So when conventional science changes, it is to be commended for correcting itself.
When young earth science corrects itself, it is “changing its tune.” Biases on display?
Really? Rapid sorting and layering of sediment is an understanding of geology that has been held for decades? So now it is possible to interpret megasequences in the Grand Canyon, some of which are continent spanning, as being laid down by rapidly moving currents, perhaps in days or months or even years as opposed to millions of years?
And I think I see a tacit admission that standard geology has moved away from near complete geological uniformitarianism --“the present is the key to the past”–and now incorporate some catastrophic geological processes in their explanations. This is of course without any acknowledgement that flood geologists saw evidence for geological catastrophism all along.
If there was any such thing as “young earth science”, sure – but I have yet to find a YEC organization that actually does science, or that when it attempts to doesn’t engage in misrepresentation and other forms of lying.
Yes, it has.
Laid down, yes; eroded, no. A canyon that deep with the slopes on the canyon sides that was cut through soft sediments is contrary to physics.
That’s what happens when you don’t do science but instead grab at ad hoc solutions to fit scenarios that are kept separate from anything else.
Um, what? Catastrophic geological processes have been included for most of a century.
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Depends on what you mean by “rather gradually.” The iron age began sometime between 1100 and 1200 BCE. By King David’s time, smelting iron was widely known. Thus, a reasonable defense of a 6000-10000 year old earth would have to explain how smelting iron, a technology not known prior to 1200 BCE came about.
I made this post largely because YACs cite the Bible as their source (generational ages, length of the 6 days of creation, etc). Well, Genesis 4:22 says Tubal-cain, two generations removed from Adam, was smelting iron. Anyway, if Tubal-cain was smelting iron at say 1300 BCE then:
From Adam to Abraham:
- From Adam to Noah: 1,056 years.
- From Noah to Abraham: Approximately 292 years.
Adding these together gives us roughly 1,348 years from Adam to the birth of Abraham.
From Abraham to David:
- From Abraham to Jacob’s birth: 160 years.
- From Jacob to the Exodus: Approximately 220 years.
- Egyptian bondage: 430 years.
- From Exodus to David’s reign: Approximately 480 years.
Adding these together gives us roughly 1,290 years from Abraham to the start of David’s reign.
Combined Timeline:
Combining the two periods (Adam to Abraham and Abraham to David): 1,348 years (Adam to Abraham) + 1,290 years (Abraham to David) = 2,638 years.
Historical Context:
If Tubal-cain was smelting iron around 1300 BCE, then This places the Great Flood at around 300 BCE.
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This was likely a reference to iron from Meteors. This source of iron was very rare and used principally for small baubles, the occasional knife, and so forth. Meteoric iron was not used for large iron implements such as pick axes, plows, and so forth. However, working with meteoric iron didn’t require the heat required by smelting. A Blacksmith/forger could shape it by hammering (even though it was harder that wrought iron).
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Nope.
Sequence stratigraphy has absolutely nothing to do with catastrophic floods or tsunami’s, and involves the migrations of shoreline patterns and fluvial action as relative ocean levels ingress and regress with climate and geological change.
Nobody is working to prove a long established fact like the Grand Canyon is ancient. The strata of the Grand Canyon is a result of millions of years, but the real interest is not just how old the formations are, but the details of the processes and environment over that time. The different characteristics relate to oxidation and reduction, erosion, ocean level changes, climate, and gradual processes punctuated by dikes and intrusions.
It would be a boring novel which read “James was born in 1805 and lived for 76 years. The end.” We want to know the details of the story.
You can find an in depth treatment by searching for and studying special paper 489 from the Geological Society of America - Grand Canyon Geology - Two Billion Years of Earth’s History. Or with much less effort by way of this recent overview video from Geo Girl.
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You know what directly observing processes in the present is called?
Observational science.
Geology, which by nature of the discipline deals in a great deal of historical interest, is based on what we know of experimental physics and chemistry, and rigorous measurement and observation of earth science. This observational science, aka the present, is essential in understanding geological formations which incorporate corresponding features of present processes. This is the meaning of uniformitarianism - employing observational science to inform geology as a historical science.
YEC rejects uniformitarianism, because applying observational science yields results which are wildly incompatible with a 6,000 year old earth and a flood occurring during dynastic Egypt. So both observational science and historical science cramps their style, which means there is actually no science that suits them at all. Instead…
Observational science measures radioactive half lives at billions of years?
YEC - Just make up new ones!
Observational science measures a rate of tectonic drift ranging about a couple cm per year?
YEC - Who needs observational science, lets rev those up!
…and on and on… fast limestone, faster caves, faster yet speleothems…
YEC is forever pounding the table- We love science! Observational science is wonderful! But as soon as that is applied to geology, they pronounce an anathema on uniformitarian - the very definition of which is the application of observational science to geology. But it has never been about discovery or understanding or curiosity. YEC has always been about protecting the dogma.
Mount St. Helen is a volcano. Do you really think that the idea of locally catastrophic volcano’s are some novelty in geology? Krakatoa erupted in 1883.
It is YEC that is in denial of catastrophic events in geology - that the chicxulub impact of 65 mya was responsible for a mass extinction, the contribution of volcanism in events such as the Deccan traps and the Permian extinctions, multiple ice ages and snowball earth.
Flood geologist such as Andrew Snelling and Timothy Clarey misrepresent the data, have contributed nothing, and are owed no acknowledgement.
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When creationists were shown that accelerated nuclear decay would have turned the Earth into a 22,000 degree ball of plasma, did they change their mind?
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Specific types of sediments can’t be laid down quickly in floods. For example, very fine grained sediments can’t settle out quickly, nor can limestone be quickly produced because it requires biology.
We observe catastrophic process occurring in front of us, so those catastrophic processes are part of uniformitarianism. Do you really think geologists can’t figure out that vast volcanic ash deposits happened quickly? Do you really think quickly deposited ash piles translates to other types of sediments?
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Ironworking had developed in Anatolia by about 2000 BC or so, so a few centuries to get to Philistia.
Og’s “iron bed” is probably a basalt sarcophagus, certainly not meteor iron.
Of course, there are many problems with fitting various details of Genesis with a young-earth, flood geology timeline, not to mention all the geological and archaeological issues.
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The only people I can think of who were so stubbornly strictly uniformitarian as to make this an issue were Lyell and Darwin; both of whom died over 140 years ago.
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It is true that Lyell, and many following him, were overly resistant to the idea of occasional catastrophic events outside the ordinary geological processes. But the geologically competent and honest catastrophists of the early 1800’s like Cuvier or Buckland recognized that most geological features did form under ordinary, long-term processes; catastrophes were an occasional disruption to the normal pattern. (They did have a tendency to underestimate what plain long-term processes could do.)
The Columbia River Gorge was not carved out in 48 hours. Rather, there was a huge series of catastrophic floods impacting an already-existing gorge, which had been slowly carved by the river. The glacier cut off the river, creating an ice-dammed lake. Ice is a terrible choice for dam building safety, as it can melt, float, or break. Eventually, the ice dam failed and the lake went crashing across the countryside, scouring everything in its path. But with no lake (plus the effects of advance and retreat of the glaciers due to Milankovitch cycles), the glacier was able to block up the river again and start another cycle. There is no time for that in a young-earth model. And when did the lava flows making up much of the rock scoured by the floods get deposited? There are a huge number of individual flows. In turn, those are on top of many other layers, each of which has to be formed over a certain amount of time.
Of course, present processes are not a full key to the past. But they are essential for understanding the past. The YEC rejection of the evidence for multiple ice ages is simply denial because they don’t have time for a single credible ice age, much less the huge number reflected in the geologic record. Glaciers cannot reasonably advance from Greenland to Kansas and back in 500 years like young-earthers claim. But the data clearly point to dozens of advances and retreats of glaciers across vast distances and corresponding drops and rises in sea level, also traced in changes in stable isotope ratios and fossil distributions, during the most recent set of ice ages. There is no way for YEC to explain the fossil coral reefs visible in the rocks around Miami, Florida, for example. They fall between different glacial layers. Corals take a while to grow, and sea level can’t be high enough above Miami for corals to grow there without people in the ancient Near East noticing that the coastline is flooded, if this were happening post-Flood within a young-earth timescale.
Before the most recent series of ice ages, several other ice ages can be traced in the rock record, also incompatible with young-earth and flood geology claims. No, rock slides cannot explain the evidence of multiple ice ages. Young-earth geologic claims are not alternative interpretations of the data; they are false claims in support of a modernistic misinterpretation of selected parts of the Bible.
"So when conventional science changes, it is to be commended for correcting itself.
When young earth science corrects itself, it is “changing its tune.” Biases on display?"
The difficulty is that young-earth claims rarely correct themselves; it is almost always a case of repeated corrections coming from old-earth sources. And there is almost never an admission of correction; the old argument fades into the realm of the pop YEC repertoire but no longer promoted as much by the big names. For example, the moon dust argument has faded from the big-time sources but still can be found as a YEC claim. Before it became the Ken Ham show, AiG had a list of “arguments to not use” and added moon dust to it. But they falsely claimed that this decision reflected YEC considering new evidence, when the source they cited was an old-earth publication that pointed out evidence available when the argument was first invented. Indeed, YEC generally present “My view is THE biblical approach”, not acknowledging the range of views within YEC. When I read YEC geologists, I find them to neither honestly represent the evidence nor honestly represent the views of geology and biology.
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One other problem with the Bretz floods as supporting flood geology is that they show that geologists do know what types of deposits and features are produced by a flood - and what types aren’t. A real flood must have water of a particular composition and speed; it follows basic laws of physics and chemistry. There is a problem with claiming that the flood was unimaginably violent and that it accounts for preservation of fine detail at the same time, to take one example.
Most young-earth geological claims consist of taking a geologic study or a data point and contradicting the original analysis. It’s propaganda rather than research. The only way a young-earth position can become a viable Christian option is for creation science to be honest about its difficulties and strictly reject bad arguments. The focus must be on honoring God through good work, not on propping up a particular interpretation through loud claims.
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Hear, hear!
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