russ
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Pseudo-science in action: A visit to the Institute for Creation Research, #5
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May 23 01:10 UTC 1998 |
From: bartelt@eureka.edu
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.skeptic,sci.archaeology
Subject: A Visit to the ICR, Part 5
Date: 21 May 1998 10:20:00 -0400
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A VISIT TO THE ICR, PART 5: AFTER THE FLOOD; THE REALITY OF THE FLOOD
When was the Flood? What evidence does the ICR supply to
substantiate the reality of the Flood? Although the ICR's
Museum of Creation and Earth History had a model of the Ark and
a large display, I did not see a date or a range of dates for
this significant event. Another museum display did allude to
time: "If the geneologies of Genesis 5 and 11 are taken
literally, the Creation must have been realtively recent, about
6000 to 10,000 years ago. There are no firmly documented
historical accounts older than this." ICR founder Henry Morris
favors a creation date of about 6000 years ago, and a Flood 1656
years later, or about 2350 BC (1993). In his recent expose of
creationist geology, Donald Wise put the Flood date somewhat
earlier, ca 2500 BC (1998). The book of Genesis indicates that
the Flood lasted one year.
By making the *assumption* that the geneologies of Genesis are
accurate, the ICR is forced to explain many geologic features as
having occurred during the Flood or shortly after the Flood:
"Although the main Flood effects were produced in one year, the
after-effects continued for centuries. Some of these give
further evidence of its actual historicity." The problems
associated with a global flood have been treated elsewhere (Wise
1998, Isaak 1998, Morton, 1996). This posting will deal only
with some ICR statements concerning post-Flood catastrophism,
and the quality of their supporting evidence. (All quotations
attributed to the ICR are from photographs taken at the museum
in January, 1998).
ICR: "Gradual draining of the floodwaters into expanding oceans,
leaving high beaches and terraces around lakes and rivers
everywhere. In some areas drainage occurred very rapidly,
causing extensive erosion."
This statement possibly refers to terraces such as those seen
near Missoula, MT, which conventional geologists consider to be
evidence of an enormous glacial lake which existed around 15,000
years ago. This lake, known as Glacial Lake Missoula, drained
catastrophically, causing the "Spokane Floods" which sent walls
of water into eastern Washington and scoured out the Channelled
Scablands. So far this is evidence that seems to be in complete
accord with the ICR's description above. However, the
draining of Lake Missoula created many muddy, short-lived lakes,
and "Geologists working in eastern Washington have found as
many as 41 layers of sediment laid down one upon the other in
places that held temporary lakes during the Spokane floods.
They record at least 41 Spokane floods (Alt and Hyndman, 1986)"
over a period of about 1000 years. When one looks at the data
in greater detail, attributing these features to the aftermath
of a global flood becomes problematic.
ICR: "Gradual drying out of formerly well-watered regions
leaving evidence of post-Flood civilizations, vegetation and and
drainage in present deserts of the world."
Various young-earth creationists have proposed that during the
Flood year thousands of meters of sediment were deposited, the
Mt. Ararat volcano formed and rose 7000 feet, basaltic ocean
crust formed at an incredible rate, fountains of the deep
gushed floodwater, and all life was destroyed (See Isaak, 1998,
for an excellent summary). How, pray tell, would one would
even *recognize* "formerly well-watered regions"? Even if this
were somehow possible, the presence of "post-Flood
civilizations, vegetation and and drainage" in desert areas is
better evidence of climate change than of a flood.
ICR: "Continued local floods, earth movements, and volcanic
activity, leaving extensive recent fossil sites, lava beds,
river gravels, etc."
Again, immense destruction is implied here. This poses an
interesting question: Genesis 2:14 specifically names two
rivers that are easily located today: the Tigris and the
Euphrates. Are we to presume that the fountains of the deep
blew, the vapor canopy collapsed, the oceans heated up, there
was runaway plate tectonics, new ocean basins formed, massive
amounts of sediment were deposited, and then when everything
settled down, the Tigris and Euphrates just plopped back into
their original river valleys?
ICR: "Development of continental glaciers and glacial erosion"
Because the evidence for glaciation is overwhelming, the ICR is
forced to cram an ice age into the 500 years or so after the
Flood (Wise, 1998). Most geologists assert that there is
ample evidence of 10-11 advances and retreats of glacial ice
during the Pleistocene (ca 1.6 million years ago ---> ca 11,000
years ago), but the ICR dismisses all of this evidence as
belonging to a single post-Flood ice age. What is problematic
for the ICR is the ample evidence of numerous *other* older
glaciations. The Gowganda Formation (found in Northern Michigan)
is Proterozoic (considered to be between 2.1 and 2.6 billion
years old by conventional geologists; most Proterozoic strata
are considered to be "pre-Flood" by young-earth creationists).
It consists of varved mudstones and tillites (glacial deposits),
and the larger rocks contain the scratches which substantiate
glacial motion. Throw out radiometric dating -- how would the
ICR explain the presence of *glaciers* during the warm "pre-
Flood" era? Glaciers are also evident in the late Paleozoic --
the Pennsylvanian and Permian -- with glacial striations and
tillites occurring on bedrock in South America, Africa,
Australia, Antarctica, and India (Levin, 1996). In the Grand
Canyon, Permian and Pennsylvanian strata are considered by the
ICR to have been deposited during the Flood. How could there
have been moving glaciers *during* a world-wide flood?
Ice cores provide valuable evidence concerning the duration of
ice ages. Wise (1998) describes ice cores in excess of 100,000
years old, and the presence, in Antarctic ice, of at least
30,000 "summer and winter bands". Brinkman (1995) details the
numerous methods used to date ice cores, and describes in depth
the *ten* independent methods used to date the Antarctic Vostok
ice core at 160,000 + 15,000 years.
The ICR explains ice core data as follows: "Cylindrical Ice
Cores contain dark/light layers. Near the surface they are
'annual', and can be calibrated by known events for a few
thousand (?) years. At depth, the layers thin and disappear.
Dating efforts rely on concentrations of 18O, volcanic gases and
particulates, flow modeling, et cetera. If the environment has
been constant throughout the past, *these data would represent
over 100,000 years of history* (Emphasis mine). But if Noah's
Flood is true history, more snowfall and volcanism would follow
the Flood, and unusual variations in 18O, volcanic gases, and
particulates would be expected. The deep layers may thus
reflect intense, individual post-Flood episodes and eruptions,
not annual cycles."
Note the circular reasoning here: Proceed from the literalist
interpretation of Noah's Flood as "true history", and ignore the
ice core data that exists. Ignore the fact that at least
30,000 of these annual cycles have been counted (and did not
"thin and disappear"), and that ten independent dating methods
place the base of an Antarctic ice core at around 160,000 years.
What about the Flood? Do mainstream geologists just blow it off
as religious dogma? Hardly. There is abundant evidence of a
major flood in the Tigris-Euphrates valley ca 2800 BC (Asimov,
1991). "At Ur there is a ten-foot deposit of sand and silt.
Immediately below the flood deposit, the strata contain a
characteristic form of pottery that enables comparison with that
found at other sites. The pottery is dated to around 3000 BC.
*Above the flood deposit there is evidence of human activity
being resumed along lines similar to that of the civilization
that existed before.* (Emphasis mine)(Officer and Page 1993)."
The Sumerian flood story predates the Hebrew flood tale by a
thousand years and is closely mirrored by the story in Genesis.
I would encourage anyone interested to look at this story in
translation (eg Rosenburg 1988) and compare it to the Noah story
in Genesis. More recently, evidence of a monumental flood into
the Black Sea ca 7000 years ago has been reported (Mestel, 1997).
While there is abundant evidence of a regional flood which may
account for the story of the flood of Noah, there is no
geologic support for worldwide flood 6-10,000 years ago.
Ignoring geologic data, misinterpreting geologic data, or
torturing geologic data to fit a literal interpretation of
Genesis will not make it so.
REFERENCES
1. Alt, D and Hyndman, D. Roadside Geology of Montana.
Missoula, MT: Mountain Press, 1986.
2. Asimov, I. March of the Millenia. NY: Walker and Company,
1991.
3. Brinkman, M. The Talk.Origins Archive 1998; Available from
<http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/icecores.html> Accessed 5-6-98.
4. Isaak, M. Problems with a Global Flood. The Talk.Origins
Archive 1998; Available from <http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs
/faq-noahs-ark.html> Accessed 5-6-98.
5. Levin, H. The Earth Through Time, 5 Ed. Fort Worth TX:
Saunders College Publishing, 1996, pp 106-108, 420.
6. Mestel, R. Noah's Flood, New Scientist 1997; 14 Oct: 24-27.
7. Morris, H. Biblical Creationism. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Books, 1993.
8. Morton, G. The Geologic Column and its Implications to the
Flood, 1996. Available from: <http://www.isource.net/
~grmorton/geo.htm> Accessed 4-9-98.
9. Officer, C. and Page, J. Tales of the Earth. NY: Oxford
University Press, 1993.
10. Rosenburg, D. World Mythology.Lincolnwood: National
Textbook, 1988.
11. Wise, D. Creationist Geologic Time Scale: an attack
strategy for the sciences, 1998. Available from:
<http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/wise.htm> Accessed 5-14-98.
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response 4 of 8:
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Feb 12 01:32 UTC 2002 |
"Many parts have been proven right, and little if any scientifically
proven wrong" is not a very meaningful thing to say about millenia-
old written material. Off the top of my head, i'd say that it's true
of traditional Roman, Greek, Jewish, Egyptian, Indian (Hindu), and
Sumerian religions...which disagree with each other on all sorts of
basic things.
If the Bible's world-wide flood happened, then God or some being(s) with
god-like powers went over the Earth with a fine-tooth comb afterward,
carefully erasing virtually all the evidence. This issue of changing
the evidence that the scientists are now examining cuts into the guts
of all arguments about proving God/religion/etc. from Biblical account
of miraculous events or the inability of scientists to prove such
accounts wrong:
- Assume that every Biblical account of miraculous events, revelations,
etc. is as accurate as humanly possible an account of what that
Biblical writer experienced, believed, etc.
- Assume that Science is perfectly happy with various & sundry beings
with super-human to omnipotent power existing, hanging around the
Earth, meddling in local affairs, etc.
Now ask - what about these assumptions contradicts the theory that some
being, super-human but vastly less powerful than the traditional
Biblical God (we'll call him PuppetMaster), didn't fake the events,
revelations, etc. recorded in the Bible for his own amusement? Is
there any way for any human, no matter how devout, wise, prayerful,
scientific, etc. to draw any valid conclusions whatever on whether
any Bible-based religion is valid vs. just a part of PuppetMaster's
fakery?
Any real believer, can, of course, fall back, say "I believe...", and "I
experience...", and science *can* prove him right on those points, same as
it can prove that chocolate (for example) is his favorite flavor of ice
cream. Traditional, intolerant, theological religion does not want this
kind of scientific proof, of course, because it works just as well for
the devout Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. who prefer butter pecan ice cream.
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russ
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response 7 of 8:
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Feb 15 06:29 UTC 2002 |
Re #5:
1.) Rhine has never been credited as doing science of a grade
equivalent to a double-blind drug test, AFAIK. I've seen
numerous articles picking on his methodological errors. I
think it's a mistake to call him a scientist in this context.
2.) Scientists will be the first to tell you that you cannot prove
a negative, so they cannot disprove the existence of God. They
will only tell you "I have no need of that hypothesis."
3.) Why couldn't it all have come from nowhere? There is negative
(gravitational) as well as positive energy. If the positives
and negatives balance, the total amount of mass-energy in the
universe is zero and it doesn't have to have come from anywhere.
By Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the lifespan of a fluctuation
with zero net energy is allowed to be infinite.
And regarding your laughable characterization of science and scientists,
allow me a quote from an item posted elsewhere:
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Two things are certain about science. It does not stand still for long,
and it is never boring. Oh, among some poor souls, including even
intellectuals in fields of high scholarship, science is frequently
misperceived. Many see it as only a body of facts, promulgated from
on high in musty, unintelligible textbooks, a collection of unchanging
precepts defended with authoritarian vigor. Others view it as nothing
but a cold, dry narrow, plodding, rule-bound process -- the scientific
method: hidebound, linear, and left brained.
These people are the victims of their own stereotypes. They are
destined to view the world of science with a set of blinders. They
know nothing of the tumult, cacophony, rambunctiousness, and
tendentiousness of the actual scientific process, let alone the
creativity, passion, and joy of discovery. And they are likely to
know little of the continual procession of new insights and discoveries
that every day, in some way, change our view (if not theirs) of the
natural world.
-- Kendrick Frazier, "The Year in Science: An Overview," in
1988 Yearbook of Science and the Future, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
If you really think "Scientist [sic] simply repeat the same experiment over
and over", you have obviously spent about as much time examining science as
the typical Christian fundamentalist has spent analyzing the Harry Potter
series for its alleged moral flaws. And your grammar stinks, too.
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