Uniformitarianism or catastrophism?

[Mr-Vaquero]

Hello,
Uniformitarianism and catastrophism are 2 ways to look at Earth's geologic history.

Uniformitarianism suggests for example that surface features we see on Earth are caused by long term uniform processes such as weathering or plate tectonics.

Catastrophism suggests that features on Earth can be explained by sudden, short events. Such as Noah's flood or a meteorite impact.

So, what theory do you like best and why?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Jose Fly in post #29]

That's not an argument I've made.

The article you cited did.

As I understand it the last one was about 65 MYA, if I remember correctly.

So you do believe in a worldwide catastrophe and it sounds like you believe in more than one worldwide catastrophe.

Your position does not really make sense because in post 2 you wrote:

So as to your question, uniformitarianism has been the underlying framework of the earth sciences for well over a century and has been used to generate tangible, useful results (e.g., oil exploration). OTOH, catastrophism hasn't generated results or even been used for.....well, over a century.

So this really isn't even a meaningful question. In the context of practical science, catastrophism is irrelevant.

So according to your quote above you seem to be saying or you did say that "catastrophism is irrelevant." and "has not been used for well over a century."

In this quote, you say that uniformitarianism has been the underlying framework of earth sciences. And then in post 4, you said

Again, uniformitarianism isn't "no catastrophes have ever occurred". Large, catastrophic floods are part of uniformitarianism.

Worldwide catastrophic events could not be irrelevant in the geologic record.

Which statement are you saying you believe?

Is there any place today that is depositing limestone that pure?
I've no idea.

Let me help you out no there is not.
So if this type of deposition is not occurring anywhere in the world today and "catastrophism is irrelevant." Where did this chalk come from?

If today is the key to the past, or whatever it is you believe. Or is this one of those times when uniformitarianism doesn't work? One of the many times.
Again, you're about 100 years behind

Behind what you are the one who said that "catastrophism is irrelevant." If "catastrophism is irrelevant." then that means that we do not need to consider it when we are looking at the geologic record. That would mean you are saying that uniformitarianism is where it is at. If that is the case then your belief system has no mechanism to generate the limestone cliffs in Dover, England.

Actualism lets you believe whatever it is that you want to believe
No it doesn't. That you think it does is pretty funny though.

Your rendition of actualism does. You do not seem to be able to decide whether catastrophism is relevant or not. Are you now going to say that some sort of catastrophism created the Dover cliffs? Because no place in the world today is producing limestone as pure as what we find at the cliffs of Dover.

so do you believe the dinosaurs died in a worldwide event?
It's not something I've really looked into in-depth.

Make sure you take your actualism coin with you so you can flip it and see what you are going to believe today.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #23]

You may like to believe it happened millions of years ago but the sides of the canyon would never be as straight as they are if that were the case.

Why not? What is the relationship between the straightness of canyon walls and the time it took for them to form?

We have soft tissue in dinosaur fossils which indicates it could not have happened millions of years ago.

No ... it indicates that it is possible for soft tissue to be preserved for millions of years in rare cases:

https://www.history.com/news/scientists ... saur-bones

They make no claim (nor did Mary Schweitzer in 2005 with the T Rex tissue) that this suggested dinosaurs did not live, and go extinct, tens of millions of years ago.

There is more water in the Earth's mantle than in all of the oceans on the Earth combined. There is water under all of the major mountain ranges.

Are you talking about bound OH and H in ringwoodite, 250-400 miles below the surface? Explain how that is suddenly going to become "fountains of the deep" and flood the surface? It isn't liquid water available to suddenly burst forth to the surface in that form. Plus, estimates suggest the total is about 3x the total amount of H2O in the oceans. So even if this mantle "water" could magically burst onto the surface, virtually all of it would be needed and then some to cover the Earth to above the highest mountains (which would take about 3.6x as much water is in all the oceans, added to ocean water). All the water in the atmosphere, if condensed at once, would form a liquid layer only about 1" tall on the surface. So rain for 40 days and 40 nights adds nearly nothing. There is simply no viable source for the water to create a global flood at any point humans have existed on the planet (and without them ... old Noah would have no purpose in building his mythical ark and would have been forced to find another way to kill time at age 600).

[Jose Fly]

[Replying to Jose Fly in post #29]

That's not an argument I've made.

The article you cited did.

As I understand it the last one was about 65 MYA, if I remember correctly.

So you do believe in a worldwide catastrophe and it sounds like you believe in more than one worldwide catastrophe.

Your position does not really make sense because in post 2 you wrote:

So as to your question, uniformitarianism has been the underlying framework of the earth sciences for well over a century and has been used to generate tangible, useful results (e.g., oil exploration). OTOH, catastrophism hasn't generated results or even been used for.....well, over a century.

So this really isn't even a meaningful question. In the context of practical science, catastrophism is irrelevant.

So according to your quote above you seem to be saying or you did say that "catastrophism is irrelevant." and "has not been used for well over a century."

In this quote, you say that uniformitarianism has been the underlying framework of earth sciences. And then in post 4, you said

Again, uniformitarianism isn't "no catastrophes have ever occurred". Large, catastrophic floods are part of uniformitarianism.

Worldwide catastrophic events could not be irrelevant in the geologic record.

Which statement are you saying you believe?

This is where these "debates" get difficult. I don't know why you can't seem to grasp the simple understanding that "uniformitarianism v. catastrophism" hasn't been scientifically relevant for about 100 years, due to the fact that the paradigm shifted to actualism, which incorporates catastrophic events.

Whatever the reason behind your lack of understanding, I'll simply note again that the argument you're trying to make here is 100 years behind the times. If you can't be bothered to bring yourself up to speed, then I can't help you.

Let me help you out no there is not.
So if this type of deposition is not occurring anywhere in the world today and "catastrophism is irrelevant." Where did this chalk come from?

FYI, you are among the last people I'd ever rely on for assessments of any field of science.

Behind what you are the one who said that "catastrophism is irrelevant." If "catastrophism is irrelevant." then that means that we do not need to consider it when we are looking at the geologic record. That would mean you are saying that uniformitarianism is where it is at. If that is the case then your belief system has no mechanism to generate the limestone cliffs in Dover, England.

Again, if you can't grasp the simple concept described above, I can't help you.

Your rendition of actualism does. You do not seem to be able to decide whether catastrophism is relevant or not. Are you now going to say that some sort of catastrophism created the Dover cliffs? Because no place in the world today is producing limestone as pure as what we find at the cliffs of Dover.

This is just plain ridiculous. Please try and keep up with the conversation, or leave it to those who can.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #0]

Why not? What is the relationship between the straightness of canyon walls and the time it took for them to form?

Nothing about the time it took them to form but the time since they have formed. Weathering, erosion, and deposition flattens the topography over time. If you have ever driven in the mountains and read the signs about falling rock, if the rock was not continually cleared then eventually the road would be covered by rock and the deposited falling rock called scree or talus creates an incline, not a cliff face over time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scree?scrlybrkr=7b6ecff0

No ... it indicates that it is possible for soft tissue to be preserved for millions of years in rare cases:

https://www.history.com/news/scientists ... saur-bones

They make no claim (nor did Mary Schweitzer in 2005 with the T Rex tissue) that this suggested dinosaurs did not live, and go extinct, tens of millions of years ago.

1st it is not in just rare cases but is actually quite common.

Sergio Bertazzo et al., “Fibres and Cellular Structures Preserved in 75-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Specimens,” Nature Communications 6 (2015): 6, doi:10.1038/ncomm8352. "Exceptionally preserved organic remains are known throughout the vertebrate fossil record, and recently, evidence has emerged that such soft tissue might contain original components. We examined samples from eight Cretaceous dinosaur bones using nano-analytical techniques;"

They do not need to make that claim the soft tissue itself makes that claim.

For dinosaur bones to be millions of years old then the way that fossils are made would have to be totally incorrect.

Collagen has been discovered in "85 million-year-old" dinosaurs and "247 million-year-old" reptile. Surmik et al., “Spectroscopic Studies on Organic Matter from Triassic Reptile Bones.”

Myosin, actin, and tropomyosin proteins were also found which would break down much easier than collagen.
René Lametsch, Peter Roepstorff, and Emøke Bendixen. “Identification of Protein Degradation During Post-Mortem Storage of Pig Meat,” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 50, no. 20 (2002): 5508–5512, doi:10.1021/jf025555n; and René Lametsch et al., “Postmortem Proteome Changes of Porcine Muscle Related to Tenderness,” Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 51, no. 24 (2003): 6992–6997, doi:10.1021/jf034083p; and Pål Anders Wang et al., “Post-Mortem Degradation of Myosin Heavy Chain in Intact Fish Muscle: Effects of pH and Enzyme Inhibitors,” Food Chemistry 124, no. 3

And before you start with the Iron cross-linking hypothesis most of the samples of dinosaur tissue contain the amino acids methionine and tyrosine. These are both highly reactive amino acids and they are unaltered. So the iron hypothesis has many problems.

Are you talking about bound OH and H in ringwoodite, 250-400 miles below the surface? Explain how that is suddenly going to become "fountains of the deep" and flood the surface? It isn't liquid water available to suddenly burst forth to the surface in that form. Plus, estimates suggest the total is about 3x the total amount of H2O in the oceans. So even if this mantle "water" could magically burst onto the surface, virtually all of it would be needed and then some to cover the Earth to above the highest mountains (which would take about 3.6x as much water is in all the oceans, added to ocean water). All the water in the atmosphere, if condensed at once, would form a liquid layer only about 1" tall on the surface. So rain for 40 days and 40 nights adds nearly nothing. There is simply no viable source for the water to create a global flood at any point humans have existed on the planet (and without them ... old Noah would have no purpose in building his mythical ark and would have been forced to find another way to kill time at age 600).

You forgot about the heat associated with the condensing water also.
There is also the tectonic plate graveyard under the pacific ocean. https://www.livescience.com/63787-earth ... found.html
You also just shot down Bill Nye's argument for global warming and how the sea level rise will kill us all at least all those on the coast.

I believe all of the water in the mantle and under the mountain ranges is an indication that the earth used to have a different structure. The water indicates that there used to be a compressed water layer under the earth. I think that the water in the mantle and the plates in the mantle have not reached thermal equilibrium is a good indication of the different structures of the Earth. But I believe there is more than enough evidence to rule out uniformitarian ideas. What we see on the Earth today was not caused by the processes that occurring today. The uniformitarian theory struggles to explain cool plates in the mantle and water in the mantle.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #34]

Weathering, erosion, and deposition flattens the topography over time.

Sure, but you made the comment that "the sides of the canyon would never be as straight as they are." Look at the top photo here:

https://knowablemagazine.org/article/ph ... and-canyon

Those walls look very stepped to me, with debris at the bottom typical of erosion from above over a long period of time.

They do not need to make that claim the soft tissue itself makes that claim.

For dinosaur bones to be millions of years old then the way that fossils are made would have to be totally incorrect.

Are you claiming that dinosaur bones are NOT tens of millions of years old, or older, with your only supporting evidence being this soft tissue thing? It appears it is the assumption that soft tissue of any kind surviving for tens of millions of years is what may be wrong. There is just too much other evidence that dinosaurs lived prior to 66 million years ago, and not since. This article better describes things, and includes this excerpt with a comment from Schewitzer:

Young-earth creationists also see Schweitzer’s work as revolutionary, but in an entirely different way. They first seized upon Schweitzer’s work after she wrote an article for the popular science magazine Earth in 1997 about possible red blood cells in her dinosaur specimens. Creation magazine claimed that Schweitzer’s research was “powerful testimony against the whole idea of dinosaurs living millions of years ago. It speaks volumes for the Bible’s account of a recent creation.”

This drives Schweitzer crazy. Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.”

Sounds about right ... twisting words and manipulating data (or interpreting it only in ways that support the biblical narrative) is the stock in trade of creationists (especially YECs).

You also just shot down Bill Nye's argument for global warming and how the sea level rise will kill us all at least all those on the coast.

What? Bill Nye is a mechanical engineer, but nothing I said contradicts global warming and rising sea levels. There is a gigantic difference between the polar ice regions melting and that water running into the ocean to raise sea levels (and if all of it melted it would raise sea levels only about 60-70 meters ... far from reaching the top of Everest but enough to wipe out some coastal cities) and a global flood to the top of Everest from just rain and the "fountains of the deep" ... whatever whoever created the Noah flood myth thought that was.

What we see on the Earth today was not caused by the processes that occurring today.

Based on what? There is a lot unexplained in science, but that doesn't mean we have to default to a holy book's stories and give up. The evidence for an old Earth, dinosaur extinction 66 million years ago, etc. far outweighs any still unexplained observations ... by orders of magnitude.

[The Barbarian]

Hello,
Uniformitarianism and catastrophism are 2 ways to look at Earth's geologic history.

Uniformitarianism suggests for example that surface features we see on Earth are caused by long term uniform processes such as weathering or plate tectonics.

Catastrophism suggests that features on Earth can be explained by sudden, short events. Such as Noah's flood or a meteorite impact.

So, what theory do you like best and why?

FYI, uniformitarianism is the notion that the same processes we see occurring today, also occurred in the past. So since we see meteorite impacts today, the same occurring in the past is part of uniformitarianism. IOW, uniformitarianism includes catastrophic events.

As to your question, uniformitarianism has been the underlying framework of the earth sciences for well over a century and has been used to generate tangible, useful results (e.g., oil exploration). OTOH, catastrophism hasn't generated results or even been used for.....well, over a century.

So this really isn't even a meaningful question. In the context of practical science, catastrophism is irrelevant.

Precisely right. When even Lyell noted the evidence for catastrophic change in the geologic record, it's pretty hard to argue that uniformitarianism and catastrophism are competing ideas.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #36]

Precisely right. When even Lyell noted the evidence for catastrophic change in the geologic record, it's pretty hard to argue that uniformitarianism and catastrophism are competing ideas.

So you are saying that catastrophism is not irrelevant and Lydell said that catastrophism is not irrelevant. That is not what Josefly said. He said that Castrosphism IS irrelevant.

But just saying that they both happen does not end the discussion. Because then you have deside how much of the topography we see is due to uniformitarianism and how much is due to catastrophism.

[Jose Fly]

[Replying to The Barbarian in post #36]

Precisely right. When even Lyell noted the evidence for catastrophic change in the geologic record, it's pretty hard to argue that uniformitarianism and catastrophism are competing ideas.

So you are saying that catastrophism is not irrelevant and Lydell said that catastrophism is not irrelevant. That is not what Josefly said. He said that Castrosphism IS irrelevant.

But just saying that they both happen does not end the discussion. Because then you have deside how much of the topography we see is due to uniformitarianism and how much is due to catastrophism.

Wow....so you really don't understand any of what we've covered in this thread. Okay then.....

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #0]

Sure, but you made the comment that "the sides of the canyon would never be as straight as they are." Look at the top photo here:

https://knowablemagazine.org/article/ph ... and-canyon

Those walls look very stepped to me, with debris at the bottom typical of erosion from above over a long period of time.

The stair-stair step nature would not be an indication of millions of years of weathering, erosion, and deposition. Millions of years of erosion would cause a smooth incline that a person could walk up, and the longer the time the more gentle the slope. According to deep time, this is the difference between the Appalachian Mountains and the Rocky mountains. The Appalachian mountains are not as steep as the Rocky Mountains

Are you claiming that dinosaur bones are NOT tens of millions of years old, or older, with your only supporting evidence being this soft tissue thing? It appears it is the assumption that soft tissue of any kind surviving for tens of millions of years is what may be wrong. There is just too much other evidence that dinosaurs lived prior to 66 million years ago, and not since. This article better describes things, and includes this excerpt with a comment from Schewitzer:

No, I am claiming that the evidence says that dinosaur bones are not tens of millions of years old. Proteins can not exist for 247 million years. Proteins cannot exist 65 million years. And soft tissue is not an isolated event, it is common. The burden of proof is on those that believe that dinosaur bones are millions of years old because all of the evidence says something different.

What we see on the Earth today was not caused by the processes that occurring today.
Based on what? There is a lot unexplained in science, but that doesn't mean we have to default to a holy book's stories and give up. The evidence for an old Earth, dinosaur extinction 66 million years ago, etc. far outweighs any still unexplained observations ... by orders of magnitude.

Everybody believes that catastrophes happened and caused major changes on the earth. (except for Josefly, who believes that catastrophes are irrelevant) But everybody else does. As far as I know, there is no landform that cannot be explained by a water catastrophe. But there are many landforms that cannot be explained by uniformitarianism which is why everyone believes that catastrophes are relevant. (except for some people on this forum.) But soft tissue in most dinosaur bones is quite a problem for those that believe dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Jose Fly in post #38]

Wow....so you really don't understand any of what we've covered in this thread. Okay then.....

I understand what you would like to think was covered in this thread, but what I am doing is making the point that you are not understanding what actualism is actually saying. Actualism says that there are times when the rate of the common process increases the current deep-time belief is that catastrophes happen once every 27 million years . It is really nothing more than an ad hoc hypothesis because all landforms we see on the earth can be explained by catastrophism. Uniformitarianism was proposed by Hutton in an attempt to counter Biblical Catastrophism. But after 150 years we are right back to catastrophism. Actualism is a testimonial to the failure of uniformitarianism. All landforms can be explained by catastrophism.