Scholar Havoc
Posted on 01/20/2003 7:01:47 AM PST by forsnax5
That enduring metaphor for the randomness of evolution, a blind watchmaker that works to no pattern or design, is being challenged by two European chemists. They say that the watchmaker may have been blind, but was guided and constrained by the changing chemistry of the environment, with many inevitable results.
The metaphor of the blind watchmaker has been famously championed by Richard Dawkins of the University of Oxford. But Robert Williams, also at Oxford, and Joäo José R. Fraústo da Silva of the Technical University of Lisbon in Portugal say that evolution is not strictly random. They claim Earth's chemistry has forced life to evolve along a predictable progression from single-celled organisms to plants and animals.
Williams and da Silva take as their starting point the earliest life forms that consisted of a single compartment, or vesicle, enclosing the cytoplasm that produced polymers such as RNA, DNA and proteins. That cytoplasm was partly dominated by the reducing chemistry of the primitive oceans and atmosphere from which it formed, and has changed little since, says Williams.
As these primitive cells, or prokaryotes, extracted hydrogen from water they released oxygen, making the environment more oxidising. Ammonia became nitrogen gas, metals were released from their sulphides, and non-metal sulphides became sulphates.
These changes forced the prokaryotes to adapt to use the oxidised elements, and they evolved to harness energy by fixing nitrogen, using oxygen, and developing photosynthesis. But these oxidising elements could also damage the reducing chemistry in the cytoplasm.
For protection, there was just one option: isolate the elements within internal compartments, says Williams. And that gave rise to eukaryotes - single-celled organisms with a nucleus and other organelles.
Harold Morowitz, an expert on the thermodynamics of living systems at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, says these ideas are very exciting. "It's part of a quiet paradigm revolution going on in biology, in which the radical randomness of Darwinism is being replaced by a much more scientific law-regulated emergence of life."
According to Williams and da Silva, eukaryotes also had to evolve a way to communicate between their various organelles. The surrounding raw materials dictated how this could be done. Calcium ions would have routinely leaked into cells, precipitating DNA by binding to it. So cells responded by pumping the ions out again.
Eukaryotes evolved to use this calcium flow to send messages across internal and external membranes. Similarly, sodium ions formerly expelled as poisonous became the basis of communication in nerve cells.
Life continued to react to Earth's oxidised environment. Hydrogen peroxide gave rise to lignin - an oxygen-rich polymer that is the chief constituent of wood. And eukaryotes used copper oxidised from copper sulphides to cross-link proteins such as collagen and chitin, which help hold nerve and muscle cells in place. Such evolution of materials suitable for multicellular structures paved the way for plants and animals.
Not everyone is convinced. Evolutionary biologist David Deamer of the University of California, Santa Cruz, says the claim that evolution followed an inevitable progression should be qualified: "The inevitability depends on the origin of life and oxygenic photosynthesis."
He agrees that life arose in vesicles, but says that oxidative chemistry cannot explain everything from prokaryotes to humans.
Williams admits their theory has limitations. For instance, he agrees that Dawkins's argument is correct in that chance events drive the development of species. But he does not believe random events drive evolution overall. "Whatever life throws away will become the thing that forces the next step in its development."
However, David Krakauer, an evolutionary theorist at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, says Williams and da Silva have simply listed the chemical processes that coincided with each evolutionary transition, which does not prove that the chemistry caused the transitions. But Williams says that the environmental changes had to come first, because they occur faster than changes in biological systems.
Nah, it's the old "Pitch-A-Fit-and-Lurk" routine for which she's become so famous. Like here. Or here. Or all those well-mannered posts to Balrog666 with which she litters these threads.
Heheh... it never fails to amuse....
Usually I refrain from these "discussions" because it is a frustrating waste of my time...however, a friend asked that I address your post, so therefore I am.
A meaningful dialogue with someone on the subject of geology can only begin when there is some agreement about basic prinicipals...obviously in your case this is an exercise in futility, but for lurkers I offer the following recap of Nicolaus Steno's Laws:
Virtually everyone has seen photographs of the Grand Canyon, or traveled on roads which were blasted out of the surrounding rock. In case after case, one can see distinct layers of rocks...not an amorphous "amalgum" that you so elegantly described. Sand, which makes up the bulk of sandstones, very readily displays a "layering" effect as successive amounts of windblown sand creates distinct strata. For an example, please see this fine website (complete with photos for the learning-disabled) about Sedimentary structures. Although I must warn you, this website uses big words such a "dolomites", "cross-bedding" and "limestones".
Thus, using Steno's Laws, we can discuss the "Relative Ages" of rocks...in other words, we can say that Layer-A was emplaced before Layer-B, and so on. However, it wasn't until the discovery of radioactivity that we had any hope of dating such layers in an "Absolute" sense...such that Layer-A was formed of eroded rocks which were formed x-number of years b.p. (before present).
Here is a short list of currently used materials for Absolute Age-Dating, along with the method:
Alas, I haven't time to address the subject more fully and I must leave you to your Creation-god. Thankfully, on the subject of Salvation, adherance to Creationism or Evolution is not a point of "Salvation"...
Now the commentary I've provided on this principle may seem at once "argumentative" - and they should. For good reason. Let's consider a flood plane. When amalgums are laid down on over topsoils over time, they do not sort themselves. In the instance of a flood, liquifaction will sort the materials by weight and boyancy. Thus layers that are laid down over time are disturbed and the result is a mixing of the layers which results in small layers of amalgum being mixed by weight/boyancy - not time. Thus the apparently youngest layer is not the youngest at all. And as a matter of physics, the amount of disturbed layers is a product of the volume of water involved in flooding and the depth to which it was able to affect surface strata. Now, given that a flood or multiple floods occur at any point in time, the geologist looking at strata is disarmed at once by the lack of specific evidence of flooding, quakes and the like - their magnitude, Water volumes etc. Therefore, in looking at strata, what could be shown as having being sorted by liquifaction will appear to be laid down in well defined and separated layers - the which they are not.
You beg the question by dancing around the central issue - that of how an amalgum becomes a well sorted layer. You do so by arguing the unobserveable in another theory that bedrock is a product of sedimentation unmeddled with by other natural processes. The danger in the assumptions above is that 4 feet of flood sorted debris will be looked upon as layers put down at different times - the lowest being considered the oldest. Accumulating 4 feet of debris through sedimentation takes quite a long time in most parts. A very long time. Therefore we can test the dating of materials by strata and other methods with a practical use of modern materials: Styrofoam, and a stone carved statuette - say 4 inches tall. We mix our Styrofoam and our statue into a 4 foot deep tub that is 1 foot square and place statue and styrofoam at different random places. We excercise our liquifaction replication event and what happens? The styrofoam rises and the statue falls through layers. This is predictable as liquifaction sorts again by weight and boyancy. A geologist unaware of a flood having taken place, therefore dates the stone statue older than the styrofoam because they are in different stratum - when in fact, they are contemporaries that may have been made the same day. Amalgums don't just sort themselves over time. Something has to affect an amalgum in such a way as to sort it. As soon as it has been sorted, any pretense as to what is dateable strata is lost.
Now, if we were talking about sedimentation as something happening in a vacuum that is not ever interfered with by other forces, then the principles you proffer would have some weight. In the real world where we can observe nature meddling with sedimentation on a daily basis, your principles are largely useless. Your example of sandstone is disingenuous at best. Sandstone is an amalgum. And appears both as an amalgum and as sorted layers depending upon the way in which it was made. Which lends itself to my underlying point, if sedimentation were predictable and static, then all sandstone should be the same upon examining internals - it is not. This is not to say that it should contain the same chemical or particulate makeup across the board lest you use that nonsensical notion to try and sidestep the issue. If sedimentation self sorts over time and particles take trips up and down in top soil to sort themselves then particles are free of dating because if a particle starts at level (a) at a specific date point and comes to rest at level (b) at variable depth away from it's starting point, any presumption of being able to date it after sorting is merely a lie begging to be labeled truth. If all sandstone does not demonstrate well defined strata, then there is no governing principle to the laying down of strata other than randomness interrupted endlessly by nature to preserve the randomness. Order can come from chaos; but, the way in which it is interpreted has to be a result of understanding the chaos from which the order derived. If the nature of the prior chaos is unknown, then the basis from which you start is supposition. The starting point is a presumed given of sedimentation but isn't necessarily a given any more than the chaos introduced to produce order or the appearance of it.
The other principles are as much a matter of supposition as the first and rely on each other. These principles are theory. They are not proven. I think we could involve ourselves in an exchange on how Rock comes into being; but, the argument is made. Weakening it further is unnecessary.
However, it wasn't until the discovery of radioactivity that we had any hope of dating such layers in an "Absolute" sense.
And you still don't. Merely saying it isn't the same as proving it - something that you still cannot do. I don't know what you hoped to accomplish by coming in and saying what you did. But it would appear it has been counter productive for you. Anyone who actually thinks through much of this stuff can find the flaws in thinking rather quickly. So the pretense of intelligence in rallying behind unproven theory rather perplexes those not suffused into the mentality that a proposed theory somehow is fact because you agree with it. That isn't the way science works. Hypothesis never makes it to fact until the hypothesis is proven true beyond a doubt. Thank God Salvation is a matter of faith while science is not.
First of all, it's spelled amalgam. Nothing betrays a charlatan more obviously than his not being able to spell the jargon he's bandying.
Second of all, people actively study sedimentation as a contemporary process. Several of my colleagues here do exactly that. The fact that layers tend to get distrubed on a short time and length scale is well known to geologists; however, the churning due to active processes diminishes as layers get buried and become older.
But heck, don't take my word for it. There are areas of the country where the surface strata are really young; western Nebraska is one such area. You can go out and look what aeolian and alluvial processes do to Pleistocene deposits. The evidence that adjacent strata are not necessarily contiguous in time is all over the place. But adjacent deposits are, by and large, contemporaneous withing a million years, and 100 million years from now, the fact a flood washed 10000 years of wind-blown sand off a deposit will be insignificant.
Heheh... it never fails to amuse....
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
So rather than deal with what I've said, you prefer to pick at my spelling and throw names. How predictable.
Second of all, people actively study sedimentation as a contemporary process. Several of my colleagues here do exactly that. The fact that layers tend to get distrubed on a short time and length scale is well known to geologists; however, the churning due to active processes diminishes as layers get buried and become older.
No kidding. People actually study sedimentation. I'm shocked to my foundations.. Nobody is disputing that geologists know that layers can tend to get disturbed over short time and length scale. Unfortuneatly, it has only largely been considered in recent times due to liquifaction studies surrounding flood and earthquake conditions. The telling statement you make now in error is that the process diminishes or presumeably halts with depth of burial. You haven't shown that, you merely state it. Assumption yet again rearing it's head. You reason it plausible then state it as fact as though it were fact. Yet you have zero basis for saying it. As I've been saying, Strata largely can be accounted for by liquifaction in surface layers. Rock strata is an entirely different beast of burden and cannot be accounted for in the same ways. Lest we forget that Science has also theorized about how Rock is made but largely hasn't a clue that they are either right or wrong - only that it's a good guess.
But heck, don't take my word for it. There are areas of the country where the surface strata are really young; western Nebraska is one such area. You can go out and look what aeolian and alluvial processes do to Pleistocene deposits. The evidence that adjacent strata are not necessarily contiguous in time is all over the place. But adjacent deposits are, by and large, contemporaneous withing a million years, and 100 million years from now, the fact a flood washed 10000 years of wind-blown sand off a deposit will be insignificant.
Why would I take your word for it when you're merely stating the obvious - that presumeably ancient deposits appear at surface level while then applying your assumptions to them and stating those assumptives as fact. This is really no different than anything else that's been discussed. Pull your terms out of the mix and what are we left with? We're left with the fact that In Nebraska and countless places around the planet, supposedly ancient deposits are found laying at surface level and we're supposed to assume that a flood must have uncovered them or something. One only need look to the find overseas of the remains of a dinosaur rivaling the size of T-rex which is dated to the time of T-rex not by where it is found; but, by other assumptive measures, as it was found at surface level. Or perhaps we should consider too the presumed Giant Alligator fossils that were found at surface level as well and dating to T-rex's times though it was uncovered - its bones littered on the top soil of the surface layer in Africa. Hmm. Just laying about. One must assume the top level means ancient then, that or we're all living in ancient times. That or we assume that something uncovered the bones. Then we start making other assumptions that perhaps there used to be a mountain there and erosion wiped it out, else the remains would be much deeper down. No signs of an eroded mountain, Must be some way to explain it - and when we dig into our book of theories, assumptions and postulations, we get - well let's go use carbon dating to figure it out so that the assumption is hidden in the mechanism. Applying terms to things doesn't mean you have any clue about them; but, the reason you apply terms is to give that appearance. Ages for Dinosaurs are a part of this. And the label Pleistocene is applied as a label to a time frame assumed from the assumptions of strata dating methods and from the assumptions of carbon dating. It has no proof, can't stand on it's own; but, you use it as though it were a factual time frame that is differentiable from others. The fact is you have an outcrop of earth that is full of fossils and the only way you can explain the fossils in your dating scheme is to assume that the strata are disjointed at this point. Indeed. Most of the planet must be disjointed considering we find fossilized sea creatures lying in the loose rock of moutain tops.
One wonders why it is that when the footprint of a man is found inside the footprint of a T-rex and frozen into stone - fossilized into rock that it becomes neccessary for scientists to cut the footprints of both out of the ground and cart them off, then claim it to be a non-existant happenstance. One assumes that over time, it will be explained away as a folk tale because it is historically inconvenient to your timelines that such could happen. One then looks to the explanation given - the fossilized rock softened back to clay then reformed to rock preserving not only the t-rex tracks but those of the man. When the evidence wrecks the appearance of all your assumptive reasoning, it's easier to dismiss troublesome problems than to deal with the evidence. Which is what we've been discussing here. Assumption is not evidence. Nor is it proof. Nor does it amout to proof that you should give names to your assumptions. That may work with the unthinking.. not with me.
FIRST of all, if you are going to bandy a term about, don't you think you should spell it correctly? The word is correctly spelled as, AMALGAM. Secondly, you are quite correct in saying that sediments do not sort themselves...the actions of water, wind and even gravity are required for sorting to occur. BTW, sediments are emplaced over all terrain, not just topsoils. Our atmosphere is loaded with fine dusts which are transported over vast distances to ultimately settle on land, water, or in your lungs.
Sorting - The range of sedimentary grain sizes that occurs in sediment or sedimentary rock. The term also refers to the process by which sediments of similar size are naturally segregated during transport and deposition according to the velocity and transporting medium. Well-sorted sediments are of similar size (such as desert sand), while poorly-sorted sediments have a wide range of grain sizes (as in a glacial till). A well-sorted sandstone tends to have greater porosity than a poorly sorted sandstone because of the lack of grains small enough to fill its pores. Conglomerates tend to be poorly sorted rocks, with particles ranging from boulder size to clay size.
In the instance of a flood, liquifaction will sort the materials by weight and boyancy. Thus layers that are laid down over time are disturbed and the result is a mixing of the layers which results in small layers of amalgum being mixed by weight/boyancy - not time.
Oops...another spelling error. This time the word is spelled, LIQUEFACTION. Now lets look at the term itself:
Definition of Ground Liquefaction - Earthquakes dramatically decrease the stability of saturated cohesionless soil. The soil becomes a viscous fluid creating problems with any structure from bridges to buildings and to buried pipes and tanks. This phenomenon of liquefaction develops from repeated disturbances of saturated cohesionless soil and can cause excessive displacements of the ground. Building foundations can slide or unevenly settle, bridges can collapse and empty fuel tanks buried under ground can rise to the surface. The video clip demonstrates this phenomenon and a few pictures show examples of its effects. The pictures and the information about them were obtained from the National Information Service for Earthquake Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley.
Liquefaction then occurs in "cohesionless" (won't stick together) material during an eathquake. These materials all display the same characteristic - well-rounded or spherical grains that simply slip past each other during an earthquake to temporarily form a viscous liquid that behaves much like quicksand, as opposed to most clastic material which are not spherically rounded and do tend to "stick together". The process of liquefaction is of some importance not only for earthquake-prone regions today, but also to investigate the extent of earthquakes historically. Paleoliquefaction features in the St. Louis, MO region are being analyzed today as geologists work to understand the extent and potential hazards of the New Madrid (pronounced "MAD-rid" for the uninformed) seismic zone.
An interesting article on liquefaction is presented by the USGS. This article notes that "only earthquakes larger than magnitude 5.5 are capable of producing widespread liquefaction". Seismic zones do not blanket the Earth continuously, thus your contention that liquefaction is responsible for the many layers of rocks we see is completely without merit.
Thus the apparently youngest layer is not the youngest at all.
Incorrect. I refer you to my previous post and Steno's Laws
And as a matter of physics, the amount of disturbed layers is a product of the volume of water involved in flooding and the depth to which it was able to affect surface strata.
Wrong again. The modeling is highly complex and utilizes Biot's equation to understand wave propagation in soils.
Now, given that a flood or multiple floods occur at any point in time, the geologist looking at strata is disarmed at once by the lack of specific evidence of flooding, quakes and the like - their magnitude, Water volumes etc. Therefore, in looking at strata, what could be shown as having being sorted by liquifaction will appear to be laid down in well defined and separated layers - the which they are not.
I haven't any idea what you are babbling about here. Liquefaction leaves readily-identifiable features such as "sand blows".
You beg the question by dancing around the central issue - that of how an amalgum becomes a well sorted layer. You do so by arguing the unobserveable in another theory that bedrock is a product of sedimentation unmeddled with by other natural processes.
No, you have this liquefaction-thing so stuck in your head that reason is given no opportunity or quarter. Bedrock is "the solid rock beneath the soil and superficial rock. A general term for solid rock that lies beneath soil, loose sediments, or other unconsolidated material. By way of example, here is a website that describes the bedrock of Vermont, which include gneisses, carbonates, quartzite, slate, schist and granite. Would you please tell me how liquefaction forms metamorphic bedrock? Perhaps you could also tell me how meters-thick bedrock can be folded and faulted from such liquefaction? Here's a site that might help: Chronological Summary of Bedrock Geology: Madoc Area of Eastern Ontario. Which states that, "the geology is irregularly dominated by 40 or so intrusive plutons and localized deposits of volcanic basalt. Most of the area is underlain by Proterozoic metavolcanics and metasediments which increase in metamorphic grade (degree of thermally induced chemical alteration) from south to north. These structures are typically 27,000 feet thick, and are highly folded and faulted and exhibit regional variations of metamorphic grade."
The danger in the assumptions above is that 4 feet of flood sorted debris will be looked upon as layers put down at different times - the lowest being considered the oldest. Accumulating 4 feet of debris through sedimentation takes quite a long time in most parts. A very long time.
Yes, indeed! Sedimentation takes a VERY long time. Now you're catching on!
Therefore we can test the dating of materials by strata and other methods with a practical use of modern materials: Styrofoam, and a stone carved statuette - say 4 inches tall. We mix our Styrofoam and our statue into a 4 foot deep tub that is 1 foot square and place statue and styrofoam at different random places. We excercise our liquifaction replication event and what happens? The styrofoam rises and the statue falls through layers.
Well duh! Of course, you nitwit, you've used styrofoam and shaken the beegeezus out of your mixture. Has anyone spoken to you about appropriate models for your "system"? Perhaps something you should investigate.
This is predictable as liquifaction sorts again by weight and boyancy. A geologist unaware of a flood having taken place, therefore dates the stone statue older than the styrofoam because they are in different stratum - when in fact, they are contemporaries that may have been made the same day. Amalgums don't just sort themselves over time. Something has to affect an amalgum in such a way as to sort it. As soon as it has been sorted, any pretense as to what is dateable strata is lost.
I see we need to review the terms, "transgression" and "regression". A transgression (slow flooding), displays sediments that are "fining upward"...that is, the particles become smaller the further upward in the sequence you look - indicating a deeper water environment as time progresses. In deep water, sediments that are deposited are very fine sands and silts.
During a "regression", however, the situation is reversed, and a "coarsening upward" of sediments is seen as the shoreline is pushed seaward.
"Turbidites" on the other hand are chaotic sequences of sediments lain down by turbidity currents traveling up to 7 m/s. No time for sorting here! These deposits are found in deltaic fronts, lakes, and oceans and are initiated by some sort of strong wave action such as those caused by earthquakes and underwater slumps.
BTW, a geologist who is unable to identify regressions, transgression and turbidites isn't worth the ink his or her degree is printed on.
Now, if we were talking about sedimentation as something happening in a vacuum that is not ever interfered with by other forces, then the principles you proffer would have some weight. In the real world where we can observe nature meddling with sedimentation on a daily basis, your principles are largely useless.
It is interesting then that insurance companies rely upon my "largely useless" geologic principals. Golly! You just might save them millions of dollars in earthquake-prone regions by simply telling them that everything is due to liquefaction.
Your example of sandstone is disingenuous at best. Sandstone is an amalgum. And appears both as an amalgum and as sorted layers depending upon the way in which it was made. Which lends itself to my underlying point, if sedimentation were predictable and static, then all sandstone should be the same upon examining internals - it is not.
Oooooh! I guess aeolian sandstones are simply a figment of many collective imaginations. Tell me, oh Grand Poobah of Geology, then how can liquefaction explain relic dune structures found in many sandstones?
This is not to say that it should contain the same chemical or particulate makeup across the board lest you use that nonsensical notion to try and sidestep the issue.
Hmmm...if my notions are so nonsensical, then why is sandstone made up of silicon dioxide? Given your hypotheses, sandstone could be made up of anything...even coal.
If sedimentation self sorts over time and particles take trips up and down in top soil to sort themselves then particles are free of dating because if a particle starts at level (a) at a specific date point and comes to rest at level (b) at variable depth away from it's starting point, any presumption of being able to date it after sorting is merely a lie begging to be labeled truth. If all sandstone does not demonstrate well defined strata, then there is no governing principle to the laying down of strata other than randomness interrupted endlessly by nature to preserve the randomness. Order can come from chaos; but, the way in which it is interpreted has to be a result of understanding the chaos from which the order derived. If the nature of the prior chaos is unknown, then the basis from which you start is supposition. The starting point is a presumed given of sedimentation but isn't necessarily a given any more than the chaos introduced to produce order or the appearance of it.
Pure gibberish. Had you submitted this paragraph to me as an assignment, I would have given you an "F".
The other principles are as much a matter of supposition as the first and rely on each other. These principles are theory. They are not proven. I think we could involve ourselves in an exchange on how Rock comes into being; but, the argument is made. Weakening it further is unnecessary.
Need I remind you that the "Theory of Gravity" is exactly that...a theory. You have not made any cohesive or convincing argument.
I don't know what you hoped to accomplish by coming in and saying what you did. But it would appear it has been counter productive for you. Anyone who actually thinks through much of this stuff can find the flaws in thinking rather quickly. So the pretense of intelligence in rallying behind unproven theory rather perplexes those not suffused into the mentality that a proposed theory somehow is fact because you agree with it. That isn't the way science works. Hypothesis never makes it to fact until the hypothesis is proven true beyond a doubt. Thank God Salvation is a matter of faith while science is not.
Again, your babbling makes it difficult to ascertain exactly what you are driving at, but I sense an insult. Tut, tut, my dear fellow...a college education just might be of some assistance. I suggest you try it.
Please tell me which Universities are currently teaching a course in "Creationist Liquefaction Studies".
If you know where to look (like the Institute for Creation Research) you can find all kinds of quack science:
STUDIES IN CREATIONISM AND FLOOD GEOLOGY.
Oh, I dealt with what you said. But the manner in which you say it is also something that can be interpreted. It says here's someone who can write lengthy, opinionated posts using concepts with which he's so unfamiliar he hasn't either seen them in print or bothered to look up in a dictionary.
People actually study sedimentation. I'm shocked to my foundations.
You claimed geologists hadn't thought about it. Some geologists have made it their life work, and that has precious little to do with 'liquefaction'. Other geologists actively study how sedimentary deposits are transformed into rock.
Why would I take your word for it when you're merely stating the obvious - that presumeably ancient deposits appear at surface level while then applying your assumptions to them and stating those assumptives as fact.
We were talking tertiary and quaternary strata here. Do try to keep up. Pleistocene and late quaternary deposits aren't ancient, and largely they aren't 'rock' either. They still show stratigraphy that can be integrated into a self-consistitent and logical picture of the last 10 million years or so, on the great plains.
We're left with the fact that In Nebraska and countless places around the planet, supposedly ancient deposits are found laying at surface level and we're supposed to assume that a flood must have uncovered them or something. One only need look to the find overseas of the remains of a dinosaur rivaling the size of T-rex which is dated to the time of T-rex not by where it is found; but, by other assumptive measures, as it was found at surface level.
Where are there dinosaur fossils in western Nebraska? But OK, let's ignore your total ignorance of geology; the central US hasn't seen a lot of mountain-building in the last several hundred million years, so deposits are alternately brought to the surface by erosion or covered by sediment deposited by wind and water. I honestly don't see a problem with either process. In the west, plate tectonics has pushed up deeper deposits, and that's why you find T rex skeletons in places like Montana and South Dakota. You probably don't believe in plate tectonics either, though. Presumably earthquakes and volcanoes are acts of God, eh?
That or we assume that something uncovered the bones. Then we start making other assumptions that perhaps there used to be a mountain there and erosion wiped it out, else the remains would be much deeper down. No signs of an eroded mountain,
You think there are no signs of eroded mountains in South Dakota and Montana? Have you ever been to either state?
Must be some way to explain it - and when we dig into our book of theories, assumptions and postulations, we get - well let's go use carbon dating to figure it out so that the assumption is hidden in the mechanism. Applying terms to things doesn't mean you have any clue about them; but, the reason you apply terms is to give that appearance. Ages for Dinosaurs are a part of this.
We use carbon dating to get ages for dinosaurs. Sure.
And the label Pleistocene is applied as a label to a time frame assumed from the assumptions of strata dating methods and from the assumptions of carbon dating.
We can't date back a significant way into the Pleistocene with 14C dating. However, Pleistocene deposits are recent, near the surface, and we can easily extend what we know about the present and the recent past back to the Pleistocene.
One wonders why it is that when the footprint of a man is found inside the footprint of a T-rex and frozen into stone - fossilized into rock that it becomes neccessary for scientists to cut the footprints of both out of the ground and cart them off, then claim it to be a non-existant happenstance.
I've found mammals and turtle shells and other fossils in Tertiary deposits; I found a little jawbone two years ago that belonged to a Mesohippus. I've looked at the strata in W. Nebraska myself, and traced the ash deposits from volcanoes that let us date them. It's straightforward, and I don't have to take any geologist's word for it. I can look at 9 million year old ash layers, from, say, the Ashfall site just north of here, under a microscope, and I can compare them with what came out of Mount St Helens. On the other hand, I've never seen human footprints in a rock next to a T-rex's, but I'd be delighted to go look at this find if you'd tell me where I could do so.
Geology isn't based on assumptions. It's based on a huge body of careful observational work. But hey, in 2003 anyone can go on the internet, totally ignorant of that work, and claim it's all speculation.
Havoc had mentioned the writings of a Dr. Walt Brown to back up his statements in an earlier post. I went looking for Dr. Brown, and I found The Hydroplate Theory.)
Assumptions
Every scientific theory that is used to explain an ancient, unobserved and unrepeatable event, has some assumptions about the starting conditions that existed before the event. The hydroplate theory has the following three:
Figure 6: Cross-Section of Preflood Earth. The layers from top to bottom: ancient sea, granite, subterranean water chamber, basalt, the Moho, mantle.
Interconnected continents: Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas were once closer to each other and were joined across today's Atlantic Ocean.Subterranean water: There was a large amount of salty water in interconnected underground chambers, forming a continuous layer around the whole earth, in the form of a spherical shell. This was about 5/8 mile (1 km) thick, lay at a depth of 10 miles (16 km) under the earth's surface and contained about half of the water which is now in the oceans. The water contained dissolved minerals and gases, especially salt (NaCl) and carbon dioxide (CO2). There was basaltic rock underneath this water, then the earth's mantle. At this time the features mentioned on the previous pages had not been formed yet.
Increasing pressure: The pressure was increasing in the subterranean water layer. This could have been caused by several things, for example the mantle's temperature could have been increasing due to radioactive decay, causing it to expand, therefore pressurizing the water above it.
In the following, we will see that the features described earlier are a direct result of these three assumptions. To make it simpler to understand, Walt Brown divided the events into 4 stages.
Events
Rupture Phase
Figure 7: The Rupture Phase of the Flood.
The increasing pressure in the subterranean water stretched the granite crust above, until it reached its failure point. At this moment, a crack appeared. The enormous stress at both ends of the crack enlarged it, and its two ends raced around the earth in opposite directions at about 2 miles per second (a characteristic of tensile cracks in rocks). Following the path of least resistance, the two ends circled the earth in a few hours, their paths meeting somewhere on the opposite side of the globe and intersecting each other in a "T" or "Y" shape. As the 10-mile deep crack opened up, the pressure in the subterranean chamber beneath the rupture dropped. The water exploded out of the ground with great speed into and above the atmosphere, spreading around the earth and producing raging rains, never seen before. The water rising above the atmosphere froze, and fell back to earth in the form of hail, which buried and froze many animals, including mammoths. This 46,000 miles long rupture was near today's Mid-Oceanic Ridge.Flood Phase
Figure 8: The Flood Phase.
The water jetting out of the rupture eroded both sides of the crack. Eroded sediments were swept up in the water, making it thick and muddy. These sediments settled all over the earth's surface, burying most of the world's plants and animals. A phenomenon called liquefaction (see In the Beginning, pages 138—149 for details) sorted sediments, dead animals and plants into horizontal layers according to their densities, and the process of forming today's fossils began. Evolutionists believe this sorting is a result of macroevolution and the lower organisms lived millions of years before the upper organisms, the sediments being deposited very slowly. This belief of evolutionary geology is called the principle of superposition.Before these events, today's major mountain ranges had not been formed yet. The water covered the whole earth, causing a global flood. As a part of the water's energy was converted into heat, the temperature of the escaping water increased by about 100°F (56°C) (see In the Beginning, page 218 for calculations). As a result of evaporation, the water became supersaturated in salt, and the salt precipitated into thick, pasty layers. These lighter layers were covered by denser layers of sediments, and the salt flowing upwards through the sediments formed the salt domes.
Lower pressure liquids can hold less dissolved gases than high pressure liquids. As the pressure of the water dropped, much gas came out of solution, mostly carbon dioxide. Calcium ions (from the basalt beneath) in the water and dissolved carbon dioxide gas precipitated into large amounts of limestone, CaCO3 (see In the Beginning, technical note on page 219).
The flood uprooted vegetation, and the currents carried it to some areas where much of it accumulated. Some plants even drifted to the South Pole in the global flood. In the next, continental drift phase, these buried layers of plants were heated and compressed, creating today's coal and oil formations.
The hydroplate theory of Dr. Walt Brown continues (here) with descriptions of how the continents formed.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA! That one sets a new record for applied stupidity.
Aric2000: Yo, PH, where is that great explanatory graphic, I've seen it around here someplace. Time for a repost!!
Is this what your refering to?
Source: http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/evolution.html
The green represents the creature that is evolving, the pink represents light-sensitive cells. Imagine these changes happening over a period of two million years (which is a microscopic fraction of the history of the Earth), each generation of creatures only changing by a fraction of a percent).
A: The creature is blind. This has obvious disadvantages as it cannot see predators approaching, and has to rely on sound, smell etc.
B: A random mutation has given this creature a patch of light-sensitive cells (not a problem - see below). It can detect light and dark. A sudden change of light to dark could indicate a predator approaching, allowing the creature to defend itself (by fleeing, fighting etc.) and dramatically increase it's chances of surviving and reproducing. Which is more likely to survive long enough to reproduce - a creature that runs when a shadow passes over it, or one that stands still? Your skin is covered in cells/nerves that detect heat, pressure, taste, smell and so on. Light is not that much different (see below).
C: Two patches, one either side of the head have developed (no surprise, as symettrical mutations are very common). The creatures can now determine which side the shadow is approaching from, and run in the opposite direction (or it may distinguish open spaces from dark shelter, for instance). Again, a huge improvement in their chances of survival from a fairly small change in their body. Slugs and snails see like this (admittedly, they can't run very well, but who wants to eat a slug anyway?).
D: If the patch of cells becomes hollow, cup-shaped, it gives the ability to better determine the direction of light (a dome would work just as well, but would be easier to damage. Also, a hollow would help create greater contrast with well-defined shadows). One side of the cup will be better-lit than the other. This creature can therefore better determine the direction that a shadow is approaching from (or, again, find a dark shelter more easily).
E: The hollow deepens over time and starts to close in on itself. A photographer would recognise this a pin-hole camera. It will form a reasonable image on the cells (retina), allowing the creature to see shapes, not just differentiate between light and dark. The Nautilus (a marine mollusc) has eyes exactly like this.
F: A transparent membrane covers the pin-hole, forming a crude lens (alternatively, the eye may be filled with a transparent jelly). This will make the images formed on the retina much sharper as well as protecting the delicate surface from dirt and infections. The creature can see predators/prey much more clearly now.
G: Muscles around the lens develop, allowing the creature to alter the shape of the lens and change focus. Now it can clearly see objects close by or far away. This is how the eyes of most mammals (such as humans) function. The Chameleon's eyes are quite different - instead of changing the shape of the lens, muscles move the lens backwards and forwards to focus the image, in the same way that an auto-focus camera works.
Further incremental refinements include the iris (to restrict the amount of light), eyelids (to protect and clean the surface of the eye) and muscles to rotate the eyes.
This is not the way all eyes develop - there are thousands of different styles of eye in the world, all doing a similar job in different ways. Eyes do not develop quickly, but over thousands of generations (on the geological timescale, this is still just the blink of an eye. Ho ho!). To say that "half an eye is no use" is wrong. Half an eye (eg. example D) is much better than no eye at all.
Many creationists would say "But how did those first light-sensitive cells appear?". Well, your entire body is covered with light-sensitive cells. Your skin can detect heat radiation, can it not? What is this radiation? Infra-red light! It is easy to see how small mutations could lead infra-red sensitive cells to become more sensitive to shorter wavelengths of light, ie. "visible" light. Also, photons of certain wavelengths are absorbed by certain pigments/chemicals, affecting the chemistry of the cell in a manner that the brain may detect.
Remember, the creatures do not consciously attempt to grow eyes, and evolution does not drive them towards having any particular type of eye. Each new, tiny, random change will either increase or decrease that individual's chances of surviving to reproduce. Obviously, the ones that do manage to reproduce will pass on those characteristics that enabled them to do so.
Our eyes are allright, and serve us well, but there are creatures with far more complex optical systems than the human eye. Ours may evolve a bit more, but they do their job well enough for survival, which is what it's all about.
As an aside, it should be noted that the human eye is still quite badly "designed":
Your eye has a blind spot caused by the blood vessels that cover the surface of the retina converging on one point to exit the eye. If they were behind the retina it would be much better.
The optic cells (called rods and cones) are the wrong way round (the blood vessels come out into the eye rather than go out the back.
The number of people wearing glasses gives an idea of how imperfect human eyes are.
(Personally, I'd like a good zoom-lens and the ability to choose the wavelengths I can perceive. A God could have done a better job of it, but we're stuck with crappy old natural evolution. Oh well...)
Just as an aside, this is a poor canard. The bloodvessels are located on the opposite side of the rods and cones. The nerve cells are in front of the pigment cells for some very good reasons I don't have the inclination to go into right now. However, if you flip the retina over, you end up with a bigger problem; the supporting epithelium and blood vessels that supply nutrients to the rods and cones would end up in front of them.
It's subjective whether the eye is poorly "designed". I really like mine. But you'd be hard-pressed to come up with a different design, given the same materials, that would be better.
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