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.

[Virginia-American]

Discussion of the use of the word "evolution"

[PatrickHenry]

PH, I am very disturbed to find my gracious, gentlemanly, kind, long-time correspondent so given to such narrow, cheaply doctrinal, thus suffocating ideas.

Wow. I've re-read my post, and I'm having difficulty understanding how you found it so offensive. I certainly didn't intend it that way. I must be having a bad day. Please disregard my intemperate remarks. You're one of my favorites.

[Junior]

Placemarker.

[betty boop]

Dear Patrick: Please do not take my last too much to heart.

You're a favorite of mine, too.

That doesn't mean that I have the least clue about how to get you and me "on the same page."

But then I am an optimist, ever looking forward to future possibilities.

Thanks for writing, PH. All my very best to you and yours.

[CobaltBlue]

FYI - "quark" is a kind of cheese much beloved by Germans, especially German children - it's sort of a cross between cream cheese, sour cream, and creme fraiche. Very soft, spreadable, tangy. You can get it at Whole Foods, for one place. Yummy.

The name of the cheese predates the name of the particles. Now that you've explained why the particles are named quarks, this may explain why they are named "quark" instead of "ace." Gell-Mann may have been a cheese fan.

[FormerACLUmember]

Noah's Flood may have been a historical event as the great Scandinavian glaciers melted 8000 or so years ago, causing rapidly rising ocean levels. This sea water broke through the Bosphorus bottleneck and spilled into the Black Sea region where vast amounts of land were below sea level. Noah's Ark landed in Turkey near the Black Sea.

Gigantic post-Wisconsin glacial lakes existed in North America. I have often wondered what happened as these finally drained.

[ImphClinton]

Take that rock and put it under 2,000 feet of fast running water and it wont last one second. When St. Helens blew it created a 2,000 deep canyon in a few days.

Rocks going along the bottom of a large river at a fast speed do an incredible amount of wearing down in a very small amount of time.

I don't claim to know how old the Grand Canyon is but do know at some time Lake Bonniville emptied into it. This lake was hundreds of Square miles and three thousand feet deep covering much of Utah. It could have carved out the Grand Canyon all by it's self.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for all of your excellent posts! My daughter and son-in-law are on the way back home now, and I'm just now catching up with the threads.

I don't see how the mechanism of a "random walk" could at all be considered an adequate mechanism to achieve this purpose. Indeed, that which is random and that which is purposeful appear to be mutually exclusive.

I agree! It seems to me that something with a purpose - or direction - could not also be considered random.

Cellular automata and autonomous biological self-organizing complexity have direction. And I recall an article or lecture by Chaitin where he explained Wolfram's view that there is no true randomness, only psuedo-randomness because even randomness such as Chaitin's Omega is caused.

Or to look at it another way, anything in nature which appears to be random is nevertheless the effect of a cause, it has direction. Likewise, the outcome of self-organizing complexity is caused and thus, has direction. The low mutability (or lack of it) in regulatory control genes is direction. I assert that direction and causation are like two sides of the same coin.

Moreover, it is the ultimate cause - the fact that there is always a beginning - that is the poison pill for metaphysical naturalism!

Interview with Robert Jastrow

JASTROW: Oh yes, the metaphor there was that we know now that the universe had a beginning, and that all things that exist in this universe-life, planets, stars-can be traced back to that beginning, and it's a curiously theological result to come out of science. The image that I had in my mind as I wrote about this was a group of scientists and astronomers who are climbing up a range of mountain peaks and they come to the highest peak and the very top, and there they meet a band of theologians who have been sitting for centuries waiting for them.

Whether a person is a strong determinist or weak determinist, Platonist or Aristotelian – whether he appeals to creation or the anthropic principle, single universe, multiverse or ekpyrotic cosmology – there is always a beginning. Metaphysical naturalism cannot be rationalized without infinity.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." - Genesis 1:1

[Doctor Stochastic]

My point is that, increasingly, it seems that "science" wants a "clear field" unencumbered by actual historical human [not to mention equine] experience in order to make it points.

I don't have a clue what you mean by this. Scientific discourse attempts to be precise and thus uses terms in a specific but often narrow way.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Gell-Mann chose quark based on a phrase in James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake: "Three quarks for Muster Mark". He had been criticized for using the term "strangeness" for one of the quantum numbers in other contexts. Of course, quarks are now flavored top, bottom, up, down, charm, and strange. (I always preferred truth-beauty to top-bottom but it makes no difference.) Projection ordinary meanings onto these terms makes no sense but people will probably attempt to do it.

[Dataman]

let us not gloss over the fact that it is you -- an intelligence -- who sets up the random process. And presumably for a purpose.

-=sublime=-

[js1138]

Whether randomness is real or apparent appears to be an article of faith rather than a decidable fact. I believe it's turtles all the way down; there is no limit to the fineness of reality.

[js1138]

That is certainly not to say that “materialism rules.” All it says is that science has its proper domain in a larger picture, in a wider universe of meaning than science alone can describe or account for.

Science has as its domain any and all observable phenomena.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your reply and for sharing your views!

Whether randomness is real or apparent appears to be an article of faith rather than a decidable fact.

On this point, I disagree.

If this were a steady state universe or multiverse - an infinity of opportunity - then randomness in nature would be one instance of "anything that can happen will" and thus, IMHO, an article of faith as you say.

But the fact that there was a beginning - whether one is looking at a single universe (big bang/inflationary theory), a multiverse (in any of the four levels described by Tegmark) or ekpyrotic cosmology (Ovrut) - means that infinity is ruled out. Therefore, "all that there is" is the effect of cause and thus, to borrow a term from Wolfram, pseudo-random at most.

Regardless of cosmology, this universe has a beginning. To many of us, that is the most astonishing discovery in modern science because it is also somewhat a theological statement. I suspect that is why so many of the great (though atheistic) minds have tried to obfuscate the fact by appeals to imaginary time, multiverse theories, etc.

[Junior]

Actually, one story I read (and it's probably apocryphal) is that the discoverer named them quarks as a practical joke. He'd thought it be funny that physicists would have to sound like geese in heat when discussing the things.

[betty boop]

I don't have a clue what you mean by this. Scientific discourse attempts to be precise and thus uses terms in a specific but often narrow way.

LOL, Doc, but the only meaning I attach to the word "appaloosa" is: spotted horse.

I know that scientific discourse attempts to be very precise and thus "uses terms in a specific but often narrow way." I certainly don't have a problem with this.

What I do have a problem with, however, is the notion I get from many people that science is the only game in town when it comes to describing Reality. When it comes to making descriptions of physical reality, science is definitely "the tool for the job." But there are non-physical aspects of empirical reality that science simply can't get a handle on.

When people then say that if science can't access something, then it either isn't important, or even that it does not exist, that's when I start to have a problem -- not with science per se, but with the people who say and believe such silly things. FWIW.

[js1138]

But the fact that there was a beginning ...

There was a beinning o he observable universe. This sets a limit to historical inquiry, but it implies nothing about a Beginning of existence. The big bang is a horizon.

[betty boop]

Science has as its domain any and all observable phenomena.

js1138, there appear to be a plethora of "observable phenomena" that do not belong to the domain of science. For instance, human cultures and languages; social, economic, and political behavior; moral philosophy, etc., etc. These are indispensably important in human affairs -- yet science does not appear to be the proper tool for the job of explicating or describing them. We can't simply toss them out the window just because they're not amenable to experimentation according to the same methods appropriate to physical entities, can we?

[js1138]

Exactly how are they excluded from the domain of science, other than the fact that they pose extremely difficult problems? Are you asserting that hard problems are automatically excluded from science, or that problems that cannot be solved in our lifetime should not be studied?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply, js1138 and thank you for including me in your discussions, betty boop!

What I do have a problem with, however, is the notion I get from many people that science is the only game in town when it comes to describing Reality. When it comes to making descriptions of physical reality, science is definitely "the tool for the job." But there are non-physical aspects of empirical reality that science simply can't get a handle on.

So very true, betty boop! As an example, I assert js1138’s point:

This [big bang] sets a limit to historical inquiry, but it implies nothing about a Beginning of existence.

That is the point, js1138. It has become increasingly clear through science, and in particular physics, that "all that there is" is not limited to the natural, or material.

The next epistemic cut available to physics at this level is geometry - dimensionality in the form of M theory, extra spatial and temporal dimensions and the Tegmark radical Platonism, Level IV.

At this level, as in the ones which betty boop mentioned - ”human cultures and languages; social, economic, and political behavior; moral philosophy, etc., etc” - scientific materialism is constrained to speculations of epiphenomenon and measuring of such indirect physical effects. Scientific materialism does not have the power or reach to ground such speculations.