Posted on 03/09/2004 4:22:00 PM PST by bondserv
Rethinking the Geological Layers 03/05/2004
One of the most formative ideas in Darwin’s intellectual journey was the concept of gradualism, the principle of “small agencies and their cumulative effects.” This idea became an overarching theme in his philosophy of life. Describing how the assumption of gradualism permeated his last book (on earthworms) shortly before his death, Janet Browne, her acclaimed biography of Darwin, writes where the idea began:
He [Darwin] believed that the natural world was the result of constantly repeated small and accumulative actions, a lesson he had first learned when reading Lyell’s Principles of Geology on board the Beagle and had put to work ever since. His interpretation of South American geology had been based on Lyell’s vision of little-and-often, and his theory of coral reefs too, each polyp building on the skeletons of other polyps, every individual contributing its remains to the growing reef. Most notably, he had applied the idea of gradual accumulative change to the origin of species, believing that the preservation of a constant process of minor adaptations in individuals would lead to the transformation of living beings. His work on barnacles, plants, and pigeons all supported the point. No one, not even Lyell himself, or any of Darwin’s closest friends and supporters, accepted as ardently as Darwin that the book of nature was about the accumulative powers of the small. 1 (Emphasis added in all quotes.)It was the record of the rocks that led to Lyell’s uniformitarian principle, and from there, Darwin extended it to all of nature. But do the rocks actually record a process of slow and gradual accumulation?
This essay presents a critique of the concept of orders in sequence stratigraphy and argues that the succession of sequences is fractal rather than a hierarchy of orders. The argument rests on four components: (1) The duration of the presumed orders varies widely, even within one publication. (2) Exposure surfaces and flooding surfaces as unit boundaries are both common in a wide range of temporal scales. (3) Extensive studies on sea-level fluctuations and sedimentation rates have shown that the principal trends of both are fractal. (4) Limited data on shelf edges that prograde and step up and down in response to sea level indicate that these traces, too, are fractal.He provides examples of discordant measurements when geologists assume the rocks represent “categories in time.” The confusion does not seem to dissipate with more examples, he says: “Moreover, the values do not seem to converge with time and improving data.” But if the size of the deposit is a fractal rather than a measure of the passage of time, it could mean that giant deposits could have been laid down in short order, provided enough material were available:
Sedimentation and erosion, the processes that are ultimately responsible for the sediment record, operate in the same fashion over a wide range of scales. It is characteristic of hydrodynamics that flow properties are largely determined by dimensionless ratios, and few characteristic scales enter in the analysis. Depositional patterns have been found to be scale invariant over a wide range of time and space.Schlagel points to examples covering a wide range of presumed depositional times, and strata that represent “energy-dissipation patterns that are scale-invariant over the range of centimeters to hundreds of kilometers.” His model allows for slow and gradual deposition as well as fast and catastrophic, of course, but he suggests it is not always easy to tell:
In many sequence data sets, the impression of a hierarchy of cycles is very strong. The model does not imply that this impression is false. It is characteristic of fractals that the same pattern is repeated at finer and finer scales. Consequently, any snapshot of the fractal taken at a certain resolution will show a superposition of coarser and finer patterns. The crucial difference to an ordered hierarchy of cycles [which he disputes] is their lack of characteristic scales. The fractal model proposed here predicts that the sequence record, like many other natural time series, has the characteristics of noise with variable persistence and thus variable predictability.He seems to be saying it will be harder to claim that a large depositional unit would have necessarily been a function of long ages. It’s just a proposal at this point, he admits: “The model is meant as a conceptual framework to steer future data analysis and to provide a basis for statistical characterization of sequences.” He only speculates about the origin of the fractal patterns. Nevertheless, this new way of looking at the rock record might cause rethinking of Lyell’s assumption that huge layers necessarily represent huge passages of time:
Stratigraphic sequences are essentially shaped by the interplay of rates of change in accommodation and rates of sediment supply.... As both rates show fractal properties, it is not surprising that the resulting sequence record inherits this attribute. At a more fundamental level, it may be the complexity of depositional systems and their tendency to evolve toward conditions of self-organized criticality that give rise to fractal features in sequence stratigraphy.The fact that Schlager’s proposal was published in the world’s leading geology journal indicates that other geologists are taking it seriously.
Although this is a technical subject for mathematically-inclined geologists, it seems to represent a daring break from conventional wisdom. Some creationist geologists have already demonstrated with experiments that layered deposits can be laid down rapidly in horizontal fashion, forming what look like fractal patterns, in one stage (see the work of Guy Berthault, for example). Similarly, fine-grained laminations have been found in thick deposits at Mt. St. Helens, where the rates of deposition were known (e.g., one day!). The old thinking was that each layer represented a long passage of time. Now, we have observed examples that this is not necessarily true.
Schlager is clearly not proposing a young-age geology; his article assumes millions of years for some deposits. Nevertheless, his model seems to reinforce the notion that a pattern in the rock layers, no matter how thick, could be a function of “rate of change in accommodation and rates of sediment supply,” not necessarily a long, gradual passage of time. In simple, creationist-geology terms, were the layers of Grand Canyon laid down by a little water over a long time, or a lot of water over a little time?
Look at the philosophical baggage that Lyell’s vision of gradualism generated. It appeared intuitively obvious to him, and then to Darwin, that the rock layers must have required many millions of years for their formation. Darwin’s philosophical voyage from Christianity to agnosticism floated on this belief, which subsequently flavored all his investigations and writings. Now we see geologists questioning the basic assumption. The Titanic had a lot of baggage, too. When the hull was breached, it no longer mattered how ornate the furnishings.
No they haven't.
(the youngest directly on the oldest,
Example and citation, please.
the oldest directly atop the youngest)
Example and citation, please.
as well as changing from one stratum to another laterally based on index fossils even though the physical stratum is undisturbed.
Example and citation, please.
No they don't.
but will accept catastrophism when it is convenient (as it happens to be when they try to explain what happened to the dinosaurs).
Yawn.
The astute reader will note that the above is a classic example of a "straw man" argument. The author misrepresents his opponents' position in a way that makes it look ridiculous, and then uses the obvious ridiculousness of that position to ridicule his opponent.
The "straw man" tactic is so called because it is similar to beating up a scarecrow dressed up to look like your opponent, rather than attempting the harder task of winning a fight with the real person.
In this case, DataMan misrepresents the degree to which "evolutionists" adhere to "uniformitarianism".
I've read the script in English translation. I will eventually see the movie.
I see nothing relevant to this debate in the story.
You missed that the death of those dinosaurs were a result of Adam's sin. All death in the universe for that matter. Jesus' death was so significant for that very reason. He righted the wrong. "It is accomplished." Death has been conquered by the sinless One for eternity for those that acknowledge Jesus Christ's sacrifice.
Eternal life or death like the dinosaurs. Everyones choice. P.S. God inhabits eternity and is perfectly Holy. We will not be physically Holy until we enter eternity (these flesh bodies will die), however we are spiritually Holy if we have fellowship with God through Jesus Christ (Our resurrected bodies will live eternally in fellowship with God).
Unbelievers resurrected bodies will die eternally separated from our masterfully intelligent, loving and creative God. Don't exist in outer darkness for eternity because you stubbornly will not commit to seeking God with all your heart in this short life.
The wages of sin is death. Without sin there is no death in God's perfect Creation. Animals can't sin, therefore evolution is not true.
I mean you no disrespect and hope that you can see my sincerity.
OK
But, has it become totally impossible for rational people to accept the POSSIBILITY (not theory or proposition, not even hide-bound certainty), that neither camp is just entirely correct?
Are we past the state in which rational people can offer and debate differing opinions?
For my part, and this will be one of my rare entries into this debate, there is no conflict other than the assinine position held by both parties that they KNOW what started the whole thing off....
No you don't...neither one of you!
(Personally, I think God kicked off the Big Bang, wrote a program that would accelerate the whole thing until it went bust, got bored, and is sitting back waiting to watch the finale while downing another Bud...then he'll do it over again, again....)
Not everyone can see the truth. More importantly Jesus personally died for your sins.
In the Atlas mountains of North Africa is a slab of rock hundreds of feet long..at a high inclination angle.
The rock has Dinosaur tracks ..they go upward the distance of the angular slab..and are easily seen..and have depth to their imprint.
Supposedly..the Atlas maountains were worn down over eons..and now these tracks are at the surface after the erosion action.
again..the tracks a clear..and uniform allong the slab.
the slab is as flat and clean as a marble face on a downtown office building.
so then.,if erosion is the action over eons..why then are the tracks so clear...should they not have been worn away by the power of what eroded the mighty Atlas mountains ?
Again..one see's the visual presentation and ponders that this cannot be countless millions of years.
Call it common sense... a thought rational the academic should get in touch with.
It also demonstrates that the geologists' understanding of the strata and index fossils *works*, and thus is valid.
Feel free to point out any "creationist theory" of geology which actually produces results good enough for a company to base their bottom line on.
It certainly does a lot more for humanity than the satisfaction obtained by geologists shuffling strata based on the fossils and then classifying the fossils based on the strata in order to piece together a geological just-so story.
Well since geologists *don't* do that sort of thing, you should be happy. Don't mistake the creationist straw man attacks for what geologists actually do.
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
Rom 5:12
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned...
Rom 8:22
22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
24 For in this hope we were saved.
Gen 8:21
21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.
Gal 3:13
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."
Rev 22:2
2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.
(emphasis mine)
Amen to *that*.
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