Noah's Ark

[Aqueous Id]

I agree with the layering,
Well you said they were mixed up and couldn't be correlated.

just not the interpretation of them and the assumption that they are squillions of years old.

It's not an assumption. It's a measured result.

I believe in the traditional view that the earth is only six thousand years old.

That's impossible.

If someone payed me to go there, I would find as much evidence in one day, to dismiss the older earth theory.

Not if you knew what you were doing.

Call it rosed glasses if you want.

You mean you admit to confirmation bias?

 

[Gerhard Kemmerer]

No, you misunderstand. This establishes that the layers are uniform. That's a composite taken from 3 different canyon walls. They overlap exactly, and in composite they retell the natural history of the world from the beginning until the present. We reference the epochs and eras by name as a matter of convenience and convention.

... There was a local extinction in Australia of many large marsupials, and you are probably aware of extinctions of animals like the mastodon, sabre-toothed tiger etc. But no global mass extinction.

I get what you have presented. It is a good demo.

I have not seen them, and so
two immediate questions come into mind, do these three samples fairly represent world wide conditions/history?

And, how is it that each major layer has just one era of flora/fauna, and are the older lower species found throughout, and in, the upper layers?

 

[Gerhard Kemmerer]

[
Well you said they were mixed up and couldn't be correlated.
It's not an assumption. It's a measured result.
that's impossible.
Not if you knew what you were doing.

You mean you admit to confirmation bias?

Yes I am bias, to what I think, observe and read.

I expect the layering around the world will have consistencies, as well as defying irregularities. The grand canyon may be such a demo of predictability and other places not. I don't trust isotope dating because it contradicts the Bible age of the earth.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

So you will reject as evidence anything that contradicts your fixed ideas.
Pointless arguing with you then.

One thing that puzzles me.
An all powerful God is easily able to create any amount of water.
If he wants it to cover the whole earth, gravity is no problem either.
I can't understand why you need pseudoscientific explanations for the events.

Why not have faith and simply believe it?

 

[origin]

So you will reject as evidence anything that contradicts your fixed ideas.
Pointless arguing with you then.

One thing that puzzles me.
An all powerful God is easily able to create any amount of water.
If he wants it to cover the whole earth, gravity is no problem either.
I can't understand why you need pseudoscientific explanations for the events.

Why not have faith and simply believe it?

This is actually the center of the problem. The Christian radical right wants to coopt education and insert religion where science currently is. They are using bogus science in hopes of eliminating real science education and begin teaching religion as science.

It is a frightening scenario!

 

[Aqueous Id]

This is actually the center of the problem. The Christian radical right wants to coopt education and insert religion where science currently is. They are using bogus science in hopes of eliminating real science education and begin teaching religion as science.

It is a frightening scenario!

No joke! Who can forget the Bush science appointments-

"It's ludicrous to have people who do not have a scientific background, who are not trained and skilled in the ways of science, make decisions that involve resources, that involve facilities in the scientific infrastructure," said James McCarthy, a Harvard University oceanographer who is president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "You'd just like to think people have more respect for the institution of government than to leave wreckage behind with these appointments."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112103359.html

This recent event with the chair of the science committee -- stating that women who are raped will tend to abort -- is another example of the Right putting incompetent people in charge of technical matters .

And we know we'll never get the Right Wing off of the school boards. Last I checked, 40% of Americans disbelieve in evolution, and around 12% believe the earth is 6000 years old.

And they're complaining about Big Government meddling where it shouldn't! What they mean is, they want to meddle wherever they want to, without any complaints from the other 50-60%.

And it all boils down to some of the simplest science, like understanding the fundamentals of geology, taught for at least 50 years now in the schools, explaining to the kids how geologists have ascertained that the earth is billions of years old.

Obviously those programs have failed to overcome the enormous resistance and propaganda from the Religious Right.

So, yes, I agree with you completely. I consider this one of the most outrageous threats to academic freedom and the natural right of self-determination. "No child left behind?" What a pile of -- . If they could, they'd put all the kids back in the Victorian Era (I was about to say the Byzantine era, but they hate the Catholics too much to go there.)

 

[arfa brane]

I expect the layering around the world will have consistencies, as well as defying irregularities.

What exactly does "defying irregularities" mean?

The grand canyon may be such a demo of predictability and other places not.

But you don't really know, because all you read is the Bible and Creation magazine?

I don't trust isotope dating because it contradicts the Bible age of the earth.

Do you trust the Periodic Table? Do you know anyone who had to have a test that used isotopes (maybe injected into their bloodstream)?

For someone who has advised me and others about being open-minded, you really seem to not be practising what you preach. Isn't having an open mind about not dismissing ideas or theories at least until you're satisfied you understand them? Where trust is concerned, don't you trust your own intellect enough to try understanding them?

The ultimate irony has to be that, here you are posting on an internet forum, but you no doubt haven't considered why that's possible (after all, you don't trust those scientists, do you?).
You live in a developed country and enjoy access to medical and other services that wouldn't exist if not for the advancement of human technology and know-how, but you say you don't trust some of that, so why do you 'trust' the internet, or doctors?
Shouldn't you be living in a cave somewhere, or a third-world country with no technological infrastructure, so you wouldn't have the problem of deciding what to trust?

 

[Yazata]

This is actually the center of the problem. The Christian radical right wants to coopt education and insert religion where science currently is.

Both the left and the right want to insert their agendas into school curricula that can be used to indoctrinate the next generation.

They are using bogus science in hopes of eliminating real science education and begin teaching religion as science.

I think that the religious-right probably are the biggest offenders when it comes to the natural sciences. But the left are typically the worst offenders when it comes to the so-called 'social sciences'. Subjects like sociology are often little more than radical social theory all dressed up in pseudo-scientific drag.

 

[origin]

I don't buy that at all. It is only the zelots and the fringe that want to 'indoctronate' anybody not the normal right or left.

 

[Aqueous Id]

Both the left and the right want to insert their agendas into school curricula that can be used to indoctrinate the next generation.



I think that the religious-right probably are the biggest offenders when it comes to the natural sciences. But the left are typically the worst offenders when it comes to the so-called 'social sciences'. Subjects like sociology are often little more than radical social theory all dressed up in pseudo-scientific drag.

In what way is sociology leftist? How about history? Do you consider it pseudo-science? What is it about sociology that you feel is inaccurate?

 

[Aqueous Id]

I don't trust isotope dating because it contradicts the Bible age of the earth.

No, you don't trust it because you don't understand it. You are rejecting more than radiometrics. You're rejecting everything you don't understand from history to archaeology to physics. You do not understand these and literary analysis and thus you unwittingly reject even key elements of the Bible you don't understand. You are replacing all of what you don't understand with the ideas invented for you by Fundamentalism.

Nothing about radiometrics contradicts the Bible. It merely contradicts Fundamentalism.

If you were to rely on your Fundamentalism to inform you about the earth, then you would have to believe that it is flat.

If you were to rely on Biblical genealogy (Ussher's method) to inform you about the age of the earth, you would have to believe there were two Josephs who each married a Mary and fathered two different Jesuses (Heli v Jacob).

Great Bible scholars over the ages have taken it upon themselves to learn about the world, to engage in scientific study and try to use their "God-given faculty of reason" "for the honor and glory of God". They demonstrate that there can be belief in the teachings of the Bible while at the same time appreciating science as "divine revelation".

You may feel certain you are within the confines of truth, but you began outside the margins and will remain there as a matter of willful ignorance (not meaning stupid, meaning ignoring facts). You have disengaged your internal error-checking nature in favor of Fundamentalism, and allowed yourself to reject a wide spectrum of interlocking truths, merely to hold blindly onto a narrow, shallow definition of the world around you.

Meanwhile knowledge marches on. Great discoveries have been made in your lifetime that would have revolutionized the world had they been found 100 or 200 years ago. The world will move forward and continue to unravel the mysteries of nature. You will live inside a bubble, cynical, distrustful and deprived of the benefits of knowledge.

This is a picture I'm sure you've seen before. The nearly horizontal striations extending west of North America, particularly the Aleutians, and the jigsaw-puzzle curvature matching the Americas and Africa, and the parallel contour of the Atlantic trench, demonstrate the lateral movement of the plates, generally East-West, at least in the latest episode of continental drift.

 

[Gerhard Kemmerer]

So you will reject as evidence anything that contradicts your fixed ideas.
Pointless arguing with you then.

One thing that puzzles me.
An all powerful God is easily able to create any amount of water.
If he wants it to cover the whole earth, gravity is no problem either.
I can't understand why you need pseudoscientific explanations for the events.

Why not have faith and simply believe it?

Very good point. But then again He has left a record of how it happened, and He tends to use natural laws, afterall He invented them.

 

[Gerhard Kemmerer]

No, you don't trust it because you don't understand it. You are rejecting more than radiometrics. You're rejecting everything you don't understand from history to archaeology to physics. You do not understand these and literary analysis and thus you unwittingly reject even key elements of the Bible you don't understand. You are replacing all of what you don't understand with the ideas invented for you by Fundamentalism.Nothing about radiometrics contradicts the Bible. It merely contradicts Fundamentalism. If you were to rely on your Fundamentalism to inform you about the earth, then you would have to believe that it is flat. If you were to rely on Biblical genealogy (Ussher's method) to inform you about the age of the earth, you would have to believe there were two Josephs who each married a Mary and fathered two different Jesuses (Heli v Jacob). Great Bible scholars over the ages have taken it upon themselves to learn about the world, to engage in scientific study and try to use their "God-given faculty of reason" "for the honor and glory of God". They demonstrate that there can be belief in the teachings of the Bible while at the same time appreciating science as "divine revelation". You may feel certain you are within the confines of truth, but you began outside the margins and will remain there as a matter of willful ignorance (not meaning stupid, meaning ignoring facts). You have disengaged your internal error-checking nature in favor of Fundamentalism, and allowed yourself to reject a wide spectrum of interlocking truths, merely to hold blindly onto a narrow, shallow definition of the world around you. Meanwhile knowledge marches on. Great discoveries have been made in your lifetime that would have revolutionized the world had they been found 100 or 200 years ago. The world will move forward and continue to unravel the mysteries of nature. You will live inside a bubble, cynical, distrustful and deprived of the benefits of knowledge. This is a picture I'm sure you've seen before. The nearly horizontal striations extending west of North America, particularly the Aleutians, and the jigsaw-puzzle curvature matching the Americas and Africa, and the parallel contour of the Atlantic trench, demonstrate the lateral movement of the plates, generally East-West, at least in the latest episode of continental drift.

I don't even know what fundamentalism is, let alone any heads with the hat.

All those attributes mentioned normally point to someone that's mentally isolated, so I understand where you are coming from.

Either what I have proposed about the flood is correct or I am nuts.

While some are prepared to compromise the Biblical account to fit science, I don't need to compromise, and I think because I have not, the answers have been opened up to me.

But I wonder if I have made a complete botch up in delivering them, for instance not starting with familiar tests.

 

[Gerhard Kemmerer]

Shouldn't you be living in a cave somewhere, or a third-world country with no technological infrastructure, so you wouldn't have the problem of deciding what to trust?

I don't trust anything that contradicts the Bible. The same as many don't trust anything that contradicts science.

I still believe and trust in genuine science, but creating a good dishwasher does not necessitate dismantling faith.

What could be said is that if an atheist makes a computer then we must worship their philosophy. The trouble is the people who came up with electromagnetic technology were Christians, and it is appropriate that with the influx of atheists, science has come to a grinding halt, we are still playing with yesteryear's tech. The modern nerd is not so intelligent as obsessive.

 

[Gerhard Kemmerer]

This is actually the center of the problem. The Christian radical right wants to coopt education and insert religion where science currently is. They are using bogus science in hopes of eliminating real science education and begin teaching religion as science.

It is a frightening scenario!

What I have posted about the flood, is not known or accepted by christian groups, for two reasons, unfamiliarity and their compromise of the Bible with common science.

There is nothing wrong with real science which acknowledges God.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

There's definitely a conflict between science and religion.
You can try to make science join with religion, but it's an unhappy marriage.
I can't think of a way to make them live together, but they are both parts of man's nature.
Religions have given mankind precepts to live by.
Science can't tell us how to live.

 

[Gerhard Kemmerer]

There's definitely a conflict between science and religion.
You can try to make science join with religion, but it's an unhappy marriage.
I can't think of a way to make them live together, but they are both parts of man's nature.
Religions have given mankind precepts to live by.
Science can't tell us how to live.

Quite right.

I don't like religions much, neither a system of science that accepts false doctrines through shear repetition and not reason.

 

[MRC_Hans]

I am using the word mass to mean overall weight by volume.
If science understood water dynamics more fully, they could easily envisage the possibility of a global flood.

Sorry, been busy. That 'mass' you refer to is called density. Water does not change its density. - Well, a wee bit depending on temperature, but that is of little importance.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

There is enough water in the oceans, without humming about melting ice caps, which amount to practically nothing, to cover the entire earth by over 2000 meters.

Only if you assume some major geological upheavals. Obviously, if the deep oceans somehow suddenly became shallow, and the mountains sank, the oceans could cover the whole planet, but then Noah would, in addition to the already formidable (= impossible) challenges, have to deal with mile-high tsunamies ranging the globe.

The earth does not behave as a solid rock, it bends and gives way to oceans, and it also has much more flexibility under pressure of such water. So it is quite plastic, and behaves like a garment, not a concrete slab.

It is, but it tends to behave as dictated by the laws of nature.

One immediate objection to that might be the question why oceans are not bending their way out of their basins or boundaries. The fact is that they tend to do that all the time, but there are several major natural controls to prevent that, which I will not discuss here.

Laws of nature, again.

Another factor to consider (out of at least five major ones) is that oceans are not attracted to shores, to level out, the major frame of reference is the earth below, its gravity etc. So the pull of gravity is downward towards the centre of the earth, in every part of the ocean.

Rather obviously.

This means that if an ocean is enabled to cover the land, which it certainly can, the earth will give way and the ocean will stay on that continent for as long as nothing changes.

Nonsense. The continents float on the molten core of earth, but the density of rock is far higher than that of water. If a continent was somehow covered in water, it would still float so high that the water would run off.

Another factor about oceans you cannot shift great masses, or displace great masses without extraordinary forces, I mean super natural.
A large ocean going vessel cannot dock sideways, if there is only three meters of water around the ship, despite powerful side shifting screws, because the water is too difficult to displace. Imagine what it takes to move an ocean, or to displace any of its water.

I'm sorry, but this is total nonsense. The oceans are displaced, all over the planet, 4 times every day and night (tides). How do you think a ship docks, then? It doesn't even take that much force; if there was no wond an current, a single man could dock a supertanker by pulling at the mooring ropes, only it would take him some days.

There are several factors of ocean behaviour which are not accounted for by common science, so why would you expect it to support a global flood?

Which factors?

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Relative viscosity.

There is no such thing.

I gave you a illustration for a large scale. We'll try going the other way - small.
I watched an ant with its head caught in a droplet of water, they are strong creatures, but this one could not shake the water off.

That is not viscosity, that is surface tension.

Without discussing surface cohesion, if we increased the scale of this droplet and the ant by a thousand, so that the droplet is about a meter wide, and the water stood up like a ball, the ant still cannot get out. Would you say that is a fair representation of water dynamics or would it be fiction?

It would be nonsense.

Fiction of course, because the surface tension, is still as strong but no longer relevant.

Because its range is fixed. But you were talking about viscosity, not surface tension.

The laws of physics are not this uniform scale that goes into infinity, and on a large scale, several physical laws are no longer as relevant.

Wrong. The laws of physics apply to all scales, but certainly not in exactly the same way.

However, I'll tell you why water seems to be more dense, or sluggish in large quantities:

Take a box, 10cm on all sides. It can contain one liter of water, which will weigh about one kilo.
Now scale the box by two, so it is 20 cm on all sides.
Now it can contain 8 liters of water, which will weigh 8 kilos.

So, of course a large amount of water will slosh around much slower, because the inertia is that much greater.- Even though all the properties of the water are the same.

Hans