Hi CTD,

I said:



And your answer was:


Scientific methodology does not mean coming to a predetermined conclusion (that a global flood must have occurred and that the world is 6000 years old) and then wanting all the evidence to fit. You start with the available evidence and make hypotheses from that, then test the hypotheses and modify them as necessary.

If you're going to claim that something I've said is false, you need to explain why. Saying "youre wrong" doesn't count for much. We continue to ask you to define whatever creationist position you are taking here, which would include your definition of scientific methodology, but this doesn't seem to be happening.

I aksed you to define the flood layer in the geological record and your response was:



Which vaguely suggests geologists are liars but does not explain in what particular way you think they are lying. If you would like to mention a specific case, I'm sure it will not be difficult to explain to you why a certain part of the Grand Canyon is dated the way it is -- we've already had evidence of uranium and cosmogenic dating of the erosion itself, which you have not addressed other than to claim it's all lies.

You also said:



So let's consider what we would expect to find if there had been a global flood. Whatever the local conditions were, they must have included the land being covered by turbulent waters for months. Ergo, we would expect to see a large sedimentary layer around the world deposited by this flood, unless you are suggesting that there are parts of the world that the flood did not cover (which I believe is not in keeping with the story in the Bible). We expect not to see these sedimentary layers interspersed with layers such as paleosols and sand dunes from a desert environment which could not have formed underwater.

We would expect to see fossils mixed up in these layers, or at least showing some degree of hydrological sorting. And we would expect the layers themselves to by hydrologically sorted as they settled, or to show some degree of this at least.

This is, however, just what we do not see in a sedimentary layer of the geological record which should exist around the world. The points above are actually considered PRATTs now because they have been claimed by creationists so many times, and refuted by the evidence itself so many times. There is no worldwide sedimentary layer in the geological column which displays the hallmarks of a catastrophic flood. Fossils are sorted around the world according to faunal succession, which RAZD defined for you earlier, though there is evidence in places of local catastrophic floods.

An example of the entire geological column can be found in North Dakota (as well as about 30 other places in the world). The layers are incompatible with a global flood. Most had to have been deposited in still waters or on dry land through understood geological processes, and many of the sedimentary layers contain burrows of worms and other creatures. Such burrows would not exist in a rapidly-deposited layer of sediment from a flood.

So in claiming


You are spot on. There is simply no geological evidence that it occurred, and there must be if it had been a real event.



I'm sorry to have to explain this yet again, but it's up to you to explain how uranium and cosmogenic dating are wrong. Daing methods that have been tried and tested many times, in many different areas of the world, by scientists whose work is peer reviewed. And I'm sorry to say that you sitting in your armchair saying it's all lies isn't going to be enough to convince many of them that this is so. This is called denial of the evidence, or waving it away.

If I thought this way I could come here and say, "the global flood is all lies." OK, now you believe me, right? Because I said so. No? Then I guess "because I said so" isn't a very strong argument on its own is it?

And in response to:



you wrote:



Because you clearly can't. Thanks for the confirmation.



So you don't think the Grand Canyon was carved by a global flood? This would seem to contradict your comments here, though it also seems you want to keep us guessing about what your position actually is. Why is this so difficult? Here's mine. The earth is old and the Grand Canyon is old. It was not carved by a flood. Clear? Your turn now.



Though that has not stopped you from claiming that all the science we have about it is wrong.



Where are the flood sediments in the Grand Canyon then? They shouldn't be hard to spot. We need to look for a large rapidly-deposited sedimentary layer with many fossils mixed into it in no particular order, or possibly some sort of hydrological order. I can't see any evidence for this when I look at information about all of the layers there. Maybe you can help me out.

I don't know why your creationist source claims that the animal tracks in the Coconino sandstone had to have been formed underwater. First of all, it looks like his experiment did not include the turbulent water conditions that would be present in a flood and which would was the prints away. Secondly, these tracks could just as easily be formed in desert sand; here you can find a detailed explanation of this process.

In fact, attempts by geologists who have done field studies of the Grand Canyon (McKee, Brady and others) to duplicate the tracks of the Coconino sandstone indicate that dry sand would have been necessary to retain the smallest of these trackways, such as those of spiders, to the level of detail they found to possess in the CS. Brady (1939, 1947) showed that modern analogues of the Coconino invertebrate fauna failed to leave any impression in sand which was even slightly moist, but that the same animals left clear impressions in dry sand. McKee also performed a detailed study of the Coconino tracks, using a large trough and artificial sand dunes. Experiments with various vertebrates and invertebrates, using different levels of water saturation, confirmed Brady's conclusion that many of the Coconino tracks were impressed into dry, loose sand. Others appear to have been impressed upon damp substrates (see above link about undertracks).

In addition to those spider tracks, there are also scorpion tracks. Which explanation seems more likely: that they were walking around underneath the waters of a turbulent flood, or that they were walking through a desert?

What's more, you would expect to find well-defined prints up sand dunes, not down them; and you would also expect to find very few fossils in an arid desert environment. There have, though, been some trace terrestrial fossils and paleosols found in this layer. Whichever way you look at it, the evidence points to this layer as being aolian sandstone.



Catastrophic floods don't cut meanders like the one in the picture RAZD has been reminding you of. You appear to be the only one here claiming that this is an unsolved issue, yet you have not presented any evidence of your own that this kind of feature actually can be carved by a flood. Again, if you are going to claim that all scientists are wrong about this, we really need to see some evidence that this is so.

How about it?

Hint: your next post could be half the length if you had a go at leaving out all the nasty little comments and focused on presenting evidence. If I addressed creationists here the way you do evolutionists, I'd be told that I was a God-hating heathen just wanting to stir up trouble, looking for a fight, wanting to insult everyone here, etc. I wonder what makes you think you have that right, as a . . . what did Linear say, a servant of Christ?