A Deluge of Evidence for the Flood?

[LittlePig]

And I can't think of any reason you would make the comment you made if you weren't suggesting that the find favored your view of a worldwide flood.

Umm, because simply it's a better explanation? And the fact that it's more consistent with the Flood Model doesn't hurt either.

Except, of course, it isn't consistent with a 'Flood Model', since it isn't mixed in with any animals that we know are modern.

Before the rabbits multiply beyond control, I'll just leave my proposal as a rapid burial. Nothing more than that. For this thread, it can just be a giant mud slide.

Since it's still spring time, let's let the rabbits multiply.

Questions for Debate:

1) Does a Global Flood Model provide the best explanation for our current fossil record, geologic formations, and biodiversity?

2) What real science is used in Global Flood Models?

3) What predictions does a Global Flood Model make?

4) Have Global Flood Models ever been subjected to a formal peer review process?

[otseng]

How do you derive your time frame for the flood?

Well, for starters, tree-rings.

Are you insinuating that we don't find further back than 10,000 years because of some global flood?

Yes, I see the FM as the explanation that we only have a continuous tree-ring data to go back around 10,000 years.

Hadn't you moved to your more...extreme outer limit of 100,000 years since the ice core analysis? So which is it?

What I claim is that the flood occured in the magnitude of tens of thousands of years ago. What I lean towards is closer to the 10,000 year range. And as for ice core dating, that is what we are debating now.

Because they don't have the samples for the "full sequence"?

Why not?

Perhaps we simply do not have any trees with sufficient structural integrity past that age.

Then how can we see the rings from the broken tree ring data? If the rings in the broken set are distinguishable, why would there be a break around 10,000 years ago?

We have ice cores currently under discussion. We also have radiometric dating, dating based on changes in the earth's magnetic field, and the use of these techniques in combination along with the fossil record. We have many ways of estimating ancient dates.

After ice core, we can discuss those others as well.

[nygreenguy]

Well, for starters, tree-rings.

That still doesnt answer how you derive your evidence for your time frame. You must show how it happened not just through tree rings, but also in the geologic record, the ecological record, etc...

Yes, I see the FM as the explanation that we only have a continuous tree-ring data to go back around 10,000 years.

If you were to tell this to a group of geologists you would be laughed at. One piece of faulty evidence. We have tree rings that are hundreds of thousands of years old. The only thing having the tree ring record being broke at around 10000 years tells us is the record is broken at 10,000 years.

Hadn't you moved to your more...extreme outer limit of 100,000 years since the ice core analysis? So which is it?

What I claim is that the flood occured in the magnitude of tens of thousands of years ago. What I lean towards is closer to the 10,000 year range. And as for ice core dating, that is what we are debating now.

Then how can we see the rings from the broken tree ring data? If the rings in the broken set are distinguishable, why would there be a break around 10,000 years ago?

why do you expect it to be solid? This is an insane claim. Do you expect their to be an unbroken record all the way back to the evolution of trees?

After ice core, we can discuss those others as well.

Ive heard this hundreds of times before so forgive me of my skepticism. You still have yet to even come close to explaining away ice cores (and tree rings)

[otseng]

This is a good ball park calculation to do.

However, the previously cited link on the Kohnen Station ice core has more specific data, so we can do better.

Yes, my estimate is a ballpark figure. The FM would have to determine the rough estimate of the age of the entire Antarctica, that is why I used average thickness and average precipitation rate and used the more generous values to give an upper limit. To use any single point of data would not be a valid ballpark figure. I could as well use a thin ice cap with a higher precipitation rate to achieve a very low date.

There will be discrepancies between the thickness and precipitation rate throughout Antarctica. And using single points of data would lead to a wide range of dates. So, to have a meaningful ballpark estimate, I feel averages should be used.

I would say it is also just as plausible to suggest there are years when no layer forms. Especially given the paucity of precipitation alluded to by otseng, what would happen if the average of 2.5cm/year included some years where there were 0 cm? Would a layer form and if not, would we be able to determine that a year was "skipped?"

I don't remember suggesting a paucity of precipitation. However, I would also say it is just as plausible to have a significant amount of precipitation per year and could be a result of multiple snowstorms per year.

We still haven't been given any real reason to doubt the layer count yet.

In the article you referred to for the Antarctica ice core, there is no mention of using layer counting. The only mention I see of layer counting is for the Greenland ice cores.

One other question. Does the ball park calculation take into account the incredible compression that the lower layers are under?

It does not take in account density. As I've mentioned, it would introduce a 10% variation in the number. For extreme depths, the density would not alter this significantly, perhaps add at most another 10% variation.

And as one other possible factor, is it possible the lower layers have been extruded? In other words, could the pressure lead to the layers being spread out?

It is a possibility.

[micatala]

perhaps this is because it would be easy to tell? Its often a criticism of dendrochronology that double rings give a false large reading when the reality is false rings are physiologically different than true rings and are easily caught and accounted for. Same goes for ice cores (except not physiology, but physical)

I've already given evidence that layers are assumed to be annual. Also, micatala confirms this assumption: "Yes, ice core dating assumes annual rings."

If you can show evidence that they actually test for subannual layering, I'd be interested in seeing it.

I did find some additional info on this, posted in Post #601
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... &start=600

This doesn't say that they tested for subannual layering directly, but in the sense that they are checking that the layers are annual, they are confirming that that assumption is backed up by data.

As for subannual layering, are you referring to this?

The seasonal snow layers are easiest to see in snow pits, writes Alley, the Evan Pugh Professor in the Environment Institute and Department of Geosciences at Pennsylvania State University. To see the layers, scientists dig two pits separated by a thin wall of snow. One pit is covered, and the other is left open to sunlight. By standing in the covered pit, scientists can study the annual snow layers in the snow wall as the sunlight filters through the other side. I have stood in snow pits with dozens of people"drillers, journalists, and others"and so far, every visitor has been impressed. The snow is blue, something like the blue seen by deep sea divers, an indescribable, almost achingly beautiful blue, writes Alley. The next thing most people notice is the layering.

Yes, and the previous paragraph.

Also, we need to acknowledge that the visual layers are only discernible so far. Due to compression, the annual layers eventually get compressed. There is also ice flow that can happen, so layers can not only be extruded or squished, but also move to some extent.

Throughout each year, layers of snow fall over the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Each layer of snow is different in chemistry and texture, summer snow differing from winter snow. Summer brings 24 hours of sunlight to the polar regions, and the top layer of the snow changes in texture"not melting exactly, but changing enough to be different from the snow it covers. The season turns cold and dark again, and more snow falls, forming the next layers of snow. Each layer gives scientists a treasure trove of information about the climate each year. Like marine sediment cores, an ice core provides a vertical timeline of past climates stored in ice sheets and mountain glaciers.

This is referring, albeit very briefly, to how we know the layers we see are annual. By observing layers as they are formed, year to year, and seeing how they age as they are covered by additional layers, we can know for certain, at least for the layers that have formed while observation has been going on, that the layers are annual. We can test this visually, physically, and chemically.


In http://www2.umaine.edu/USITASE/science/ ... /impl.html

also cited in that same post, they discuss some further technical details and methods, like the use of ice-penetrating radar to gain information about the layers and, where possible, the underlying bedrock.

Airborne radar - SOAR. A SOAR Twin Otter flew several lines and cross-lines through each US ITASE corridor to map bedrock, ice thickness and internal layers at scales of 10 to 25 ice thicknesses (25-50 km) on either side of the ground-based sampling routes to select appropriate sites for sampling. The SOAR Twin Otter Aerogeophysical survey aircraft has already covered some blocks in the US ITASE sampling corridors using ice-penetrating radar. The ice thickness was used to calculate expected thinning of annual layers in cores, and the internal layering is important for understanding spatial variability further back in time. Previous experience shows that spatial variations in accumulation are closely related to ice sheet topography, which in turn is related to bedrock topography and bedrock heat flux. Knowledge of bedrock patterns from radar will allow a better assessment of whether the spot measurements of accumulation at core sites, and their associated near-surface radar tie-ins, are representative of long-term regional accumulation patterns.

High resolution ice-penetrating radar. Airborne ice-penetrating radar surveys are being carried out using a system that can record high quality internal layering in the upper 50 to 100 meters. These data identify regions with good preservation of stratigraphy in the past 200 years, and are linked to the accumulation rate histories derived from the individual core sites. Multiple flight lines were flown in each corridor, with cross tie lines where possible. Even if such a high-resolution radar system does not detect bedrock, maps of the upper internal layering will be invaluable to the traverse planning and data interpretation.

I'll see if I can find another site that gives more detail than the first site above but is less technical than the latter.



ALso, on the "uniformitarianism" issue, it may be that some of us arguing against the FM are not on the same page. Speaking for myself, I agree that it is reasonable to assume that the basic laws of physics and chemistry in operation on the earth for its entire history have been the same. I did not mean to imply that this applied to more variable phenomenon like climate. I made my 130,000 year estimate on the ball park assumption that annual snowfall has been 2.5 cm per year during the formation of the sheet. I did not mean to imply I was asserting that this had to be the case, only that if it was, we would get the given age.

Just for future reference, here is another link on ice cores.
http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/icecore/review.php

Here is a short link showing two series using chemical variations along with a visual of the layers.
http://www.gfy.ku.dk/~www-glac/datering ... tint_e.htm

Here is a short link on 'precision ice core dating'. The dates here are only in the range of a few thousand to 10 thousand years back. The article does mention the use of volcanic eruptions to locate dates.
http://www.therafoundation.org/articles ... coredating



In asking whether the climate or other conditions were substantially the same or different at times in the past, and how they might have been different, I think we need to look for evidence. Some of the sites related to ice cores do exactly this. In fact, many scientists are explicitly looking for evidence related to past climate by using data from the ice cores.

[micatala]

How do you derive your time frame for the flood?

Well, for starters, tree-rings.

Yes, this pushes any date for the hypothetical flood back at least 10,000 years, which is past many YEC models.

Are you insinuating that we don't find further back than 10,000 years because of some global flood?

Yes, I see the FM as the explanation that we only have a continuous tree-ring data to go back around 10,000 years.

I would agree if a flood did happen around 10,000 years ago or shortly before that, it would be consistent with our tree rings going back only that far. On the other hand, if the flood was significantly further back in time, say to 50 or 100 K years, than how does that explain the disappearance of tree rings at 10 K??

ALso, we DO have fossilized tree rings that we can, for a variety of reasons, date much further back.

Perhaps we simply do not have any trees with sufficient structural integrity past that age.

Then how can we see the rings from the broken tree ring data? If the rings in the broken set are distinguishable, why would there be a break around 10,000 years ago?

Please remember I was suggesting plausible hypotheses, not putting forward any data on broken sequences. Please also remember I alluded to a difference between tree rings in actual wood versus fossilized trees. Perhaps I should have clarified that in the scenario I was hypothesizing, the "wood tree rings" go back 10,000 years. Then, there are fossilized rings which would in many cases be much older. The break is between the wood rings and the fossilized rings.

I guess what we need is an explanation based on standard science as to why what I would call "wood rings" (which could be from live or dead trees) don't take us back further than 10,000 years. My guess is that the wood simply decays by that time if it is not already undergoing a fossilization process.

We have ice cores currently under discussion. We also have radiometric dating, dating based on changes in the earth's magnetic field, and the use of these techniques in combination along with the fossil record. We have many ways of estimating ancient dates.

After ice core, we can discuss those others as well.

I would agree with maintaining focus on ice cores for now.

[micatala]

This is a good ball park calculation to do.

However, the previously cited link on the Kohnen Station ice core has more specific data, so we can do better.

Yes, my estimate is a ballpark figure. The FM would have to determine the rough estimate of the age of the entire Antarctica, that is why I used average thickness and average precipitation rate and used the more generous values to give an upper limit. To use any single point of data would not be a valid ballpark figure. I could as well use a thin ice cap with a higher precipitation rate to achieve a very low date.

There will be discrepancies between the thickness and precipitation rate throughout Antarctica. And using single points of data would lead to a wide range of dates. So, to have a meaningful ballpark estimate, I feel averages should be used.

I would disagree. If there is a very thick section with lots of layers, it exists regardless of whether or not there are thinner sections with fewer layers elsewhere. What you are doing is analagous to averaging out the heights of tall and short people and then saying we should use the average to estimate how tall the tallest person is.

If the thickest sheet shows an age of half a million years, this is not negated by another sheet showing only 100 K or 10 K years.

I would say it is also just as plausible to suggest there are years when no layer forms. Especially given the paucity of precipitation alluded to by otseng, what would happen if the average of 2.5cm/year included some years where there were 0 cm? Would a layer form and if not, would we be able to determine that a year was "skipped?"

I don't remember suggesting a paucity of precipitation. However, I would also say it is just as plausible to have a significant amount of precipitation per year and could be a result of multiple snowstorms per year.

I think you noted somewhere that Antarctica is considered a desert and that average snowfalls in at least the interior were in the range of 5 cm water equivalent per year. THis is what I referred to as a "paucity."

Also, the layering we see is not based on individual storms, but the seasonal changes caused by earths orbits. The 2.5 cm average snowfall at the station alluded to above takes into account howver many storms there were in a given year.

Again, we SEE what happens year to year in the recent layers. We DO see annual layers. Now, I agree we cannot just assume the currently observed rates of snowfall were in operation in the past. However, we should also not consider speculation that snowfall was significantly greater in the past than now as having any evidentiary value.

[otseng]

Show me somewhere where uniformitarianism says the climate must remain constant? The principal of uniformity NEVER says everything remains constant. Its utterly offensive to me as a scientist for you to make such blatant false accusations.

Where did I say that? And where did I say the climate was constant in the past? The only thing I stated was using the assumption of a constant precipitation rate, I derived my values of a ballpark estimate of the age of the Antarctica ice cap.

[Scotracer]

Show me somewhere where uniformitarianism says the climate must remain constant? The principal of uniformity NEVER says everything remains constant. Its utterly offensive to me as a scientist for you to make such blatant false accusations.

Where did I say that? And where did I say the climate was constant in the past? The only thing I stated was using the assumption of a constant precipitation rate, I derived my values of a ballpark estimate of the age of the Antarctica ice cap.

Your numbers assume no compression of lower layers due to the pressure from above - which is something we see in reality.

[micatala]

Show me somewhere where uniformitarianism says the climate must remain constant? The principal of uniformity NEVER says everything remains constant. Its utterly offensive to me as a scientist for you to make such blatant false accusations.

Where did I say that? And where did I say the climate was constant in the past? The only thing I stated was using the assumption of a constant precipitation rate, I derived my values of a ballpark estimate of the age of the Antarctica ice cap.

I think nygreenguy was taking your comments in Post #632 to infer that the SG did make the assumption of uniformity and that this assumption included the climate remaining relatively constant.


You had based your ball park estimate of the age of the Antarctic ice sheet as being 44,000 years on an average precipitation rate from the current era. You indicated that you did not believe this was a valid assumption, but that you were using the principle of uniformitarianism which SG subscribes to.

nygreenguy wrote:

Yes, it could. And in all likelihood, it was different in the past. But, I'm simply using the assumption that SG makes that things are constant in the past as they are now.

Actually "sg" makes no assumption. Assumptions are without evidence.

I find it odd that this assumption would be questioned. Since, SG is based on the principle (assumption) of uniformity.

The "it" refers to climate. You say "it" could change but inferred that the SG says it would not change. This goes back to your post #616 on page 62.

You reiterate this in Post #624 after nygreenguy objected to the notion that the SG assumes contant climate.

nygreenguy wrote:

Also: the climate has changed a whole lot in 40,000 years so you CANT assume a constant rate.

Yes, it could. And in all likelihood, it was different in the past. But, I'm simply using the assumption that SG makes that things are constant in the past as they are now.

I think we all agree the climate has not been constant over long periods of time. I think we all agree that basic physical constants like rates of radioactive decay, the gravitational constant, etc. do not change.

The current SG model does not assume climate remains constant, and the objection is to your statement that the SG does say this.


In Post #634, nygreenguy provides information on the current definition of uniformitarianism. I believe that same link also provides information on older understandings of the concept, including Lyell's understanding which included four items.




I would suggest we use the modern understanding of uniformitarianism as spelled out by Gould in nygreenguy's link.

The axiom of uniformity of law is necessary in order for scientists to extrapolate inductive inference into the unobservable past. As James Hutton wrote: If the stone, for example, which fell today, were to rise again tomorrow, there would be an end of natural philosophy [i.e. science], our principles would fail, and we would no longer investigate the rules of nature from our observations.[22] In essence, the constancy of natural laws must be assumed in our study of the past, because if we do not, then we cannot meaningfully study the past. Making inferences about the past is wrapped up in the difference between studying the observable present and the unobservable past. In the observable present, induction can be regarded as self-corrective. That is to say, our erroneous beliefs about the observable world can be proven wrong and corrected by other observations. This is Popper's principle of falsifiability. However, past processes are not observable by their very nature. Therefore, in order to come to conclusions about the past, we must assume the invariance of nature's laws.[21]

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformita ... science%29 for further discussion.


If I can paraphrase, the current understanding includes:

1) The basic laws of nature that can be observed today as operating constantly should be assumed to operate the same way in the past. This would include things like basic laws of physics and gravity and chemistry.
2) We assume that the types of forces operating now also operated in the past, especially where we see evidence for their operation. This would include techtonic forces, erosional forces, wind forces etc.
3) We do NOT assume forces always produced constant effects or constant rates. Thus, we do NOT assume plate movements always had to be at the same rates we see today, especially for a particular plate. We do NOT assume the magnitudes of floods or volcanoes we see now were the same in the past. In fact, this is based on evidence that some floods and eruptions from the past were of much greater magnitude than any in recorded history. One example would be the eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano.
4) We allow that, based on evidence, geological processes do typically operate slowly, but that catastrophic events do happen. While we do not assume constant rates of processes, we can calculate at least in some cases what differences in forces would be required to produce processes of different rates.

Thus, I would hypothesize we could, assuming constancy in the laws of phyics, calculate whether it would be possible for techtonic plates to move at a given rate greater than what we see today. We could calculate whether the FM scenario of these movements is possible.

Since we are on ice cores, the implications of the above is that we cannot assume constant snow fall rates or temperatures. But we could calculate, based on the laws of physics and chemistry, how much evaporation a given rate would require, how much weight this would add to the sheet, or estimates of upper and lower limits on ice flow rates based on weights, topography, coefficients of friction etc.



I think, based on previous comments, we should all be pretty close to agreement on these items. If not, this could be discussed further, although I would suggest for now we only do so to the extent necessary to discuss the ice core dating.

Thus, we do not ASSUME constant climate or snow rates or temperatures. We DO look at what the evidence tells us by what snow rates or temps were in the past. We can certainly deal with hypotheticals, as above, and say what would have happened in particular circumstances if we do assume constant rates, as both otseng and I have done.

[micatala]

Please remember I was suggesting plausible hypotheses, not putting forward any data on broken sequences. Please also remember I alluded to a difference between tree rings in actual wood versus fossilized trees. Perhaps I should have clarified that in the scenario I was hypothesizing, the "wood tree rings" go back 10,000 years. Then, there are fossilized rings which would in many cases be much older. The break is between the wood rings and the fossilized rings.

I guess what we need is an explanation based on standard science as to why what I would call "wood rings" (which could be from live or dead trees) don't take us back further than 10,000 years. My guess is that the wood simply decays by that time if it is not already undergoing a fossilization process.

Can I ask if nygreenguy can shed any light on this? As I recall, you have some experience with dendrochronology. Am I off base in my speculations concerning how far back wood rings go and whether the first "break" is between wood rings and fossilized rings?