Posted on 06/14/2002 7:32:58 AM PDT by aculeus
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Professor Part of International Research Group Refuting Popular Theory
In 1996, marine geologists William Ryan and Walter Pitman published a scientifically popular hypothesis, titled Noah's Flood Hypothesis. The researchers presented evidence of a bursting flood about 7,500 years ago in what is now the Black Sea. This, some say, supports the biblical story of Noah and the flood.
But, such a forceful flood could not have taken place, says Jun Abrajano, professor of earth and environmental sciences at Rensselaer. He is part of an international team of scientists who refute the so-called Noah's Flood Hypothesis.
Abrajano cites evidence of a much more gradual rising of the Black Sea that began to occur 10,000 years ago and continued for 2,000 years.
According to the Noah's Flood Hypothesis, the Black Sea was a freshwater lake separated from the Mediterranean Sea by a narrow strip of land now broken by the Bosporus Strait. Ryan and Pittman argue that the Mediterranean broke through the land and inundated the Black Sea with more than 200 times the force of Niagara Falls. The salty powerful flood swiftly killed the freshwater mollusks in the Black Sea. This, they say, accounts for fossil remains that can be dated back 7,500 years.
Abrajano's team has challenged the theory by studying sediments from the Marmara Sea, which sits next to the Black Sea and opens into the Mediterranean.
The team found a rich mud, called sapropel in the Marmara. The mud provides evidence that there has been sustained interaction between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea for at least 10,000 years.
"For the Noah's Ark Hypothesis to be correct, one has to speculate that there was no flowing of water between the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea before the speculated great deluge," says Abrajano. "We have found this to be incorrect."
GSA (Geological Society of America) Today magazine recently published a paper in its May 2002 edition based on Abrajano's research. His research also will be published this year in Marine Geology, an international science journal.
For a map of the area go to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/maps/tu-map.jpg
This fits with what i believe as far as God's way of creating the flood.....(i believe that he used natural forces to create the flood and other things to inspire discussions just like this one, so that in the end it comes down to FAITH!!).
Before the "flood" there was no rain as we know it today according to the bible.....couple that with an ice age that science tells us ended approx. 10,000 - 7500 years ago with MANY more times the amount of ice at the poles extending much further outward into todays warmer climates....throw in your scenerio and walla.....you might have enough water to cover the earth!!!
With that said.....it may just be that God blinked and there was a world wide flood.....it ultimately comes down to FAITH!!!
Here is a brief example
"Coal: Evidence for a Young Earth"
Abstract:
Evolutionary theory requires millions of years in the formation of coal in order to afford time for the development of living organisms whose fossils are found in coal deposits. However, laboratory and field research has demonstrated that coal is formed rapidly and in vast quantities. These vast coal deposits are unsullied by other material. The conclusion is drawn that actual research indicates a young age to the Earth that contains such coalified materials.
Introduction
"If coal takes millions and millions of years of heat and pressure to form, how is it possible that creationists are teaching that the earth is only a few thousand years old?" This is a commonly asked question among individuals seeking answers about the age of the earth and the universe. Research has been done by several creation organizations, as well as independent scientists, in order to answer such questions. The evidence actually shows that coal does not take millions of years to form, as is commonly asserted. In fact, the formation of coal has been proven to be a rapid process that can be duplicated in modern laboratories in a matter of days - or even hours.
I. Rapid Formation
In order for coal to be formed, several factors must be present. Pressure, temperature, water, time, and some sort of vegetation are the key elements for the formation of coal. According to evolutionary theory, the slow accumulation and decomposition of vegetation living in past ages accounts for the coal seams. However, this theory can not answer why such large amounts of original vegetation without soil can be found in the areas that are now coal seams, or how these coal seams became so thick - some being over two hundred feet in depth.
Scientist Robert Gentry analyzed coalified wood found on the Colorado Plateau in order to determine how long it took for coal to form.1 By treating coal with epoxy and slicing it into thin sheets, Dr. Gentry was able to examine tiny, compressed radiohalos found in the coal. Radiohalos are discolorations in the coal, ejected by radioactive elements in the centers (such as uranium).
According to evolutionary theory, in order for these halos to form, several processes must have occurred. First, water-saturated logs must have been laid down in several different geologic formations, including the Triassic, Jurassic and Eocene layers. Later, uranium solutions infiltrated the water-saturated logs, and uranium decay products were collected at tiny sites within the logs. The radioactive decay from the tiny particles ejected spherical radiation damage regions around those sites, thus producing halos. Finally, a pressure event on the site of the formations compressed the logs as well as the radioactive halos within them. However, because coal is not a malleable substance, scientists know that these logs had not turned to coal at the time the compression event occurred. This points to a quick burial and coalification of the logs – rather than a long time period.2
II. Decay Ratios
When the ratio of uranium decay to its decay product (lead) is analyzed, the conclusion is drawn that all the logs within the various geologic formations were buried at the same time. The high lead-to-uranium ratios admit the possibility that both the initial uranium infiltration and the coalification could possibly have occurred within the past several thousand years.3
III. Polystrate Fossils
The presence of "polystrate" trees (trees petrified or coalified in an upright position) point to a rapid coalification process. One of the most commonly known polystrate trees is found at Katherine Hill Bay, Australia. This fossilized tree can be seen extending over twelve feet, through several sedimentary layers. According to evolutionary theory the different sedimentary layers took hundreds of thousands of years to accumulate. However, we know this is impossible since the tree would have decomposed long before the sediments would have had time to accumulate. Rather, this tree is testimony to the catastrophic and rapid burial that must have taken place.
IV. Unsullied Deposits
Finally, coal seams such as those found in the Powder River Basin of Gillette, Wyoming, ranging from 150 to 200 feet in depth, point to a rapid coalification process. "These coal seams run remarkably thick and unsullied by other material. Usually, unwanted sediments, such as clay, washes over a deposit before coal seams can get very thick. This leaves scientists with the baffling question of how the seams get so massive and still remain undiluted by influxes of clay and other impurities before they thicken."4
Conclusion
The answer can be found in the Biblical account of Noah's Flood. The Biblical description of the fountains of the great deep breaking up gives strong reference to volcanic activity in the pre-Flood basins.5 This would have provided several of the key factors need for the production of coal, along with an explanation of how the process could have occurred at such a rapid pace.
Although the coalification process has been used in the past to support theories of an aged universe, research done by leading creation scientists reveals that this process actually supports creation teachings of a young Earth. Physical evidence demonstrates that the coalification process must have occurred rapidly, rather than over vast time periods.
CEM Staff Writer
1Robert V. Gentry, Video: Young Age of the Earth
2Ibid.
3Science , October 15, 1996
4Earth Magazine, May 1993
5Genesis, chapter seven
I guess it depends on whether you consider the geological evidences of the topic (i.e, the flood of Noah), science.
I'm interested in the scientific "evidence" as a whole (woman being made from a man's rib, everyone descending from just Adam & Eve, people living to be several hundred years old, dinosaurs in biblical times, etc, etc).
Using bible passages to prove the age of the Earth does not prove a thing.
I know I am going to get hit from all sides on this but I believe the waters came from heaven, not the atmoshpere, not some layer of water in orbit, but heaven. Really and symbolically the water from heaven was needed to wash away the sin in the world so that God could start over. This was necessary because God cursed the ground when Adam and Eve sinned.
SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS WITH MACROEVOLUTION:
(Karl Popper's definition of the scientific method )
1. OBSERVATION -steps of evolution have never been observed (Stebbins ) In the fossil record we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.(Gould )
2. EXPERIMENTATION -The processes would exceed the lifetime of any human experimenter (Dobzhansky )
3. REPRODUCTION impossible to reproduce in the laboratory. (Dobshansky )
4. FALSIFICATION -cannot be refuted thus outside empirical science. (Ehrlich )
RESEARCH PROBLEMS WITH MACROEVOLUTION:
1. ORIGINS -the chance of life originating from inorganic chemical elements by natural means is beyond the realm of possibility (Hoyle )
2. DEVELOPMENT -to produce a new organism from an existing life-form requires alterations in the genetic material which are lethal to the organism (Maddox )
3. STASIS -enzymes in the cell nucleus repair errors in the DNA (Barton )
4. GEOLOGIC COLUMN -out-of-place artifacts have been found in earth's sedimentary layers which disrupt the supposed evolutionary order (Corliss )
5. DESIGN -irreducible complexity within the structure of the cell requires design (Denton, Behe ).
(DNA REPAIR: The genome is reproduced very faithfully and there are enzymes which repair the DNA, where errors have been made or when the DNA is damaged. - D.H.R. Barton, Professor of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, Nobel Prize for Chemistry )
(CHANGE WITHIN GENETIC BOUNDARIES: Microevolution does not lead beyond the confines of the species, and the typical products of microevolution, the geographic races, are not incipient species. There is no such category as incipient species. Richard B. Goldschmidt )
(MUTATION ACCUMULATIONS RELENTLESSLY FATAL: Any random change in a complex, specific, functioning system wrecks that system. And living things are the most complex functioning systems in the universe.Science has now quantitated that a genetic mutation of as little as 1 billionth (0.0000001%) of an animal's genome is relentlessly fatal.The genetic difference between human and his nearest relative, the chimpanzee, is at least 1.6% Calculated out that is a gap of at least 48 million nucleotide differences that must be bridged by random changes. And a random change of only 3 nucleotides is fatal to an animal.
Geneticist Barney Maddox, 1992 )
'arba`iym {ar-baw-eem'} multiple of 702; TWOT - 2106b; n,adj pl AV - forty 132, fortieth 4; 136 1) forty
Assuming this is all factual (I'm not the most scientifically-literate person), couldn't it instead read
"Coal: Forms Faster Than Once Thought"
instead of trying to use it as the/a basis for trying to prove a young Earth theory. And I couldn't help but notice that in the Conclusion the first thing that's written is: "The answer can be found in the Biblical account of Noah's Flood"
24. And the waters prevailed * upon the earth an hundred and fifty days. \\
5. And the waters decreased * continually * until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen * .
It is Evidence, not conclusion. However, if you read the piece you would see that the formation of Coal and it's various details lend much more to the Flood theory than the old earth, Macroevolution theory. It also calls into question the process of aging levels of sediment (artifacts and vegetation passing through "ages"), a fundamental aspect of old earth theory. This evidence meets the Scientific procedure and cannot be off-handily disregarded because a Christian is using it.
Too bad, this was an interesting scientific thread.
Ciao.
Do you believe that all people & races came from Adam & Eve? Do you believe that woman was created from a man's rib? Do you believe that snakes talk? Do you believe that the entire universe was created in 6 days? Do you believe that dinosaurs wallked the Earth during biblical times? Do you believe that people once lived to be several hundred years old?
If so, where is the scientific evidence that proves such things? "The Bible", "miracles", "God's will" and "faith" are not considered scientific evidence
Two? I knew about one, not the other. Verses?
Drew Garrett
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