Well, there is hardly ample proof that it took longer.
You take readings with an instrument designed to work on assumptions you can't prove to be true, then spin the results to something you want to call "evidence". The evidence is the observation - not the conclusion you reach and spin with an instrument as though the instrument buys you credibility on the assumption. Vast time is spin. The evidence is what you
wish to argue means vast time. You can't prove that unless you can prove your underlying assumptions.
The only proof you have is that we're here. We've been here a while. And in the meantime some things died and were buried in various ways. Many of you would point to the geologic column and pronounce your circular arguments about appearence of great time due to sedimentation based on layering and fossils. Problem is, fossils don't ocurr naturally. Fossils require specific conditions - rapid burial being key. A body must be well encased and protected from scavenging and from quick decay long enough for fossilization to ocurr. In flood conditions, fossils would abound. You otherwise have a great deal of explaining to do about how so many fossils exist when it rarely ocurrs today.
You could argue great time; but, that is begging the question.
There is plenty of animal life that died in the St. Helens eruption and was buried in the mudflows. I would bet that if one examined the sedimentation layers laid down in those flows, one will find modern fossils. With limited liquifaction, they may even be sorted; but, I would doubt they will be as well sorted as the ones we see today. St. Helens didn't produce a year long flood. Since St. Helens has already changed what we know with regard to a number of things (fossil forests, coal formation, rapid sedimentation and geologic formations, plantlife proliferation after the blast, etc), One can imagine that St. Helens could nearly disprove evolution all by itself. Funny how what we can observe and test seems to do that to evolution time and again.. no wonder evos need to change the meanings of things and constantly change the theory.. If it can't stand up to the observable, the only other option is to scrap it.. Hmm, what an idea.
That is quite the over simplification and misrepresentation. Great age is determined by a number of methods, all of them cross referenced and calibrated by other previously verified dating methods, all the way back to simply counting the years in varves, tree rings, and ice layers. For you to suggest that fossils are used to determine the age of the stratum they are found in and the age of the stratum is used to determine the age of the fossils is a bit on the disingenous side isn't it? Strata forms a type of 'bar code' which identifies it as belonging to a specific geologic grouping. This bar code is consistent enough to enable identification of geologic groupings even if a few 'bars' are missing as frequently occurs due to local erosion, local catastrophic events such as volcanoes, or simply did not exist.
Here is the kicker. Representative 'bar codes' are dated using a number of different methods, radiometrics being but one. After the representative stratum is dated, diagnostic fossils are determined; these are fossils which only occur in that stratum or strata. If they are found to not occur in other strata, or if they are exceedingly rare in other strata, they are used as index fossils. When a new fossil bed is opened, any diagnostic fossils found as well as the 'bar code' of the strata are used to date the open stratum. It is not alway necessary to date each and every fossil bed using more expensive methods such as radiometry.
From this you can see that the dating of fossil beds is not circular in any way, the initial dating is by proven calibrated methods.
BTW, speed of fossilization has nothing to do with it.
Problem is, fossils don't ocurr naturally. Fossils require specific conditions - rapid burial being key. A body must be well encased and protected from scavenging and from quick decay long enough for fossilization to ocurr. In flood conditions, fossils would abound.
That is only one scenario where fossilization could occur. Underwater and above ground landslides produce their own fossil beds. As has been witnessed the last few years, many things produce material slides of all types including tsunamis, heavy rains, earthquakes, melting snow, differential snowfall, volcanoes, etc., none of which require a global flood. BTW, local floods are exceedingly common in areas where ancient people lived.
Your global flood scenario would leave evidence of itself including but not limited to fossil beds containing random fossils of all types, without the sorting we see, despite the creationist attempts to skew fact.
You otherwise have a great deal of explaining to do about how so many fossils exist when it rarely ocurrs today.
Fossil beds are found in places where ancient events are mimicked by modern events. We observe events today that will result in fossil beds in the future, including massive mudslides underwater and on land. The rate of burial in the past should tend to an average that can be determined by events witnessed and relatively recent events known by their 'spoor' so to speak. I suspect that the fossils thus found are but a hint of the number of fossils produced, a number that is more reflective of the accumulation of multiple burials over great time than of a single burial event(that leaves no other evidence).
"You could argue great time; but, that is begging the question.
How is great age begging the question?
"There is plenty of animal life that died in the St. Helens eruption and was buried in the mudflows. I would bet that if one examined the sedimentation layers laid down in those flows, one will find modern fossils.
In all likelihood there will be many partially fossilized remnants, just as there would be every time a volcano erupts. What is your point here?
With limited liquifaction, they may even be sorted; but, I would doubt they will be as well sorted as the ones we see today. St. Helens didn't produce a year long flood. Since St. Helens has already changed what we know with regard to a number of things (fossil forests, coal formation, rapid sedimentation and geologic formations, plantlife proliferation after the blast, etc), One can imagine that St. Helens could nearly disprove evolution all by itself.
How has Mt. St. Helens changed any of the things you mentioned? Where is the coal formation, and the fossil forests?
You mention that a longer flood would result in sorting closer to what we find in the ancient fossil beds we dig up today. Are you saying that sorting will occur where one species is found in only one stratum, another species in a stratum separated by many other strata from the first, but a third species will straddle all strata? What possible liquefaction would cause that? Spell it out for me.
"Funny how what we can observe and test seems to do that to evolution time and again..
Funny how its only the 'creation scientists' who come to these conclusions while trying to fit the evidence to the Bible.
no wonder evos need to change the meanings of things and constantly change the theory.. If it can't stand up to the observable, the only other option is to scrap it.. Hmm, what an idea.
Why would scientists change or scrap any theory based on the ramblings of a few charlatan 'creation scientists'?