I’ve been spending (wa-ay too much) time today reading various news reports about the new Answers In Genesis Museum. In the blog responses to some of these reports I see mostly relief that someone has finally created this museum to tell the truth about Young Earth Creationism. As opposed to all those partisan Atheistic evolutionists who have infiltrated all the sciences. Did you know that the current estimate of the age of the Earth is an evolutionist assumption, not the continuously refined end result result of centuries of study in geology, astronomy, selenology, isotopes, meteorology, archeology, and (more recently) genetics?
They quote the AIG website as a prime source for rebuttals to thousand-time-tested scientific “theories”, and treat such a reputable source as Gospel.
They cite the mythical Colorado study that showed that a single flood could have deposited all the different, clearly defined, interlaced geologic layers. I say mythical because I have never found any source for this presumed experiment. No write-up. No description of the procedure. Nothing. If anyone can cite the actual study, the people involved, and the peer group that verified it, please educate me.
Anyway, my question to them is: Even if we assume this unlikely proof that multiple layers, repeatedly alternating between heavy and light materials, could have been deposited by a single flood event, what about the Iridium layer?
It is called the Iridium Layer because it is unusually rich in iridium, a very heavy element that is common in meteorites but rare in the crust of the Earth. This narrow band of sediment is found everywhere on Earth at the boundary between the Cretaceous and Triassic formations. This is pretty high up on the column of layers for such a heavy element. Every dating method (dozens of independent technologies) shows that this layer was deposited worldwide, simultaneously at a time between 60,000,000 and 70,000,000 years ago. But that’s not the point, here.
My point is, if all these layers were put down by a flood event, how could such a unique and narrow band exist? It falls between two other layers that are common types among the strata. A band like this does not show up in any of the other juxtapositions of these 2 types of layers, also presumably precipitated from the same flood. Just once, and made of material not usually found in erosion sediment.
Sure, if “a magic man done it” is your answer, that can’t be argued scientifically. But the new museum claims to use the process of science to prove its case. No observers who have seen the museum so far have noted any evidence of the scientific process there. Just scientific nomenclature and truly expert and convincing displays of conclusions drawn from … the Bible.
Aside: Observers have noted that, unlike all other museums outside of D.C, the guards at the AIG museum on opening weekend were armed and had bomb-sniffing attack dogs. It’s as though the fundamentalists were afraid that rationalists would use fundamentalist tactics (like clinic bombings) on this new type of religious venue. AIG has petitioned the county to give their security force complete police authority.
Waaaaah, he started it!
Seriously, I don't think I'm being meaner to Karl than I am to anybody else around here. 🙂
Karl has proposed an ingenious and hilarious model of nuclear decay that appears to be based on a wild extrapolation of a partial understanding of one mechanism of nuclear disruption of one particular isotope (U235). That particular isotope is more sensitive to slow neutrons than fast, and those trigger fission (a strong nuclear interaction) not decay (a weak nuclear interaction). U238 and Pu239 (for example) ignore the slower neutrons that U235 likes, and absorb faster ones (thus light-water reactors for breeding plutonium).
Free neutrons are very rare in the wild. It doesn't matter how deep the water, there are statistically no loose neutrons flying around. Anyway, neutron absorption has nothing to do with alpha and beta decay rates.
Compare this simple redundancy to "the sun has a built-in tendency to shine more readily under conditions that cause it to shine." Same argument. The conditions that cause unstable nuclei to decay are intrinsic to the nuclei, not extrinsic. Likewise the rate at which the sun shines (decays) is not affected by the behavior of the planets around it.
An unbalance in the quark pool (nominally neutrons and protons) is what causes spontaneous decay. Sure, a gamma photon or beta particle can occasionally cause a proton to flip to a neutron upsetting or setting such a balance. But this is a relatively rare occurrence, even in free space. It's even rarer down here under the van Allen belts and atmosphere. Still less likely immersed in liquid water. Therefore, the effect of being under water would be to reduce the rate of random decay (by an immeasurably small amount), not to increase it. But it would not affect the half-life of individual isotopes, but just change the isotope ratio on the exposed surface.
But none of this has anything to do with how a very thin layer rich in an atypical and heavy element (iridium) can be deposited near the upper end of many different distinct layers of randomly varying density adding up to over 10,000 feet thick in a single flood event.
(The C-T iridium layer is just under the Roman V on the left in this illustration of the Grand Canyon area)
<img src="http://www.grandcanyon.org/kolb/piii/pii_crosssection_large.jpg" alt="Cross section of Colorado Plateau Canyonlands">
Bravo, Dan. You beat me to it and did it much more eloquently (and clearly) than I was about to. I spent too much time rereading Karl's hypothesis, scratching my head, and feeling very Homer Simpson ( "Huh? Oh…doh!")
It almost put me in mind of the Darksucker theory that went around several years back (you remember? wherein we are told that our understanding of light is backwards, that in fact light sources do not emit light but rather absorb dark?).
Anyway, Dan, kudos!
I still think Karl's proposed experiment of placing radioactive materials under a few thousand feet of water would be quite easy to do, even if it is of no real benefit to science. How much could it cost? A few hundred thousand, maybe. Just a fraction of the combined budgets of all the organizations promoting creationism. If it could really revolutionize several different domains of knowledge at once, what are they waiting for? And if it wins a Nobel, the investment would be recouped.
Karl, I still wonder about the "philosophical commitments" that prompt you to propose these elaborate theories. By claiming that the biblical flood was caused by meteor impacts, aren't you debunking it as a miracle caused by God, just like the scientists whose theories you oppose?
Dan says:
"Karl has proposed an ingenious and hilarious model of nuclear decay that appears to be based on a wild extrapolation of a partial understanding of one mechanism of nuclear disruption of one particular isotope (U235)."
Wikipedia says:
A thermal neutron is a free neutron that is Boltzmann distributed with kT = 0.024 eV (4.0×10-21 J) at room temperature. This gives characteristic (not average, or median) speed of 2.2 km/s. The name 'thermal' comes from their energy being that of the room temperature gas or material they are permeating. (see kinetic theory for energies and speeds of molecules). After a number of collisions (often in the range of 10–20) with nuclei, neutrons arrive at this energy level, provided that they are not absorbed.
Dan says:
"Free neutrons are very rare in the wild. It doesn’t matter how deep the water, there are statistically no loose neutrons flying around. Anyway, neutron absorption has nothing to do with alpha and beta decay rates."
From Wikipedia:
Cosmic radiation interacting the earth's atmosphere continuously generates neutrons that can be detected at the surface.
In many substances, thermal neutrons have a much larger effective cross-section than faster neutrons, and can therefore be absorbed more easily by any atomic nuclei that they collide with, creating a heavier — and often unstable — isotope of the chemical element as a result.
Dan says:
"Compare this simple redundancy to “the sun has a built-in tendency to shine more readily under conditions that cause it to shine.” Same argument. The conditions that cause unstable nuclei to decay are intrinsic to the nuclei, not extrinsic. Likewise the rate at which the sun shines (decays) is not affected by the behavior of the planets around it."
The logic is impeccable but the assumption of matters' intrinsic properties can never be proven unless you can isolate it from every aspect of the environment it is currently in. Create an isolated universe for your intrinsic properties to be studied in. I prefer to take into account that there may be parts of our universe that are right under our noses but not detected.
Vicki says:
"I still think Karl’s proposed experiment of placing radioactive materials under a few thousand feet of water would be quite easy to do, even if it is of no real benefit to science. How much could it cost? A few hundred thousand, maybe. Just a fraction of the combined budgets of all the organizations promoting creationism. If it could really revolutionize several different domains of knowledge at once, what are they waiting for? And if it wins a Nobel, the investment would be recouped."
If this experiment were done by creationists the results would likely never see the light of day. Just like all of the other "just one" evidences that have no value to the unwavering long age historical geological domain.
Unless grant money were forth coming for a university they wouldn't do it. That's the status of the value of the null hypothesis to science. Even if it were statistically significant it would be of "no real value" to what you refer to as science.
Vicki asked:
"Karl, I still wonder about the “philosophical commitments” that prompt you to propose these elaborate theories. By claiming that the biblical flood was caused by meteor impacts, aren’t you debunking it as a miracle caused by God, just like the scientists whose theories you oppose?"
I believe it was miracle that any air breathing life made it through the utter destruction of the earth's surface.
It would have been like the worst science fiction scenarios we've imagined on TV all rolled into the time frame of a little over a year. Deep impacts, fireballs, hurricanes, floods, volcanos, ice storms and glaciers beyond belief, even huge amounts of nuclear fall out. There was so much limestone in the quickly advancing glaciers that it formed the Lewis overthrust when it almost as rapidly in a matter of months melted back towards the east and north.
The only difference between this and science fiction is that life was preserved purposefully by the providence of God, not by the abilities of one intelligent animal making a huge ark.
Yes, but what caused this nightmare destruction scenario? The bible says it was god. You seem to be saying it was just a really bad accident, from which god was able to save some humans and animals in a wooden houseboat.
Vicki, it's nothing against you. I'm just sitting at the sideline here, trying to follow the discussion and making inappropriate comments at the most inopportune moments to add fuel to the flames. 😀
The reasons why god either allowed or directed the events that led up to the global flood are of a nature that science can not discuss without getting into theology or metaphysics. It was not something that just happened and that god somehow put a supernatural "Bubble" around Noah's house boat.
Theologically, if the existence of God can be considered outside of science there are ways to discuss different perspectives on this event that was recorded in human historical contexts.
So you're claiming that because life survived, it must have been at the behest of a divine authority… which kind of takes it all out of the realm of science after all.
I think God puts a supernatural "bubble" around scientists heads to allow them to use lots of skepticism so that they hone in on truths by tossing away supernatural pseudo-answers.
The ultimate first cause (origins), if considered at all must be well outside of the realm of science or we all are just playing games with evidence for our own advantage.
Karl, I have to admit I'm still confused. Does God intervene in the Universe or not? If he does intervene, are his interventions constrained by the the laws of physics, or not?
Is the Flood narrative a human recording of historical events, or the inerrant Word of God?
If the former, why not accept the far more likely explanation that the biblical flood was a catastrophic, but localized, flood event?
If the latter, why not accept the biblical account that the Flood was caused by God making it rain and causing the fountains of the deep to open? Why invent a meteor impact that is not in the Bible?
I have my own question about the Biblical flood: why does the fossil record contain so many extinct sea creatures? Wouldn't they have been unaffected by a flood?
The supernatural skepticism you speak of is skeptical when its comfortable and of value to the skeptic. Why question authority when you agree with it? Pure science looks for relationships in data no matter where it may lead.
"Karl, I have to admit I’m still confused. Does God intervene in the Universe or not? If he does intervene, are his interventions constrained by the the laws of physics, or not?"
If God created the universe using laws, he could easily carry these laws to their extremes which would seem supernatural to most of us.
God has revealed in scripture that one day the elements will melt with intense heat. This may have been the original plan of God entirely at the start of the earth altering processes involving the flood. If the events had kept escalating no life would have survived and probably even the fossils would have been gone as well. Enough heat and a little electricity of the right frequency and even salt water burns. That would have seemed rather magical to people just a few years ago.
"Is the Flood narrative a human recording of historical events, or the inerrant Word of God?"
The Bible like most other holy/sacred writings were not written directly by the hand of God. (Perhaps the first set of the ten commandments were). The Spirit of God inspired these writers in their activities.
Human (potentially fallible) writers set down into hardcopy what they perceived as factual information concerning matters they were involved with. Some written materials were also poetical or "songs" if you wish to call them such. They wrote with cultural biases, philosophical predispositions and theological beliefs. I'd say nearly all religious sacred documents began the same way.
Some sacred texts have claimed they were directed what to write as if they were only a channel or servant through dictation. This is not fully the sense of what is in the Old and New Testaments of the protestant Christian Church. There are discriptions of visions and the like but these are not the majority of what is the Holy Bible of the Christian Churches.
What we have recorded concerning the flood is not clearly a scientific treatise. Noah gave us the basics of what he could peice together from the before during and after picture of what he observed.
If he had observed what actually happened he wouldn't have survived it.
Perhaps some of what is recorded in Revelation is actually God's way of revealing the extreme power of what he could have done if he had chosen to do so.
If the former, why not accept the far more likely explanation that the biblical flood was a catastrophic, but localized, flood event?
If the latter, why not accept the biblical account that the Flood was caused by God making it rain and causing the fountains of the deep to open? Why invent a meteor impact that is not in the Bible?
Karl, sounds like we agree that the Bible is not inerrant and that the account of the biblical flood is not a reliable factual narrative. However, I think that your interpretation gets shredded by Occam's razor from whatever angle you approach it. You think the narrative is unreliable because it doesn't include the meteor impacts essential to your version of geology. I think it's unreliable because no one from that culture in that time period had the least inkling of the true extent of the earth's surface. So while the description of unusual rainfall and rising waters sounds like every other flood (or flood myth) in recorded history, the part about the water covering the entire surface of the earth is extremely unlikely to be true.
I agree that there was a great deal more to the flood that is not recorded in the narrative of the Bible. That does not make what is written about the flood in error. The tops of mountains were covered for over 8 months, that was not your local flood scenario. The ark came to rest on mountains and it took several months after that for the rest of the landscape to drain and eventually become hospitable to animal life once again.
The Bible does not claim to give details about many observations which were attributed to the hand of God. The perspective from the Bible is that God has an active will and a permissive will. God can actively control and even redirect the timing of events or God can appear to let the physical laws run their natural course. In either case God is still large and in charge as the vernacular goes.
Grumpypilgrim asks:
I have my own question about the Biblical flood: why does the fossil record contain so many extinct sea creatures? Wouldn’t they have been unaffected by a flood?
There were obvious areas of extreme heat during certain time frames and in various locations that were part of the cascading catastrophic events that were witnessed by Noah as the great flood. Not all evenets looked the same everywhere around the earth's surface. Where Noah and the Ark were located this heat obviously was not directly present. The same for areas of extreme cold in other places on the earth at this time. The ice and muck that buried the mammoths did not dump onto of the Ark.
The Chicxulub impact has been shown to be associated with large amounts of limestone. Limestone doesn't only form gradually over millions of years.
Huge amounts of organic material can be vaporized and became parts of the limestone but the hard calcium carbonate mineral parts of sea creatures with shells managed to leave fossil evidence.
Karl appears to be good at dishing up lots of red herrings. Have you noticed that despite writing more than TWO DOZEN comments to this post, he has still not addressed Dan's original question. What he has presented is a rambling discussion that contains all sorts of omissions and self-contradictions. For example:
– Karl suggests that the iridium layer might have been caused by the impact of bolides that "…went deeper than we can imagine into the crust and even sent momentum and energy into the mantle…." Unfortunately, Karl has identified no evidence anywhere on our planet that such events ever happened, much less that such events occurred when the Bible claims the Flood occurred (namely, a few thousand years ago).
– Karl suggests that such bolides "…slammed into the crust and besides causing their own surface damage they set off cascading events that released vast amounts of water and magma. Some of these cascading events vaporized water and rock that were deep underneath the crust before the flood…." Again, Karl offers no evidence that such events ever happened.
– Shortly after the above declaration (i.e., that "Some of these cascading events vaporized water and rock that were deep underneath the crust before the flood"), Karl then declares, "2) Modern science does not know what the crust, lower lithosphere and mantle looked like before the Biblical flood." Apparently, Karl believes that he knows what the crust, lower lithosphere and mantle looked like before the Flood, even though modern science does not.
– Karl complains that, "Molten lava known to have hardened in the twentieth century can be dated to billions of years if the proper portion of the sample is “selected” for study." Karl overlooks the fact that molten lava that hardened in the 20th-century could nevertheless be composed of material that *is* billions of years old, so would create no contradictions if dated to billions of years.
– Concerning limestone, Karl asserts that, "There are ways for extreme heat to produce what we would call the oldest layers of the geologic record." Unfortunately, even if we accept, for the sake of discussion, that Karl's assertion is true, Karl offers no evidence that our planet has ever been subjected to the sort of extreme heat that would corrupt accurate dating of *the entire worldwide geologic record*.
– Karl asserts, "Place your sample of any radioactive material under or in the the flood waters which themselves would have acted like a neutron moderator and this would have affected their half-lives by causing accelerated half-lives if nothing else. Are half-lives constant under hundreds of feet of water. I doubt it very seriously." Again, even if we accept, for the sake of discussion, that Karl's assertion is true, it overlooks the fact that many types of radioactive decay do not involve neutrons and, thus, would not be moderated in the manner Karl suggests. For example, radiocarbon dating (carbon-14) relies on radioactive *beta* decay (i.e., electrons or positrons).
– Even if there are any radiographic dating methods that involve neutron decay (I'm no expert), neutron moderation is only relevant for reactions in which the neutron temperature significantly affects the collision cross section of the target nucleus. For many materials (e.g., uranium-235 and plutonium-239) the collision cross section does not significantly depend upon neutron temperature, but Karl assumes (and his argument depends upon the assumption) that *all* neutron-based radiographic dating methods involve materials for which neutron temperature affects the collision cross section. Where is Karl's evidence for this?
– As regards my question above concerning sea creatures, Karl has obviously dodged that question, too.
Until I started discussing the topic it appeared to be a rather onesided consideration of the matter in question.
If the iridium came from the single impact at Chicxulub, why are there three layers in the flood basalts in the Deccan region of India?
The only credible recorded human evidence concerning the pre-flood observations of the crust, lithosphere and hydrosphere are recorded in the Bible.
grumpypilgrim states:
"Karl appears to be good at dishing up lots of red herrings. Have you noticed that despite writing more than TWO DOZEN comments to this post, he has still not addressed Dan’s original question. What he has presented is a rambling discussion that contains all sorts of omissions and self-contradictions. "
My response:
Suggesting that impacts were involved at the start of the Flood that were involved in cascading events that refigured the surface of planet earth is definitely a way of offering an answer to Dan's question. If iridium was thrown high into the atmosphere from either the disintegration of the impactors themselves or from internal materials from the lower crust or mantle, the materials would be present in the air along with the rest of the fine dust that would then settle out as the forty days and nights served to not only increase the flood waters but also to help cleanse the atmosphere of the materials that were circulating in it.
As the fine dust and silt were washed from the atmosphere (all around the globe) there would be a distinctive quick build up of the clay layer that contains the iridium.
If this does not answer Dan’s question please explain how else this fine layer could have been deposited to such wide spread regions. By the way, this layer is not found everywhere. Areas where glacier activity has been obvious do not have this layer as well as other places as well. It is only found plainly in areas of undisturbed sediments that can be traced back to what appears to be a similar timeframe.
I'll respond to the other points if this is acknowledged as a possible way of answering the question of this Blog. If the global flood is limited to just a "water event" then the iridium's source is "miraculously" present.
Deccan Basalt is an igneous intrusion that began at about the same time as Chicxulub. It might have laid 2 strata as the iridium was precipitating. It might have been caused by a smaller impactor with its own iridium just before or after Chicxulub, or it might have forced sheets of lava into the still-soft iridium layer, splitting it. All 3 of these types of mechanisms have been observed. There are other, less likely natural explanations, as well. Which of these correctly explains a multiple iridium layer dating to the C-T boundary time somewhere in the Arabian Sea or on East India (Deccan region) is still unproven.
Hi Karl, thank you for leading this wonderful debate. You clearly know a lot about science and you seem to have an excellent understanding of the workings of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I value your opinion. I have been studying the Bible (The Word of God) and I am confused by one part in particular:
Do men and women have the same number of ribs? The Bible says that Eve was created from Adam's rib… but science (the Atheist) are adamant that men and women each have 12 ribs.
Who should I believe?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rib_cage
—
Also for Karl: Do you believe that the Continents used to be connected? Thats what the scientists (Atheist) want us to believe. (They are quite adamant about this one.)
Here we can see how the continents (supposedly) looked 180 million years ago:
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/geo/egeo/flash/2_…
Ben: I understand your concerns. Scientists just don't get it sometimes. It's the same problem with many non-believers. I've heard that some non-believers think it's a bad idea to kill their own children by throwing stones at them.
http://dangerousintersection.org/2007/09/02/who-t…