I attach a quickie, superficial THEOLOGICAL critique of Kelly's book I did
for the Assoc of Christian Geologists listserve a month ago. I omitted any
scientific critique as I assumed most geologists could do that for
themselves. Please take this as a rushed job which would need polishing. I
am afraid I find it not a good book.
This is to get the discussion going!!
As I said his geology is poor.
POLYSTRATE FOSSILS
Ted be careful. Deposition does not occur at a steady rate but like a
soldiers' life. Years of monotonous drill interpsersed by a few hours
action. Take the cola measures. Work in the 80s by Fred Broadhurst of
Manchester Univ showed that a coal seam could take 80,000 years to deposit
and then the sevaral thick seams of sand inbetween could be laid rapidly e,g
a foot in a weekend. Now apply that to Yellowstone and you will have the
total time of the sevaral layers (27) taking 50 my but the depoistion of the
sediment around the trees taking weeks for each strata (even if several) and
then a long pause while the forests grew. (Jeff Greenberg I need your help
here!) However Yellowstone can only be comparable with St Helens if nneither
appear to have a root system.
With the floods caused by heavy rainfall in the UK last year I noted that 6
inches of sediment were laid down locally on occasion in a day. I had walked
that river bank for 14 years and have never seen deposition before.
Be careful in allowing oneself to be convinced because sedimentation can
take place at a rate of feet per day it will keep it up for a long time.
However the succesion of strata with clear top and bottoms of beds indicate
a pause inbetween so the top can dry out or consilidate before the next
layer. So how long does that take? For Wheaton gen ed geologists I tried to
play with this in June. We were looking at a succession from the Cambrain to
the Creataceous say 20,000ft thick. One day we were looking at a 40ft cliff
of Cambrian sandstone and as half my students were YEC, I asked them to
count the layers . They came to 70. Now I allowed a day to deposit each
layer and asked how long a pause between layers. Suggestion - at least a
week. So for that 40ft you needed 8X 70 days i.e. 560 days - which rules
out Noah .
There were about 20,000 beds in our succession so that would need 8X20,000
days i.e. 160,000 days i.e 450 years assuming rapid depostion by rivers in
flood.
Clarely this needs to be put over in a sophiscated manner but then even
allowing rapid depostion as Creationists insist on we end up with too long a
time for YEC to be substantiated.
Also there has been little deposition since Mt St helens blew up in 1980.
OK a crude method but it does highlight the time needed.
Anyway dear Charles Lyell knew all about rapid catastrophic events and even
wrote about them in his Principles of Geology.
Michael roberts
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Davis" <tdavis@messiah.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Cc: <Millerrj@rica.net>
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 2:02 PM
Subject: Important creationist book/ RC Sproul
> Last evening I attended a presentation by ICR geologist Bill Hoesch, who
> gave the best creationist talk I can recall hearing, on the topic of Mt St
> Helens. Several times I could guess what was about to come next in the
> talk, such as when he examined surface formations produced quickly by
steam
> venting and suggested that other formations, similar in appearance, in
other
> places might also have been formed "quickly" rather than slowly by erosion
> over many years; or when he claimed (I can't evaluate the accuracy of this
> type of thing, since I am not a geologist myself) that some secular
> geologists were now coming to think that the Grand Canyon may have been
> formed very quickly, when a large lake near its head suddenly broke free
> (sounds like a glacial dam but he didn't say that), and that this was not
> too different from thinking that the flood did it; or when he noted the
many
> dead trees, floating vertically in Spirit Lake, and suddenly jumped to an
> "explanation" of the vertical forests in Yellowstone Park, with a passing
> comment about how a sign with the traditional scientific explanation of
this
> (that 27 forests had grown up in succession, roughly 50 Ma) had recently
> disappeared from the park (one wonders why) after creationists had
> challenged this, and that it has not been replaced b/c it is now "known"
to
> be "wrong". Much of the presentation was entertaining, with many slides
of
> the mountain before, during, and after the explosion--simply good
> photography, with interesting narrative that was factual except when
> describing the state of scientific opinion.
>
> At the end of his talk, Hoesch held up several books he was offering for
> sale. I bought one that I want to comment on. According to Hoesch, this
> book has recently led a leading conservative theologian, R.C. Sproul (whom
I
> have heard many times), to become a YEC. I can't verify this, though if
> true it would be one more PCA person to go in that direction, the first
> prominent one being D James Kennedy many years ago with several others in
> recent years following the lead of various conservative layity in that
> denomination, which does seem to have more than its fair share of
> geocentrists and theonomists.
>
> The book itself is quite interesting and provocative. I am copying Roman
> Miller (editor of PSCF) on this message, simply to suggest to him as well
as
> to the listserve that it might be worth a formal discussion. We might
think
> of a few theologians/biblical scholars in the ASA to respond to it in a
> little symposium in PSCF, and ask the author to join in also. The details
> are, Creation and Change: Genesis 1.1-2.4 in the light of changing
> scientific paradigms (Fearn, UK: Mentor, 1997), by Douglas F. Kelly, prof
of
> systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte, NC). The
> back cover advertises a forthcoming study guide and provides an ISBN for
> that, but I have not seen this as yet.
>
> The book has "blurbs" promoting it by, among others, Nigel Cameron of
> Trinity International University (though very well known in mainstream
> American evangelicalism, Nigel is a Scottish creationist--he's even
> mentioned in Ron Numbers' book), who (I am guessing) perhaps facilitated
> publication with an English press; and Frederick Skiff, assoc prof of
> physics at the Univ of Maryland. I haven't seen Dr Skiff's name before, I
> gather he's a creationist from what he says about this book.
>
> Having not yet read this book except in a few places randomly chosen, I
> can't summarize its arguments. I will say, however, that the author has
> read widely on this issue, though I dare say his judgement is more than a
> bit clouded. For example, he calls the gap view of Chalmers (which,
nearly
> all admit today, was a failed enterprise) "an exegesis of desperation". I
> think I've read a lot more early 19th century geologists than Kelly
has--he
> shows no evidence of having read (say) Edward Hitchcock, the leading
> American exponent of this view, or John Pye Smith, the English theologian
> who recommended Hitchcock on the other side of the pond--and I would never
> describe this view as given to despair. Frankly, they *knew* the earth
was
> a lot older than human beings (this is of course what Kelly means by
> "desperation") and they did what made sense: they took another look at the
> interpretation of Genesis One. Granted, their approach is probably weak
on
> exegetical grounds (much weaker, IMO, than the "day-age" approach) and
> certainly pointless today on scientific grounds (since it utterly denies
> evolution), but it made good sense to good minds at the time, for good
> reasons.
>
> Enough of this for now. Has anyone else seen this book? If so, do they
> share my view that this one is worth responding to?
>
> Ted Davis
>
>
>
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