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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8 responses total.

#0 reflects my opinion, that instead of it being like the movie _Waterworld_,
there was a local flood, that perhaps *looked* like the entire Earth was
flooded, as far as anyone in the area could tell, and somehow the Noah bit
mutated from stories of that event.

God is to believed in using faith as a basis.  I doubt that any religionist
will be able to prove that the flood really happened.  Many things from the
Bible have been proven true.  Little if anything has been proven untrue.  

The account of the flood (according to the Bible) was given to Moses by God.
There is no doubt in my mind that Moses existed.  The first 5 books of the
Bible are attributed to him.

Now on the American continent,  there are reports of both North and South
Amercan natives relating stories of a world wide flood.  Did they read the
Bible?  If not, then where did they get the story.  Telepathy?

About time.  Most of the scientific world works on the fact that time is
constant.  Since I don't claim to be a scientist, I can use my license to be
a free thinker.  I believe that "God" has a clock and it is constant.  It
neither speeds up nor slows down.  I believe that clock works independently
of our clock, the sun.  When our sun reaches certain areas in the universe,
it and the whole solar system can speed up or slow down.  

When a speed up or slow down occurs, it effects everything from rotations 
and vibrations to atomic decay, but all in a uniform manner.  We would be
entirely unaware of any mechanical, electrical or atomic device working en
an erratic manner.

Consider that (in the Bible) man lived to a greater age in the early periods,
than in present days.  Teh Bible refers to God shortening the days of man.
It refers to the sun moving backwards in the sky.  It refers to the sun
standing still in the sky.

Can I prove that any of the above happened including the flood?  No.  Can you
prove (even using all scientific data) that it didn't?  No.

In the above I should have said, "My theory is" instead of, I believe".

If *only* time speeded up or slowed down, then we would observe that in
changes in many physical constants, which we can measure. For example, the
atomic spectra would change if the dimensions remain constant, and we
would immediately see this as a change in the spectrum. Since this has
never been observed, scientists would say that it is up to YOU to
demonstrate that it can or has happened.

"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. 

Sounds like someone has been reading Von Donegan or whoever wrote "Chariot
of the Gods".  Interesting, but what a crackpot.  I think he manufactured his
own facts.  Or at least some of them.

Two groups of people come up with certain pieces of wisdom and expect everyone
to believe the "facts" by faith.  One group is composed of scientists.  The
other group is composed of theologians.  Statistians can prove anything to
be statically correct.  Scientist simply repeat the same experiment over and
over.  Duh.

Theologians say you can't prove God.  Accept him by faith.  When you do he
will bear witness that you are on the right track.  Since the scientist don't
believe the Theologians they get mad, shout dogma and instead of using their
time in valuable pursuits, they try to disprove The existance of God.

As a side note, Duke University had a proff named J.B. Rhine who headed up
a large study on parapsychology.   He claims to have proven that man has a
soul.  Not  a soul like the theologian would belive in, but never the less
a soul.

Personally, my interests are in discovering where the energy and matter came
form to create the universe.  Did it always exist?  If it did then my faith
takes a blow, because I always believed the old saw that "Everything has a
beginning".

Now about Rane.....I never said there was only one constant (time).  I guess
what I am getting at is the fact that all scientific observations (Except
maybe geology) have a limited time baseline.

If you placed a man on the equator, he travels at 24,000 mph.  At the same
time, another man on the North Pole travels at...what ? 0 mph?  If you were
on Alpha Centari when your long arm placed the two men in their positions,
it is a whole different ball game.  Both your point of reference and your
perspective may be different.

Change the constant to a variable in E=mcsquared and all bets are off.  In
my mind the speed of light has to be a variable.  It changes in glass. And
if light truly has mass (As in Einstiens starlight deflected by the eclipsed
sun) then the further from a large mass the faster light would go.  Or if
light was going toward a large mass would it not increase.  Admittedly a gain
in speed of 32 ft/sec2 is insignificant compared to the speed of light.  But
what actually happens in deep space.  I doubt that cosmologist have even a
clue.


Rane, I meant to say one variable (time) above.

Yes,  Rane, I know.  the speed of light is constant in glass, just different.

Your are kind of rambling in #5, so I will too:   ^}

Your charactrization of "scientists" is nearly totally incorrect.

The only thing that statisticians prove is theorems in random variables.

How is it going, discovering where mass and energy come from in the
universe? Anyway, the various inflation theories of the origin of
the universe pretty well account for the origin of matter - it began
when the universe cooled enough  for energy to recombine to matter.
Now, where all that energy came from is another issue...

I believe that the current understanding is the photons have no rest mass,
but they have plenty of energy (and momentum) in motion (at c). 

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.

I am not a scientist, un I ain't no English majer, nither.  but my life is
not in vain,  I have strucen a sore spot.  Who is Harry Potter?  A scientist?

I really don't happen to be a theologian either.  In fact I make no claims
of being anything but curious.  I am even curious about you.  As a hot
head...How do you rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10?  Don't tell me weather
you start at 1 or ten, as being a little or a lot.  Let me guess.  I can play
scientist too.  Or maybe I'll be a whether man.  Aren't there
prognosticatianns based on science.  Meet me at the science lab at 5am and
we will have this out. If you don't see me their, start without me.

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