Lyell was one of the first to urge a non-flood, long-age view of the geologic column. By contrast, Adam Sedgwick was the last of major geologists to punt on the flood interpretation. In his address as outgoing president of the Geological Society of London in 1831, he said in part:
Bearing upon this difficult question, there is, I think, one great negative conclusion now incontestably established -- that the vast masses of diluvial gravel, scattered almost over the surface of the earth, do not belong to one violent and transitory period. It was indeed a most unwarranted conclusion, when we assumed the contemporaneity of all the superficial gravel on the earth. We saw the clearest traces of diluvial action, and we had, in our sacred histories, the record of a general deluge. On this double testimony it was, that we gave a unity to a vast succession of phenomena, not one of which we perfectly comprehended, and under the name diluvium, classed them all together.But even on this thread we see those who, confronted with a conclusion from the evidence of the world, consult scripture and ask who that evidence might be calling a liar.To seek the light of physical truth by reasoning of this kind, is, in the language of Bacon, to seek the living among the dead, and will ever end in erroneous induction.
Its amazing. A complete divorce from reality.
How do these guys survive in the real world?