This article describes the research of Paul Olsen who used cores of sedimentary rock to figure out the positions of planets in deep time. The interesting thing to me is what a nice example of corroboration it gives, in that the celestial wobble cycles he identified can be matched up perfectly with geological cycles, Milankovich cycles, and Earth-Mars cycles.
Says Olsen:
“In the case of the Earth’s history, you need a lot of observations to see what the patterns are before you can derive a hypothesis,” Olsen says. “The world’s too complicated to derive a hypothesis from a series of assumptions and deduce what it must be. And with complex dynamical systems like the solar system, you can’t. There is no analytical solution to the solar system problem, period. You need empirical information.”
To me, this highlights the difference in the way mainstream science is done, vs how YEC “science” is done. I don’t know how you can ignore all these areas where multiple empirical observations all support the same conclusion and predictions made by one line of evidence are corroborated by totally different lines of evidence.
This is what I intended to say to @jasonbourne4 in his thread about the “most compelling evidence” for EC. What I find persuasive isn’t this or that piece of evidence; it’s the mountain of interlocking evidence all pointing in the same direction.
Excellent! Or if a person points at one brick in isolation, it would not by itself make very compelling picture of a house. But taking in all the bricks of the structure together, they can’t very well be mistaken for anything else - and this remains so even if there a few bricks off in a pile to the side that haven’t yet been fitted into the existing structure.
I always wondered what an “orrery” was, ever since reading C S Lewis’ account of “orreries” sitting in the magician’s study on the Island of the Dufflepuds! Thank you!
I’m skeptical that the influence of Mars would leave a detectable signature in sedimentary rocks. This could be a case of correlation does not equal causation.
It does sound incredible that so much history of the heavens might be solved by digging! It is probably even more incredible that such a signal matched and yet was entirely a coincidence. Imagine this happening on an electronic work bench. You’re working with an amplifier sound system, and where there should be silence, you’re hearing a regular pattern of static interference that comes and goes sharply every few seconds. You also see another entirely unrelated gadget you have plugged in across the shop which has on it a light that is blinking. You notice that the blinks correspond exactly with the sound interference you’re hearing. In fact, when the blinks slowed down slightly, the sound also slowed down matching the exact pace. What are the odds that your audio interference has nothing to do with the gadget across the way (meaning that the matching frequency was all a fluke?) Now that is what would really be incredible!
… and then somehow try to explain why these beautiful and interconnected patterns were somehow imbedded into the fossil record all at once in less than a year during a global flood.
This could be good news for astrologers. If it’s influence is strong enough to leave a trace in sediments nobody can say it can’t affect people. What about the Moon and Venus, did they leave a signature in sediments as well? I’m not going to pay 10 USD to read the original paper.
Absolutely! Shoot … the moon’s influence is so strong, you don’t even need to dig anywhere; just go sit on the beach for a few hours and watch the tides come and go. [I imagine the monthly lunar cycle would be too “fine” a grain to register in the same strata here where the focus is on longer period phenomena on the orders of thousands and millions of years - but in terms of gravitational influence on us - the moon is at the top.]
Only if astrology means the exertion of gravitational tug. What astrologers really want is to know whether, according to the stars, I should be bold or cautious today in my pursuit of this or that. So … whole 'nother ball game.
