Let’s see . . . I met Morris in 1976 or so, and by then his Genesis flood book had been in print for a decade and a half, which makes five decades till now, and his work rested on older material from at least twenty years earlier, some of it reaching back to the end of WWII or before, so that makes eight decades.
So yeah, he should think so, and so do I.
Then they should have used science, not YEC.
YEC has no problem with ignoring data, misrepresenting data, and flat-out lying – because YEC is not a biblical worldview. I’ve pointed out (with references; you can go back and look) at least a half-dozen blatant lies in YEC material (all but one AiG as I recall) and others have pointed out more than twice that many. A favorite is represented nicely by the Mt. St. Helens association with the Grand Canyon – the use of false equivalency, a technique, BTW, that was a favorite of communist/Soviet propaganda.
No, it doesn’t. Normal human language doesn’t work that way, nor does literature. All that can be established from His references is that He knew the audience was familiar with the stories.
I will point out again that you’re the only one here calling the Ark event an allegory. It’s pretty sad that you keep repeating this after it has been pointed out probably a dozen times now that you’re the only one saying it – which demonstrates that either you enjoy employing strawman arguments or that you’re not really paying attention.
In my university volcanology course we did field trips to the Oregon Coast Range, Mazama eruption deposits, the Three Sisters volcanic complex, Mt. Shasta, and St. Helens, examining multiple sites for each, including road/excavation cuts in each case. On the St. Helens trip (where a couple of the guys wore “pirate” gear “because we’re gonna see the la-harrrrrzs, matey”) we looked at road cuts through recent and old lahar material, through pyroclastic strata, and more (as we did at the others where such could be found) and it was striking how different the St. Helens lahar deposits were due to their thickness. But that very thickness pointed to why they can’t be compared to the Grand Canyon: it was plain to see that there is nothing in the Grand Canyon (visited during Spring break as a project) that really matches those lahar deposits since the GC has volcanic strata intermingled with different types of sedimentary strata – indeed layers of all three types, igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary (as opposed to ignominious, metaphoric, and sedentary) all occur. Something YECists ignore is that crystals in the different types of layers behave differently, and those differences establish beyond doubt that the formations in the GC date back at least a few million years (crystal formation can give an age to a layer; add the layers up and the result is no less than several million years); then in turn the time needed to erode each type can be calculated in succession* and that time added on, which adds at a minimum tens of millions of years.
As a conservative Baptist pastor on the project trip visiting the GC observed, “God is a meticulous and extremely patient artist!” with an added comment that the next time you think you are a patient person, compare that to God watching His Grand Canyon develop over millions of years.
. * the age of the GC cannot be calculated in linear fashion because the different rock types were eroded at different rates; for a true age computer modelling is needed
Mt. St. Helens herself “presents yet another unanswerable conundrum for YEC” – it’s only by ignoring 98% of the data the mountain provides that anything is useful to them.
That explains a lot. You don’t seem to understand the difference between fiction and science.
You have yet to supply this evidence. You have pointed to lahars cutting through loose ash beds as if that can explain the erosion of unfractured, hard granite. That fails instantly.
Now you cite a fictional movie with no basis in science. Do we need to go over the problems with that claim?
So what is the evidence supporting YEC as it relates to Yosemite?
The left side of the photo is important here, which I am assuming is El Capitan. That’s 3,000 feet of eroded unfractured granite, one of the hardest rocks there is (not loose ash beds). One side of this mountain was eroded away, and not only eroded but polished. Even YEC organizations, like Answers in Genesis and ICR, agree with the conclusion that the Yosemite valley was carved out by glaciers.
IIRC most of my half day was spent hiking a trail that switchbacked the way up the tree-covered slope on the left. I didn’t quite reach the rocky area above the trees before I realized I needed to get back on the road if I was to make a later connection.
The time it took to carve out Yosemite granite by glaciers cannot be fit into YEC timelines, but the geological formation itself is of course much older. Unlike volcanic eruptions such as Mt. St. Helens, granite forms from the slow cooling of confined magma underground. While this takes a long time, repeated cross cutting intrusions of magma indicate a very extended epochal history.
The map reveals a complex intrusive history involving eight distinct and overlapping intrusive episodes.
…Geologic map of the southeast face of El Capitan. … Age relations were determined from crosscutting relations and confirmed with geochronology.
…New U-Pb zircon geochronologic data (laser ablation and isotope dilution) demonstrate assembly of the El Capitan Granite and diorites of the Rockslides and North America between ca. 106 and 103 Ma.
Granite is an intrusive igneous rock, which means it crystallized from molten rock, called magma, miles underground. At these depths, magma is insulated by the rocks around it and cools very slowly, growing large interlocking crystals.
This process of multiple pulses of magma is responsible for the many different types of granite seen in Yosemite today with most of the granitic rock forming between 105-85 million years ago. Once subduction ended, the volcanoes and metamorphic rocks were eroded away between 85-15 million years ago, revealing the granitic rock beneath.
I am sure that if pressured, young earth creationists will come up with a contrived, maybe not entirely impossible but implausible scenario for the formation of Yosemite that requires so many figurative epicycles that the only reason to prefer it to the consensus view is that you want to be believe in young earth creationism. This makes it ironic that I have read articles where young earth creationists accuse scientists of adding “evolutionary” epicycles to save their theories. Of course they don’t explain what these epicycles are. At least Ptolemy was just working with the data that he had and not trying to force-fit the evidence into a pre-existing ideology, well not in the same deliberate way at least.
I remember playing with epicycles in a university course, down into epi-epi- and epi-epi-epi-cycles in some instances since circular motion doesn’t survive gravitational perturbations.
Then came ellipses . . . and a few weird theological attempts to justify why ellipses and not circles (Adam might get a kick out of my favorite: that God is the origin of the visible focus and Satan the origin of the invisible one, an idea put forth by someone who insisted that only circles counted as perfection).
I often employ the Memory Wipe test in situations like these. If all of humanity’s memories were wiped and all books and knowledge were wiped from the face of the Earth (including all religious scriptures) what evidence could we discover in Yosemite that would point to its rapid and recent formation? Why would we ever suspect this?
From where I sit, we could rediscover all of the evidence we currently have with respect to Yosemite, past ice ages, their geologic and temporal extent, etc. I don’t see any evidence presented by YEC’s that would point to a recent and rapid formation.
Really! I think by modeling, you mean a using a computer model, as of course, trying to make an actual worldwide model is above the skills of even the cleverest deep time advocate.
Well, Michael Oard has used and developed computer models. If you read his actual research, you would know that. He spends 40 to 60 hours per week researching, including reading the more than than 30 journals that he subscribes to in related subject areas such as geology and meteorology.
Of course, you are free to disagree with his hypotheses and conclusions, but to dismiss his as uniformed or thoughtless is unwarranted.
[It turns out the webpage I found was not written by Oard, but merely cites him. My mistake. Please ignore the direct criticism of Oard not knowing the field, but the general criticisms still apply to the webpage linked below.]
I’m reading through Oard’s page on the Yosemite valley, and I’m not very impressed. For example:
This makes no sense. Why would the observation of retreating glaciers point to a recent global flood? Can you make sense of this?
Then there is this:
If Oard is as aware of current science as you claim, then how does he not know about Milankovitch cycles, the mechanism put forward for explaining glaciation cycles?
I’m not even close to an expert in the field, and I know about this stuff.
My purpose in posting on this conversation is not because I entertain a delusion that any minds will be changed about young earth v. old earth. I have no expectation of agreement. But I hope that we can reach a more respectful and less dismissive understanding of each others’ positions.
If the glaciers in the mountains are remnants of an ice age, and they still exist but are rapidly retreating, it reasonably follows that the ice age was not that long ago. (It was also surprising that glaciers have reformed on Mt. St. Helens post eruption, for whatever that tells us.)
You assume that YEC advocates are unaware of the research on Milankovitch cycles. They are, but find it unconvincing, inadequate to explain the beginning of ice ages.
It would be good for you to read it. At least it will disabuse you of the idea that his is clueless. There are other articles on this same topic at this same website. As the Good Book says, it is wise to listen to both sides before coming to a conclusion. Oard lists six problems he finds with the hypothesis that the Milankovitch cycle can explain ice ages starting. As I noted, he references standard journals in coming to his conclusion–so far from clueless.
So like you, I am not an expert. If you read the article, even if you disagree with his conclusion, you will know that he at least understands the issue in depth.
Here is a quote from Dr. Chris Ashley, given in a university lecture in 2015:
Joseph: So what caused the Ice Age?
Dr. Chris: When you find out, let me know.
Joseph: You mean you don’t know.
Dr. Chris: I mean that there isn’t a single scientist or climatologist alive today who knows the answer. They may try and give an explanation using the position of the Earth, its rotation, distance from the sun, and so on. But the reality is that none of them hold up to scrutiny. The cause of multiple ice ages evident in Earth’s history is the greatest mystery in science today.
Well, the necessary conditions are easy to identify.
Much cooler summers
Much more precipitation falling as snow in the upper northern latitudes
Persistent climate change for many years
Is there an event that would create these conditions? Michael Oard argues “yes” – the Global Flood. Again, I don’t want to argue that. I would only regurgitate what Oard and others say.
Again, my goal is not agreement but understanding. Don’t dismiss it as nonsense, particularly until you read his work. Read what he has to say, and interact with that. Even if you disagree with his hypothesis, you will at least find that his conclusions are a result of a great deal of research and thought which includes understanding of competing hypotheses.
Flat Earthers are unconvinced that the Earth is a globe.
Why do we see YECs use this argument so often? Do they think scientific theories are thrown out if someone refuses to accept them?
The core issue here is that there isn’t enough time in the YEC timeline to produce what we see. You first have to create the miles thick ice shield that covers large parts of a continent, enough to lower ocean levels by over 100 meters. You then need this slow moving glacier to remove massive amounts of material, something that is not seen anywhere in nature.
Again, I harbor no delusions about OE and YE advocates coming to agreement. But I hope to foster some reasonable understanding.
Everyone has the same evidence available. Two issues here. When Old Earth advocates see the evidence, understandably they interpret it from their old earth viewpoint and see evidence for an old earth. When young earthers look at the same data, the also see it through the lens of young earth creation and may see evidence for a young earth.
First, we all should recognize that the data may be consistent with more than one explanation. So it is not necessarily, “Hurrah, here’s one for the OE team. This data fits with the OE view, so is proof for OE, and proof that YE is false.” The data may also be consistent with YE and other viewpoints as well, when put through the lenses of these adherents. Even if it fits into an OE viewpoint, it may equally or even better fit into a YE or other viewpoints. Second, YE may find that the evidence claimed to be “proof” for an OE is nothing of the sort and visa versa. And of course, OE may still disagree with YE as to whether this is the case or not.
Let’s take a few examples from this discussion. I don’t think you are claiming that tree rings demonstrate 50,000 years. If so, I’d like to see where you find that evidence.
So we have what is claimed to be annual rings, and as it was pointed out, there may occasionally be years were there are no rings. A more accurate designation may be “growth rings.”
For the Bristlecone Pine, 10,000 years of growth rings have been claimed. This does not come from any one tree, but by trying to match rings from a live tree with those of a nearby dead tree. First, this can introduce subjectivity. But second, and more important, research has found that particularly in areas with severe climate such as where the Bristlecone grows, there may be several growth rings per year. A little rain can come, and growth increases, then stops, forming a ring. This can happen several times in a year. So growth rings are not annual rings that can tell us the age of the tree. The tree could be older or younger than the number of growth rings. It isn’t definitive proof for either OE or YE.
Next, let’s address what we learn from Mount St. Helens. Creation scientists continue to use Mt. St. Helens as a living laboratory in miniature to study the devastating effects of events like the global flood and the Earth’s rapid recovery.
It is a monument to catastrophe. We use it as a scale model of the world God destroyed and reformed as a result of the Global Flood of Noah’s time.
Here is what we (YE) have observed–the data that is accessible to everyone:
Rapid laying down of laminae and strata formation
Rapid erosion of canyons up to 140 feet deep
Rapid burial of peat
Rapid glacier formation
Rapid rock slab growth in the lava dome
Rapid lava cooling that makes rock that appears to date to millions of years old using K-Ar measurements.
Rapid recovery of the ecosystem.
I think it is fair to say that much of this was unexpected by conventional, generally uniformitarian geologists–but not unexpected by YE or flood geologists.
Now when a YE geologist says that this is a miniature of the Grand Canyon, remember that YEC holds that most if not all the layers of sediment in the Grand Canyon were laid down during the global flood, so the receding flood waters were eroding still soft unconsolidated sediments, not consolidated sediments. You may disagree–OE almost certainly disagrees. But we are working toward understanding, not agreement.
Now I am not suggesting we discuss that, as no one is likely to change their viewpoint on the age of the earth from this discussion. It is just to clarify the YEC view. Some in this discussion seem to think that YEC is claiming that the receding flood waters cut through hard consolidated sediments and rock layers in the Grand Canyon, and that the events following the Mount St. Helens eruption shed no light on that. That is not the YEC claim. The YEC claim is that the eroded sediments of the Grand Canyon were still soft, similar to the eroded sediments of the Little Grand Canyon.
Finally, let’s talk about the Great Missoula Flood, also called the Giga Flood. As Adam mentioned, J. Harlan Bretz identified the Washington scablands and the Columbia Gorge as being carved out by a glacial flood (with the Columbia River already there). The source of the water for the flood was later identified to be from glacial Lake Missoula when the ice dam holding the melted glacial water back failed. As Adam noted, Bretz, not a creationist, was roundly denounced as promoting false science that could give comfort to flood geologists. Yet those “refuting” him never even looked at the evidence.
Late in his life, Bretz was exonerated as younger geologists were willing to look, and as aerial views made the evidence even more clear. Well, since then several or even many floods have been postulated. In other words, the claim is that ice lobe grew back, and glacial lake Missoula formed again, and again–and again and . . . Well, PhD students are obligated to come up with something new to write about for their dissertation. (Please excuse my skepticism.)
So perhaps there were a few smaller floods. But there is a consensus that there was one Great Missoula Flood or Giga Flood, as the evidence is unavoidable. Apparently west of Portland, the Columbia River was blocked by ice, so the water backed up far into the Willamette Valley and the Vancouver Plain. We know this because there are erratic boulders transported on ice rafts, some weighing many tons dropped many miles up the Willamette and Sandy Rivers, and into the Vancouver Plain. We can see hundreds of these erratics in one of the parks we walk in, which is about 350 feet above the level of the Columbia River. They are called erratic because the rock is not native to this area, but has been transported here on ice rafts.
From both the Missoula Lake shoreline evidence, and the amount of area flooded when the dam broke, it is estimated that the equivalent of double the water contained in Lake Erie flooded down the Columbia in 48 hours, creating a flow of water greater than all the rivers of the world combined for that short period of time. This one flood is credited with the creation of the eastern Washington scablands and most of the formation of the Columbia River Gorge, irrespective of how many other lesser floods there were.
Now rest easy. This is not just a YEC interpretation of what happened, although it would be factual even if no one else agreed. But this is the consensus of the standard geological community as well. If you go to the US Forest Service visitors center at Multnomah Falls up the Gorge from our home, its display also tells visitors of the Great Missoula flood that carved out the Gorge in 48 hours.
The bottom line is that it didn’t take millions of years and a river to form the gorge. A lot of water and 48 hours can do a lot of geological work. There are also multiple lines of evidence that suggest that the receding waters of a huge flood also carved out the Grand Canyon–lots of water and a little time, not millions of years and a relatively small river.
There is also the issue of quartzite rocks and boulders that have travelled hundreds of miles by water from the Rocky Mountains both east and west, deposited over thousands of square miles, more evidence of a huge flood to discuss another day.
Again, we don’t need to discuss all these issues in this forum. My point is not that we can reach agreement, but at least a better understanding of each others positions and represent them accurately.
When a person disagrees with you, you consider it moral failure. And of course, this places you firmly on the moral high ground. This is the kind of response and attitude that makes it generally futile and worthless to discuss on this forum. I can understand how you may hold firmly to your position. But you fail to see how you can graciously consider that thoughtful and reasonable people might come to differing conclusions.
Actually, the data doesn’t agree or disagree. It is your interpretation of the data that disagrees. That is a very important distinction. Data has nothing to say; the interpreters of the data say it all.
And to say that the US Geological Survey disagrees is the logical fallacy of an appeal to authority. But note that the US Geological Survey also agrees that during the Great Missoula Flood a great deal of geological work was done by a lot of water in a little time–48 hours.
So you also seem to agree that the present is not the key to the past. Perhaps the past is the key to the present.
