalist.
Now, there’s no way I’m going to suffer through the entire thread, but it’s obvious from what I have read that Alan has issues with his apparently unsympathetic father, and in fact, briefly depicts him (almost Freudian-ly) as almost everything that he himself is now not! Interesting. Especially in light of this later sentiment of his: ”Why do I know Owlmirror’s above paragraph would never have registered with my father? No science, no sense, no honor.”
It seems obvious that Alan is a walking cry for help with some serious unresolved childhood issues. It also seems probable that failing to confront his inner demons, his mind has gone all spastic like Bender the robot suffering from a malfunction (*spark-fizzle-bzzzzzzt-hebedee-hebedee-hebedee-hebedee-snork-blurkle-thwt-*). This is both fascinating and disturbing, but what is perhaps even more disturbing is that in his attempts to escape reality he was able to join a readily available and widespread
support groupcult where such mental sputtering and putzing around is not only welcomed but encouraged—it’s the norm! He is a perfect example of typical creationist obtuseness, intellectual dishonesty and obstinacy.Maybe we’re approaching this all wrong. These guys don’t need mountains of scientific evidence and lessons in logic and critical thinking; they all need a hug!
(It can be an experiment!)
Okay. Regarding the “fossil forest” preserved at Specimen Ridge (and other places) in Yellowstone National Park. These fossil trees are preserved within the rocks of the Lamar Fiver Formation (Eocene), which is part of the Absaroka Volcanic Supergroup.
This link actually provides a pretty good overview (and a nice, extensive bibliography)
URL LINK: http://www.lachlanhunter.deadsetfreestuff.com/JB/Big-Trees/big-trees5.htm
Additionally, see these articles:
URL LINK: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1304733
URL LINK: geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/12/3/159
Note regarding this paper: tuffaceous sandstone is a volcanoclastic sediment.
URL LINK: petrology.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/43/4/663
This is a good paper. Pages 666 and 668 (Figure 3) are the most relevant.
URL LINK: bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/91/5/272
URL LINK: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2422124
URL LINK: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1303535
URL LINK: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2435699
The take-home here is that we’ve been studying the Lamar River Formation and it’s associated fossils for a long time. This geological unit is (if painted with a broad brush) a complicated sequence of alternating/interbedded volcanoclastic sediments (including, at least, volcanically-derived sandstones, mudstones, conglomerates, and such) and fluvial sediments (river-derived sandstones, mudstones, conglomerates, and such). There are lahar deposits (deposits from volcanic mudflows/debris flows) and actual ash deposits and basalts (igneous rocks). This unit is part of the larger Absaroka Supergroup, which is a very thick sequence of volcanoclastic and fluvial sediments with associated volcanic rocks.
Any model that proposes a massive flood as the mechanism for generating these rocks must conclusively demonstrate how four months or whatever of receding flood waters can deposit these types of rocks.
Whether the fossil trees common in these units are preserved in growth position, are lying down, are in situ or are transported is not the issue. The issue is how four months or whatever of receding flood waters can deposit these types of rocks.
Carlos Castaneda. His books were pure magic for me.
Me too, but it took a lot of augmented neurochemistry for that critical confirmation bias. Sure made it lots easier to see others as luminous beings. I think it wasn’t Don Brou Ha Ha, so much as his readers, who became the subject of Castaneda’s anthropological studies at UCI. I had a friend who took classes from him there who introduced me to his friend, who had written the Penthouse Magazine article about Castaneda. Knowing my friend since High School, we weren’t the only ones trying anything to see if we could externalize or confirm the objective reality of our inner worlds in the way fantasized about among the Yaqui, or as claimed by Ram Dass among the fakirs.
I sure wish I’d encountered Sagan and Randi when I was younger.
yup.
Carlos was entirely full of shit; apparently never met anyone in the tribes he mentions in his book (and they certainly didn’t know him).
Gary Hurd will be happy to tell you more about it (he knew Carlos’ major prof.):
http://stonesnbones.blogspot.com/
The books were fun, but they were entirely fiction.
what’s REALLY funny, though, is that because they were published in the University Press, Carlos received his PhD anyway, even though his thesis was entirely fabricated.
UC even changed the rules about publications and theses afterward because of it.
I have the link tracing the history of it somewhere, but Gary has the full scoop.
And finally, turning to Chapter 3 in our hunt for extensive continental tsunami deposits, “Who wants to be a Limestone Tsumani?”
When we last saw our heroes, Alan wrote:
Alan, it doesn’t seem that Bedford (or Indiana) is the actual accepted name of the geological formation, but is rather an informal name used for the building stone quarried from the unit.
URL LINK: igs.indiana.edu/Geology/structure/compendium/html/comp3mzo.cfm
URL LINK: scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/245
URL LINK: http://www.kyanageo.org/articles/Salem_Microfossils.pdf
URL LINK: gsa.confex.com/gsa/2008AM/finalprogram/abstract_146716.htm
So, regarding the sedimentological character of the Salem itself, see:
URL LINK: kb.osu.edu/dspace/bitstream/1811/5152/1/V66N02_168.pdf
Note: Nice overview of the sedimentology of the Salem.
URL LINK: http://www.isgs.illinois.edu/ptcc/Illinois%20petroleum/IP114%20Salem%20Limestone%20Oil%20and%20Gas%20Production
%20in%20the%20Keenville%20Field,%20Wayne%20County,%20Illinois.pdf
URL LINK: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1298173
Note: describes Salem as a probable shallow water, probably lagoonal, deposit.
URL LINK: search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/44B4AA37-170A-11D7-8645000102C1865D
Note: similar to previous.
URL LINK: search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/5D25B82F-16C1-11D7-8645000102C1865D
Note: Overview of Salem depositional environments. No mention of high-energy storm deposits.
URL LINK: search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/212F9133-2B24-11D7-8648000102C1865D
Note: Here’s your tidal action; not surprising for a shallow water lagoonal deposit… Good explanation given the good quality of the fossils and the abundant cross-beds seen in various horizons. I’ve been all over this formation. I could show you some simply awesome photos.
URL LINK: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1303706
Note: nice description of this beautiful oolitic limestone.
URL LINK: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1300858
Note: good description of the typical Salem; a nice, uniform bioclastic limestone.
URL LINK: search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/2F919CD3-16CE-11D7-8645000102C1865D
Note: similar to previous.
URL LINK: search.datapages.com/data/doi/10.1306/44B4A33E-170A-11D7-8645000102C1865D
Note: suggests fossils in Salem are mostly not transported because of their high quality…
URL LINK: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1299981
Note: nice description of what the Salem is like in eastern Missouri.
URL LINK: jpaleontol.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/75/1/136
Note: interesting fossil ecologies in the Salem…
URL LINK: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1305655
Note: describes the one major clastic unit within the Salem Limestone. A shale…
URL LINK: http://www.uky.edu/OtherOrgs/KPS/poky/files/pokych05-01-43.pdf
Note: another demonstration that the Mississippian series that includes the Salem consists of repeating units of shale, sandstone, and carbonate. Any flood model needs to demonstrate how four months of receding flood waters can deposit this sort of sequence. Note also that this paper, which has space to give just a brief overview of the geology of the Salem, doesn’t mention tsunami deposits.
URL LINK: scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/handle/2022/267
Note: this is a bit off-topic for this comment, but any flood model that attempts to explain the Salem and the other carbonates and clastics that are intercalated with it, is also going to have to demonstrate how evaporite deposits are created by receding flood waters that then deposit limestones on top of the evaporites.
The take-home here: I looked back through my photos/notes on the Salem and have checked over a bunch of papers on the unit. I can’t find any indication of high-energy storm deposits being reported in the unit. Evidence of tidal-action, sure (and some wicked cross-bedding), which isn’t unexpected for a shallow water carbonate deposit. But nothing that would suggest tsunami action. The Salem is a thick, thick-bedded carbonate unit with a discontinuous thin shale at it’s base. It preserves a ton of exceptionally well-preserved marine organisms, including remarkable crinoids. How delicate, articulated crinoids get preserved in place by receding flood waters on an non-marine continental interior is beyond me, but that isn’t for me to explain. That’s for you to explain.
Evaporite deposits… delicate, articulated crinoids…
Bah! You arrogant scientists, with your arcane jargon, and all your confusing facts and links!
I know.
Although in all seriousness, I am sorry about the amount of jargon which does get used. I could explain more of the technical words than I do, but the posts would be even fucking longer than they already are.
I think comment 648 is on to something.
RamblinDude, if you don’t want to read the whole thread, just use your browser’s search function…
I never got into hallucinogens (or any kind of drug) in any way and wasn’t much interested in that aspect of Castaneda’s books. In fact, I was kind of relieved when Don Jaun (supposedly) told him they weren’t necessary. I was more taken with the idea of people living at their full potential and uncovering the secrets of reality by honing their perception, and obtaining incredible abilities, and going to great lengths to eliminate self-pity by seeking out “petty tyrants,” stuff like that.
Then later he came out with “Tensegrity” and the core principle behind that system of movement was exactly in line with my own ideas about body mechanics (your entire body as one piece, energized and with everything in its place and connected properly.) I even incorporated many of the “Masculinity” movements into my own exercise regimen, and I still do them! From the beginning, though, I never really believed they were handed down by ancient Toltec seers. What a bunch of crap.
I can’t be too harsh with Castaneda, though. Even as fiction, his stories are thought-provoking, though I get a little peeved when I think of the time I spent yellow-highlighting the passages that contained the “wisdom” of Don Jaun. Asshole.
Maybe some day I’ll contact this Gary Hurd and ask him some questions. Man, those books were a big part of my life.
RamblinDude, if you don’t want to read the whole thread, just use your browser’s search function…
Yeah, I do that, but honestly, I just can’t take anymore of Alan’s insanity.
Josh:
In further seriousness – don’t be. You’re already performing above and beyond the call of duty, Josh. Your writing is clear, and most of the words are perfectly understandable (even if, at times, largely through evaluation of context).
Regardless, anyone who is truly interested will spend the 30 or 60 or 120 seconds it may take to find out what a word means if they happen to run across one they don’t know.
In further seriousness – don’t be. You’re already performing above and beyond the call of duty, Josh.
Yes, very impressive. Another outstanding Pharyngulyte. I think I’ll second Kseniya’s “Josh for Pharyngulan Geology Department Head!”
And a Metallica fan, too, no less! Woot!
Owlmirror: Ooga Booga! Big Juju make much water and move much earth around!
Saying “Ooga booga” to an African or a person of African decent is like saying “Ching-chong-ching” to an Asian person. It is a very old insult. It has been used by racists for ages. It is a reference to the way African languages sound to foreign ears. It is a racial slur pure and simple, especially in this context.
Here is a possible clue to the source of this racism:
“The Simiadae then branched off into two great stems, the New World and Old World monkeys; and from the latter, at a remote period, Man, the wonder and glory of the Universe, proceeded.” – Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
Some Homo sapiens may have closer or less-diluted ancestral lineages back to the original “Old World monkeys”. Isn’t this assumption reasonable since certain people groups have more restricted interracial marriages? In Owlmirror’s small world, “Ooga booga” sounds primitive since he can’t understand it and his brain immediately conjures up images of cannibals, people with facial features unlike his, people who can jump higher and grab hold of tree limbs better than him, etc. I suppose he could make a “scientific” argument for his position by measuring head sizes with a pair of Nazi Eugenics calipers or studying speech patterns to see which language is closer to “Ooga booga”, but this would prove nothing other than the fact that he can’t understand African languages. Perhaps “Ooga Booga” translated into English, means “Science is god.” If Owlmirror can’t jump as high as the “Ooga booga” people, then he is LESS viable than those he derides. Jumping out of the way of an oncoming car has advantages.
The cradle of civilization supposedly started in Africa despite the fact that the world’s civilizations are more centrally distributed around Mt. Ararat, where Noah exited the ark. The skin color of present day Turks is a light/dark median which makes the Biblical account much more believable as opposed to non-white Africans being the source of white Scandinavians, Europeans, etc. The United State’s densest populations are on the East Coast, where the original settlers first came. The most-developed infrastructure is to be expected were people first settle and is evidenced by our East-coast cities today and 100 years ago. In the evolution model we would expect anthropology to reveal the same for Africa, but this is not the case. Are the largest buildings and cities of antiquity distributed in Africa or are they dispersed with Turkey in the center? Evolution’s only hope at this point would be to theorize a mass exit from Africa because of non-friendly environmental factors such as unfertile soil, poor water sources, too many dangerous animals, too much jungle, too many unfriendly people, etc.
Do the numerous world languages find their roots in Africa? The fallacious “Book of Morman” describes members of the Hebrew tribe of Joseph migrating to America. Numerous cities are named but present-day archeological evidences are absent. Nor do North or South American Indian languages or cultures resemble Hebrew. The veracity of an ancient document (or supposed ancient document) easily stands or falls when contrasted against present-day evidences. When Noah exited the ark, he offered a sacrifice to God:
Gen 8:20 And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
After centuries, the practice still exists. Simply trace the ancestry from Noah to Abraham to Isaac and Ishmael to the current-day Jews, Arabs, Turks, etc.
I almost feel unworthy to post since I skipped everything from the SF Chick tract down. Too many essays, man. You people have the patience of Job ;}.
Anyway, I’m reading the Watchmen with my 13-year-old and we’re having some great converstaions. There are some Big Ideas in there, painlessly presented. I think we’ll wait a couple of years before seeing the film. (Or at least, my son will). I read Clan Apis and the Sandwalk Adventures with my 8-year-old.
Best.Comics.Ever
Alan Clarke! Ooga! Chuka! Ooga! Ooga!
Yawn, still no understanding of scientific argument. No citations of the peer reviewed scientific literature to support anything. Ergo, no evidence was presented, only idiotic allegations. The fictional bible was cited. I rest my case. A worthless post that said nothing.
Alan, still no evidence for your imaginary creator or that your bible isn’t a work of fiction. Massive failure again. Repeating lies doesn’t do anything other than to show your ignorance to the world.
Alan Clarke! Boogadaboogadaboogada!
No sweat, Josh. The internet provides http://geology.com/geology-dictionary.shtml.
Aln, ugh. That was rough.
Care to support that long rambling post with anything.
I can agree on the Book of Mormon at least.
Alan Clarke,
You have more serious matter to attend to. You have been selected to participate in Survivor: Pharyngula. If you wish to continue posting here you must participate. Let’s see if you can pass the immunity challenge!
Alan, when you get a chance, the questions in comment #407, please.
I’m really curious if any of them will attempt the challenge.
Barb is way out in front with votes, with Pete Rooke in second.
Are you capable of taking on the challenge Alan?
Actually Facilis already has answered the challange. More surprisingly, his answer was right!
Poor Alan. He’s not only ignorant about biology, paleontology and geology, he’s never heard of the Chinese Peiligang culture (dated to ~10,000 BCE), the Indus River Civilization aka Harrapan Civilization (earliest known settlement 3300 BCE, mature period 2600–1900 BCE) which was preceded by the Mehrgarh culture (7000-3300 BCE), the Mesoamerican Tarascan culture (~2500 BCE), the African Calabar Kingdom (sometimes referred to as the Efik Kingdom) (~3000 BCE), or the Predynastic Egyptian Culture (~5000-3100 BCE).
Alan. What on earth are you on about? That Darwin quote is a reference to the fact that apes share more features with Old World Monkeys than with the New World ones. It has nothing to do with anything else.
Africa is the “cradle of humanity” because that’s where humans evolved. Not the “cradle of civilisation” – of which there have been several.
One “Cradle of Civilisation” is actually suggested to have started in the Fertile Crescent and the reason this is so is because that’s where one centre for domestication was. Similar centres appeared independently in China, the Sahel, Ethiopia and West Africa, New Guinea, North America, Mesoamerica and South America. Some, but by no means all developed civilisation.
Tis Himself: Poor Alan. He’s not only ignorant about biology, paleontology and geology, he’s never heard of the Chinese Peiligang culture…
Thanks for supporting my position. Plot all of your list of ancient cultures on a map, then calculate the average center position. Who wins? Africa or Mt. Ararat? You mentioned the ancient Chinese cultures. Their presence beautifully offsets the European civilizations to bring the center point right back to where Noah stepped off the ark. The Bible is not a cheap primitive legend as you imagine and/or espouse. Look at the following text from Genesis 10, and you will see that it is a goldmine for scientific research:
Origin of the Nations
Many of the people’s names listed are the originators for the names that nations adopted. Take for example one of Noah’s sons, Ham, who migrated south. Egypt is often referred to as “The Land of Ham”. When something is true, it should be supported by evidences and arguments apart from the Bible, such as the highly pro-evolution “Wikipedia”:
I often hear that the Hebrew text is a cheap imitation of a more ancient text from some primitive civilization. If that is true, then why is it that the Hebrew text is always more detailed? Can you provide me with the more-original and superior text that the Hebrews plagiarized to derive Genesis 10 or the global flood account in Genesis 6-8? Genesis 6-8 reeks with detailed, scientifically falsifiable information unlike the “Epic of Gilgamesh”. Even a simple word-count of Genesis 6-8 tells you that more information is contained therein.
Why would I quote Wikipedia which often contradicts my arguments such as the Earth’s age? Remember the story of the 3 blind men describing what an elephant is like? One guy felt a leg, another the tail and the third the trunk. Each man’s description of the elephant was different. Sometimes the varied descriptions intersect: skin texture and smell. I refer to Wikipedia because the points of “intersection” often support creationist theory. If a blind evolutionist grabs the elephant’s penis and notices that the more he studies it the longer it gets, he will surely extrapolate his findings to conclude the penis will reach the Moon one million years from now. There are often built-in limits that evolutionists fail to acknowledge such as the limits of genetic variation.
Q: How do monkeys turn into men?
A: The same way an elephant’s penis reaches the moon.
I am not evading Josh’s excellent amount of scientific homework he has done on limestone formation. When a person is serious, they will provide such information as opposed to people with no credibility such as Nerd of Redhead’s cyclic ramblings of “Your God doesn’t exist. Blah, blah, blah…” God’s existence/non-existence is not falsifiable so I don’t know why he pursues this any more than the non-falsifiable hypothesis of, “Something occurred 3.5 billion years ago.” Who can refute it? It may be falsifiable in theory but not in practicality. Water was delivered to Earth by 1 million comets. Everything started from hydrogen gas, etc. Where did the hydrogen gas come from? Your explanations are just as good as “God exists.” or “Matter always existed.”
My wife just had a healthy baby boy, so my time is limited now that I have three children under 3.5 years of age. I already see the holes in Josh’s supporting arguments but I don’t want to post my rebuttals until I feel that I can do him service. What could be more disrespectful than to answer all of Josh’s labor with a brainless rebuttal like that of Nerd’s or P.Z. Myers’ memorable, “Alan Clarke, you are an idiot.”?
Alan, you still have presented nothing concrete or scientific, just more allegations Your bible is a work of fiction, and cuts no mustard here. Still no physical evidence for your imaginary god. Failure all around. This isn’t a philosophical argument, but a scientific one. And you fail at science. Either properly cite the peer reviewed primary scientific literature, or shut the fuck up. That is how science works.
Poor kids, having such an idiot for a father.
Alan, Take your time. I’ll be enthusiastically awaiting your rebuttles. In the meantime, I’ll turn my attention back to some stuff of Roger’s that I haven’t gotten to yet.
My wife just had a healthy baby boy, so my time is limited now that I have three children under 3.5 years of age.
My simultaneous congratulations (for having three children apparently not badly spaced) and condolences (for presumably having Alan as the father) to Alan’s wife. Just a hunch, but I’m guessing they went to three kids, because the first two were only just girls.
Alan wrote:
Astonishing ignorance.
Alan: We have no reasons to assume – as you have, for the sole purpose of building your “argument” – that the rise and spread of civilization can only have originated at the same geographical point where Homo sapiens first appeared (or, if you like, reappeared).
By your logic, the first settlers of North America were Europeans who came across on sailing ships. After all, just look at all the cities there on the east coast!
Speaking of North America, where did the pre-Columbian indigenous peoples come from, Alan? If they were all drowned in The Flud a few thousand years ago, why is there evidence that those peoples had been in North America continuously for tens of thousands of years, with the most recent migration taking place approximately 12,000 years ago? Why is that that most indigenous North American peoples can trace their genetic ancestry back to Haplogroup Q, marker M242, which has origins in Siberia dating back some fifteen or twenty thousand years? Can you explain, using the Flud model, how their closest non-American cousins are Siberians from whom they have been separated for some 12,000 years at the very least? Can you?
No. You cannot.
Alan Clarke,
Please answer the following question in under 200 words and without reference to your life story:
If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?
Which is closer to Mesoamerica, Africa or Mt. Ararat? Hint: Your choice comes in second. But then someone who doesn’t even try to argue about a Chinese culture older than his pretend flood is obviously clutching at straws.
Many of your coreligionists claim that the “Hamitic Race” are Black Africans. As one who has actually been in Egypt, I can assure you that the inhabitants are not Negroes. However, there are other Christians who say that Egyptians and other North Africans are Whites and, therefore superior to the African Blacks. Either way, the concept of the Hamitic Race is an expression of racism. Is that what you’re pushing?
By Occam’s Razor, given a choice between existence or non-existence of something that can’t be falsified, the default is non-existence. As Nerd keeps telling you, show us some evidence for your sky pixie. You can’t and you’re not honest enough to admit you can’t. But then I’ve noticed that honesty is not one of your attributes. Which isn’t surprising. Most goddists aren’t honest, either with themselves or with others.
“If a
blind evolutionistcreationist grabs the elephant’s penis and notices that the more he studies it the longer it gets, he will surelyextrapolate his findings to concludefall down on his knees to praise the Lord for making his animal sacrifice HUGE! He will have faith that the penis will reach the Moonone million years from nowas soon as possible so that he can place himself in greater favor with the Lord by killing the animal on an alter. There are often built-in limits thatevolutionistscreationists fail to acknowledge such as the limits ofgenetic variationscientists’ patience when dealing with creationist contrariness in all its frenetic variation.Q: How do
monkeys turn into menmen turn into creationists?A: The same way an elephant’s penis reaches the moon.
I hope for Owlmirror’s and Janine’s sakes that neither are married because they are obviously soul mates:
Owlmirror (male species): Oooga-booga, Big Juju!
Janine (female species): Ooga! Chuka! Ooga! Ooga! Boogadaboogadaboogada!
Only fools would delay.
Alan,
Please answering the following question:
If evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?
Alan Clarke post #681 proves, once again, that he is as inept a humourist as he is a scientist.
Oh? I hadn’t realized that you were of recent African descent. However, it was not intended as a racial slur; indeed, it could not have been intended as a racial slur, because I did not know your race. Nevertheless, I apologize profusely for having caused offense in that regard.
No, a “racial slur” was not my intent at all. The only reason I used “Ooga booga” and “voodoo science” in mockery was because the creation/bible-based “science” that you have been promoting is indeed fake, fraudulent, and false, just like voodoo magic itself. The iconic “voodoo” doll is actually common to many superstitions, including European magical systems, and the root source of this sort of magic is called “sympathetic magic” in more general anthropological terms. Another term that would be applicable to creation “science” is “Cargo cult science”. The general idea, of course, is that if something looks vaguely like the target, it magically “becomes” the target in some ill-defined magical sense. In this case, the “science” that creationists promote is a “sympathetic magic” type of science: it looks vaguely like real science, and incorporates many of the same terms, but like all magical systems, it is really nothing more than superstitious garbage. It bears the same relationship to real science that a bridge made of rotten timber and decaying rope does to a properly engineered and constructed suspension bridge.
Now, genuinely ignorant primitive peoples might be said to have an excuse for promoting this sort of magical thinking. Psychologists have found that many people, even in modern society, have absurd superstitions and use ridiculous magical thinking. However, unlike people in primitive societies, you have the benefits of a modern education, and you use the technological products of scientific knowledge every single day of your life. For someone to so cavalierly throw away all of that in favor of superstitious garbage science demonstrates great ignorance of how science actually works, and suggests that for whatever reason, that education and immersion in a technological society simply didn’t work. Of course, in your specific case, it sounds like in your early youth, instead of buckling down and actually learning anything, you decided to fry your brain with drugs. That might well explain your current ignorance of, and antagonism for, actual evidence-based science.
For example, the your obvious antagonism for the science of evolution. I’m not going to copy the garbage you wrote, other than to note that your pathetic attempt to paint me with the racist paintbrush failed, because all of humanity is descended from apes. How can it be racist when I include myself as one of those descendants? All humans are ape-descendants; it is not my fault if you find that shameful or repugnant.
No, the only one you managed to smear was yourself: The Nazis were Protestant and Catholic Christians; the racism they inherited was originally found in the bible as “the curse of Ham”, and used eagerly by slave-owners and slave-traders. Indeed, some African-American thinkers and philosophers were more than a little disgusted by how eagerly those of their own race embraced Christianity, the religion that their oppressors used to justify that very oppression.
No, the cradle of humanity was in Africa. Humanity predates civilization. And of course the civilizations in Anatolia and the Middle East contradict and refute the Flood myth, since they predate the supposed flood, and were not destroyed by any global flood.
I see that since Josh conclusively refuted your garbage geology, you’ve moved on to garbage anthropology and garbage archaeology.
That’s the same sort of simplistic garbage argument used by Christian racists! Are you trying to agree with the KKK and Christian Identity thugs? Have you no pride whatsoever in your African heritage, whether ancient or recent?
Of course there was emigration from Africa, over many thousands of years! And more than one emigration!
Why do you hate Africa so much? Does this tie in with your self-loathing or something?
The Book of Mormon is fallacious for the same reason that the Bible is fallacious: It was made up by someone who did not know the truth of anything he wrote about, and did not care about the truth of anything he wrote about…. and demanded that people accept it as being true anyway.
Of course! And don’t forget the DNA evidence, showing that the original Americans are more closely related to Asians, which evidence demonstrates support for their having come over the Bering Strait from Asia many thousands of years ago.
And by the exact same reasoning, we know that the Bible is false! See how easy it is?
———————
No, because it predates the supposed “global flood”, and was not destroyed in any “global flood”. It contradicts the bible!
The Bible is indeed a cheap primitive legend, because it’s been proven to be false in many important places — like the absence of a global flood!
No, that’s just what the cheap primitive legend-compilers put together to explain the Middle-Eastern social and political setup at the time those parts were compiled.
Yes, Sumerian, Akkadian, and Assyrian stories have been found that are indeed suspiciously similar to what is in the Hebrew bible. Why do you think the Hebrew text is “more detailed” when you don’t even know what the other texts are? And even if it were the case… so what? What does “detail” have to do with “truth”?
Hahahaha! Yes, Genesis 6-8 does indeed reek.
Right! And we know that the details are false. The details have been scientifically falsified.
Now you’re doing fake garbage information theory, and fake garbage linguistics. The words in the original languages are entirely different, using a completely different grammar…
Only if the “intersection” is garbage fake science. Which of course from you, it is.
And now you’re doing fake garbage evolutionary biology. You have no idea what genetic variation even is, nor what its limits might be, nor do you know what evolutionary biologists have figured out or not about genetic variation.
You are utterly ignorant of biology.
If God’s existence is not falsifiable, then Occam’s Razor says to slice that sucker out as a hypothesis. You can’t have it both ways!
No, because Occam’s Razor says to slice that non-falsifiable supernatural hypothesis out.
My condolences to your wife and children in having you as a husband and father. I hope that your children manage to learn real science and reject the ridiculous superstition and fake science of Creationism.
Nah. You just want to find more fake science and lies to throw out.
Since all of your rebuttals have been as brainless as every other creationists, you obviously have nothing but disrespect in store anyway — just as you’ve been utterly disrespectful up until now.
“Elephant penis”? Really, now. Have you been surfing zoöphile pr0n or something? That’s pretty disgusting, even from someone obviously as mentally broken as yourself.
I would actually be inclined to agree with you on the above… right up until that last bit. (“Fry, you remember what I said about ending your conversations one sentence earlier?”)
Why “especially this context”, which in no way referenced anyone of African descent, until you went and dragged it in that direction?
While the turn of phrase is a bit tacky (I’d probably have gone with the more traditional Ugg! “caveman” approach) , Owlmirror was clearly referencing primitive cultures — where everything not understood is attributed to spirits/demons/gods — not any particular race.
But no, you have to try and paint him as a mean and nasty racist. And my, what a thorough, detailed and imaginative narrative you weave! Disturbingly so.
(You know those stories where the detective describes in gruesome detail what the killer might have done, and everyone looks at him with suspicion for even being able to think that way? Like maybe he thinks that way too? Yeah. That’s how we’re looking at you right now.)
Uh, no.
We can’t infer what Owlmirror might imagine… but now we know what you do.
And I’m going to stop there, you hateful little man.
Eugenics has nothing to do with “Darwinism”. (Ever heard of “selective breeding”? Know how long farmers have been doing that? Eugenics is selective breeding applied to humans.)
That you seem to think people of a particular racial background can “jump higher” and “climb trees better” speaks volumes more about your own prejudices.
Alan, still avoiding citing the peer reviewed primary scientific literature for your claims. Your word is worth nothing, and your bible is fiction. If you are a true scientist, evidence is what counts, and you have none, or believe in false evidence. You need to upgrade your abilities.
What is the Flood other than eugenics?
EnkiEaYahwe killing the bad ones and expecting the goodness of the good ones to breed true — what is this, if not eugenics?You are the one who literally believes in eugenics, Alan. Not us. You.
Now go answer the challenge and the questions in comment 407 and read the article on radiometric dating.
At the risk of getting kind of back on topic, someone worked on what if Frank Miller did Peanuts.
Schulz City, Page 1
Schulz City, Page 2
Janine, Insulting Sinner,
That was awesome.
I must ask- Alan, where is this “detailed genealogical evidences” the earth is 6000 years old? Which country’s “Department of Registrations” or similar do I apply to? I know lots of people point to the Big Bronze Age Book of Fairystories, but I am assuming you have some actual evidence, because otherwise all the other Holy Books must be true.
Indiana Limestone was supposedly “deposited over millions of years as marine fossils decomposed at the bottom of a shallow inland sea which covered most of the present-day Midwestern United States during the Mississippian Period.” (source: Wikipedia) I refute the idea of “millions of years” given the following evidence:
Look at the walls of Indiana’s Bedford Limestone quarry (photos: 1, 2 ) from where the Empire State Building was derived. Notice that there is no evidence of layering from one age to the next. The continuum in the stone is described as follows:
“Indiana Limestone is a freestone, which means that it exhibits no preferential direction of splitting and can, therefore, be cut and carved in an almost limitless variety of shapes and sizes.”
If the depositions took millions of years, the stone would be contaminated and interrupted by other rocks, wood, dirt, etc., and show age differences between layers. In some quarries, the uninterrupted continuity goes for more than 100 feet deep.
I took a tour through Wyandotte cave in Indiana where the guide told me the stalactites and stalagmites were millions of years old. Fortunately, many people have decided to think for themselves rather than accept force-feedings from the “educated” elite. The evidences in one’s own backyard often collapse million-year-old age theories. (see photo) Sadly, many posters on this forum are casualties from an era of indoctrination, not unlike those victimized during the Soviet era. If it happened before, it can happen again. I asked five Russians under 25 years of age whether they had heard of the largest military invasion in recorded history during WWII at Normandy. They all heard of the siege at Stalingrad but only one knew of the Normandy invasion. One’s perception of history, science, the world, people, etc. can be totally molded by one’s culture and geographic location.
Why is the global flood a superior mechanism for explaining Indiana limestone formation? During the cataclysmic flood, the change in ocean temperatures and PH from volcanism in the current ocean basins (evidenced by today’s seafloor rifts) killed sea fauna in mass quantities causing them to precipitate from the ocean waters. These marine organisms were washed far inland during unrestricted tidal shifts and filled valleys to depths over 100 feet. In the uniformitarian theory, the quantity needed for such depths are unlikely to reside in “shallow inland seas” so millions of years of unrestricted and uninterrupted depositions are required.
Yawn, Alan, you just don’t get it. Any one feature isn’t cutting the mustard. Your most show global evidence for your imaginary flud, including wiping out of peoples and animals on every continent. Until you can do so, you have nothing. Also, evidence for your imaginary god is sorely missing. You need to correct that mistake.
Let me, let me:
IRONY METER ASPLODE!
Alan, also, you are a proven liar and bullshitter, so your word (testament) is worthless. And you supplied no peer reviewed scientific journal citations, so your whole post is nothing. You may as well not have made it.
Hi Alan. So, no comment on the Salem Limestone as a tsunami deposit (referencing my comment #652)? Do you have any references to support that assertion?
I’ll have to return to this later this afternoon/evening or tomorrow, but just quickly:
1. None of those photographs give me any indication of how thick the bedding planes are. That’s important. In fact, it’s everything.
See comment #582 in this thread: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/04/kent_hovind_at_st_cloud_state.php
2. I really doubt that any of the individual beds in any of those quarries are greater than 100 feet thick or are even close to it. It’s possible, but unlikely. Either way, those photos don’t help. Get photos of OUTCROP EXPOSURES and we’ll have something to work with. In those photos, the quarrying lines obscure the bedding and I can’t tell what the hell is what. The beds might be 30cm thick in all cases; you cannot tell from those photos so any discussion of sedimentation rate is mental masturbation. Get photos of the limestone outside in natural exposures where we can see bed thickness and then we have this conversation. You can assert anything you want based on those photos and it doesn’t mean anything because we cannot determine how thick any of the individual beds are. If you say that there is 100 feet of continuous deposition represented in a quarry wall, but you miss that you’ve passed by three bedding lines because the picture stinks, then your 100 feet of clear limestone doesn’t matter because it doesn’t represent continuous deposition. The top and bottom surfaces of every single bed are signficant in piecing together the depositional history of any given outcrop/quarry.
3. You wrote:
Where did I ever, in any of these comments, assert a deposition rate for any of the units I’ve been talking about? I don’t think I’ve ever said anything along the lines of “depositions took millions of years.” Besides, unless I’m talking about a specific depositional scale (from either bed to formation), then that statement is meaningless anyway (again see comment #582 that I linked to). That is to say, unless I make a statment about how thick a “layer” that I’m talking about and what kind of rock it is, then any discussion of depositional rate is pointless (see previous paragraph). I doubt very much that I did that. Moreover, I have repeatedly said that most limestone sequences are interrupted with other rock types (e.g., sandstones; mudrocks).
4. You wrote:
Very unlikely it was millions of years old. The guide probably didn’t know what they were talking about.
I took a tour through a cave in VA this past fall and pretty much everything the guide said was incorrect (don’t even get me going on signs in parks).
Could it have been… Luray Caverns?
When I was there a few years back, the pleasant but smarmy tour guide kept pronouncing “caverns” like this:
“Another interesting feature here in the cavrens is…”
The stalagtite organ was way cool, though. Actually, the whole place was awesome, guide or no guide, though I could have done without him pointing out that every other formation resembled a well-known cartoon character. ;-)
Nerd, take a look at your last 10 posts and tell me where the “science” resides. I noticed your arguments are always reduced to, “You’re god doesn’t exist.” Maybe you would find more satisfaction in debating if your opponents resided in a monastery. If you can’t answer why Indiana’s Bedford Limestone has no age-related breaks in continuity for 100 feet or more (color or composition) as expected if it was formed over millions of years, then you may indeed find solace in a monastery.
I’m not a Catholic but when such a person makes an actual scientific discovery that is useful and demonstrable , I’m impressed. Anyone can theorize “Something happened 70 million years ago and it’s happening today at such a slow pace that we can’t detect it but the missing links are easy to imagine.” Click here to read about a monk whose accomplishments dwarfed Darwin’s imaginations.
Mendel’s discoveries eliminate the need for “micro-evolution” so all that’s left for you is “macro-evolution”. The main problem with macro-evolution is that it has never been seen and if it did happen, the organism wouldn’t survive. Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher famously showed that the probability of a mutation increasing the fitness of an organism decreases proportionately with the magnitude of the mutation.
Alan the clueless. I have been a scientist for 30+ years. You know nothing about science. So, you have no say in what science is or isn’t. I will tell you what is and what isn’t science. And your post today was not science.
You presented no evidence today. You are a liar and bullshitter, since you have been refuted time and time again. Your testament is worthless. Your observations must be filtered through peer review to be worth anything. You also didn’t cite any peer reviewed literature for your post. So you had nothing.
I gave you hard advice you need to follow if you with to be considered scientific in your approach. A full global evidence of a flud including the death of all human and animal species at the time of the flud. It would be very apparent in the geological record if such an event happened. It is put up or shut up time. Your failure to put up the evidence means you need to shut up. Otherwise, you have just your unscientific opinion. Oh yes, if you posit your imaginary god, you have to provide hard physical evidence for that god or you can’t use it in a scientific argument. Josh will take care of your mistakes on the geological issue. I intend to deal primarily with your misuse of science.
I was in the Bahamas this past fall and attended one of those “dolphin encounters” with my fiance. Before we swam with the dolphins, we were subjected to an educational presentation. During the lecture, one of the animal handlers mentioned that dolphins were mammals, not fish, and then asked if anyone in the audience could name one of the five (?) traits that define mammals. I raised my hand and mentioned mammary glands–you know, that distinctive feature that the class Mammalia is named for. The guide then proceeded to tell me I was mistaken, that mammary glands was an incorrect answer. (But he did later give credit to another woman for mentioning that mammals “produce milk.”)
That’s awesome. Science is the teh hard.
Ha! It, in face, could have been…
If he hadn’t been about 3.4 years old, would have sworn our guides were the same person.
“cavrens!” Perfect! Exactly.
Mendel’s work does no such thing. Mendelian genetics is a set of primary tenets relating to the transmission of hereditary characteristics from parent organisms to their children.
You’re wrong. Google “nylon-eating bacteria” and “citrate Lenski” for examples. Flavobacterium, Sp. K172 and Lenski’s populations of Escherichia coli have been thriving for years.
I don’t know about what Fisher said or in what context, but I’d be willing to bet money that there’s some quote-mining going on.
Some years ago, I read a book on crackpots and kooks. One of the topics was about the Flat Earth society. One of them had this photograph of a lake, and insisted that because the lake was flat, the Earth was flat. Naturally, he ignored all of the explanations and refutations of this simple geometrical misapprehension, and insisted on denying that the Earth was round. “Just look at the photograph!”
Creationist kooks are like that too. Ignore all the genuine science of geology and biology, focus on one little detail that they insist supports them, and ignore everything else. When the one little detail is explained and their argument is refuted, move on to some other little detail. When that is refuted, move on to something else.
Where will he end up next? Who knows, maybe the Grand Canyon again. Creationists also forget that they’ve already been refuted, so they return to their
vomitusold arguments again.Of course, some creationist kooks are more emotionally unstable than others.
PZ Myers
Alan, words of wisdom from the dungeon master. Heed them. Either give us a true scientific argument, or fade into the bandwidth. That means listening to us and actually presenting real scientific evidence, not your lying and bullshitting testament. Your choice cricket. Choose wisely, choose science.
Tis Himself: You’re wrong. Google “nylon-eating bacteria” and “citrate Lenski” for examples. Flavobacterium, Sp. K172 and Lenski’s populations of Escherichia coli have been thriving for years.
Old baseless arguments for “evolution” persist because of lack of knowledge. I refutted Lenski long ago here and once on Pharyngula here.
Note to the casual reader
Don’t fall for arguments that supposedly support “evolution” when information is being lost instead of gained.
So, Alan:
1. Any thoughts on the Salem Limestone as a tsunami deposit? You commented on the Salem in #691, but didn’t actually respond to the questions that I asked you #652, which was a response to your assertion (in #615) that the Salem Limestone1 was a tsunami deposit (or included tsunami deposits; that wasn’t clear from the text of #615). The point of discussion is whether or not the Salem Limestone is a tsunami deposit or not.
Have you read comment #652? Do you agree with the information presented therein and retract your assertion that the Salem is the result tsunami activity, or are you going to (as I asked you in #652) present evidence to support your assertion?
2. Any thoughts on the Morrison Formation as a tsunami deposit? Have you read comment #645? Do you agree with the information presented therein and retract your assertion that the Morrison is the result tsunami activity, or are you going to (as I asked you in #645) present evidence to support your assertion?
3. Any thoughts on the Athabasca Oil Sands as a tsunami deposit? Have you read comment #630? Do you agree with the information presented therein and retract your assertion that the Athabasca is the result tsunami activity, or are you going to (as I asked you in #630) present evidence to support your assertion?
4. Any thoughts regarding my comment (in #645) about your assertion that the Athabasca Oil Sands are the result of gradual accumulation of peat?
5. Any thoughts on the questions I asked you in comment #407?
6. Any thoughts on the article on radiometric age dating that both Owl and David have been suggesting that you read for some time now (e.g., see comment #224)?
I know you said that you were going to be quite busy, and I’m not trying to hurry you. I just don’t want these loose ends to disappear into the distant past of this thread and end up not getting resolved/addressed. As such, I thought making a list of un-dones might be a good idea…
1You called it “Bedford,” a point I addressed in #652.
Do you even understand how evolution works?
Alan, if you wish to be scientific, answer all Josh’s questions before proceeding with anything new.
By the way, there are millions of papers in the peer reviewed scientific literature directly and indirectly supporting evolution. There are none that support any other scientific theory to explain our world. There is not alternative theory in the scientific literature.
Greetings my leftist friends.
If I may, I would like to ask Alan to answer my post above. Alan, here it is again.
The biblical flood occured in 2348 BC, according to Archbishop James Ussher.
From the Answer in Genesis web page:
When Prometheus, a bristle cone pine was cut down, 4,844 rings were counted on a cross-section of the tree, making Prometheus at least 4,844 years old, predating the date of the biblical flood by 500 years in 2348 BC, according to James Ussher. Methuselah, another bristle cone pine is about the same age.
And according to the AIG quote, they could not be younger due to multiple growth of rings in a year!
So how did they survive a flood lasting over 100 days?
When Noah let the dove out of the arc, it came back with an olive branch. How did the olive tree survive the flood?
The 5th Egyptian dynasty lasted from 2465 BCE until 2323 BCE. The last pharoah of the dynasty, Unas, lived from 2356 BCE until 2323 BCE. 2348 BCE, the year of the biblical flood happened in the middle of his reign. What did he do for 100 days, tread water?
So please can you clarify this for me; when history, geology, ice core dating, dendrochronology, cosmology, astronomy, physics, etcetra, etcetra all say the biblical account of the flood is wrong, and that the earth is older than 6000 years, why do you still insist on believing these bronze age myths?
Cosmic, I thought that the orginal comment you’re referring to here was a great one. I am also quite interested in reading the reply to it.
Allan Clarke is a notorious internet fuckwit – but then, dear reader, however casual you may be, you’ve worked that out anyway, haven’t you?
Dear AnthonyK,
I don’t know about his notoriety but Alan Clarke being a fuckwit is obvious.
Note to the casual creationist: Evolution is not about losses or gains of information.
Well, if you’re going to get into this, we should probably first ask Alan to define “information.”
True, although becoming a creationist will lead to a significatnt loss of information: perhaps luckily, however, this happens alongside a brain developement that inhibits one from processing it.
He has just enough to distinguish his mouth from his rectum – whereas I am unable to tell the difference.
Alan, can you explain what the theory of evolution is? Can you give a concise yet descriptive account of what evolution is exactly?
You’re right, Josh. Actually we need to have Alan define several terms. I will forgo the obvious quote from The Princess Bride.
In economics “information” is a specific technical term commonly used and well understood by the cognoscenti. I wasn’t thinking of economic information when I wrote my comment but I am predisposed to thinking of information as having an agreed upon definition.
Okay, turning our attention back to comment #691 (this is not to be addressed in preference to answering my questions in #706; it’s merely me tying up loose ends):
ONE. Alan wrote:
A. Please stop referring to this unit as the Indiana or the Bedford. Those are informal names for the building material. I addressed this in comment #652. This geological formation has a name. Please use it.
B. As I’ve noted previously (e.g., in #630), I really couldn’t care less what Blabbapedia has to say about any subject.
TWO. Alan wrote:
A. As I said above, these photos don’t really help make your case (or mine) because of the artifact of quarrying that’s displayed all across the rock. You simply cannot, on the basis of these photos, say anything regarding deposition, because you cannot identify bedding(1).
B. On the use of the word layering. Layer is an informal and imprecise term in sedimentology. It doesn’t have an agreed-upon definition(2) and isn’t a good choice of word here. I presume you’re talking about bedding, but I can’t be sure. You could also be referring to bands or divisions (sensu 2). You could also be talking about laminae 3. I realize that, given the context of your statement, it’s unlikely that you’re referring to laminae. I mentioned it here to highlight the importance of precision in word choice when talking about geology. Word choice matters in science. I would strongly suggest making sure you know what you’re referring to if you’re going to talk about “layering” in a sedimentary rock. However, I will presume that you’re talking about bedding (sensu 1) until you tell me otherwise.
THREE. Alan wrote:
That statement is accurate at a certain scale of precision; namely within a bed. If the statement means “across bedding planes,” then it’s simply not accurate. The upper and lower surfaces of beds represent hiatuses in sedimentation(2, 4). The statement also doesn’t apply to all beds within the Salem since one of the more interesting things about the Salem Limestone is the degree of cross-bedding that’s displayed within certain beds(5, 6). Anyone who insists that there is not ever a preferential direction of splitting within a cross-bedded bed of limestone is simply wrong.
If we look at actual outcrop photographs of the Salem, we see that there absolutely are bedding planes (and thus hiatuses in sedimentation (gaps in time)) all through it.
URL LINK: static.panoramio.com/photos/original/8244328.jpg
Do you see that lowest bush in the photo? It’s in the middle of the photograph, right above the road. That bush is sitting directly atop a bedding plane, which is the upper surface of a rather thick bed. Notice that there are other beds all across the outcrop. Each of these represents a change in the depositional conditions.
URL LINK: donchesnut.com/travels/geology/gly531c.jpg
Note person for scale.
URL LINK: donchesnut.com/travels/geology/gly533c.jpg
I don’t think these are actually rythmites, but even so, tidal action is absolutely not uninterrupted deposition.
URL LINK: donchesnut.com/travels/geology/gly255c.jpg
Note person for scale.
URL LINK: igs.indiana.edu/geology/geologicNames/images/Lithologic%20Units/37_South_Outcrop_002.jpg
I’m not a specialist on the Salem Limestone, but I have crawled all over numerous outcrops of this puppy. I’ve never seen a single bed that’s more than 5 or 6 feet in thickness; I’ve certainly never seen anything to suggest that there are places in the Salem that represent hundreds of feet of uninterrupted, rapid sedimentation. Nor have I seen this in the literature. If you’re going to assert this, then you must back it up with citations, reports, descriptions, or at the very least, outcrop photographs that clearly show a lack of bedding across hundreds of feet.
More importantly, even if you do show thick sequences can be argued as uninterrupted, then you still need to demonstrate how four months of receding flood waters can deposit thick sequences of carbonate sediment, in distinct beds, and do so while preserving fossils like this:
URL LINK: http://www.schoolersinc.com/images/Crinoid_plate_11_3500.jpg
I don’t think this is the Salem per se, but the preservation is pretty consistent with Salem crinoids.
FOUR. Alan wrote:
I agree. It does show age differences. You need to clearly demonstrate that it doesn’t. More importantly, however, you need to explain the age differences that are there with your flood model.
FIVE. Alan wrote:
Unless you have specifically stood in those quarries and know what you’re looking at, then you’re talking out of your ass. Quarrying processes impart a signature on the rock walls of the quarry (look at all of those quarry photos you showed me). This is NOT the rock. This is an artifact. You need to look past this to figure out what the rocks actually look like. Doing this is in a quarry is very difficult most of the time. Unless you really know what you’re doing, you’re going to misread those rocks. So far, that’s exactly what you’ve done. SHOW ME the clean quarry faces.
SIX. Alan wrote:
This is kind of unrelated. I will address it later.
SEVEN. Alan wrote:
If tides are the main mechanism (what happened to the tsunamis????), then where are the continuous tidal rythmites?
Where is the evidence that tides can deposit thick sequences of non-rythmic, non-cross-bedded carbonate?
Where is the evidence that tides can deposit exquisitely preserved, fully articulated crinoids?
You cannot just wave a magic wand and state that it happened, unless you want to rely on miracles (and abandon evidence). We know how carbonate forms (see previous comments on this). If you’re going to invoke a tsunami, then you must demonstrate that a tsunami can build these sorts of deposits we see. If you’re going to invoke tides, then you must demonstrate that tides can build the kinds of deposits we see. YOU CANNOT JUST ASSERT THAT TIDES DID IT AND PROVIDE NO EVIDENCE. So, provide evidence that tides can deposit rocks of this kind. Your flood model needs to do two things. It needs to address what we actually see out in the rock record (not what you want the rocks to look like) and it needs to provide plausible mechanisms for how all of this receding water can generate those rocks in four months or whatever. Anything less than this means the hypothesis is falsified.
This is how the game is played, Alan. We have been over this and over this and over this, on multiple threads now. If you’re not going to just miracle the flood evidence away, then you’re in our house. If you’re in our house, then you don’t get to wave a wand and tell us that we’re wrong because you don’t like our evidence. You must demonstrate how your flood model explains the evidence better than our model, which means starting with plausible mechanisms (CAN RECEDING FLOOD WATERS DEPOSIT THICK SEQUENCES OF CARBONATE? YOU THINK SO? SHOW ME.).
EIGHT. Alan wrote:
This is word salad. Can you back any of this up?
Incidentally, does not the information that you cited in comment #691 to try and argue for rapid deposition in the Salem Limestone fly directly in the face of your previous assertion that the Salem Limestone represents a tsunami (and thus high-energy) deposit…?
References and Notes:
1From my teaching notes (supported by the literature, 2, and 4): Bedding is perhaps the most fundamental characteristic of a sedimentary body. Beds (often imprecisely called layering or strata) are tabular or lenticular packages of sedimentary material that have a lithologic, textural, or structural unity that clearly distinguishes them from the packages that lie above and below. The upper and lower surfaces of beds are the bedding planes or the bounding surfaces. Bedding planes generally represent a change in depositional conditions, an erosional surface, or a period of non-deposition. There is always some degree of time missing between beds, even if it’s just a few hours. Bedding is not restricted to sedimentary bodies; lavas and metamorphic rocks can also have bedded layers. Conversely, not all sedimentary rocks possess beds (in particular many carbonates lack bedding). Nevertheless, some degree of depositional parallelism is present in most sediments. Bedding results from vertical differences, within a sedimentary body, in either lithology (e.g., a thin sand unit overlain by a thick mud will result in two different beds), grain size (in well-sorted materials), or even packing, orientation, and shape of the grains (much more rarely). Beds are thus sedimentation units, or those thicknesses of sediment that are deposited under essentially constant physical conditions. So, a single “layer” of sand in between two “layers” (one overlying and one underlying) of mud would constitute a package of three sedimentation units and also at least three beds (probably actually a bed of sand and two packages of laminated mud). An individual bed is produced under effectively constant physical, chemical, or biological conditions. Most sand beds are produced in a very short amount of time (hours to days) in single depositional events. Most fine silt and clay beds, on the other hand, are produced slowly over a period of months or years of fine sediment rain.
2Blatt et al., 1980, Origin of Sedimentary Rocks, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 782pp.
3Beds are packages of sediment thicker than 1cm; laminae are packages of sediment thinner than 1cm (Ingram, RL, 1954, Terminology for the thickness of stratification and parting units in sedimentary rocks. Geological Society of America Bulletin 65:937).
4Boggs, S, 2005, Principles of Sedimentology and Stratigraphy, 4th ed. Pearson-Prentice Hall, 662pp.
5URL LINK: aapg.confex.com/aapg/sl2003/techprogram/paper_78529.htm
6URL LINK: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1305655
I’m confused. Does this mean that you’ve fallen for the Intelligent Quarryman theory in geology? I notice already that you reference the idea of an <i>Intelligent Lecturer</i> and I’m a bit worried that you might be turning away from rationalism altogether.
*contemptuous snort* Bah! Obviously you haven’t read my latest book on the subject1. In it, I conclusively demonstrate that quarry pits are irreducibly complex. They are! If you remove just one aspect of them, say the steamshovel2, then the whole pit is useless as a quarry. It doesn’t function at all. And you can’t use it for anything else, either. I mean, what function could a deep pit in the ground, often filled with water, have? I ask you, what function? None, that’s what! It’s the final nail in the coffin for naturquarrying theory.
1No. I don’t publish in the technical literature. But that’s just because of the global conspiracy to keep us down by those who subscribe to the neonaturquarrista philosophy. They’re afraid of what IQ (Intelligent Quarrying) has to say about all of those gaps in their naturquarrying theory. They can’t deal with it, worshiping as they are at the altar of their hero, Gutzon Borglum. So they make sure we don’t get to publish in the good technical journals, like Quarry and Shovel. It’s okay, though. I make more money from my book and from my numerous speaking engagements anyway.
2What? Why am I supposed to care that we don’t really use steam shovels anymore? That does nothing to hurt my argument.
#718 Excellent rebuttal Josh. I was able to follow all of it. Much, much better than I can do from my single geology course 30+ years ago. At this rate, I’ll need a dodecahedral die for the next Molly nominations.
If for some reason we feel that we need even more proof that Alan does not know what he’s talking about, that he (willfully?) misunderstands whatever fails to fit his pious imaginings, there it is.
I’m in the mood for an illustrative, if simplistic, artithmetical metaphor. Ready?
Alan, so-called “macroevolution” isn’t this:
Thanks, Josh. You explain the geology gooder than the prof would have if I’d bothered to take a geology course.
Thanks, Nerd. Hey, do me a favor, would you? If I write a technical comment like that that you can’t follow, let me know. It makes no sense to write something if it ends up reading like word salad.
You dare to quarrel with me! The flaw in what passes for your IQ argument is of course that without “steam” a “steamshovel” would be nothing but an ad hoc enabler. Since steam and quarrying are not now and have never been demonstrably interconnected, your entire theory collapses like the house of decorated laminae it is.
You’ve kicked God out of your quarry, Gutzon. don’t be turning to God when something bad happens (I’m not saying that it will), because you just evicted him1.
1Oh wait. IQ isn’t about religion. Shit.
Josh, I already keep an eye on Kel at his request, so I’ll add you to the list. Sometimes we can use too much jargon. Take my silence as you doing a good job. Excellent jobs will still be acknowledged.
decorated laminae: another great band name
Bah, nobody uses steam shovels any more.
Hitachi EX5500-6 with twin Cummins QSK50-C diesel engines (2,800 gross hp/2,100 kW).
Nerd–Thanks. It will be appreciated.
You can’t say “The universe was made by God” without saying “was made by God”, can you?
Aguarriecist.
Alan, so-called “macroevolution” isn’t this:
it’s this:
Did you understand that, Alan? Hmmm . . . perhaps you’re more of a right-brainer, and numbers and data and “facts” just confuse you. Here’s another way to look at it.
You can tally all the times that the commenters here have won arguments with you.
Hope that helps.
How Old is the Creation/Evolution Argument?
“Some people, I believe, account for all things which have come to exist, all things which are coming into existence now, and all things which will do so in the future, by attributing them either to nature, art, or chance.” – Plato “Laws”, 360 B.C.
“When you see a sundial or a water-clock, you see that it tells the time by design and not by chance. How then can you imagine that the universe as a whole is devoid of purpose and intelligence, when it embraces everything, including these artefacts themselves and their artificers? Our friend Posidonius as you know has recently made a globe which in its revolution shows the movements of the sun and stars and planets, by day and night, just as they appear in the sky. Now if someone were to take this globe and show it to the people of Britain or Scythia would a single one of those barbarians fail to see that it was the product of a conscious intelligence?” “ – Cicero “The Nature of the Gods”, 45 B.C.
The Bible perfectly describes the origins debate in the past, present, and future.
Ecc 1:9-11
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.
Judges 1:19
There are lots of iron chariots around these days, Alan. You should think about that.
Alan, the following is the scientific quality to your post:
*crickets chirring*
Essentially you posted nothing. Ergo, there is nothing to respond to. You need to show physical evidence that is only explained by creationism. You have not done that. Until you do so, you are a liar and bullshitter.
Alan, can you explain what modern evolution theory as currently understood by scientists is please? Can you demonstrate that you understand just what it is you are arguing against?
Alan,
What’s your point?
By the way, you still haven’t answered the immunity challenge for Survivor: Pharyngula:
**** Silently shushes everyone ****
The Bible is an important theological work, an interesting philosophical piece, a historical book, and even, in the King James Version, a masterpiece of English literature. It is not a scientific treatise. It’s only deluded wackaloons, idiots who refuse to acknowledge that knowledge has moved forward during the past 2,500 years, that pretend it is an accurate description of the creation of the universe, the Earth, and terrestrial life.
BTW, Alan, it is worse than useless to quote the Bible at us in hopes of showing the accuracy of the Bible. Please keep this in mind when you attempt to push your silliness at atheists and other rational people.
A story appeared in USA Today, Mar 18, 2009, that salmonella-contaminated peanuts found their way in products affecting 691 people with sickness and may be the culprit in nine deaths. Over 3,516 products were recalled.
The challenge:
Put on you detective hat and use critical thinking to answer the two questions below before reading the whole article.
Two large food makers Nestlé & Kellogg sent auditors to Peanut Corp. of America (PCA) to examine processing plant conditions:
1. What did Kellogg’s auditors (paid by PCA) conclude after inspecting the PCA plant?
a. the Georgia plant deserved a superior rating
b. found grossly unsanitary conditions at two processing plants
c. concluded it was FDA’s inspection responsibility, not their own
2. What did Nestlé’s auditors (paid by Nestlé) conclude after inspecting the PCA plant?
d. the Georgia plant deserved a superior rating
e. found grossly unsanitary conditions at two processing plants
f. concluded it was FDA’s inspection responsibility, not their own
Read the article to see if you were right (source).
For critical thinkers only:
1. What may have influenced the auditors to arrive at different results?
2. Have you ever observed entire teams in sporting events disagree over play results which both sides had just witnessed? Name likely motives.
3. Are any professions exempt from influence by money or a sense of “team spirit” in their objectivity?
4. If money, a “team spirit”, and a pre-determined world view all had ties to a profession’s observations, can it accurately be stated that the results are unbiased?
Error does not become Truth because it is widely accepted;
Truth does not become error, even when it stands alone!
RogerS, why do you post totally OOT stupidities on a month-old thread?
Sheesh.
RogerS, maybe you can explain what Alan Clarke won’t. Can you provide an explanation for what evolution is as scientists understand it?
Eh, forget RogerS. After finally seeing the movie, let me ask an on-topic question. Why would a superbeing such as Dr Manhattan be so clueless about biology?
(“A live body and a dead body contain the same number of particles. Structurally, there’s no discernible difference. Life and death are unquantifiable abstracts.”)
Life is a process, not a particle, you blue bozo!
Stanton: Alan, please explain why, if the Morrison Formation and the Indiana Limestone represent tsunami deposits from the Flood, then, how come no contemporary animals, such as porcupines, pronghorns or buffalo are intermixed with the dinosaur fossils…
I did a Google search on “fossilized porcupine” and “porcupine fossil” and couldn’t find anything. I also did an image search and couldn’t find any museum fossils attributed to North America. So rather than ask “Why don’t porcupine fossils exist in the Morrison Formation?”, you should ask, “Why are porcupine fossils rare everywhere?” Perhaps the answer is that there were few porcupines in North America at the time of the flood. Or porcupine fossils are less conspicuous than large dinosaur fossils. Or porcupines don’t preserve as well. If I’m on the wrong track, could you please provide a link to the numerous porcupine fossils in North America?
Someone once asked me why are kangaroo fossils non-existent in the Middle East. The rarity of kangaroo fossils in the Middle East does not indicate that kangaroos never lived there. Take for example the 70 million American Buffalo that filled the plains of North America in 1805. Buffalo fossils are practically non-existent in the plains where they formerly proliferated. When Buffalos died, they were ravaged by animals and never fossilized. Something else to consider is that paleontology in the Middle East is often hampered by political strife, poor economies, less-developed news media, and lesser interest in kangaroo bones as compared to ancient cities, such as Babylon. An average Middle Easterner could easily discard a kangaroo bone discovery since the bone’s appearance is not awe inspiring. Verify for yourself how ANY bone discoveries in the Middle East are not as common as in more economically prosperous countries. I visited Keiv, Ukraine in 1992. I passed by a museum that that had closed down and/or was in dire need of repair. I saw through the window huge dinosaur bones stacked against the wall on top of newspaper, next to paint buckets gathering dust. Few people would ever know they existed since the museum had no telephone, no advertising, no visitors, and no web site. Trying to evaluate which country or continent has the most fossils of a particular animal can be difficult.
How did the kangaroos get to Australia? Something often overlooked is that animals are often transported to distant regions by humans. One of the Aleutian Islands has a particular Arctic fox that was brought there by Russians. The fox approaches humans without fear like a domesticated animal. Dogs were brought to the Galapagos Islands by men on boats. King Solomon imported apes and peacocks from Tarshish.
Stanton: …or why there are no modern marine animal remains found with the crinoids of the Indiana Limestone? Also, if these were tsunami deposits, then why do the crinoids tend to be intact, and not smashed to pieces by the violent wave action?
Indiana Limestone was likely formed when masses of small marine animals died from the Biblical flood’s volcanism, and oceanic temperature and PH change. Because the flood was global and created a drastic environmental change, many species went extinct suddenly or within a relative small time-frame of perhaps 500 years. This is a reasonable assumption since uniformitarianists themselves wrestle with trying to explain sudden mass extinctions. The most abundant fossil in Indiana Limestone is the foraminiferid Endothyra baileyi which is up to 1 mm in length. This small organism may have gone extinct because they were not as adaptable as the larger crinoids you reference.
Why are the crinoids intact and not smashed? The crinoids segments are larger and sturdier but many are smashed and not intact as one would expect given the random motion of destructive waves. Even a uniformitarian explanation for Indiana Limestone’s structural composition seems reasonable from a creationist’s viewpoint:
“The constant wave action washed away the smallest particles, whereas the larger fossils were battered and broken. The result was a rock consisting of well sorted grains that consist of small fossils and fossil fragments.” (source)
One of the biggest problem for uniformitarianists is the fact that Indiana Limestone doesn’t show age-related layering as one would expect if it was deposited over millions of years. Josh doubted my claim because my photos were insufficient to illustrate this feature. Who needs photos when you can look at it yourself? Here are your options for Indiana Limestone: Empire State Building, Pentagon, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, University of Chicago, new Yankee Stadium, Washington National Cathedral, and 35 of the 50 state capitals. It always looks like one uniform chunk of material with no layering whatsoever. If a 60-foot deep quarry required 1 million years of gradual sedimentary build-up, then we have 0.72 thousandths of an inch per year. This is quite ridiculous because the organisms themselves are thicker than this. No matter which way you try to slice it with your long-age time scale, 10,000 years to 1 million, the stone’s appearance won’t fit your theory.
Alan:
Wow – your Google-fu is weak.
Took me like 5 seconds to find this.
They were born here
Living in Australia gives one a certain perspective to the flood myth. I’ve often wondered: does the bible specifically mention kangaroo and kangaroo-type creatures? And if not, why not?
Considering how completely unlike every other creature on the planet, kangaroos, wallabies and related animals surely would have been noted in the bible for their dissimilarity. Odd that no-one seemed to notice the range of creatures that moved in a way vastly different from anything else.
Not to mention koalas, which can only live on a very small number of eucalypt species – none of which, I’m sure, are native to the middle east. How could that have happened?
Thank you John Morales. Hopefully Stanton will read this.
RogerS, I think what we can learn from the two opposite audit results for the peanut-processing plant is this: When people’s jobs and big money are at stake, man may consider bending “science” to suit his needs. Likewise, if sinful man subconsciously realizes he must face an all-knowing God, he will subconsciously cook the books in order to justify his untenable position. Thus, the birth of philosophical materialism, repackaged in 1859 as “Origin of Species”.
It is apparent that Darwin lost his faith in the years 1836-39, much of it clearly prior to the reading of Malthus. In order not to hurt the feelings of his friends and of his wife, Darwin often used deistic language in his publications, but much in his Notebooks indicates that by this time he had become a ‘materialist’ (more or less = atheist).” – Ernst Mayr
Alan: How did the kangaroos get to Australia?
Kel: They were born here
Alan: I thought your position was they evolved from somewhere else then hopped there. Or did they “evolve” there? If so, what did they “evolve” from? Where are the missing links?
Alan, can you please explain the theory of evolution as scientists understand it? Please show that you actually know what you are arguing against.
one sentence, so many kinds of fail: scientific method fail, “unclear on the concept” fail, projection fail, confirmation bias fail, false equivalence fail, “there are no atheists” fail, bible fail
I should have thought before I posted. Let me guess. Kangaroos came from kangaroo mice, correct?
Likewise,
if sinfulwhen religious mansubconsciously realizeshe must face anthere are no all-knowingGodgods of any religion, he willsubconsciously cook the books in order to justify his untenable position – he will choose denial and acceptance of lies rather than face the cold, hard reality that there are no gods, and admit that he has wasted his life believing a fairy-tale.Fixed it for you. I’m going to start a tab.
They evolved here just like almost every other creature on this land. Marsupials aren’t found anywhere in Eurasia. Have you ever seen kangaroos? We have several different species of Kangaroo and similar creatures called Wallabies. There are also Wallaroos and Pademelons – all creatures with a similar morphological appearance, yet all distinct forms. And there are fossils of ancient Kangaroos including a flat-faced 10ft tall kangaroo.
Okay, let’s flip this about here. Kangaroos, like almost all other Australian mammals are marsupials. Marsupials are not found in Europe except through importation. Kangaroos share many traits in common with other species that also reside in Australia – wallabies and Wallaroos. And like it’s more distant cousins in Australia, almost all mammals here have pouches. This again is not found in Eurasia. Combine that with fossil records, cave paintings and stories of the indigenous populations – the placement of Kangaroos in Australia should be well established. What evidence at all do you have that Kangaroos – along with all the other similar species, originally came from Europe / Middle East? Any evidence at all, bring it.
Alan, can you please demonstrate that you understand evolution by giving a definition of the theory as scientists understand it?
Alan @748, if you read the link, you’ll find it a fossil porcupine, but not contemporary, exactly as Stanton said. I was addressing your feeble searching skill.
The article is from 1904, which is why it’s dating is not as precise as it would now be:
I would have hated to have been a creationist when reports started coming back from Australia of the animals they found.
Pretty much all the other animals they’d found in other countries can be explained away as being not all that different (at least on the outside) from what they knew existed; once they had to try and explain why the bible had neglected to mentioned the vastly different creatures like kangaroos and koalas and platypus it would have become a little more difficult.
No doubt a lot like what Alan Clarke is going through now. Dance, Alan!
Wowbagger@758:
I think you may be spot on. It is possible that this applied to Darwin himself.
I found this: http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A339&viewtype=text&pageseq=1
For all creationsts/IDiots posting here and in the future:
We don’t search for missing links. Get it over it.
As I’ve been repeatedly trying to get through Alan’s head, when talking about science, it is really important to be precise with the words that you use. Using “transitional forms” instead of “transitional features” tells me that you understand so little about evolution that you should be reading instead of commenting. Using “missing link” anywhere in a discussion like this is far worse. It suggests to me that you’ve never taken a single class in biology at all, or that your teachers failed you so spectacularly you probably have grounds for legal action. Using “missing link” is like bringing a broken long-bow to a tank battle: it’s outdated, inaccurate, and it won’t do the job you want it to do.
Which is why I feel it’s so important that Alan Clarke demonstrates he understands the topic he is arguing against. It’s only fair after all, if I were to argue that Christianity is stupid on the grounds that the version of God being a cross between a pig and a bear, any Christian would mock my ignorance. So surely the same applies for science. As it goes, if you want to reach your opponent you have to understand their argument well enough that you can express it in such a way that it teaches them something new. Alan, can you show that you understand evolution?
Well, in the situation Josh described, the longbow is good for one thing: you can jam it in your own ass while the people in the tanks watch and laugh. And that’s a pretty good analogy for what we’ve seen Alan doing here, over and over and over again, for the last few weeks.
And he’ll probably keep on jamming that longbow up his ass as long as he thinks it’s what Jesus wants.
Thank you! I’ve made this same argument to people in the past. If I were (notice the “were;” looking at you, Kwok) discussing some aspect of Jesus’s teachings with a Chrisitan and I repeatedly attributed stuff that Moses said to Jesus as support for my point, the Christian would presume that I didn’t know enough about the Bible to even form an opinion. Yet they’ll come in here and argue while not even knowing what the various words they’re using mean. And then they get annoyed when we get frustrated by the fact that they can’t be bothered to do even the most basic background homework.
Alan,
Around 400 CE, St. Augustine considered Biblical creation in his On the Literal Translation of Genesis (De Genesi ad litteram libri duodecim). Your side lost the argument 1600 years ago. Or are you claiming that you and Ken Ham are better theologians than Augustine?
Alan, both your #743 and *744 posts are devoid of scientific data. They contain opinion of a proven liar and bullshitter, and little else. If you want to convince us of anything, you must us the peer reviewed primary scientific journals as your source. Josh showed you how to write a proper “report”. Either start doing so, or shut up.
@Kel:
They evolved here just like almost every other creature on this land
A word of warning, while you are correct to say kangas evolved on Australia (pretty sure they didn’t diverge until relatively recently?), you might not be correct in saying that marsupials themselves originated there.
recall that at one time, Australia was connected to a rather larger land mass, and until about 35 mya, was at least still connected to Antarctica.
The marsupials in Australia, IIRC, are currently thought to have originated in what eventually became South America, and migrated to Australia before Gondwanaland broke up.
on the “holy crap! are these guys for real?” side, I’m sure Alan is taking his notes on Kanga “evolution” from this site:
http://christiananswers.net/kids/kangaroos.html
:p
I didn’t mean to imply that Australia was the original place of marsupials (a quick check points surprisingly to China), rather that most modern marsupials in Australia originated there. Are there any “native” marsupials in Australia that have either fossil or modern counterparts outside of Australia / New Guinea?
If a 60-foot deep quarry required 1 million years of gradual sedimentary build-up, then we have 0.72 thousandths of an inch per year. This is quite ridiculous because the organisms themselves are thicker than this. Alan Clarke
Good grief, what a fucking moron. That figure would be the mean rate, Alan (if you don’t know that hard sciency word, look it up). There is nothing in uniformitarianism that says processes have to take place continuously or at a fixed rate. Whether deposition takes place in a particular location at a particular time will depend on currents, among other factors.
Ichthyic:
The “for adults” one was written by Ken Ham. Why am I not surprised at all.
Gee Whiz, a known liar, bullshitter, and plagiarizer, doing it again. What were the odds? And he wonders why we will never believe his testament.
Kel, the best place to find the evidence would be Antarctica. I think fossil ancestors have been dug up in South America.
Are there any “native” marsupials in Australia that have either fossil or modern counterparts outside of Australia / New Guinea?
ayup, in south america, according to George Gibbs. These would be ancestral to the modern species, most likely.
I could try and see what reference he used when discussing it, if you like?
It was part of a larger discussion of endemism and biogeography in New Zealand I just happened to read earlier today, of all things.
ONE. Alan wrote:
Alan, read the fucking article on fucking radiometric dating from a fucking Christian perspective!!!
As long as you haven’t read and understood it, there’s simply no point in talking to the void between your ears. I’ll just quickly demonstrate it:
I’ll show how easy it is to “refutt” your arguments from embarrassing ignorance.
From your first link (not repeated here so as not to trigger the spam filter):
Or let’s have a look at a completely different topic:
Wood? Dirt? In the middle of a sea? Where should those come from?
Why are 30 m of calcareous nannofossils any kind of surprise in a warm sea?
See, Alan, you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about. You get even the most basic definitions wrong.
Why on the planet do you keep trying to talk about things that you don’t know anything about?
Why?
No, don’t answer. First read the article on radiometric dating.
Just because it’s so easy that it isn’t even a noticeable drain on my time:
And this would produce either a uniform limestone or (what it really is) a cross-bedded limestone?
No, you little moron. It would produce complete chaos. A complicated breccia with all imaginable grain sizes, randomly distributed, containing tree trunks, land animals, and so on. To get a limestone, you need quiet water without influx of land-derived material.
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Do you know anything, Alan?
Do you know what a marsupial is and what a placental is?
Do you know what a potoroo is?
Do you know what, say, a possum in the Australian sense is? (Not an actual opossum — those are a very different sort of animal, except for being marsupials, too.)
No, Alan — don’t even answer. Read the article on radiometric dating first.
—————————-
Be careful not to confuse Metatheria and Marsupialia. The latter is the crown-group of the former: it consists of the last common ancestor of all living marsupials plus all descendants of that ancestor. Metatheria is the corresponding total group: it contains everything that’s more closely related to the marsupials than (to) the placentals.
The split between Metatheria and Eutheria happened in the Early Cretaceous in Asia. The origin of Marsupialia ( = split between opossums and all others) apparently happened in the Paleocene (70 million years later) in South America.
What? What do you mean, and who is this Gibbs guy?
The monito del monte (Dromiciops australis — look it up) and Microbiotheria as a whole (extinct except for the monito del monte) could be a member of the Australian marsupials that migrated back to South America; but apart from that, Australian marsupials haven’t got any farther than Timor, Sulawesi, and the Solomon Islands.
To be fair, this is just confusing. Some English-language universities include the article in their name, others don’t — you have to know by heart which ones do and which don’t.
I know. I was being a pain-in-the-ass because I was a little frustrated. That probably wasn’t fair.
Please don’t mention The University of Chicago. The economics school there is overrun by libertarians and other right-wingers. The so-called Chicago Boys ruined the Chilean economy and are still causing havoc in Latin America.
That’s the best explanation of the reason for the Creationist movement: You have convinced yourselves that God will torture you forever if you don’t deny and lie about the evidence of the real world. So naturally, you deny the evidence and lie about it — because you have selfishly convinced yourselves that it is in your own best interests to do so.
I think you’re right, Owlmirror. I could never come up with a reasonable answer as to why people would turn their backs on reality and insist that a 2,500 myth actually describes creation. But your explanation seems quite reasonable.
The creationists/IDers* think that they’ll get their bottoms spanked for all of eternity if they don’t believe in their favorite myth. Just like they don’t rape, rob and kill because they’re afraid of punishment, they push a silly fairy tale and ignore literally tons of evidence because The Big Guy In The Sky will be upset with them. And they wonder why we think their god is an immature bully.
*Sorry, DI folks, but you lie about being creationists just like you lie about everything else.
If you could, that would be great. It would be interesting to see what paths some of the creatures took to get on this island.
will do. I’ve bookmarked this thread and will post the reference later today (that’s local to our time, not Pharyngula’s).
Alan, before you read this comment, first read David’s comment #773, then read my comment #706.
Alan wrote:
You’re missing the point. Read what Stanton wrote. He was using porcupines as an example (like buffalo). That he said porcupines or buffalo or whatever isn’t the point; that he said contemporary animals is the point. The problem for your flood model(1) isn’t so much that porcupines aren’t preserved in the Morrison. The problem is that porcupines, horses, buffalo, black bears, grizzly bears, mountain lions, bald eagles, red tail hawks, bighorn sheep, alligators, etc. aren’t preserved in the Morrison. Where are the modern forms in the Morrison? Seriously, where are they?
Go back and read what I wrote in comment #552. We know what causes tsunamis. We know what they do. They make rather distinctive sedimentary deposits(2). In short, they make a giant mess. If the Morrison was laid down as a tsunami deposit a few thousand years ago, then why aren’t there a lot of modern forms mixed in with the extinct animals? Where are the modern forms?
As to the question of preservational mode that you hint at above–that doesn’t explain it. The Morrison Formation preserves fossil animals across a range of sizes and “preservational durabilities,” from durable giant sauropod dinosaurs(3) to delicate creatures like pterosaurs(4) and amphibians(5). Moreover, the modern animals that are missing from the Morrison also span a huge range of sizes and “preservational durabilities.” That explanation just falls completely flat.
As to the rarity explanation that you propose–that doesn’t work either(6). You’re seriously going to assert that all of the modern animals that populate North America, but are absent from the Morrison, just happened to be extremely rare in pre-flood times and so didn’t get preserved in the Morrison because there weren’t enough of them? But–despite being so rare that the Morrison doesn’t record them at all, Noah somehow managed to grab a few and get them on the ark? And at the same time, all of those animals that were common enough for the Morrison to record them(7) in some cases, in abundance–they what, hid from Noah? Genesis 6:19 doesn’t seem to allow Noah much wiggle room, nor does Genesis 6:22 indicate to me that he failed in his appointed task. So where are all of the Morrison animals today? They’ve all subsequently died? All of them? But none of the ones that the Morrison just happened to not preserve subsequently died? Seriously? And you’re still going to deny that we’ve jumped on the train to crazy town with this whole flood business?
Alan, it’s this simple: your Morrison tsunami model(8) must explain how a tsunami preserved a diverse animal fauna in the Morrison that is A., characteristic of the Morrison, and B., somehow excludes all of the modern forms that we see running around North America today. It would also work best if the Morrison preserved some indicators of tsunami-type deposition.
References and Notes:
1Not nearly the only problem, of course…
2See comment #552 in this thread. I’m still eagerly awaiting your references for the proposed tsunami deposits within the Morrison.
3URL LINK: http://www.jstor.org/pss/4523404 (just for one example)
4Jensen, JA & K Padian, 1989, Small pterosaurs and dinosaurs from the Uncompahgre fauna (Brushy Basin Member, Morrison Formation: ?Tithonian), late Jurassic, western Colorado. Journal of Paleontology 63:363–374.
5URL LINK: http://www.jstor.org/pss/4523902 (just for one example)
6This entire paragraph of course completely ignores a giant elephant in the room: It’s not just the Morrison. We could have essentially have this same conversation, with basically the same endpoint, about pretty much any other fossiliferous formation on Earth.
7What about the forms that are only known from the Morrison? Why does no other formation record them?
8Indeed, any flood model for the Morrison.
You’re really taking him to task there Josh, too bad he doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to understand it. The fool thinks that not knowing how fast the speed of light was before there was such thing as light (t=0) negates the constant speed of light thereafter and thus all observations of distant galaxies (all 1011 of them) can’t be accurately determined. He can’t even give a definition of what evolution is…
cue “eohippus and modern horse found in same deposits, and besides, eohippus is actually a hyrax” in 3…2…1…
;-)
Between David Marjanović, OM; and Josh, OM to be; any scientific argument Alan could put forth has been refuted. If Alan was as smart as he thinks he is, he would just fade into the bandwidth never to return. Being a godbot, he will be back with a sidestep/change goalpost argument, without a trace of science to back it up. Yawn, godbots are so boring.
The Ramones had an album title Too Tough To Die which, alas, proved not to be true. But Alan Clarke has proved to be Too Oblivious To Die. He is The Black Knight, merely a torso on the ground, yet he thinks victory is in sight.
If he were buried in a hole, would he be able to worm himself out?
[Following up on #777 and #778]
Of course, we should not forget that many Christian scientists — such as the physicist (with a minor in geology) Dr. Roger C. Wiens, the author of Radiometric Dating : A Christian Perspective — do have greater standards of honesty about the evidence than the pathetic YEC denialists who insist that the Earth is only about 6000 years old and that there was a global flood a few thousand years ago, despite all of the evidence to the contrary.
Gee, Wiens isn’t an atheist, and he seems pretty sure that he’s going to face an all-knowing God. Why would he “cook the books” in favor of an 4.5-billion-year-old Earth with no global flood?
Gosh, maybe he’s actually reporting on the evidence as it exists! Maybe he figures that the world (that he is sure that God made) isn’t a lie! Maybe he thinks that bearing false witness is actually a more grievous sin than sticking strictly to a literal interpretation of some holy book — even his own holy book — if it involves lying about the evidence! Maybe he actually cares about truth!
Can such things be???
Where are even just the Early Cretaceous forms? And why does the Early Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Fm have a different fauna than the Morrison Fm — some of the animals are halfway closely related, but still?
And if the Morrison Fm is a Flood deposit, what is the overlying Cedar Mountain Fm? (We’ve been at this point before, actually, and of course Alan didn’t even try to answer.)
And if either the Morrison or the Cedar Mountain Fm is a Flood deposit, then what the fuck is the Sundance Fm, which underlies the Morrison Fm and is marine? And what about the Bearpaw Fm, which comes somewhere above the Cedar Mountain Fm and is again marine and overlain by the Hell Creek Fm, which contains the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary layer, you know, the one with the mass extinction?
None of this will ever make sense to you, Alan, as long as you haven’t read that article on radiometric dating.
Nerd of Redhead, himself an OM, said:
I’ve been reading Josh since he started posting regularly, and I have been singularly impressed with the depth of his knowledge, his approaching the subject from a geological perspective, his well-cited facts, and – above all else – his incredible patience in trying to actually teach. When the next Mollies come up, Josh definitely has my vote – particularly because I also learn from his posts!
Bobber #788
There’s one other thing that Josh does and that is explain technical points in a clear, non-technical manner. Josh is an excellent writer and should be recognized as such.
Alan Clark is a textbook example of “invincible stupidity,” and is more than willing to lie and bullshit to support an otherwise wholly unsupportable position.
Maybe it’s time to kill this thread.
Thirded!
Stanton
Not the thread, just ban Alan the Clueless for stupidity, wanking, and just being boring, unless he presents an actual scientific argument.
Alan, real science or fade into the bandwidth.
Alan Clark is a textbook example of “invincible stupidity,”
Nah, he’s not stupid; he’s just exploring fanaticism, and he needs our help nailing his free hand to that cross he bought.
You can still be a fanatic and be an invincibly stupid idiot.
Only an idiot would suggest that kangaroos are descended from kangaroo mice that were introduced into Australia by humans. Only an idiot would answer “Why aren’t there porcupine and buffalo fossils with the Morrison Formation Dinosaurs?” with “there are no porcupine fossils.” Only an idiot would assume that fossil crinoids fossilized intact because they were able to tough out the tsunami that buried them. And only an idiot would support his miserably pathetic arguments with sources that diametrically oppose and contradict every single stupid thing he said.
Alan Clark is at a level of stupidity where his parents should be punished for raising such an idiot by being made to sit on stools in the corners of a classroom while wearing conical paper hats all day.
Alan wrote:
I’m by no means a bison expert, but some quick research suggests that “practically non-existent” is an inadequate way to describe the fossil record(1-4) of Bos bison bison and B. b. athabascae (or Bison bison bison and Bison bison athabascae depending on which side of the taxonomic divide you stand on) in North America(5).
Keep in mind, also, Alan, that both of these subspecies of bison tend to live in areas of North America that are currently more erosional than depositional. B. b. bison tends to hang out in prairie and montane grasslands, and desert shrublands whereas B. b. athabascae tends to live in upland forested areas and prairie grasslands(6). In these habitats, river channels/floodplains and lakes represent the major ways that bison carcasses can get buried. Since we’re dealing with numerous semi-arid environments for these critters(7), even the bigger rivers aren’t moving that much sediment. Burial is going to be more infrequent on these rivers than in more humid river basins which flood more often, like say the lower Mississippi(8).
If a species doesn’t live in an area that experiences high sedimentation rates(9), then it isn’t likely to get fossilized often (or at all). Both of these bison live in areas with low overall rates of sediment accumulation. It’s not surprising that we aren’t tripping over the bones of these things every time we stroll through a western meadow.
References and Notes:
1URL LINK: http://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndfossil/Poster/PDF/Bison%20bison.pdf
2URL LINK: http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=2841
3URL LINK: earthweb.ess.washington.edu/hoppe/ (see current research)
4Note that these are just a couple of quick references that only refer to fossil remains of the extant bison forms. I completely excluded the numerous references that pop up if you include the extinct forms.
5URL LINK: http://www.scienceonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/306/5701/1561
6URL LINK: http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/animals/mammal/bobi/all.html
7URL LINK: http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/004/Y1997E/y1997e12.htm
8see references in Boggs, S, 2005, Principles of Sedimentology and Stratigraphy, 4th ed. Pearson-Prentice Hall, 662pp. Also Google using carcass burial and fossilization as keywords.
9 To perhaps explain this better, the Connecticut River Valley of southern New England preserves a nice snapshot of the Late Triassic and earliest Jurassic in a thick pile of rift-basin sediments and volcanic rocks. The rocks preserve body fossils and trace fossils of numerous early Mesozoic animals and plants, including a spectacular assemblage of footprints. There were dinosaurs in these basins and we have good evidence of them. At this same time, there were highlands in western Massachusetts and western Connecticut (the highlands are still there today). There were almost certainly dinosaurs living in those highlands then, too. But those areas were erosional then, just as they are today. Whatever animal species were restricted to those highlands are not likely something we are ever going to see (because we don’t have any Mesozoic sediments from those localities because they pretty much didn’t get deposited), even though we have good evidence of their contemporaries from just 30 miles east. This isn’t that big of a deal. We only get fossils from those parts of the world that accumulate sediment. The highlands of western New England in the Mesozoic were not those kinds of places. Much of the habitats that bison live in aren’t those kinds of places either.
Josh, you really need to start your own blog debunking creationism from a geologist perspective. Your posts here are fantastic!
Thanks, Kel. A blog…huh. I’ve been battering around the idea of writing a book on flud nonevidence. Maybe a blog is a good jumping off point/better idea.
Think on this, I will.
A blog would be a good idea. You could write specific ideas and have them critiqued. Once you had a reasonable amount of verbage written, then you could assemble it into a book.
It would be interesting to team up with a physics type who could deal with the other non-geology aspects of the flud.
David Marjanović: No, you little moron…
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All empiricism and no spirituality leaves one void of social skills.
David Marjanović: Alan, read the fucking article on fucking radiometric dating from a fucking Christian perspective!!!
Your attempt to emulate Epicurus’ sophism has succeeded only 50%. Your vocabulary is your ruination.
Clarke for plonkage
That’s because Epicurus knew what happened to Socrates after he was convicted of a trumped up charge of blasphemy.
Alan,
Oh good you destroyed an argument made a Greek who lived 2400 years. Now that that’s done, care to respond to arguments people have made here?
Alan, still nothing scientific said in your last few posts. It is time to fade into the bandwidth if you have nothing to offer us in the way a true scientific evidence. If there are other ways of knowing, you must show scientific evidence for that. So far, nothing but failure.
This, from Alan “Elephant Penis” Clarke. Yes, once again, a Creationist is a hypocrite.
Incidentally, Alan, the reason why David is using foul language at you is because he’s been telling you for days to read the article. You know the article, the one you’ve been steadfastly refusing to read because it would show that you’re talking out of your ass about radiometric dating. Since you won’t follow his request but instead keep making easily falsified arguments in a vain attempt to push obvious bullshit at us, David has become somewhat irked.
Your vincible ignorance is getting quite annoying. We’ve tried logic and facts to show how your bullshit is, really and truly, bovine feces. We have the facts on our side, you have 2,500 year old creation and flood myths on yours. If you won’t accept reality, could you please just go away?
#800: “internet vapors” fail, non sequitur fail, history fail, theology fail, following directions fail
Alan, you were a student of Gish, weren’t you?
At the moment, every rebuttal by DM, Josh, myself, and every other poster stands until you cite the scientific literature that will rebut it. Science is only negated by more science
Your word is worthless. AIG is worthless. Xian sites are probably worthless. So, is it time to show some intelligence and fade into the bandwidth?
And *boom* goes another irony meter
Owlmirror,
Are you talking his African heritage again?
Oh, you were referring to this:
Alan, why are bestiality handjobs on your mind?
He did no such thing. He merely copied and pasted the paragraph as though it was meaningful.
Of course, it wasn’t meaningful. The inside of his head is as random and chaotic as a casino where a particularly nasty-looking individual keeps pulling the Creationist levers, thinking that maybe this time it will be the jackpot of “Creationism Is True”.
It never is.
Alan Clarke, I just don’t understand.
Josh has posted several times and, in each, used well-written, straightforward and superbly-referenced and sourced science to deal with your questions and refute your ‘arguments’.
Why, then, are you commenting on David Marjanović’s tone, making irrelevant and unfounded claims about him, and talking about Epicurus?
You aren’t a coward with no arguments to present, are you?
Alan as always evaded refutation. When it was just David Marjanović he would complain about my tone. So he is a coward of the first order. Otherwise, he would either acknowledge the refutation, or show evidence negating it. The ignoring is the chickenshit way out.
I’m still waiting for Alan Clarke to show that he understands what evolution actually is. Surely it’s a simple request, it would require no more than about 500 words… also waiting on him to explain the distance of galaxies, and the evidence that marsupials are from the middle east and only inhabited Australia after a global flood.
Alan Clarke: Master-evader.
Owlmirror, concerning the “elephant penis”…
Obviously you are not an anatomist, but if I have offended your Puritan values, I apologize.
Kel: I’m still waiting for Alan Clarke to show that he understands what evolution actually is.
Darwinian evolution has for its basis an a priori assumption that God does not exist. From that starting point, everything is built. Evidences are interpreted with the goal of supporting that belief. Empiricism is substituted for God. Only “natural causes” are accepted.
Can you explain how the presidents on Mt. Rushmore were formed without resorting to a “creator”? In order to remain “scientific” you must limit your answer to only “natural causes”. Every person at the beginning of their scientific quest for understanding man’s origins or the origin of matter has to make a leap of faith whether they admit it or not. The “leap of faith” is in deciding how to narrow the field of possible explanations. For every effect, there is a cause. If one questions the cause of each effect a sufficient number of times, eventually the “first cause” will be reached. This is the goal of science but science never reaches the “first cause” because of its finiteness. There are many on this forum that think the end is in sight and pursue it like a donkey pursues a carrot on a stick. Darwin periodically realized this folly unlike many dogmatists on this forum who espouse a godless world governed by empiricism and personal “objectivity”.
A friend once told me, “Don’t tell my mother about my atheistic views because she thinks I’m a believer and would be very upset.” When a person thinks they are doing another a favor by guarding them from “truth”, they themselves are exhibiting a certain psychotic rationale that is to be pitied. Can a person build upon such a rationale? Dictators are abhorred for their attempts. Parents lose control and the respect of their children. Can a scientist who is wallowing in the same psychotic rationale build a theory that will divine man’s origins and stand the test of time?
Alan: Epicurus was careful to acknowledge the existence of the gods!
Tis Himself: That’s because Epicurus knew what happened to Socrates after he was convicted of a trumped up charge of blasphemy.
So which man should we believe? A man who chooses death rather than compromise his core belief, or a man such as Epicurus who conveniently acknowledges the existence of the “gods” so as to achieve “absence of bodily pain”?
Jesus Christ was “convicted of a trumped up charge of blasphemy” but exceeded Socrates’ virtue by not only refusing to alter his teachings, but constructed no defense to save his life. His character far exceeds that of the “atomic materialists” whose virtues are their “attacks on superstitions and divine interventions.” Why would anyone give credence to such a paltry lot since their chiefest attacks are against one whose virtues far exceed theirs?
Mark 15:3-5 And the chief priests accused him of many things: but he answered nothing. And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest thou nothing? behold how many things they witness against thee. But Jesus yet answered nothing; so that Pilate marvelled.
Alan, just to be clear–you do realize that you have still, nowhere, actually answered Kel, right?
Nothing in this paragraph demonstrates any understanding of what evolution actually is, and this is the most relevant paragraph in all of comment #817. Perhaps, instead, it would be less painful to just go answer the questions in comment #407?
Alan Clarke wrote:
Wrong!
Er, Alan? News flash: most Christians believe in Darwinian evolution. It is official Catholic Church policy to believe in evolution. It is only the fringe sect of wackaloons who deny it.
Read about Ken Miller, a Christian who argues against creationism. He even testified against creationists at the Dover trial. And he’s a Christian.
How do you explain that?
EPIC FAIL!
As to the content of that paragraph:
Alan wrote:
False statement. Show me where that is written.
And even if it were, would you say the same for:
Atomic Theory?
The Theory of Gravity?
Heliocentrism?
Do you refute these theories? If not, then why not?
Alan wrote:
Alan, can you not see the beam in your own eye? We go where the evidence leads. You are the one here who tries to twist data to support your pre-existing belief.
Alan wrote:
Well, it is true that we only accept explanations that we can test and that we only except causes for which we can find evidence. Care to show me how to falsify god?
So no, you don’t understand what you’re arguing against. If you want to argue against methodological naturalism, go ahead. But quit pretending you are doing science when you clearly don’t understand the processes involved.
They were made by the natural being known as “homo sapien”, just as my computer was (or at least the machines that built the machine), just as my house was. Now where did those humans come from? That’s the interesting question. The people who built Mt Rushmore came from there parents having sex… so we’ve solved the problem of “who created the creator”, but it now begs the question of who created the creator’s creators? And again the same answer…
And we can go back through sexual reproduction back in time until we hit asexual reproduction, and then back in time to when the first reproductive cellular life began. And thus we have a complete explanation for Mt Rushmore without invoking the supernatural!
shhh, he might be in danger of having to use his brain. And we can’t have that…
I’d believe the man with the goods – i.e. the one who could provide evidence to support his claims – rather than the one who was letting his mouth write cheques his butt couldn’t cash.
Much like everyone here sees Josh, who is backing up his claims with science, as the one telling the truth – while you, who are avoiding answering the questions raised by his posts, are recognised as what you are: 10lb of crap, as they say, in a 5lb bag…
Alan, your post #817 was devoid of scientific argument. Religious inanity is not going to sway us as it is irrelevant to the scientific argument. Religion cannot refute science. The fact that you seem to think so says nothing good about your logic, or your state of mind. It will also get you plonked.
Basically Alan, I see it as coming down to this. You’re battle here is against the consequences of material naturalism as a whole. Science is a process that excludes all supernatural explanation – and for good reason too, the supernatural is untestable. To say “god did it” tells us absolutely nothing about the world. So please correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems your point of view is that if we allow God into the reasoning process, then it’s your claim that the evidence fits the God Hypothesis better.
Though where I see your problem in thinking is that you have no idea what you are arguing against. By trying to quantify the God Hypothesis in terms of geological evidence, you are being selective in your choosing of data to support such a claim and neglecting any contrary evidence. Futhermore, you don’t seem to actually understand what scientists claim and why – that explanation for evolution you gave was indicative of what your battle is here. Surely you could have spent 30 seconds on Wikipedia and at least pretended that you knew what evolution was…
So from that I can only interpolate that your intention here is to show the inadequacy of methodological naturalism in explaining the world. But if you are going to do that using scientific terms, you need to be able to understand what those scientific terms are. You need to understand the geology, the biology, the nuclear physics and the astrophysics – and this is why the likes of Josh, David and owlmirror (among others) are ripping your arguments apart. You don’t know the science, so why are you attempting to argue on scientific terms? It makes you look foolish, and completely stubborn.
So please Alan, read the radiometric dating article that’s been persistently linked for you. It’s not going to kill to you actually learn science, and if you want to use science to further your agenda – understanding what is said is the key to being able to do so. Until then, you’ll continue to look the oblivious ignorant fool.
Alan, here is my post again.
Let’s ignore most of this (I know, you already have been doing so), can you please answer me the one biblical question from above?
When Noah let the dove out of the arc, it came back with an olive leaf (not a branch as I said earlier). How did the olive tree survive a flood lasting over 100 days?
Wowbagger, OM #819
I guess you proved nobody is perfect.
Kel #281
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural
“Characteristic for phenomena claimed as supernatural are anomaly, uniqueness and uncontrollability, thus lacking reproducibility required for scientific examination.”
I would say your explanation fits the definition above.
Seriously Kel, do you have any comprehension of the complexity of “reproductive cellular life”? If a comic story line began with the first cell assembling itself I would assume it was Teletubbie 4-6 year old material -too much phenomena for 7 & older.
Sorry, that was Kel post #821, not #281
Yawn, neither Alan or RogerS is presenting any scientific evidence, which means their posts may as well be blank. RogerS, if you are going to claim something supernatural, you have to provide scientific evidence for it. Otherwise, it isn’t scientific. And trying to say science is supernatural is damned lie. Which brings everything else you say under the microscope. So guys, either put up or shut up. So far, you can’t do either, which is problem with conmen.
Hi, Roger. I know that I’ve been deliquent in getting back to some comments you replied to quite a while back. I still intend to–just haven’t gotten there. While we’re on the subject of loose ends though, I’d still be interested in any answers you might have to the questions I asked you in comment #479.
Why does it take so long to have invincibly stupid morons like Alan Clarke and RogerS plonked in the Dungeon?
I don’t think most of Pharyngula is paying attention to this skirmish, so there’s probably not much impetus. We’re just kind of sitting out here like the 20th Maine at Gettysburg.
It’s because there are so many stupid morons — I gave people a chance to cull the worst of the bunch last week. If I just went in and killed all the persistently stupid people here, it would be a real bloodbath.
Stanton, PZ is very loathe to plonk people. Usually they need to be very obnoxious and insulting to the regulars for a fast plonking. Alan and Roger aren’t insulting, but, at the moment, they aren’t fully engaging either. For example, Alan has not acknowledged the rebuttals of DM and Josh to his claims. If he was fully engaging, he would do so. At the moment they appear to be headed toward proselytizing, which will get them plonked. If they were smart, they would just fade into the bandwidth in search of easier targets.
I have been trying to get you to read that article for six hundred comments on the Titanoboa thread and another seven hundred on this thread. And you just refuse — you keep talking about things you don’t understand, instead of learning about them.
And then you complain when I lose my patience? After a thousand three hundred comments?
That’s called chutzpa.
Read the article, you most embarrassing of all cowards, and then we can talk. I notice you copied the link when you quoted me; next time follow it.
I am not talking about the existence of gods or anything else that has anything to do with Epicureanism — and neither does the article, which, after all, maintains a Christian perspective (without self-contradictions as far as I can see). I am only talking about how we can find out how old things are.
Why are you afraid of reading that article???
———————-
44 days to be exact. The link is in my fourth paragraph (not counting the quotes).
You will note that Alan has never once mentioned the article — not even to say he disagrees or anything, not even to make disingenuous excuses for not having read it yet, nothing. No, he just changes the topic whenever anyone brings it up. I have never before seen such cowardice.
<sigh>
Homo sapiens. Capital letter for the genus name, italics for the whole thing, and the -s isn’t English — is the Latin singular ending (the plural would be “sapientes”, but species names have no plural).
So Alan doesn’t understand evolution, and you don’t understand the complexity of “reproductive cellular life”. You don’t even know what a ribozyme is, what threose nucleic acid is, what glycerol nucleic acid is… There are lots of very good YouTube videos on current hypotheses on the origin of life. You should watch them. And before that, you should spend an hour or two in Wikipedia to learn some basic biochemistry.
RogerS:
[abiogenesis]
And yet you would be wrong, yet again.
The current research into abiogenesis is based on organic chemistry. Organic chemistry is not anomalous; it is falsifiable and empirical. It is also not unique in that it is reproducible, often easily so. There is more than one organic chemical pathway that might lead to life; these are being investigated. Nor is it entirely “uncontrollable”; the various chemicals involved and their reactions can be tested and observed under controlled conditions.
So organic chemical abiogenesis is indeed a natural and scientific hypothesis, and it is the most parsimonious hypothesis there is for the origins of life.
Do you? You have demonstrated nothing but utter and abysmal ignorance of science; no knowledge whatsoever of basic geology, chemistry, physics, or astronomy. Nor have you shown any awareness of the basic methodology by which science is done. I don’t see you as suddenly being some sort of profound genius in cellular biology.
Yes, life is complex. Granted that life is complex, the question of how it arose can only be answered in a couple of basic ways: It either arose from something simpler as the result of a complex series of chemical reactions… or it was created by an already complex intelligence.
The first raises the difficult questions as to how, but the answers are, as already noted, empirical, parsimonious, and testable.
The second is non-parsimonious and contradictory: If life required a complex intelligence to arise, how did the complex intelligence itself arise? It is the second that certainly appears to be supernatural. The second also appears to be false: No complex intelligence makes itself known to us; all attempts to communicate with this supposed complex intelligence fail; no sign of this supposed complex intelligence exists in the natural world.
Thus, the most parsimonious explanation is that this supposed complex intelligence does not exist, and scientific efforts must be, and indeed, can only be, directed towards investigating the first way, by studying the organic chemistry that all life is made of, and all the myriad organic chemical pathways that might lead to life.
If you have some testing regime towards discovering the second way, feel free to investigate it in your own time and with your own efforts.
But don’t boast until you have some empirical evidence of success.
RogerS:
Are you speaking of yourself? Yes, of course you are imperfect.
But if you’re referring to Ken Miller, well, that’s a flippant and pathetic response. Professor Miller has a Ph.D. in biology, and has taught biology at several major universities. I am certain that he is wrong about God existing, but I would not criticize his actual knowledge of biology.
The fact that you would only highlights how smugly proud you are of your own ignorance.
You might take a moment to read again the citation from Augustine of Hippo @#764, if you can hold off of being smug for a minute or two.
Regarding your quotation from Mark there Alan, I’ve got some more questions about scripture for you (and add to your omissions those questions I asked about contradictions between Matthew and Luke you never answered):
See, it’s a funny thing. In Mark we are explicitly told that all the disciples fled after the arrest at Gethsemane. So how is it that a narrative account traditionally held to be the recollections of eyewitnesses records all of this detail –down to Pilate’s state of mind– about the trial? Where did Mark get these details?
Answer: he didn’t. The author of the gospel was relying for construction of his theological fiction on sources based on texts in the OT taken to be prophesies, in this case, the Suffering Servant of Isaiah:
Almost every passage in Mark’s passion account relies on an OT text in this way, and by the internal logic of the narrative itself we know the disciples could not have witnessed any of the events related. Conclusion: the gospels are prophetic myths historicized.
David, I admit do not know all the complexity of a “reproductive cellular life” and I believe few people do which is in support of my point. All the complexity of the space shuttle would be difficult for one person to have knowledge of but one only needs limited knowledge of o-rings to know using Viton for a dynamic low temperature sealing application (my example) would likely result in failure of the total system.
One of the may aspects of cell complexity is the information content and density:
“The DNA in one cell can carry the information of 3-4 30 copy volumes of encyclopedia Britannia. DNA is the most information dense medium known to man. The number of paperback books that could be stored in the DNA that would fit on the head of a pin is equivalent to a stack of books 500 times taller than the distance to the moon and each with unique and specific content.”(source)
I believe you would find enlightening the likelyhood of the information content on one page of Britannia being correctly assembled by a random event experiment. “The information of 3-4 30 copy volumes of encyclopedia Britannia” coming together correctly is good material for our Watchmen enthusiasts (God love them).
-BTW It would be marvelous to see those volumes reproducing themselves!
Roger “pointless” S with another pointless post. All it takes Roger is some real peer reviewed science journal citations to back up your point. There is none, so you essentially have a blank post. You and Alan are on a real roll. The last 8 or so posts have been devoid of substance.
If a penis is merely anatomy, then isn’t “fucking” merely a physical activity that you may or may not partake in, and “moron” merely an assessment of your defective mental powers?
This is wrong. The only assumption is that the evidence of the physical world is real and consistent; that God is not a liar nor a deceiver.
Of course, if God does not exist, then it would still be true that God is not a liar nor a deceiver, in that lies and deception can only be practiced by existing beings such as yourself.
We’ve have covered this already multiple times. The fact that you don’t get this simple fact, even after multiple repetitions, is why you get called a moron.
Given that the evidence of the physical world is not a lie or a deception, it is true that the evidence of the physical world supports evolution, an Earth whose age is about 4.5 billion years, a universe whose age is about 15 billion years, and no global flood within the past few thousand years (or, indeed, ever).
Like every other theologian who has trotted out this old argument, you end up contradicting yourself: if every effect has a cause, then there can be no first cause. And even if there is a first cause (how? why?), you can say nothing about it, because you do not know what it is. You certainly can not claim that it is knowing, or loving. Even the question of whether this potential first cause is all-powerful is arguable at best.
And who are you “guarding” from the truth that Creationism is false?
So the obvious solution is to posit something even more complex? Yes, the god hypothesis really does solve the origin of life question…
The modern cell is complex, which is why we know all life has been through the process of ~3.5 billion years of evolution. The first cells would have been nowhere near that complex, and it’s those protocells that are posited as the start of life. And even then, it’s not a single step to protocells, it’s a series of steps. And we know abiogenesis happened because the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. We evolved, that evolutionary path takes us back 3.5 billion years. If you want to believe that “God did it” answers the question of the first protocell, be my guest. But please don’t pretend that the absence of the answer to the origin of life negates the mountain evidence for the common ancestry of life.
I’m actually surprised that you Christians think so little of your God that you don’t think an omnipotent omniscient being could create through the natural processes of the universe. All you have is a potter god, one who made us out of clay yet left so many clues that we really evolved. Made the rocks on the world old and made the stars in the universe so distant that it shows the universe to be even older… but you ignore all that and harp on about the complexity of the cell as if it negates all knowledge. Pathetic creationist, stuck in the bronze age with his potter god.
No, it isn’t. In order to criticize the knowledge of others, you have to have some understanding of that knowledge. You have no knowledge of cellular biology or biochemistry, nor are you aware of the current research into abiogenesis being done by those who do know cellular biology and biochemistry. All that you have is some vague hunch — which counts for almost nothing.
And you don’t even have that much knowledge, or its equivalent. Richard Feynman demonstrated the failure of that particular material (which was in fact known to the engineers who were ignored).
No-one — not advanced biochemical researchers, not advanced cellular biologists, and certainly not creationists with no understanding whatsoever of organic chemistry — has ever demonstrated that abiogenesis cannot possibly happen.
Did you know that you are a product of complex cells “reproducting themselves”? Your parents at one stage had sex, and if you have had children, then you’ve completed the cycle of life. Life does reproduce itself, so your example about encyclopaedias is mute. Life has had 3,500,000,000 years of reproduction – most at a stage where reproduction happened very quickly indeed. You’re “encyclopaedia” inside you has been built over billions of years through life that can replicate itself.
I came for the Watchmen science and stayed for the whack-a-mole. I read this entire thread over the weekend and man, what a time hole. I’d like to thank all the excellent commentators for the work produced here. I know that you tried but there is a difference between you and Alan Thicke and RogerS. They “believe” and they think you do the same. What really summed it up for me was
I guess Alan really doesn’t understand the history behind the theory of evolution, sciences like geology, physics, chemistry, astronomy and so on. These things did not arise because of some a priori assumption that any gods didn’t exist, they arose because ordinary people noticed that as a ship sailed from shore it would begin to disappear until only the top of the mast could be seen. They noticed that certain lights in the sky weren’t fixed on the dome of heaven, they seemed to stop and even move backwards. They asked why something didn’t behave the way the priests said they should. And make no mistake, these people were taking their lives in their hands. In many ways they were trying to discover the design of god and came away with a very different ideas concerning god. God didn’t explain anything and those brave men and women began to discover naturalistic explanations for “god did it”.
I would have to say that you really haven’t done much in any way to persuade, constantly changing the subject, wild non-sequiturs, pop psychoanalysis and TMI about you. I could chide you about winning people but I’m afraid that would fall on deaf ears as well.
Alan and Roger, what you are witnessing is the beginning of time in the history of man where we finally step out of adolescence and start to outgrow the gods. I know that you will probably just say we need to believe(clap harder, something like that), but I truly think we are entering an era where non-believers are finding an audience and among the many reasons that people are listening is because of people like you. You can’t make any sort of cogent case for your beliefs and are reduced to “making shit up”. People are beginning to deny that the Bible is a voice of authority and you really shouldn’t even try to quote it here. Many of us here were trained to be christian when we were young but outgrew it, much like we did Santa and the Tooth Fairy.
Alan and Roger, you need to begin to grasp the idea that you aren’t going to convince anyone here with your arguments. In fact, I am amazed at the stamina. I wonder if you think that if you keep going everyone is going to get tired, quit commenting and thus you will have the last word and of course win. If you were to go back and read over this thread in a single setting, you might get a flavor of what I see. Your “Gish Gallop” has no power here and there are far too many real scientists that inhabit this blog for you to try a pull crap that works over at AIG or Yahoo Answers.
I always ask Christians the same question. The question is “What religion would you be practicing if you had been born in the Middle East, in China, India? We are taught what we know about the god we worship. If we weren’t taught it we mostly likely would not turn that sense of awe we have about the universe into anything other that what it is.
I realize that I haven’t persuaded and should have probably taken my own advice. I just wish I could take the things that opened my eyes, bottle it as an antidote for gods, put it into a vaccine and give the world a shot in the arm. It won’t happen in my lifetime but it certainly won’t be spread by my progeny to their children. The only way to stop belief is to not drill it into the heads of our children and at least in that regard I have done my duty for the future of mankind.
Alan Clarke #817:
Combined with all the other logical fallacies that Alan uses, his reduction of evolution to a strawman is hardly surprising.
BTW, Alan, I do appreciate that you know something about Greek history. Your comment about Socrates is reasonable and germane. Why can’t the rest of your arguments be the same?
Analysis of Creationist Rhetoric:”Equivocation by Mixed Definition”.
Science refutes creationism. Because of this basic fact, many creationists resort to various rhetorical devices in an attempt to denigrate science or to lift “creation science” to its level. One of the most common such devices is the use and conflation of different definitions of words in order to create false equivalencies. Most commonly, this is done to the word “theory”, but other words also fall victim to this treatment.
In post #817, Alan Clarke uses this rhetorical device on the term “natural causes”. The Mt Rushmore analogy implies a definition of natural as “natural, as opposed to man-made”, while the statements about science demanding natural causes use a definition of natural as “natural, as opposed to supernatural”, thus shifting the meaning of the word within the text without noting the difference. Secondly, and dependent on those differing definitions of “natural causes” is the definition of “creator”, where again the simply man-made is conflated with the supernatural, thus making both a human and a supernatural “creator” into entities supposedly outside the purview of science.
This shifting definition is used to create a false dilemma in which science is forced to explain the existence of Mt. Rushmore in “natural” terms only. The impression is given that science cannot solve the dilemma because it must use “natural causes” only, therefore cannot use “man-made” as an explanation because science does not ackqnowledge “creators”. When carefully parsed however, it becomes obvious that there is no dilemma, since science’s “natural causes” are those which are within the laws of physics, and nothing about the creation or the “creator” of Mt. Rushmore violates the laws of physics, thus making man-made objects natural within science.
Thus, we see how an analogy, meant to demonstrate the surreality of the scientific search for natural causes (denial of all possible “creators”), hinges on the conflation and equivocation of two specific definitions of a generic word. It serves the purpose of creating false equivalences between things of no or limited equivalency as a set-up for arguments against scientific realities, methods, and effectiveness.
**I can’t do nifty concentrated, weapons-grade science posts like Josh, but I can to text analysis**
I swear I usually hand in my homework with far fewer typos. Must be the Rev’s cooties again, heheh
That was a fun fucking comment to read, Jadehawk. I think it’s going to make me to read stuff a little differently. Thank you! That was great.
Yeah, that was nice
*blush*
it’s hard to squeeze in my decidedly non-hard-science education and skills into these threads. glad to see it worked, heheh
Kel attempts to explain how presidents on Mt. Rushmore were formed using only “naturalistic” causes without resorting to the “supernatural”:
Kel: The people who built Mt Rushmore came from there parents having sex… And we can go back through sexual reproduction back in time until we hit asexual reproduction, and then back in time to when the first reproductive cellular life began. And thus we have a complete explanation for Mt Rushmore without invoking the supernatural!
I’m curious why you didn’t resort to natural wind and water erosion for your mechanism.
“When multiple competing hypotheses are equal in other respects, the principle of Occam’s Razor recommends selecting the hypothesis that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities.”
The granite presidents cannot see, hear, smell, feel, taste, walk, talk, reproduce, heal themselves, or reason. Why would you want to take such an unnecessary, bloated, circuitous route of creating a living man in order to carve something infinitely simpler? If Darwinian evolution shared similar inefficient mechanisms as you propose, then any credible scientist should discount it immediately.
Secondly, I noticed you took liberty to gloss things over when describing life: “…and then back in time to when the first reproductive cellular life began.” Do you think that by merely assigning words to events your explanation is deemed “scientific” or “natural”? If so, then I would like to propose the following using your accepted definition: “God who is invisible always was.”
I would love to hear your personal definition of “life” without violating the accepted principle of using the word (or opposite) to describe itself. (i.e. life is the state of not being dead; life is a state of having the capacity to perform what other living things can do; life is what biologists study, etc. ) I will be thoroughly impressed if you come to the realization that you can’t understand or define “life” but accept it as an invisible force. But if you heap impressive words for what you can’t understand, then you’ll be nothing but a babbler.
“Life” is just as supernatural as “God”.
Jadehawk, nice analysis. Don’t worry about the Rev.’s cooties, everybody has a case now and then.
Alan and Roger, science divorced from god and religion a couple of centuries ago. Science will not reconcile with the irrational and deluded, so religion has two choices. It can try to pretend a book shown repeatedly to be a work of fiction is inerrant, and attempt to twist facts to fit like you two are doing, or, it can acknowledge that the bible, especially in Genesis, is an allegory and accept the scientific explanation. You can even say to yourself (but not to science) that “goddidit”.
and here he is, demonstrating my point for me. :-p
also: definition fail, Argument from Ignorance fail, and some incoherent rambling in between
Nahhh. That’s the great thing about this “place.” There are a ton of smart, rational people all attacking problems/ideas from different angles, each usually offering that specific thing, whatever it is, that they have to contribute. Everyone has something to say (e.g., check out reboho’s comment just above). In some ways, I think that these threads (those that really get going) provide the atmosphere of discourse* that the universities should, but so often don’t, deliver.
*yeah, there’s arguing and yelling and jumping up and down too, but FFS, it’s a group of people…
@Kel:
here is the reference I promised you yesterday. Sorry for the delay:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g0w16r7m00m68p31/
“Dispersal, vicariance, and the Late Cretaceous to early tertiary land mammal biogeography from South America to Australia”
This is from work done in the early 90’s, and suggested that the ancestors of marsupials in Australia evolved in what would become South America, and migrated through the Antarctic “landmass” to what would become Australia.
Alan Clarke, ‘Master of FAIL’, wrote:
Yet another fatal mistake from the ‘Master of FAIL’. Mount Rushmore was carved for a purpose. Life, on the other hand, has no purpose except that which we give it.
Drivel. We can easily show life occurring naturally. Where can you do the same for your god?
More importantly, Alan, why haven’t you addressed Josh’s many points pertaining to the science of the flood? Or David Marjanović’s? Or Owlmirror’s?
How come you haven’t answered my questions about how a Christian, Ken Miller, can also be an evolutionary biologist – if, as you say, evolution requires the belief there are no gods?
Maybe because there is extensive photographic and documented evidence that the heads currently on Mount Rushmore were carved into there by humans, and not by wind and water erosion. That, and there is documented evidence that the workmen who carved the faces into Mount Rushmore had biological parents, too.
@Kel:
here is the reference I promised you yesterday. Sorry for the delay:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/g0w16r7m00m68p31/
“Dispersal, vicariance, and the Late Cretaceous to early tertiary land mammal biogeography from South America to Australia”
This is from work done in the early 90’s, and suggested that the ancestors of marsupials in Australia evolved in what would become South America, and migrated through the Antarctic “landmass” to what would become Australia.
Life consists of ingestion and digestion of food or other energy sources, elimination of waste, reproduction, growth, adaption to the environment, and response to stimuli.
<I was paying attention in 10th grade biology, despite what Mr. Martin used to say about me.>
Alan, I have repeated asked you for physical evidence for your imaginary deity. You have ignored it every time. And now we should allow you your imaginary deity when you have failed to provide evidence of one? Boy, are you delusional. Until you show your god exists with proper physical evidence without any natural explanation, then Occam’s Razor says he doesn’t exist. Welcome to science.
Because wind and water erosion didn’t make Mt. Rushmore, a hurricane blowing through a junkyard doesn’t assemble a 747. Yet Mt Rushmore and a 747 both have a naturalistic cause – humanity. Just as a beaver dam is built by a naturalistic cause – the beaver. Why would I say Mt Rushmore is crafted by processes that do not make such a structure when there’s an explanation for how it’s made?
Kel:
Airhead Clarke likely is “distincitifyin'” between “natural” and “man-made”, and is totally clueless on what “naturalism” even means. He simply doesn’t get you are referring to “supernatural” vs. “natural”.
you need to break it down for him as if you were trying to explain something to a 5 year old.
Alan is under the delusion that saying “Goddidit” actually answers something. How did God do it Alan, and what evidence do you have to support it? This is not a debate about the existence of God – science excludes all supernatural explanations as they are not testable. But if you feel that God made you a certain way, HOW did God do it? God had to work in the natural realm so you should be able to make falsifiable predictions about how you feel God went about it.
Why do you believe in such a petty god that when we see galaxies billions of light years away, rocks millions of years old, and overwhelming evidence for evolution, that God couldn’t possibly have worked through that process? Do you prefer to believe in a deceptive God (or tens of millions of deceptive scientists – many of whom are Christian) than one who has the omnipotence and omniscience to kickstart the universe knowing full-well that it would lead to us?
He clapped his magic butt cheeks together?
Fair enough Ichthyic, I’ll explain it to him as if he were 5. (Thanks for bringing up the link by the way, will read it shortly)
Alan, you are a natural being. You eat, you sleep, you poop, you are a part of nature. When you build something with your lego set (lego was fun) you are the process that gives it order. You choose the blocks, you arrange the blocks – you are the designer. Being a designer does not stop you from eating or sleeping or pooping. It does not stop you from getting taller or loving your family. You were “made” by your parents, not delivered by a stalk – you’re five now, so your old enough to know the truth. And just because you build that lego structure, it doesn’t change that you are a part of nature.
That’s twice in the last few posts I’ve made on here where I’ve mixed up “you’re” and “your.” English fail!
Kel,
Stalk? Are you implying Alan is a Cabbage Patch Kid™?
Stalk? Fuck, again with the bad english. Stork…
He clapped his magic butt cheeks together?
ah! so THAT’S where the Mormon magic underwear comes from?
I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that these morons in no way deserve the attention they get here. We have religious perverts hating their own bodies, insane religious proselytisers (ditto), and lone internutcases with one thought in their heads – which is wrong.
And in return for their obsessional blatherings, they get reasoned, beautifully written, heartfelt rebuttals – an education to read in themselves. How come those losers in the kindergarten of thought get such concentrated caring?
Well, I suppose real stupidity does deserve a little extra effort.
But where oh where are the Colossi of Creationism? Where the Ham, where the Demski, where the….Jonathon Wells?
Gotta stick with what you got, I guess – facilis, Pete Rooke, and…RogerS and Allan Clarke (category 3 both, obviously).
What fucking nonsense.
That’s an argument?
First, it’s untrue. Obviously. But second, even if were were true, so what? Hey, the electrical theory of gadgets is founded on the assumption that god doesn’t exist – so fucking what? Reading this, fuckwits? That’s an a priori atheistic assumption with a really strong outcome!
Why did God give such strong strong belief to those with the least ability to use it?
Give me strength. Nice work guys.
Josh, not only that, but the level of wisecracks is pretty good as well. I’m glad I didn’t have any liquids in my mouth because last comment by Ichthyic would have had said liquids all over my monitor.
Yeah. I’m somehow always drinking when Anthony and Ichthyic get going at the same time.
Yeah, I know that I’m one of those who’s less with science and more with spotting obvious flaws in logic and sinking in the snarky boot. But my knowledge has increased a great deal in the near-year I’ve been coming here.
Same, I have found this a great way of expanding my knowledge. I’m learning so much by seeing those far more learned than I ripping apart the fallacious arguments. I’ve recently started reading “Why Evolution Is True” and was surprised just how much that Coyne argues that I’ve learned through simply arguing evolution online.
Kel, how are you finding it? I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I don’t yet own a copy.
I’ve recently started reading “Why Evolution Is True”
heh, just got around to reading that one myself.
Just started yesterday, in fact!
if you want to exchange notes on it, I would enjoy that.
just send whatever pops in ur head while reading it to my email:
fisheyephotosAThotmailDOTcom
I expect I will have finished it by this time next week.
It’s the fourth law of thermodynamics – Knowledge <i>can</i> be sucked from Ignorance (Work required)
Hey – don’t forget “Evolution – What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters” – that’s a beautiful book, and up-to-date too!
So far really fascinating. It’s really nice the way that he ties in the uncertainties and the process of the scientific method into the way evidence is accumulated – and explaining briefly yet so well about others sciences that corroborate. Like when he was talking about the age of the earth, him using the slowing of the earth’s rotation to demonstrate that corals can be used for dating was really cool.
If anything the book feels a little light on evidence, though there’s more than enough examples in there to make his case. Obviously there’s enough fossils to write tome after tome of how the evidence fits the theory of evolution, so it’s understandable that most of it is left out when using 40 pages of a wider book tying all the evidence together.
I just might do that, thanks for that! I finished reading chapter three on the bus this morning, so I anticipate finishing it off in a week or so. It’s too fascinating to put down.
Thanks for the synopsis. Much appreciated.
Okay, I was wrong. I’ve scanned through the thread and I don’t really see much in the way of loose ends that need tying. Everything that needed addressing has been stomped on my someone. As such, how about we switch tactics, eh?
Alan/RogerS, we have talked a good deal about limestone in this thread. We haven’t gone into much detail about the complicated series of flavors provided by the Baskin-Robbins of carbonate deposition (e.g., coquina(1), micrite(2-4), biolithite(2-4)), but we’ve touched on the subject of what a limestone is(5, 6).
So my question for this evening is this: do you know what dolomite is? Dolomite, like limestone, is a carbonate sedimentary material that initially forms in shallow marine environments. But unlike limestone, which is mostly commonly mostly calcium carbonate (CaCO3), dolomite is mostly calcium magnesium carbonate CaMg(CO3)2.
Dolomite is generally an altered limestone(7) where some or all of the calcite that makes up the rock has been altered to the mineral dolomite CaMg(CO3)2(8). There are a number of ways that sequences of limestone are altered to dolomite(e.g., 9-12), but the key is that these processes of limestone alteration are different from the processes that produce the limestone itself.
There are many places in the world, such as this sequence in Iowa,
http://www.ge-at.iastate.edu/Tri-State/Guidebook_stop6.pdf
where dolomite rock sits directly and conformably against (either on top or below) limestone. Looking at this .pdf, the rock sequence goes as follows (from top to bottom, Figure 5 (page 60; page 5 of the .pdf)):
Pleistocene sands and gravels
The Eagle City Dolomite (interbedded dolomite and limestone)
The Maynes Creek Dolomite
The Chapin Limestone (interbedded massive and oolitic limestone)
The outcrop is photographed in Figure 6 (page 61). The contacts between the units are very sharp (Figure 8, page 63). The Chapin is a limestone. It is not dolomite. The Maynes is a weak dolomite and the Eagle City has beds of weak dolomite and limestone in it. These rocks are overlain by sand and gravel deposits.
So, the question is, how does the flood model explain this outcrop? How do four months of receding flood waters deposit an oolitic limestone, and then overlie a carbonate mud on top of it and then alter as much as 25% of that CaCO3 mud into dolomite, and then overlie another carbonate mud sequence on top of that and alter some of those beds into as much as 25% dolomite (but not all of the beds) and then overlie sand and gravel on top of that?
How do receding flood waters explain the geology we see?
References and Notes:
1URL LINK: http://www.flheritage.com/preservation/architecture/
coquina/coquina_document_complete.pdf (see page 7 of this .pdf)
2URL LINK: aapgbull.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/43/1/1
3URL LINK: strata.geol.sc.edu/thinsections/classification.html
4URL LINK: csmres.jmu.edu/geollab/Fichter/SedRx/Carbonate.html
5URL LINK: geology.com/rocks/limestone.shtml
6URL LINK: csmres.jmu.edu/geollab/fichter/SedRx/sedclass.html
7URL LINK: geology.about.com/od/rocks/ig/sedrockindex/rocpicdolomite.htm
8URL LINK: minerals.net/mineral/carbonat/dolomite/dolomite.htm
9URL LINK: www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/175_IR/chap_16/c16_6.htm
10URL LINK: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v287/n5783/abs/287622a0.html
11URL LINK: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/213/4504/214
12URL LINK: gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007AM/finalprogram/abstract_129539.htm
Wowbagger: most Christians believe in Darwinian evolution. It is official Catholic Church policy to believe in evolution. It is only the fringe sect of wackaloons who deny it.
Q: What do Wowbagger and Iraq’s former Disinformation Minister have in common?
A: Disinformation
Click the following link to see how many Christians are being dictated by the “herd instinct”: http://www.google.com/search?&q=christians+darwin+evolution+poll
Are these individuals “wackaloons”?
“Darwinian Evolution” is not defined by those who adopted it, it is defined by the one who invented it, Charles Darwin. Perhaps these two leading evolutionists will offer some insight into the core of Darwin and his theory:
Notice how Wowbagger tries to use the “Catholic Church” for his defining standard of a “Christian”. Let’s look at his “standard”:
1. Bread and wine become Christ’s literal “physical” body and blood. (Atomic materialists?)
2. Statues, crucifixes, rings, etc. are kissed (Idolotry?)
3. Marianism elevates Mary to a goddess (Greek goddess Artemis?)
Q: How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?
A: Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.
Q: How many Catholics are Christians?
A: Nobody knows.
Q: How many legs does a coelacanth have?
A: None. Calling a fin a leg doesn’t make it a leg.
Alan, another essentially blank post of nonsense. No scientific value. Still no reading of DM, Josh, or Owlmirror. Still no citations of the scientific literature. Still no idea how science works and that Darwinism is not today’s evolution (it’s called modern synthesis). But then, no learning on your part has occurred.
Alan, evolution is not atheism. Please don’t equating the word to materialism because you misrepresent both what evolution and materialism are. Christians can and do believe in evolution, you are building a straw-man that evolution is materialist and then putting it up against God rather than addressing the core of what evolution says… though it’s no surprise that you take this path. You can’t even give a simple concise definition of what evolution is as scientists understand it.
definition fail, scientific method fail, ad hominem fail, chronology fail, “the usa is not the world” fail, procection/self-reflection fail, history of christianity fail, “no true scotsman” fail,
Alan, answer two questions please. HOW did God create life, and how can we test to confirm this? i.e. would you be prepared to put your beliefs on the line by making potentially falsifiable statements? I could think of several ways to potentially falsify evolution, can you do the same for your beliefs? If not, can you please stop pretending to do science when all you are doing is using God to try and knock down a materialist straw-man.
It’s quite pathetic really, surely you’d at least try to be intellectually honest about what you are doing. After all, the 9th commandment is not to bear false witness. So by arguing against evolution on your own definition as opposed to the scientific one, you are lying about what evolution is.
Q:How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?
A: Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.
Just because you define evolution as atheism, it doesn’t make it so…
Are these individuals “wackaloons”?
as has been pointed out to you at least twice, those that ARE STILL ALIVE are indeed wackaloons.
the ones from 200+ years ago?
irrelevant.
time for Alan to go bye-bye; his endless cycle of repetitive nonsense is making me sleepy.
You and your fucking limestone. I’ve had it up to here, here, here, and here with limestone. You can throw the lot in a massive lake and bury it forever for all I care.
Did a single work of Alan Clarke’s latest post make any sense? I got nothing apart from a few conjunctions and one or two familiar words, but otherwise just some kind of shrieking. Does he need the toilet do you think?
Nah, nothing wrong with limestone…at least..that a little metamorphosis wouldn’t sort out!
Sp. Most interesting. Me no do lottery. I regard it as a tax on the stupid and the hoplessly optimistic.
Your tax bill must be shocking.
Josh: How do receding flood waters explain the geology we see?
The depth of fossil fuels give one an idea how deep the global flood cut into the Earth’s surface. Cutting action from water erosion at levels this deep would undoubtedly unleash magma that was formerly capped. The effects of this volcanic and water erosion action can be seen in Grand Canyon and the recent Mt. St. Helens eruption. Pyroclastic Flows are a mechanism for creating multiple layers of stratification within a single day as evidenced at Mt. St. Helens. Coupled with flooding and natural dams created/destroyed by plate tectonic shifts and freezing water (ice), an almost infinite number of sedimentation, stratification, layering, Lewis Thrust, etc. can be achieved in a short period of time.
Click here for an explanation with photos.
Many of the multiple layers at Grand Canyon are smooth flat rock, one layer upon another without humus/top soil sandwiched in between. If the layers are supposedly separated by large spans of time, then why was there never an opportunity for top soil to develop between the layers? This seems quite improbable due to the fact that the ancient Earth exhibited more fauna/vegetation than we presently have today as evidenced by the size of extinct animals and their fossil locations (Siberia & Antarctica for example).
Do creationists like Alan and Roger understand that saying “X is too complex to have happened by natural processes” is identical to saying that “it is impossible for the creator of those natural processes to have done it that way”? That is that their arguments deny omnipotence?
I don’t think Alan and Roger should get the hook. They are confining themselves to an old thread where the only people who have to deal with them are those who actively seek them out. To be honest, this is my favorite thread on Pharyngula right now. I am learning a lot by watching Alan and Roger get their asses handed to them daily.
On the subject of Why Evolution is True, one bit that I particularly liked was about fossil coral. It seems that coral have both day rings and annual rings. Also because of tidal friction the Earth’s rotation is slowing by about 2 seconds every 100,000 thousand years. Researchers studying corals that had been dated to 380my by radioisotope methods counted the number of day rings between annual rings and came up with about 400 per year or a day of 21.9 hours compared to the 396 days/ 22hrs predicted by the calculations from tidal friction. By itself it’s no big deal, but it is a nice bit of correlation between 2 completely different lines of evidence.
Alan, the question for you is whether Darwin started as a materialist or if as he walked down the road toward ToE he saw that his insights were leading him to that conclusion? I believe that he still somewhat of a believer when he was aboard the Beagle but began to see the old testament as false because of the history it presented. I think you have it backwards, his search that lead him to ToE caused him to have a loss of faith.
If the layers are supposedly separated by large spans of time, then why was there never an opportunity for top soil to develop between the layers?
seriously, are you absolutely sure you can’t answer your own question with at least 3 different options, none of which have to do with a flud?
why not at least try, before you have the obvious pointed out to you, for the umpteenth fucking time.
to Alan’s credit, though, at least he is only currently polluting this one thread.
Of course, creationist morons, such as Alan Clarke, don’t care to realize that Charles Darwin never became an atheist (instead, he became an agnostic), and that his observations during his voyage on the Beagle never lead him to lose his faith in God. The primary reasons for Charles Darwin’s loss of faith were twofold: one being the idea that all non Christians, including doubters like his father, would burn in Hell for all eternity, no matter how good they were in life, and the other being the loss of his youngest daughter to disease.
Having said this, I’d like to ask Alan Clarke to explain why trying to figure out how bacteria develop antibiotic resistance, or trying to produce superior agricultural crops, or trying to breed dogs, fish and or orchids requires one to deny God.
Beginning? Your thoughts reboho are not necessarily original. Please consider David’s observations of people over 2500 years ago:
Psalm 2:1-4 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
Likewise, about 2000 years ago Peter’s future prophecy is not far off the mark by describing scoffers of the flood event and professing “all things continue as they were from the beginning” (i.e. no catostrophism).
2Peter 3:3-7 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 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: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which
are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
I noticed that the author of the AIG article is one Andrew Snelling, allegedly a geologist. I found an amusing article about him here:
http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/realsnelling.htm
The conclusion of that reads as follows:
Heh. “Old codswallop.”
No science of today can prove the big bang,only the remnace of an event can be detected, remember it was put forth by a catholic biship scientist. (Quote= It is as absurd to think about the origin of life as it is to think about the origin of matter)Charles Darwin.
The indoctrination of religion into science has its roots run deep.
The earth continues to grow,In 2007 22 inches according to NASA landsat.In the fifties a major religous supression of geology transpired.It continues to this day.The truth lies in the ability to achieve a great magnitude of interdisciplinary principles holding them all to the strictest discipline of the scientific method.
People can figure and figures can fool.
As religion wanes, scientific discovery and acceptance will increase and the assumptions that were not answered by the continuing science will need to be earnestly persued to make progress.It is indeed hard to see all the religious tenticles that abound, especially when some are ensnared.
Hey, that’s old codswallop too!
Neither you nor any other creationist has any valid scientific evidence for a global flood or a 6000-year-old Earth.
Also, you’re misreading the text. It says “since the fathers fell asleep” — they aren’t denying the flood at all, but are referring to events after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Since even in your bible mythology the flood preceded Abraham, your verse is completely inapplicable.
What Peter is actually talking about were those who would assume that God was telling the truth when God swore in Genesis 8:21-22:
21 The LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.
22 “While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
And cold and heat,
And summer and winter,
And day and night
Shall not cease.”
Peter was saying that God was lying in Genesis 8:21-22, and did in fact plan to murder every living thing again. Note that Peter also says that God “will come like a thief”: According to Peter, God lies, God steals, and God murders.
Nice God you have there.
Do you have anything other than your ancient codswallop?
Kel: Alan, answer two questions please. HOW did God create life, and how can we test to confirm this?
God created life similarly to how Darwin created evolution: It was spoken into existence.
“Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented.” – Prof. William Provine, Cornell
How can one empirically test for something God supposedly made? You must remember that one man’s proof is another’s doubt so the test is up to the individual. For me, I would be convinced if the thing created was too complex to have been created by a man or an accumulated effort of many men. Therefore the thing that God must create to be convincing should far exceed the intelligence and complexity of the best man-made robot, satellite or Space Shuttle. I chose “man” as my standard because I don’t know anything more complex or intelligent. My experience is that the “created thing” is always a lesser subset of the thing that created it. I’m not easily convinced so I would further complicate my specifications by requiring that the created thing must heal itself if it became damaged! Or maybe it should be able to duplicate itself without having to think? Hah! Hah! Hah! No way!!!
*facepalm* way to avoid making any testable hypothesis.
Aren’t you arguing that the evidence supports a global flood?
oh alan you fuckwit, can’t you write a single sentence that’s not a steaming pile of fail?
scientific method fail, category fail
scientific method fail, lack of imagination fail
scientific method fail, evidence/proof fail
begging the question fail
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” fail
imprecise hypothesis fail
relevancy fail, limited data-set fail
begging the question fail
really stupid joke fail
Since Darwin did not “create”, but merely observed that which was already there, you’re saying that God did not create life, but merely observed what was already there. So God didn’t actually create anything, but merely observed it, and then claimed to have made it.
By your ridiculous argument, anyway.
Um, no, that’s not what “empirically test” means. But we should not be surprised at your pathetic incomprehension of science.
In your case, not so intelligent. Unless you’re claiming to have been personally been *poofed* out of nothing, you were indeed “created” by a man — and a woman.
And while you’re pondering that, does “too complex to have been created by man” also apply to the malaria parasite? OR the sleeping sickness parasite? How about the Ebola virus? Or cholera? Or the influenza virus?
Did God make all of those too? Does God hate us and want us to suffer miserably and die in pain for no other reason than living in mosquito- and fly- infested areas, or particular sections of jungle, or drinking impure water, or standing too close to someone or something else with influenza?
You’re definitely a lesser man than your father. Your arguments have no science, no reason, no honor.
And while you’re pondering that, can you even begin to explain how the computer, and the Internet, that you’re using right this very minute, is a “lesser subset” of “man”? That doesn’t make any sense at all.
You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, do you?
I’m not a geologist; I’ve never studied it. And even I can see how ridiculous your argument is. I’m going to grab top hits from Google searches, and see what shows up.
1) Average depth of oil wells – ~6000ft / ~1800m
tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_welldep_s1_a.htm
2) That’s some seriously deep cutting the flood must have done! (Which would only increase the depth of water needed as a further complication.) By the way, what exactly does fossil fuel depth have to do with the flood anyway? The flood created that in a matter of days too?
3) So the flood dug down deep enough to deposit the oil (I guess?), and also deep enough to dig out new volcanoes? But not in the same places I assume?
4) Yeah, the volcanic action looks like this:
volcano.oregonstate.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/north_america/arizona/6b.jpg
volcano.oregonstate.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/north_america/arizona/13a.jpg
volcano.oregonstate.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/north_america/arizona/9a.jpg
From the site:
“Erosion by waterfalls could have destroyed individual [lava] dams in less than 20,000 years.”
“In the last 2 million years, more than 150 lava flows have poured into the Grand canyon.”
5) Do you know what pyroclastic flow is?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroclastic_flow
A) Geologists know what the results look like. They won’t confuse volcanic and fluid deposition.
B) So which was it? Flood or volcanic deposition? Or both, but somehow separated and producing vastly different geology, despite supposedly happening simultaneously over ~100 days?
C) If you’re trying to claim volcanic deposition happened during the flood, to the depths needed to create geological features mentioned, then Noah had bigger problems than all that water; his boat would have been buried under tons of ash, and the sky would have been blackened for years.
D) If you’re claiming it all happened entirely underwater, then I think you’ll find pyroclastic flows don’t work that way. (but again, I’m not a geologist)
(At least AIG knows how to game results and statistics. Pick out one isolated situation, erroneously claim that as evidence to debunk an entire field of science, move on to some other topic quickly, and later claim “oh, we already debunked that back then”. It’s a tactic that makes it harder to tie all their claims together. You don’t put more than one argument together in the same paragraph, that just shows how obvious it is that none of the claims hang together at all!)
Man, I bet Josh is going to tear you a new one over this post.
Owlmirror, I read your Bible exposé (post #899)and I honestly couldn’t make heads or tales of it. Since you hate the Bible so much, why do you even attempt to handle it? You remind me of a person who hates guns. When you hold an S&W .44 Magnum in your hands it looks ridiculous. Your nose is touching the hammer, you lack strength to pull the trigger and you’re shaking violently. Do you want others to duplicate your ineptitude? Look at how pathetic and isolated you have become:
“Peter was saying that God was lying…”
Is there another person who espouses this convoluted interpretation or are you the only one in the world?
Since you hate the Bible so much, why do you even attempt to handle it?
one marvels how you can say that, and yet refuse to even read basic information in geology texts.
you obviously don’t care about this issue as much as you imply you do.
why are you so lazy in defending your god?
How can one empirically test for something God supposedly made?
thus is the reason the idea of “Intelligent Design” will remain forever vacuous.
until, of course, you can interview putative intelligent designer and ask them, or witness directly, exactly how they operate in the natural world.
until then, the god hypothesis, is, as many have said throughout history, superfluous at best and a hindrance at worst.
You have nothing to offer anyone, Alan, that is productive, predictive, or explanatory in any fashion.
IOW, you’re a worthless fucknut.
congratulations on wasting your life.
I do hope the time you have spent here has at least prevented you from attempting to date a member of the opposite sex. I sure would hate to think there are little Alans running around somewhere, with you filling their heads with utter nonsense.
Atheists take note of what is actually written in the bible so Christians can’t bullshit them on the matter…
Your intelligence is obviously faulty in many ways.
You remind me of a person who hates truth. When real science is posted, you scream like a little child who hates spiders who has just been shown a tarantula, and you hide behind the skirts of AIG or other Creationist mommies, where the truth is carefully kept from view. When anything that you don’t understand is posted, you close your eyes and pretend it isn’t there.
Are you saying that Peter was deliberately lying, and everyone was supposed to know this? Or maybe he was making a lame joke?
Read Genesis 8:21-22 and 2 Peter 3, and explain how a God who has sworn to never again destroy all life will break that promise and destroy all life by fire, as Peter claims.
Kagato: Average depth of oil wells – ~6000ft / ~1800m…That’s some seriously deep cutting the flood must have done!
What is so unusual about flooding action at that depth? We already have fissures in the Earth filled with water to depths of 35,000 feet deep (Mariana Trench). Whether the cracks in the Earth preceded the flooding or visa-versa, I’m not sure, but water came from sub-terrestrial areas during the global flood: Fountains of the Deep
Click here for more photos of deposition that is awkwardly explained by uniformitarian mechanisms.
Alan Clarke, Master of FAIL, continues his poor run:
Yes. It is one thing to believe in a benevolent god who created the universe and left us with the means to understand how it occurred (not that I myself believe this, of course); it is another to try and rationalise that a benevolent god would create the universe and then create false evidence to make us think he/she/it didn’t create it.
Those who believe the latter? Wackaloons, all of them.
I go with the numbers. According to Wikipedia, Catholicism is the single largest denomination of Christians (whether you like it or not) with 1.2 billion adherents.
Next on the long list of FAIL:
Wrong!
A: All of them. 1.2 Billion.
I don’t care about your pissant sectarianism; Catholics believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, the resurrection, and almost all the other nonsense that you do – therefore, they are Christians. That people in your church wear round hats or blue socks or whatever it is that differentiates your bunch of idiots from the papists changes that not one iota.
Catholic = Christian. In fact, any people who call themselves ‘Christians’ are Christians – you don’t seem to require anything else of them in order to belong; I don’t see why I should be any different.
And, since there are more of them then there are of you, calling non-Catholic Christians – esp. those who believe in young-earth creationism – ‘fringe wackaloons’ is apt, to say the least.
I’m so looking forward to your next epic FAIL, Alan!
Oh, maybe, among other things, just the simple fact that oil floats on water. If there had been a global flood, the oil created so quickly would have floated to the top rather than being trapped in wells.
No, it didn’t. Because there was no global flood.
heretics! I have proof that the world was created last thursday! layered sediments you say? bah, that doesn’t take much time to form, not at all! this formation formed within just a few hours! and i live on the 4th floor! just look at the layering! this is clear evidence that all the worlds stratified rock could have easily formed in just a few days! [/kook]
Owlmirror: Read Genesis 8:21-22 and 2 Peter 3, and explain how a God who has sworn to never again destroy all life will break that promise and destroy all life by fire, as Peter claims.
Where in the following two verses of 2 Peter 3 does it say everyone will die?
But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
Only the wicked will be burned up. The righteous will be saved as Jesus taught here:
Mat 13:30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
If you doubt my interpretation, then click here to read the whole story. Jesus will interpret his parable for you.
I love it; Alan can’t even win an argument with an atheist about the bible. That’s just sad. Do other Christians laugh at you, Alan? They must do; you wouldn’t spend so much time here – FAILing miserably – otherwise.
Owlmirror:…oil floats on water. If there had been a global flood, the oil created so quickly would have floated to the top rather than being trapped in wells.
Oil & Coal Production After Flood
Fauna/vegetation/trees float on flood water. Flood waters assuage. Organic material settles on ground and deep crevices. Mud slides and backwashes bury organic material. Oil can’t “float to top” because it hasn’t formed yet. After about 100 years(??), organic material turns to oil or coal depending upon the depths it was buried.
The landfill in the city where I live is now being used for a methane gas fuel source after only 25 years. Methane gas is not oil or coal but it’s a hydrocarbon. If the landfill was buried deeper and more time was allocated, then what? Look at the numerous links for converting garbage into oil.
“Decomposing waste in Laubscher Meadows Landfill generates enough methane gas to equal about 70,000 barrels of crude oil or 15,000 tons of coal each year.” (source)
Isn’t that what he did with the global flood?
Paraffin and polystyrene are also hydrocarbons. Do landfills produce them as well?
Oh, please, Alan. You tried this non-argument on the Titanoboa thread, Alan – and you got your ass handed to you then, too. Why do you insist on making it so easy for us? At least give us something challenging.
It was just after you posted that laughable tripe that you were first directing to read the article ‘Radiometric Dating – A Christian Perspective’ that you keep on dodging. You want to tell us again why you haven’t bothered to read it?
Uh, yeah. And if you hadn’t noticed, they are kind of already full of water. And very deep. Pouring more water on top isn’t going to cut them any deeper. And it’s not like that’s how they formed in the first place. Or is plate tectonics a science conspiracy too?
Apparently it is! Hilarious.
So the water burst out from beneath the ground (let’s say from the deep-sea trenches, why not!) to flood the Earth, also digging out magma flows because the water… cut… deep into the Earth, hang on… causing volcanoes to erupt (wait, was the water above or below the magma?) and dump pyroclastic sediment everywhere, while the waters also deposit flood sediment everywhere (simultaneously?), then I guess the waters sucked back down underground again (past the magma).
Hollow Earth Theory FTW!
Aside from there being absolutely zero evidence whatsoever for this marvelous theory, my first question would be, what caused the water to burst forth? You could of course say “God willed it to”, which would be sensible given the myth you’re promoting, but if that’s the case why even go to the trouble of manufacturing a possible source for the water? Why not just magic it into being as rain, and magic it away afterward? It all comes down to a miracle eventually, and there’s no evidence for any of it, so why make it more complicated?
Conversely, if you could nominate a cause for the waters coming forth (ignoring for the moment that there’s no evidence they did), what then is the rationale for invoking God? You would have described all the natural processes necessary for the event. Just because an ancient story attributed the event to him isn’t reason enough, as now there’s no need.
Man, it just gets better!
So continuing from above, the waters sucked back down underground again (past the magma), all the trees and dead animals get sucked into the holes on top (which should make the marine trenches the best oil deposits anywhere, right?), then mud slides back over the top of the organic mush. At least one thousand metres of the stuff, because that’s typically how deep we have to drill to find the big reserves. (So as well as being drowned in the flood, everything got buried a mile deep in ash & mud.)
Whoops! The petroleum page on Wikipedia suggests that “a typical depth for the oil window is 4–6 km“, which is of course even worse.
And then 100 years later, coal & oil forms!
Excellent! A scientifically testable hypothesis on human timescales. Take some soggy organic matter, squash it between sediment beds at appropriate pressure for 100 years, and see if it all turns into natural oil. I’m willing to put money on the results.
Yeah, we all know decomposing matter produces methane, and it can be used as a fuel. Not the same.
Wow, that sounds like a lot.
“[Longannet power station] was originally supplied with coal directly from its own deep mine at Longannet Colliery. Coal consumption exceeds 10,000 tonnes per day.”
There is a lot of fossil fuel in the world (and we are burning through it at a frightening rate). I haven’t done the math, but even assuming stupidly fast numbers comparable to methane production rates, I seriously doubt 4000 years would be long enough to produce the world’s fossil fuel reserves via natural processes. Millions of years was required.
*wiping sleep from his eyes, pops in and looks around at the thread*
Oh for fuck’s sake. I just shouldn’t ever log off, I guess.
Okay, well let’s get to it, then.
Oh, and Jadehawk? #913 was just beautiful. Nicely done.
Kagato added to the dog-pile under which Alan ‘Master of FAIL’ Clarke is buried with this:
Since I’m not a scientist the first question I ask flood enthusiasts isn’t how – it’s why?
Why did Yahweh, omnipotent creator of the universe need to go to all the effort of flooding the world and then draining the water away when he could have just magicked away the humans and animals (and plants and bacteria etc.) that had so infuriated him?
Why did he, with his unlimited power of creation, need Noah and the family circus to take a breeding pair (or seven pairs or whatever the heck it is; I don’t care enough to look it up) of each animal when he could have just poofed all new animals into existence?
Why is the being who created the universe suddenly so limited in his power that he’s only capable of achieving what every other religion would ascribe to a second-rate rain god having a really bad day?
Alan Clarke can’t answer these questions, either. He’s boned every way he turns.
Alan, you have no business writing new comments that try to move the goalposts around and draw attention away from stuff you have already written. You have homework that isn’t finished yet (and a quick scan through last night’s work doesn’t immediately suggest that any of these points are addressed therein–but I will apologize later if I see that missed some of it).
To Recap:
1. Any thoughts on the Salem Limestone as a tsunami deposit? You commented on the Salem in #691, but didn’t actually respond to the questions that I asked you #652, which was a response to your assertion (in #615) that the Salem Limestone(1) was a tsunami deposit (or included tsunami deposits; that wasn’t clear from the text of #615). The point of discussion is whether or not the Salem Limestone is a tsunami deposit or not.
Have you read comment #652? Do you agree with the information presented therein and retract your assertion that the Salem is the result tsunami activity, or are you going to (as I asked you in #652) present evidence to support your assertion?
2. Any thoughts on the Morrison Formation as a tsunami deposit? Have you read comment #645? Do you agree with the information presented therein and retract your assertion that the Morrison is the result tsunami activity, or are you going to (as I asked you in #645) present evidence to support your assertion?
3. Any thoughts on the Athabasca Oil Sands as a tsunami deposit? Have you read comment #630? Do you agree with the information presented therein and retract your assertion that the Athabasca is the result tsunami activity, or are you going to (as I asked you in #630) present evidence to support your assertion?
4. Any thoughts regarding my comment (in #645) about your assertion that the Athabasca Oil Sands are the result of gradual accumulation of peat?
5. Any thoughts on the questions I asked you in comment #407?
6. Any thoughts on the article on radiometric age dating that both Owl and David have been suggesting that you read for some time now (e.g., see comment #224)?
1You called it “Bedford,” a point I addressed in #652.
Wowbagger, OM #992
God works in mysterious ways. God, being omniscient, knew this discussion would happen. He did all the stuff that Alan describes because he knew that David Marjanović, Owlmirror, and Josh would be instructing us about biology and geology. The Biblical flood happened so you and I and everyone else reading this thread (except Alan and RogerS) would have a better understanding of science.
Yawn, our creobots are still proving that they are idiots. RogerS #896, and Alan the imbecile #s 891, 900 905, 910, 914 and 916 are totally devoid of scientific arguments. Vague pleadings for the still unproven god. And no scientific arguments. Boys, the only way to convince us of anything is to present a proper scientific argument. Which you have absolutely zero idea how to do. You are wasting both our time and your time, and I suspect PZ is getting impatient with you.
Alan wrote, in comment #883:
Alan, I would caution you again to be careful with where this kind of thinking takes you. Unless you’ve actually studied a lot of anatomy and paleontology, you don’t have much business telling people what constitutes a limb, any more than you have business telling me what a sandstone is or what a sandstone isn’t.
I know you’re just going to read this as me being dogmatic or something, or you’ll insist that our little club is trying to keep you out through the use of specific language, but I think it’s symptomatic of a big part of the problem that we have here. Earlier on, RogerS cited Blabbapedia to support a point he was trying to make, but he didn’t know enough about what he was writing on to understand why the Blabbapedia entry didn’t help his case. That’s not a dig on Roger specifically; it’s an example of an issue that we keep bumping into here. You do need to know the basics (including word definitions) to have any conversation on a subject (see others’ comments on this issue in this thread) and you don’t get to redefine words without any basis. I mean, you probably won’t take my passionate arguments about Paul very seriously if I can’t even get which of the Gospels that he wrote straight.
You can call us elitist or dogmatic or whatever the insult du jour is, but the simple fact does remain: you need to know at least the basics of subject before you can even form an opinion on any aspect of it. And generally, critiquing a subject, any subject, requires you to know rather a lot about it. The people who should be deciding what a 16d nail is are the carpenters. The accountants should probably just leave 16d nails alone, or go learn some carpentry.
Once again Alan:
The biblical flood occured in 2348 BC, according to Archbishop James Ussher.
Yet when Prometheus, a bristle cone pine was cut down, 4,844 rings were counted on a cross-section of the tree, making Prometheus at least 4,844 years old, predating the date of the biblical flood by 500 years in 2348 BC, according to James Ussher. Methuselah, another bristle cone pine is about the same age. So how did they survive a flood lasting over 100 days?
When Noah let the dove out of the arc, it came back with an olive leaf. How did the olive tree survive the flood?
The 5th Egyptian dynasty lasted from 2465 BCE until 2323 BCE. The last pharoah of the dynasty, Unas, lived from 2356 BCE until 2323 BCE. 2348 BCE, the year of the biblical flood happened in the middle of his reign. What did he do for 100 days, tread water?
And a new fact for you to ignore. The Great Pyramid of Giza was built over a 20 year period and completed around 2560 BCE. Yet there is no evidence of a cataclysmic, world changing flood effecting it. Why is that?
So please can you clarify this for me; when history, geology, ice core dating, dendrochronology, cosmology, astronomy, physics, etcetra, etcetra all say the biblical account of the flood is wrong, and that the earth is older than 6000 years, why do you still insist on believing these bronze age myths?
Fuck you, Anthony! Seriously–fuck you. I know you and your kind. Those who want to take a perfectly good fossil-bearing rock and muck it all up with metamorphism. Those of you who think it’s a gneiss rock. Those of you who see dolomitization as a good thing. Those of you who see slate as something other than what it truly is: namely the mica-stretched seed of Lucifer himself!
Fuck you. You and all of your “rocks don’t suffer deformation–they enjoy it” ilk.
This is the major problem with Alan and the rest of the goddidit crowd. If a fact is inconvenient to them, if it’s so evident that it can’t be dealt with by hand-waving or lying, then that fact doesn’t exist.
The Egyptians and Chinese kept good records that didn’t mention the flood that should have killed them all but apparently didn’t? Silence from the goddiditists. If stars and galaxies were all within 6000 light years of Earth the sky would be as bright and hot as the Sun. No response from Alan & Co. Isochron dating would be unaffected by the sample being inundated with water. Crickets chirping.
The creationists don’t even try to answer these sorts of facts. They ignore them in hopes they’ll go away. And then they have the gall to say we’re close-minded.
Alan, in comment #891, wrote:
Alan, what the hell are you doing going on about the Grand Canyon and Mount St. Helens? As a response to this question
that I asked you in comment #882?
Are you kidding me? Pyroclastic flows as a mechanism to explain an oolitic limestone to dolomite contact in a Mississippian-aged carbonate sequence in Iowa? What? Formerly capped magma? WHAT??? What the everliving fuck are you talking about? Holy let me throw out every geology word I’ve ever read in a giant blob of word-hash, Batman! That paragraph wasn’t an answer to anything, my friend. It was complete gibberish. No wonder you guys all love to go on and on about tornadoes whipping up piles of parts to assemble airplanes; it’s apparently how you build paragraphs.
Did you even read comment #882? Perhaps you should try again…
Should contain fossil witches.
3, 5, 0? I don’t know, how many legs does the Bible say it has? OK then, like the support for your argument, no legs. We shouldn’t laugh though. On the way to getting two full length legs I’m sure I had any number of them – I certainly made a lot of money from the leg fairy when I was little, and I’ve still got what I think is a vestigial one between my adult legs. Alan and Roger are no doubt similarly equipped. And when someone pulls this leg, Alan and Roger call the result “an argument”.
@910. Oooh picturey! A photo of an unjustified, untrue assertion! With a caption. Take that geologists!
The games up guys – give up before it wrecks your lives!
Alan, in comment #891 wrote:
Alan, before I tear into the many issues with this “paragraph,” please provide me with a quick description (not a cut and paste-your words) of what a paleosol developed on a ancient carbonate substrate looks like. Please also provide a couple of outcrop photographs of same. If you’re going to assert a lack of such deposits in the Grand Canyon, then I think it’s fair for me to make sure you at least have some idea of what these deposits look like.
Anthony for the win.
He’ll be here all week, folks. Please do try the crab dip.
Oh, it’s a very gneiss rock, all right – or rather it will be – but first it’s going to crumble under the pressure, fry in the flames of hell, and be vomited up from the bowels of the earth. Sedimentation is for softies – face it, you’ve lost your marbles, and your whole argument’s a pile of schist.
AnthonyK:
Great post! We will never take you for granite.
I would like to see PZ to give Alan a challenge. Either show the scientific refutation of Josh’s mini-reports, or fade into the bandwidth. We need to change the paradigm of us refuting his inanities, then Alan the creobot ignoring the refutation.
DavidS:
I don’t claim that my thoughts are original but you have to admit that an era has begun when an American president can acknowledge non-believers in a speech before Congress. I am talking about the here and now, you know, reality. I am one for learning from history but quoting your book of threats and damnation doesn’t speak to me any more. I no longer fear any gods.
As far as Occam’s razor, it seems that YEC is the one that fails the test. Granted you make your “arguments”, some you defend only to be cut down again and again, others you toss out and move on as if just saying them makes it true. But given the tortured logic you both have employed to reach over 900 posts in a thread (many of the responses to your posts are of the highest quality I’ve seen on this blog), doesn’t it seem that you have created the knot that should be cut away?
RogerS, in #896, wrote:
Roger, we won’t scoff if you can provide us with some, indeed any, evidence for the damn thing. You guys always presume that we don’t want to accept the flood. A giant worldwide flood would be fucking cool! I’m on board–just SHOW ME some evidence in a way that I can’t explain better with another mechanism. So far, both you and Alan have absolutely FAILED to do that. In fact, in most cases you haven’t even tried.
So, how’s about you read comment #882 and answer the question that I asked:
IN THAT SEQUENCE?
Not the goddamn Grand Canyon, not the Lewis Thrust, not Spirit Lake, not Specimen Ridge, but right there in that sequence. How does four months of receding flood water produce the contact we see between the oolitic limestone and the overlying dolomite?
If the flood took place, and is responsible for the sedimentary veneer that covers the earth, and the evidence hasn’t been miracled away, then the flood theory must be able to explain the geology that we goddamn SEE. You must be able to explain these deposits. Period.
Far too complicated for me. Can’t anyone simplify it a bit? Or at least give it some more blades?
Please, will no one think of the stubble?
*snort, giggle* Ummm…..urophagists? *pisses himself laughing*
I’m another one who encourages Alan and RogerS to keep posting. Do you know how much I’m learning from the replies? Volumes on biology, geology, astronomy, Biblical study, and logic – ALL FOR FREE. I don’t have to pay one penny to a university to get some serious knowledge!
Alan and RogerS, don’t leave – I want to have a leg up for when I go for my masters! KEEP POSTING, you bastards, so *I* can get smarter, even if you refuse to!
Wow. I thought this room was empty!
Anthony @ #931 for the win. OMG.
OCCAM’S RAZOR
Dang it, dropped the link for above…..
Occam’s Razor Shirt
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=WIGU-OCCAM&Category_Code=ALLSHIRTS
A long time ago a friar named William of Ockham noticed that the way people explained certain things was way more complicated than necessary, and the simplest way of explaining something was probably closest to the truth. Make sense, right? Rational explanations?
Fast forward to 660 some-odd years later, and it still hasn’t caught on. Oh well, at least William finally got on a t-shirt. Maybe that will slow the spinning some.
I know you have huge problems with reading comprehension, but if you will note the part that I so carefully bolded in the very verse that you cite, and the underlined part within, you will indeed see that everything will be destroyed — as Peter himself says in the very next verse.
2 Peter 3:11 : Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way,
In other words, Peter is indeed saying that God lied when he promised to never again destroy everything.
For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.
Q: How many Catholics are Christians?
A: Nobody knows.
Wowbagger:
Wrong!
A: All of them. 1.2 Billion.
Interesting take on how you judge people: Names and labels take precedence over actions and character. Bigotry in full bloom.
Poor Alan, still no grasp of reality. Still no evidence. Still no original thought. Still sinking into the morass of stupidity when we throw him lifeline after lifeline.
Alan Clarke talking about Catholics:
Fortunately, my irony meter is still in the shop.
Just for your information, Alan, mainstream protestants think that Catholics are Christians. It’s only the fringe christard wackaloons (aka creationists) who claim otherwise.
According to Alan, saying all catholics are christians is bigotry!
So by that logic, if you say all women are humans are you being sexist?
Am I the only one who doesn’t understand Alans “logic”?
oh well in that case, there’s no christians at all, and we can stop having this discussion
Nerd wins award for fastest follow-up poster. But does he have a job?
can i take this as an admission that everything you’ve said on here was wrong (and, apparently, that you’re an alien)?
It’s a bit like talking to little children about Teletubbies isn’t it? They have strong opinions, the logic to back it up, and no one but them is fucking interested.
Seriously guys, in the adult world, how can you be so stupid and still breathe?
I just hope their parents never explained to them where babies really come from.
I notice that Alan isn’t commenting about how every other Christian WITH THE EXCEPTION OF CREATIONIST WACKALOONS accept Catholics as Christians. Tell us, Alan, what else are you bigoted about? Are the “Hametic Races” fit only to be “hewers of wood and drawers of water,” aka slaves? Should women just be barefoot and pregnant? How about Muslims? Forced conversion like Ann Coulter recommends?
I’m sure Alan can produce evidence for the Storkist Theory of Babies.
Yep, just finishing up a report, then some safety training, then back to the lab. Alan, you sponging off us poor taxpayers?
To suggest that Alan Clarke is an alien is symptomatic of a gross, Nazi-like bigotry towards all non-indigenous non-humans everywhere.
hey, he suggested it himself, or why does nerd need seti ti communicate with him? plus, someone has to be the dumbest life-form in the universe and I’m no longer sure JarJar is it.
Alan copied a pretty interesting photograph of a volcaniclastic deposit(1) into comment #910 and then made some arm-waving assertions about the rocks being difficult for modern geology to explain. He built these assertions around the phrase “uniformitarian mechanisms” to insinuate that geology is locked into a worldview that forces us to explain all sedimentary processes as happening slowly and gradually over millions of years. He simultaneously (and very subtly(2)) used this same setup as a false “Aha!” moment whereby he also insinuated that volcaniclastic deposits are a giant elephant in the room that geologists would prefer that no-one noticed (of course so we didn’t have to try and force a “uniformitarian” explanation onto a deposit where it simply didn’t fit).
As is so often the case with persistent creationist usage of “evolutionist” and “darwinism”, however, Alan’s employment of “uniformitarian mechanisms” here is a strawman. Alan, I challenge you to show me a single citation where any modern geologist is asserting that ash beds, pyroclastic flows, or any other volcaniclastic material has to be formed over millions of years. Ignoring the rather obvious point that I don’t know how the hell this recent exposure of volcaniclastic rock is supposed to relate to our flood discussion, where are we (the earth sciences community) saying this? Show me. Have I not tried to explain to you, several times in this thread alone, that many depositional processes operate in pulses, where individual depositional events are separated by periods of stasis? Maybe I haven’t. If not, then it’s fortuitous that you posted this photograph. Let’s examine it, shall we?
First. This is a photograph of an outcrop, or, colloquially, an exposure of geological material at the surface that allows us to study it. This is good. Outcrops are the currency of geology. This is the kind of picture you should post if you’re trying to talk about geology. Also, this is the geographical scale that your flood model needs to have explanatory power for.
Second. I don’t know who wrote the caption for this photo, but I agree that we can clearly observe three major sedimentary packages in the outcrop. Here is a quick, not detailed, description of the geology that we see:
1. The bottom package of sediment is about 2.5 times as thick as the scale-person in the photo is tall. From what I can see, it appears to be very coarse-grained(3) and poorly sorted(4). There is no indication of bedding; it appears to be one thick bed.
2. The middle package, which you incorrectly called a layer in #910 (it’s a bunch of “layers”), is just under three person-heights thick. It’s much more fine-grained overall and displays very obvious bedding (5; those sub-parallel bands of differing color). And indeed, I think that the beds vary in grain-size (6; the darker ones are probably more fine-grained than the lighter ones).
3. The top package, about 1.5 person-heights thick, seems to display no obvious bedding (it appears to be one thick bed) and seems more fine-grained than the bottom package (as evidenced by the darker color). This would make sense if it’s a mud-flow, although it’s rather interesting that there isn’t any obvious debris within it.
Third. So, how does geology explain these observations? What mechanism can we offer to explain how this deposit formed? Well, of course we know how it formed (through various eruption-related processes), and it is exactly the study of modern deposits like this that provide us with our ability to explain ancient deposits. But since your elephant in the room is that geology can’t explain volcaniclastic rocks except via achingly slow accumulation (i.e., that somehow we never pay attention to the modern world when developing the lens though which we look at ancient rocks (WFT?)), then I will go through the trouble of pissing on your elephant.
This is how I would interpret this outcrop if I only had this photo, without a caption, and only knew that the material was volcaniclastic:
1. Given that the bottom package is coarse, seems unsorted, and lacks obvious bedding, I would tend to think that it resulted from a fairly high-energy event that caused pretty quick accumulation of the deposit; probably something like a single (big!) ashfall event (maybe one single eruption pulse).
2. Looking at the middle package and seeing that there is very clear bedding and it looks as though grain-size varies from bed to bed (color changes), I would thus think that this resulted from a bunch of different ashfall pulses, since there is going to be a time gap (even if it’s just minutes(7)) between each bed. The varying color supports this (especially if, as I suspect, color is loosely related to grain-size in this photo). So I think for this package I would say a serious of ashfalls over a pretty quick period, maybe a few days or a week or so.
3. Since the top package is finer-grained than the bottom one, but also is fairly uniform and lacks obvious bedding, I’m going to think that it’s a single quick event. I’m not sure if I would think that it was a mudflow (it doesn’t really look like mudflow deposits I have seen). I might think that it was an ash, although none of the other ash beds in this outcrop look the same. But there is an obvious scour surface at the bottom of that top layer, so I might think fluid-flow deposition.
So where is the issue, Alan? Show me some evidence that volcaniclastics present some huge problem for us to explain. Lots of sedimentary processes work just like this: pulses separated by periods of stasis (which if you go back and read, you should see is exactly what I’ve been arguing all the way through).
Additionally and importantly, I don’t know where you got the information for your caption, but we should note some other things:
1. You’re postulating a month of interruption between the end of the bottom package and the beginning of the middle package. I would agree that there is always going to be a time-gap between two beds, even if it’s almost instantaneous. Here, presuming that your dates are correct, there is a gap of a month with no discernable anything at the contact between the two packages of sediment that would suggest that time has passed (and yet it has). Now, go back and look at the contacts bewteen various beds within limestone units we’ve been talking about and between limestone and siltstone and sandstone or whatever. You are offering an explanation for the bedding that you see here but you are ignoring it everywhere else in this thread.
2. You’re postulating two years of interruption between the middle package and the top package. Where is the soil developed between these two units? Where is the evidence that the top of the middle package was a topographic surface for any length of time? The key: there is an obvious scour surface at the base of the top package, which you might not see unless you’re looking very closely at the outcrop. Now, go back and look at the contacts bewteen various beds within limestone units we’ve been talking about and between limestone and siltstone and sandstone or whatever. Do you see similar scour surfaces in some of these pictures between various beds? How can you rule out time gaps in bewteen all of those bedding surfaces but accept them (and indeed try and use them to prove your point) here? How are you not be pathetically inconsistent? You are offering an explanation for the bedding that you see here but you are ignoring it everywhere else in this thread.
References and Notes
1geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/34/8/677
2This was a pretty impressive feat considering how little text you used, Alan. Why is it that you can do this but cannot seem to answer direct questions?
3This is just like it sounds. Gravel is more coarse than sand; mud is finer than sand, etc.
4Well-sorted means, for example, that a deposit
of sand is mostly going to just contain sand, all of about the same size. Poorly-sorted describes a deposit that might contain, for example, pebbles, sand, and silt all in the same area as a jumbled mess.
5See comment #718
6Grain as in a single grain of sand. Sand has a larger grain-size than silt or mud. Pebbles are larger than sand.
7Read that again…
Alan, it’s day 45. Read. We don’t date sediments by looking at them and marveling at how thick they are, we date them by radiometric dating — which usually doesn’t even work on sediments, but requires volcanic rocks, ideally both above and below the sediment in question. If you had read that article, you would already know that and wouldn’t need to waste your time posting pictures. You also wouldn’t need to waste time swerving back and forth between creationism (absolute, though false, certainty) and postmodernism (absolute, though false, incertainty) — comment 900 reads like multiple-personality disorder, it’s almost painful to watch.
It would also help if you knew that there is fossil topsoil (which I have already mentioned several times — for example the Morrison Fm contains plenty), and that there are ice-laid sediments and ice-polished rocks in, for example, the Sahara. Plate tectonics, my friend; a continent can go all around the world in a billion years or less.
Now to RogerS:
I have studied molecular biology. I hold a de facto bachelor’s degree in it. I can tell you what a mimivirus is, what a retrotransposon is, what a ribozyme is, and how all of these make it obvious that “life” is a matter of definition, not something obvious that’s either present or absent. It’s a matter of degree. Even the most religious biologists stopped being vitalists around the 1930s.
See? Yet another argument from ignorance. The human genome didn’t spring into existence ex nihilo — nor is evolution random.
Newsflash, creationist: mutation is random, but selection is not — it’s determined by the environment.
BTW, it would be marvelous if you understood electrostatic attraction. Because that’s what it ultimately is.
Just for the record: I will not quit before Alan has read that article and demonstrated that he has understood it. Why should I quit? He’s the one who’s wrong here.
(Interesting. It may well be that the psalm is 2500 years old, or even a few hundred years more… but the Bible describes King David as having lived 3000 years ago… surely you aren’t acknowledging the strong possibility that I was ultimately named after a fiction and all those psalms were composed by someone else?)
You misunderstand. “The kings of the earth” that the psalm mentions believed just as strongly as you do that Yahwe existed, and that he was the god of Israel. They just also believed that their own god — the Bible mentions a certain Chemosh as being the god of Moab, for example — was stronger, and that therefore they could fight and win against the Hebrews. Atheism hadn’t even been discovered back then (except maybe in India, depending on when “back then” exactly was).
Atheists are not heathens, atheists don’t believe at all. Atheists don’t believe there is a Yahwe that one could “take counsel together against”.
Impressive category fail. Impressive fail at trying to quote-mine the Bible.
Oh dude. Nobody denies that catastrophies happen. Ice ages take tens of thousands of years to begin, but end within decades; rocks up to the size of very large mountains “fall from the sky” (…never mind the moon-forming impact 4.51 billion years ago — a collision with a planet the size of Mars); methane clathrates become unstable; and so on. Also, the sun will bloat up and then burn out, and there’s a possibility that space itself may once rip apart. What does not seem to ever happen is a cluster of millions upon millions of miracles within a few months — and that’s what Noah’s Flood would be.
Also, catastrophism.
So Peter was a flat-earther — he believed the Earth was “standing”, “standing out of the water and in the water”. Tell me again why I should take serious what he says about a twice-translated and thrice-adapted tale about that Earth and that water.
Why do people laugh at creationists?
Only creationists don’t understand why!
— thunderf00t
So what? Science cannot prove, only disprove.
So what? That’s a detail of the history of science. It’s irrelevant to science itself.
See, that’s something that Darwin got wrong. It is neither absurd to think about the origin of life (…Darwin himself did it, BTW…), nor is it absurd to think about the origin of matter, the rest of energy, and spacetime.
WTF? Show me. How is that supposed to work? Why doesn’t it make headlines? I think you’ve misunderstood something…
Exactly.
(Except that meanwhile he seems to have learned that eugenics doesn’t work and will therefore stop the righteous from breeding.)
Because he couldn’t have magicked anything away.
The entire myth is older than the very idea of omnipotence (…or monotheism for that matter).
EnkiEaYahwe was just an immortal little boy with a few superpowers (…but not even X-ray vision among them, apparently) whose science-fair project had gone wrong, so he had to start over.There’s a long, long history of theology documented in the Bible.
Both simultaneously! That’s what happens when Ezra takes two versions of a story and weaves them together to make everyone happy. Doublethink! Hooray!
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Yeah, in #961 I absolutely did ignore Alan’s possible response of “no, that’s not how you would interpret those rocks at all–you’re just saying that now because I gave you a caption. You’re just trying to make it look like you aren’t locked into “uniformitarian mechanisms”.”
I didn’t figure there was any point in going there…
2 Peter is a 2nd century pseudepigraphical text (that’s a scholarly circumlocution for “rank forgery”: even as early as Eusebius there were doubts about its authenticity as genuinely Petrine). The issue with “the fathers” who have “fallen asleep” is that the apostolic fathers are all long dead, and these were people who expected the parousia (mistranslated for the ages as “Second Coming”) in their own lifetimes; this posed an apologetic problem for third or fourth generation Christians who understandably wanted to know how long they had to wait. It goes to show just how important it was to put forth such literature as being of apostolic authorship, even when the text itself made such an attribution absurd: this is supposed to be written by Peter, yet the author explicitly refers to the fact that Peter’s generation is dead! Not very clever.
The conflict between god’s covenant with Noah and Christian eschatology is an interesting question: I think the parousia and “the coming of the son of man in power and glory” to establish the kingdom of heaven was usually conceived as the pre-ordained “end of the age” and not an arbitrary divine act of destruction, though the distinction may not be clear to modern minds. In any case, the author of 2 Peter can’t resist the language of apocalypse, so he certainly isn’t at pains to avoid the apparent contradiction.
David wrote:
Yep. And additionally, there’s also that whole low-latitude glaciation thing…
http://www.snowballearth.org/
Georges Lemaître was a Belgian priest (Abbé). In 1960, six years before he died, he was given the Monsignor honor by the Vatican. A Monsignor is a priest recognized for special achievement. Lemaître was never a bishop.
BTW, Roger, your buddy Alan doesn’t think Lemaître was a Christian.
Radiometry–awesome.
There seems to be disagreement on how to classify one as a “Christian”. This is a common phenomenon among atheist empiricists, not unlike members of a knitting group attempting to identify handguns. Instead of consulting with every Tom, Dick, and Harry, why don’t you consult with the one who founded Christianity?
Mat 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
So as you can see, names, titles, and liturgy avail little. I’m not making this up from an isolated verse. See for yourself:
John 8:39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
What is ironic is probably about 25% of the posters on this forum have Christian names that they are “disconnected” from. They are “disconnected” like the Jews who were assuming their ancestral ties were sufficient to define their identity. So all of the ancestry charts, membership cards, and honorary diplomas will be littering the ground when God’s elect are gathered upon Jesus’ return. Your savings investments are soon to be half value, so what are you hanging on to? How much will Nerd’s SETI program be worth when he returns? What is Josh (Josh=Joshua=Jesus) going to do with is geology books?
Mat 25:32-33 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Yes, you’re right, Alan. There is a controversy about who is or isn’t a Christian. There’s the vast majority of Christians, many of them Catholics but also including mainstream Protestants, who believe Catholics are Christians. And there’s the fundamentalist creationist wackaloons who claim that Catholics aren’t Christians.
Paul Simon The Boxer: Stanza 1 Line 5 Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
Alan’s all geologied out, I reckon. It’s back to pointing at comic books and grunting for him.
I imagine he must get into the most hilarious misunderstandings when he goes to the mechanic to have his car fixed – I mean, just where is that hole for his giant key?
Is that so (as Ecclesiastes 7:20 says)?
Job 15:14 suggests so:
Isaiah 41:26 uses even more unambiguous words:
Isaiah 64:4–6 allows the possibility that anyone has ever been righteous, but then goes on to say it hasn’t been realized:
And Romans 3:9–23 finally spells it out several times (and uses several metaphors for the same point that I’ve cut out):
However, Gen 7:1 says no, and that in completely unambiguous words:
Right after the cute flat-earth passage of 2 Sam 22:16, 2 Sam 22:17–25 lets a certain David get away with claiming that he was righteous enough to be rewarded for it:
Job 2:3 doesn’t go so far as to use the word, but does “strongly suggest” (as a scientist would say) that Job is righteous:
Psalm 1 talks about the righteous as if they existed:
At the start of explaining how shit happens to everyone, the unrighteous and the righteous, Ecclesiastes 9:1–2 establishes that the righteous exist:
Ezekiel 14:14 and 14:20 quote Yahwe himself as saying that, while only Noah, Daniel, and Job appear to be the only three righteous people that ever lived, they were indeed righteous:
Matthew 5:20 is ambiguous in having Jesus saying both that “the scribes and Pharisees” are righteous and that they aren’t righteous enough:
Matthew 23:35 mentions whole streams of righteous blood:
(Never mind whose son that Zacharia(s) is supposed to have been. 2 Chronicles 24:20 calls him “the son of Jehoiada”.)
Matthew 25:46 again talks about the righteous as if they existed, and this time as if they were righteous enough:
After all, this comes right after explaining what dialogue Jesus will — not would; will — have with the righteous:
Luke 1:5–6 mentions righteous and blameless people by name:
The Letter to the Hebrews calls Abel righteous:
James talks about righteous men as if the Earth crawled with them, and then mentions Elijah as one of them:
Do you know the proverb “robbing Peter to pay Paul”? Well, I can quote Peter against Paul. Here goes, from his second letter, where he calls Lot righteous:
Celebrity deathmatch!!1!!!1!!eleventyone!!!
Well, what I just said about the centuries of history of theology recorded in the Bible.
Oooooh, sorry. Except for Romans 3:12, that was about righteous, not about good and just. Perhaps that’s not the same! Although…
Psalm 14 says nobody does good, just like Romans 3:12:
Psalm 53 repeats this almost word for word, just with Elohim instead of Yahwe:
Mark says there has never been a good person — not even Jesus:
But Matthew disagrees three times, and even has Jesus once telling people to be perfect:
So does Luke 23:50:
And John, too, talks about the good as if they (will) exist, both in his gospel…
…and in his third letter (perhaps written by someone who just happened to have the same name, but who cares):
Finally, the second letter to the Corinthians again talks about the good as if they (will) exist, in strange contrast to the Letter to the Romans:
There is no Biblical literalist, no, not one.
—————————–
Josh, two things:
— Alan doesn’t know that it’s possible to just look at an outcrop and tell it’s volcaniclastic sediment;
— he doesn’t even know what “volcaniclastic” even means.
You’re talking way over his head.
Where on earth did all that shite you just quoted come from David? It certainly doesn’t sound like any geology book I’ve ever read.
Wow. That’s only surpassed, if that, by ascribing the description of Moses’s death and burial to Moses himself!
This is not about who is a Christian, you pathetic little quote-miner. It’s about who shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, as it spells fucking out.
(And, BTW, that’s not a topic you want to get into. Really not.)
Not “when”. If.
Now be a good little scientist and go read the article on radiometric dating. Or I shall taunt you again.
Just for the record: I will not quit before Alan has read that article and demonstrated that he has understood it. Why should I quit? He’s the one who’s wrong here.
because I’m getting tired of checking this thread for interesting tidbits on geology, only to find reams of bible quotes?
David wrote:
Then he should really stop acting like he knows what the hell he’s talking about.
I know. I provided a link to a source, and then decided the source was probably too technical, and was going to just put a note in there or find another link, and then forgot until after I hit submit. Fuck.
Alan, volcaniclastic is a word we use to collectively refer to that material that gets blown out of volcanoes and then redeposited by air or water. It includes stuff like ash and deposits of pumice and stuff like that. It’s also used to refer to volcanically-induced mudflows/debris flows, landslide deposits (if we can be sure they were volcanically triggered), and deposits produced by pycroclastic flows/lahars (the glowing cloud stuff that is so dangerous). It’s distinct from volcanic rocks, such as form when lava cools, etc.
I presume you aren’t talking about ET. I bet ET will show up, even with FTL limitations, long before Jebus will.
Jebus is a myth. There are no historical records of Jebus outside of the bible, which was written well after the alleged time of Jebus. So the chances of Jebus in the bible being myth are close to 100%. Ergo, Jebus is just like your god. Exists only between your ears.
I agree with your comment. Thanks for keeping me on track, I over edited without re-evaluating content. Please let me attempt to restate:
The scoffers only openly and verbally challenge the promise of Christ’s return, not the flood. Further in the passage 2Peter 3:3-7, we learn their boldness is based on their ignorance of the previous visitation of God’s wrath during the flood. I find many today expressing greater compassion toward post flood mankind, who totally abandoned virtue, than toward Christians today, who embrace it:
Genesis 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Genesis 6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
-I hope those words do not depict us yet, but I see evidence of the gap closing quickly.
RogerS, still deluded. We know a lot about the bible. We know it is fiction. So, we are smarter than you. We know your god only exists beween your ears. You have shown absolutely no evidence to convince us that your god exists or the bible isn’t fiction. So no, there is gap closing unless you are moving your beliefs.
Hey, the font now suddenly supports en dashes! :-)
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
Alan should read it sometime – after having read the article on radiometric dating and the compilation of miracles necessary for the Flood, and after having answered Josh’s numerous questions, that is.
See, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell him for about 1400 coments now.
The solution is simple. Killfile Alan Clarke and RogerS and just read David, Josh and Owlmirror. You will not miss a thing.
*shrugs*
I like to think I’m a pretty patient guy. The jagged edges on the hole in my wall are starting to hurt my head, though.
David Marjanović, OM #272
Is that the same David who screwed over Uriah the Hittite as well as screwing Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba?
Oops, in my post #985 I was referring to David’s post #972.
Just make sure to wear your hardhat when posting here. It helps.
if that’s your definition of Christian, there are no Christians.
also, Jesus is a plagiarized myth. he ain’t coming back. you’re just another generation of idiots who is going to be very disappointed.
Technically, wouldn’t that have required some kind of initial
evaluation?
A gap? Say it ain’t so!
Evidence? Evidence?
Actually, your quest is not yet at an end, even though you’re reduces to mouthing random Biblical verses. Heh, heh, *sings* God made Alan Stupid, God made Alan Stupid!
No, how about putting up another random picture of something geological, maybe with a fossil poking out (no cheating mind!) for Josh and David, and the others round here. Then label it something daft. Just make it up. I think you know how to that! ;0
Come on, guys, let’s wring these paraphyletes dry!
Hey morons – pass over every last drop of your ignorance, that we may fashion of it endless forms most beautiful…
just read David, Josh and Owlmirror.
actually, David has posted more bible quotes in the last couple of days than Alan.
isn’t it enough already?
bible warz is teh boring.
but, since I came back anyway, maybe David could shed some light on something of more interest.
David:
How does one resolve the evolution of marsupials in Australia given that you mentioned origins in Asia, while Woodburne et al think the origins are in South America?
I posted the link to Woodburne’s work from the early 90’s for Kel above.
Is it a timing issue? Has new information become available?
what’s up?
Tis Himself: Is that the same David who screwed over Uriah the Hittite as well as screwing Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba?
Tis, this is an excellent example of why the Bible is credible. If it were fabricated, the heroes would be painted with redeeming qualities. But instead, Abraham lied about his wife, Moses murdered a man, Solomon succumbed to his numerous wives, Peter was impetuous, etc. The difference between the Bible’s heroes and those of fables is they are real people who fell on their faces but were forgiven by a God who transcends human virtues. Reading about Jesus’ character is what sealed the deal for me. No novelist could have created a character that changed the world as he did.
Hmmm…
It’s probably a bad example, but my thoughts immediately went to Ender’s Game.
No novelist could have created a character that changed the world as he did.
Tell it to Muhammad.
Oh, right. Alan probably meant a character that changed the real world, not the world of the novel.
I’m an idiot.
The difference between the Bible’s heroes and those of fables is they are real people
ROFLMAO
“the difference between my fables and yours is that MINE are real, damnit!”
I say the greek pantheon are beings that lived and existed and interacted with the world during the time things were written about them.
prove me wrong.
I say Loki existed, and was indeed responsible for ushering in ragnarok.
prove me wrong.
I guess that means the Illiad, the Oddysey, the Nibelungen Saga, Beowulf, etc ad nauseam are all true. The flawed hero is a literary device known to myth-writers for millenia
Poor, poor Alan. Guess what. Go check The Bible’s Buried Secrets over at the PBS web site. The old testament is full of fiction, rewriting for hundreds of years, and events, such as the flud and the exodus, which there is no historical record for. So, just another lie for the godbots.
Alan ‘Master of FAIL’ Clarke, failing again; he can now add literary criticism to the long list of disciplines in which he rates an epic FAIL*:
BWAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!!!!!!
BWAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!!!!!!
How about another man who founded a religion, L Ron Hubbard? Maybe you should try reading Battlefield Earth, Alan. I’m sure you’ll find both positive and negative qualities in Jonnie Goodboy Tyler – OHMYDOG, it must be real! Praise Xenu! I’m in love with Katie Holmes!
*So far I believe that includes (broadly) history, geography, geology, physics, biology, physiology, chemistry, demographics, botany and – most hilariously, considering he’s a Christian – theology. If anyone’s got any more, let me know so I can add it to the list.
No novelist could have created a character that changed the world as he did.
And no novelist or any other single individual did. Rather, a new kind of Jewish piety arose in Galilee and Judea in the 1st century CE, centered around a legendary figure inspired by prophetic texts in the Jewish scriptures, like Isaiah’s aforementioned suffering servant and the concept of a pre-existing divine wisdom come to illuminate the world (Wisdom of Solomon et al). The tumultuous events of 66-70 CE in Judea and of the late 1st century in the Eastern Mediterranean in general led to a split of the adherents of this new sect and its Gentile followers from the worship communities of the Jewish diaspora. In the aftermath of this traumatic division, the gospels were composed, “prophesy historicized” in the words of J.D. Crossan (a devout Roman Catholic), to act as a new liturgy for communities who found themselves cut off from the practices of the Jewish communities they had been associated with. The choice of the time of Pilate as a setting for these fictions was a natural one, for reasons too involved to go into here.
Really, Alan, what should have done it for you was the obvious truth that there is no single “character of Jesus” that is shared between any two texts. They all radically re-imagine the central figure along theological lines, to suit the needs and expectations of the communities for which they became part of the liturgy.
Sit down and read Mark, immediately followed by John. If you weren’t already a believer, and committed to the laughable fairy tale the church has traditionally told about the origin of these texts, what in the two treatments of the subject would lead you to believe they were about the same person beyond the similarity in the broad outline of events?
(To each their own, Ichthyic)
Siddhārtha Gautama.