otseng wrote:micatala wrote:How could a flood create this layer in such a way that ALL the dinosaurs end up below it and ALL the humans, modern mammals, etc. end up above it?
Well, I would disagree with that assertion.
Even from the same wikipedia article:
"A very small number of dinosaur fossils have been found above the K–T boundary, but they have been explained as reworked, that is, fossils that have been eroded from their original locations then preserved in later sedimentary layers."
This seems to be an ad-hoc explanation to me. If this is true that fossils can be "reworked", what is the reliability at all of correlating fossils with stratas?
I allow I may have made an overly categorical statement. However, this does not negate the larger argument. Note that in the sentence immediately preceding the section you quoted, we have:
Non-avian dinosaur fossils are only found below the K–T boundary, indicating that dinosaurs became extinct immediately before, or during the event.[3]
Even dismissing the reworking argument, which you have given no substantive refutation of, the FM would still need to explain how a large number of species all appear only in the lower layers and other species only in upper layers.
As far as the reworking, are you denying that it is possible for fossils to form in sedimentary layers and then be moved elsewhere as part of an erosion process?
I again allow my statement was too categorical. However, SG and evolutionary theory are consistent with some species living through mass extinction events and serving largely unchanged for long periods of time. Still, there are modern species, like humans, elephants, and even mastodons, smilodons, etc., that do not exist below the KT boundary. Your list of exceptions does not negate my argument.
[Edited to add:
In addition, looking at your link for rabbits, we see that the rabbits referred to do not seem to be the same as rabbits today, but are rather considered early relatives. Now, this could get us into species classification, but I think this will only make the problem worse for the FM. Why do the "rabbits" we find around the KT boundary have significant differences to the rabbits found in higher layers and that are alive today? Why would the flood not mix all the "rabbit like" species up so that we see them throughout the sedimentary layers?
Note that the article says the following:
The Origins of Modern Mammals
The new G. elkema fossil also sheds light on a debate about the first appearance of modern placental mammals (mammals that develop for an extended period of time nourished by the placenta in the mother's uterus), a group that includes humans, deer, cows, rats, monkeys, whales, camels, horses, and bats. Paleontologists have wondered whether modern placentals existed earlier than 65 million years ago, a turning point in geologic history when the fossil record shows that many of Earth's species became extinct. This date is known as the "K-T boundary," referring to the break between the Cretaceous Period and the Tertiary Period that followed it.
Some paleontologists claim that ancient relatives of modern groups such as rabbits can be found in the fossil record tens of millions of years before the K-T boundary. An extinct Central Asian group of mammals called zalambdalestids are known to be more than 85 million years old, and they shared a close evolutionary relationship with modern rabbits, a hypothesis suggested by some paleontologists.
So, I grant that mammal-like creatures probably existed prior to the KT boundary and that they are related to present day mammals. But, we still do not have, at least we have not found, species that are identical to todays rabbits in those layers.
[End of additional material added by edit]
Have we explained why there is not salt found in ice cores going back tens of thousdands of years?
Why would salt need to be found?
Becauses the ocean is salty. If the oceans covered up the ice sheets, some of the salt water would seep into the ice sheets and probably be left on top as it receded.
I do not believe the ice caps existed prior to the flood. The climate of the Earth was much more uniform due to the water canopy. So, the ice layers were formed after the flood.
THis assertion contradicts a large body of evidence.
See for example
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noa ... plications. Greenland has ice layers going back 40,000 years. Annual tree ring data goes back over 10,000 years. The only counter I can see to these data is to assume, without evidence, that processes we can observe today somehow occurred very differntly in the not so distant past.
In addition, you did not address the Karoo formation and its implications from the last thread. What about the number of fossils problem? What about the trilobite example?
In addition, the flood is inconsistent with the following, also from the previous link.
How was the fossil record sorted in an order convenient for evolution? Ecological zonation, hydrodynamic sorting, and differential escape fail to explain:
the relative positions of plants and other non-motile life. (Yun, 1989, describes beautifully preserved algae from Late Precambrian sediments. Why don't any modern-looking plants appear that low in the geological column?)
why some groups of organisms, such as mollusks, are found in many geologic strata.
why organisms (such as brachiopods) which are very similar hydrodynamically (all nearly the same size, shape, and weight) are still perfectly sorted.
why extinct animals which lived in the same niches as present animals didn't survive as well. Why did no pterodons make it to high ground?
how coral reefs hundreds of feet thick and miles long were preserved intact with other fossils below them.
why small organisms dominate the lower strata, whereas fluid mechanics says they would sink slower and thus end up in upper strata.
why artifacts such as footprints and burrows are also sorted. [Crimes & Droser, 1992]
why different parts of the same organisms are sorted together. Pollen and spores are found in association with the trunks, leaves, branches, and roots produced by the same plants [Stewart, 1983].
why ecological information is consistent within but not between layers. Fossil pollen is one of the more important indicators of different levels of strata. Each plant has different and distinct pollen, and, by telling which plants produced the fossil pollen, it is easy to see what the climate was like in different strata. Was the pollen hydraulically sorted by the flood water so that the climatic evidence is different for each layer?
How much can water decrease the coefficient of friction?
If I had one large slab of rock on top of another slab and I tried to push the top one, it would require less force to move it if there was water between the slabs than if there was none.
I agree water can reduce the coefficient of friction. What we need to know is by how much, and is this decrease sufficient to allow tectonic plates to slide under the pressure of the water from the hypothetical vents. This argument smacks of superficial plausibility (like many of Aristotle's for example) but is short on justification.
I think we could do some experiments to test this. Place a cinderblock on dry pavement and try to push it, measuring the force. Now, place the same cinderblock in a submerged tank with the same bottom material as the pavement and push. My guess is you will not get a significant decrease in the coefficient of friction. I'll put a cup of coffee up that it will be less than a 20% reduction.
Also, although I am not a physicist, it seems to me that in order to move a piece of land of mass M, one would would need a huge force F. Force = mass times acceleration. Can we calculate the force required, make some assumptions about the mass of water, and then calculate the acceleration required?
Actually, let's not create too many rabbit trails. The biggest problem (of many) with the FM to my mind is the fossil problem alluded to above. Here is but two more aspects of that problem.
Where did all the organic material in the fossil record come from? There are 1.16 x 1013 metric tons of coal reserves, and at least 100 times that much unrecoverable organic matter in sediments. A typical forest, even if it covered the entire earth, would supply only 1.9 x 1013 metric tons. [Ricklefs, 1993, p. 149]
How do you explain the relative commonness of aquatic fossils? A flood would have washed over everything equally, so terrestrial organisms should be roughly as abundant as aquatic ones (or more abundant, since Creationists hypothesize greater land area before the Flood) in the fossil record. Yet shallow marine environments account for by far the most fossils.
" . . . the line separating good and evil passes, not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart . . . ." Alexander Solzhenitsyn
