Grand Canyon Made By Noah's Flood, Book Says (Geologists Skewer Park For Selling Creationism)

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | January 8, 2004 | Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times

[Scenic Sounds]

How old is the Grand Canyon? Most scientists agree with the version that rangers at Grand Canyon National Park tell visitors: that the 217-mile-long chasm in northern Arizona was carved by the Colorado River 5 million to 6 million years ago.

[longshadow]

At 10 to the minus 43 seconds after the Big Bang, for instance--the so-called Planck time--the density must have been equal to the critical density to one part in 10 to the 60. If it had been ever so slightly higher, the universe would have collapsed quickly and there would have been no opportunity for life to form. On the other hand, had the density been ever so slightly smaller, the universe would have expanded rapidly and no galaxies, stars, or planets would have formed. Again, no life. Thus, life is the result of fine tuning the density of matter-energy at the Planck time to one part in 10 to the 60!8 But it was the result of an accident, eh?

Think of the odds of holding a particular shuffle of a deck of cards. There are 10 to the 70th different combinations that can occur. So is the particular combination of the shuffled deck of cards impossible? Obviously not. To quote Physicist, my legs are JUST long enough to reach the ground.

Don't forget that under the Inflationary Model of the BB, the matter/energy density of the Universe has no choice but to be the critical value, regardless of the initial density prior to the Inflationary Phase. Conservation of Energy demands it, the Inflationary model predicts it, and the W-MAP data confirms it.

[balrog666]

Don't forget that under the Inflationary Model of the BB, the matter/energy density of the Universe has no choice but to be the critical value, regardless of the initial density prior to the Inflationary Phase. Conservation of Energy demands it, the Inflationary model predicts it, and the W-MAP data confirms it.

Exactly. All possible state spaces are not equal.

[DouglasKC]

Geesh- it doesn't take much for some people to get their nose hairs in a bunch. So what if the bookstore sells one book with an "eccentric" point of view? Is it hurting anyone?

No and it's good business too. Why shutout alternate views when this view has many adherents?

[Lead Moderator]

Let's not restart things when things have been going so well around here on these threads lately. Thanks.

[AndrewC]

Thank you.

[Ichneumon]

Murray

And "O'Hair".

For what it's worth, I think she was obnoxious too.

[Ichneumon]

Let's not restart things when things have been going so well around here on these threads lately.

Thanks for noticing, and thanks for not "going nuclear" as a first option.

[VadeRetro]

Mr. Abuse Button is indeed back.

[Ichneumon]

Sorry, I just ran across it while websurfing and it seemed strangely appropriate here as a mood-lightener.

[Joshua]

"Evolution theory is about the slow change of existing living organisms over time. Creationist theory demands that new organisms be spontaneously generated. "

Creationists claim God created man from dust in one day and you think that's foolishness.

Take swamp ooze add a billion years to the equation and it becomes believable?

Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be fast at what you do...

[Virginia-American]

BMCDA posted a quotation from Linnaeus:

If I had called man an ape, or vice versa, I would have fallen under the ban of all the ecclesiastics. It may be that as a naturalist I should have done so.

I Googled the quote, and it begins:

I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character ... by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none.

Thanks.

That's really interesting. I remember a number of threads in which I or another evo (VadeRetro, IIRC) posted this link, where creationists all agree that there is nothing intermediate between apes and people, they just disagree about which is which!

It's also interesting tht Linnaeus was worried about the ecclesiastics, 80-odd years before Lyell at al proved the Earth is *much* older than a simple-minded interpretation of Genesis would imply, and more than a century before Darwin.

[Doctor Stochastic]

In that case, you may want to eschew hand grenades.

The world is divided into three types of people; those who can count, and those who cannot.

[pctech]

I also heard this was reported about the Grand Canyon on PAX TV a while back. I wondered the same thing for a number of years and I convinced this is very possible. Of course no one wants to hear about anything that confirms bibical truth so that's why it's not mainstream knowledge.

[Ichneumon]

The world is divided into three types of people; those who can count, and those who cannot.

There are 10 kinds of people. Those who can count in binary, and those who can't.

[Doctor Stochastic]

"Eins, zwei, drei, fünf," said the fearless German Sargent.

[Ichneumon]

"Coito ergo sum", said the Latin lover.

[Ichneumon]

BMCDA posted a quotation from Linnaeus: "If I had called man an ape, or vice versa, I would have fallen under the ban of all the ecclesiastics. It may be that as a naturalist I should have done so." I Googled the quote, and it begins: "I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic character ... by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself most assuredly know of none."

Thanks, I hadn't encountered that quote before, I'll add it to my collection.

If the subject matter baffles anyone, read and ponder the essay, You Are An Ape.

The point is that there isn't a single defining characteristic of the ape family that humans do not also possess. In a real taxonomic sense, we are *still* apes, just ones of the human variety. (Just as we are still primates, still mammals, and still vertebrates.)

Put another way, our differences from our ape "cousins" are ones of degree (in some cases large degree), but not of kind.

[PatrickHenry]

PatrickHenry remains aloof ...

[VadeRetro]

Just as funny, Gish claims Java Man is an ape, but Lake Turkana Boy is a modern human. In fact, they're incredibly similar in corresponding parts. (Real scientists consider them both to be one species, Homo erectus.)

In spite of this remarkable similarity, Gish continues to claim that the Java Man is an ape, while the Turkana Boy is a modern human. In his words, they are "very apelike" and "remarkably human" respectively. If a "human" and an "ape" that look almost identical aren't transitional fossils, what would be?