Science Forums 2

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Shubee

Actually, I don't see anything too unbelievable in Sean D. Pitman's explanation of The Fossil Record.

Well, of course not. Unfortunately Mr. Pitman is highly selective in his choice of "examples," and if you'd like to digress into a discussion of any of his points, I guess I'd be glad to entertain you. Suffice it to say that he does not address--mostly because he is promoting "Intelligent Design" as opposed to "Young Earth Creationism"--the issue that the Great Flood theory of geologic observations relies on a stochastic process that would require physical causes for the observed ordering that are in direct contradiction with known--and reproducible--laws of hydrodynamics. How this layering occurs in perfect correlation with a variety of dating methods is at the very least--as both Craig and Freeztar have noted--many, many orders of magnitude more improbable than Evolution, and indeed, as I later stated, would really require the temporary suspension of physical laws in order to achieve.

Originally Posted by Shubee

The theory of devolution agrees with Darwin that there are living things that reproduce with variation but says that all life is spiraling downward toward extinction and death, not upward to more glorious forms of life.

The "theory of devolution" is based almost exclusively on a purposeful misinterpretation of Evolution.

Evolution DOES NOT say that the result is "ever increasing complexity" or even "improvement." "Better" is a function of the *specific environment*, and is NOT some sort of abstract truth about superiority. As the article you linked does indeed show examples of "devolution" but that is fundamentally irrelevant in either finding fault with Evolution: Evolution makes no such claim, and to use this as the basis for finding such fault is a "Straw Man Argument."

As Bob Dylan once said, "the first one now will later be last, for the times they are a changin'." Hard to come up with a *better* evolutionary explanation for the "conundrum" you are trying to show here.

Oddly enough however, calls to devolution are in fact a great argument against Creationism, since it requires an explanation for why an Intelligent Creator would cause devolution to occur. Why would urchins and starfish be punished with the removal of their brains? What did they do to deserve such treatment?

Originally Posted by Shubee

As for evidence that supports my third postulate, I'm very impressed by the utter simplicity of the observation that many petrified trees in the fossil record extend vertically through millions and millions of years of sedimentary rock.

Well, I'd encourage you to read the paper by Dr. Harold Coffin "The Yellowstone Petrified "Forests" which is cited on that page: you'll find that it really does not support the argument that such layers around petrified trees is somehow unusual, and in fact in its addendum, it shows how the process is actually being replicated in Spirit Lake near Mt. St. Helens post its 1980 erruption!

Trees fossilize, and if they are surrounded by sediment that initially develops and washes away, that paper explains why they do indeed do so in situ, thus causing "millions of years"--something that is clearly creative license with the facts--of sediment to grow around them.

This is just one of the many ways in which "mainstream" Creationist theory has distorted existing data that actually disproves what it claims to prove.

Originally Posted by Shubee

Quantum indeterminancy is only a related concept. And quantum theory does make creationism possible. Physicists already admit that a highly ordered reality can suddenly materialize out of nothingness and then become increasingly disordered and decay into inevitable extinction and non-existence.

But none of what you've stated here makes "creationism possible." All you've pointed to is the fact that yes, complex systems--with the input of large amounts of energy (to ensure no violation of the laws of Conservation of Energy)--*can*--although not always--create more complexity "out of nothing," and then yes decay just as easily.

These processes can be demonstrated with very simple--and entirely mathematical--system, that require no call to an outside, metaphysical creator: they come into existence simply based on known and quite obvious laws of mathematics.

We can get into interesting philosophical arguments about the nature of mathematics of course, and the Platonic notion of mathematical truth as transcending "physical truth" (an excellent discussion of which you will find in Chapter 1 of Roger Penrose's Road to Reality, to utilize your own reference!): Is it possible to argue that the Creator could create mathematics arbitrarily to suit Her notions of what reality should be? If not, then given that what we see is entirely explainable through abstract mathematical truth, the notion of a Creator is not only unnecessary in the sense of Occam, it is by definition unprovable!

Originally Posted by Shubee

It's not astoundingly improbable. Evolutionists readily admit to ancient catastrophes all over the planet. And geologists teach multiple mega-floods as scientific fact. I think it's highly likely that there is no clear and indisputable fact that prevents all these multiple mega-floods and fantastic catastrophes from being simultaneous events.

Well, except for that carbon-14 data....you see, in spite of calls to its "inaccuracy" you apparently missed the point: you can *ignore* its exact alignment--which can easily be explained by error ranges due to specific environmental variations for which there is no direct evidence in specific samples--but still get *relative* datings that must align. Its as simple as this: layers that are obviously undisturbed can show differences in "accuracy" that are well within statistical deviations. You do not find items that are close in undisturbed physical strata that are hundreds of thousands or millions of years apart with no obvious explanation: the trees you reference above are dated to the strata *at their roots*, not randomly assorted as one would find in a typical "catastrophe."

Simply by making calls to "obvious catastrophes" of quite small scale, you do not explain how not only there was a global catastrophe, but that it had the ability to disturb layers of geological strata that cannot be moved by any amount of water thrown at it over a space of 40 days.

My favorite theory of the Great Flood is that of a natural dam/waterfall at the Bosporous that in a very short period of time broke and inundated a then mostly dry Black Sea, for which there is some significant--although not conclusive--physical evidence. The interesting thing about this particular theory is that it well-explains the historical story, while it shows that the effects of such a hydrological inundation--while quite devastating to the local inhabitants--did almost nothing to the geological record. In fact there's little physical evidence at all!

Have you asked yourself the question: what sort of hydrological action would be *required* to cause the evidence of geological strata to exist? Those provided by sites like Answers In Genesis are unfortunately laughably incomplete and provide nothing but issue after issue with the actual data that is never addressed because, well, there's no alternative explanation that would allow such geological evidence to be created by a "really big storm."

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