RE: YEC lecture notes. Part 3 (last of 3)

From: Glenn Morton (glennmorton@entouch.net)
Date: Wed Sep 24 2003 - 21:09:14 EDT

  • Next message: Keith Miller: "Re: Creationists Running for School Board (miracles)"

    >-----Original Message-----
    >From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
    >Behalf Of John W Burgeson
    >Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 9:18 AM

    >Evidences that the universe is young. Galaxies wind themselves up too
    >fast, outside slow – inside fast. Therefore the universe is young.
    >
    >(By my calculations the Milky Way galaxy has rotated about 50 or 60 times
    >since it came into being. By Joe’s calculation it has yet to take the
    >first tick of a clock).
    >
    >Comets crumble too quickly --- therefore recent creation. Joe did not
    >mention the Oort cloud model.

    Baker and Frederick observe,

            "Five or six comets are picked up each year in the average, and two thirds
    of them have not been previously recorded" Robert H. Baker and Laurence W.
    Frederick, An Introduction to Astronomy, (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Co.,
    Inc., 1968), p. 159.

    This OBSERVED fact shows that comets aren't going away anytime soon

    >British Columbia strata are folded and not fractured, therefore RC.

    This displays an ignorance of rheology. Ice, if hit with a hammer will
    fracture and shatter. But if lots of ice is put on a mountain, it will
    deform without fracturing and flow down a mountainside. Most solids act as
    fluids under the right conditions. Rocks can flow if the pressure and
    temperature is high enough. Just like ice.

    >
    >A fossilized Teddy Bear was found somewhere, therefore RC.

    Boy, I would love to see the report on this one. I bet it is from the 19th
    century. That being said, I could fossilize a teddy bear in about 25 years
    if I put it in an active cave system. Would that prove a global flood/recent
    creation? I don't think so. Fossilization doesn't require huge chunks of
    time by geologic standards but then if that is true, one can't logically
    turn around and claim that fossilization requires deep burial. It doesn't.
    look at http://home.entouch.net/dmd/fossilization.htm

    >
    >Polystrate fossils prove RC.

    There are no documented polystrate trees going through 3 layers of coal.
    There are several ways trees can be preserved for long periods
    of time before burial and sometimes a flood dumps several feet of
    sediment on trees, creating polystrate fossils. In 1993 the Mississippi
    River flooded and dumped up to 8 feet of sediment on many forests and
    farm fields. The trees buried by such a flood are future polystrate
    fossils and will be used by future creationists to prove the global
    flood (in spite of the fact that there was no global flood in 1993).
    Here is how it works. Take a tree rooted in a clay soil. The
    Mississippi floods and dumps 8 feet of sand on the tree. This will
    kill the tree and the part below the ground, will be waterlogged by the
    water table and the part above the new ground surface will rot. Thus
    the incipient fossil now straddles two levels. Next a new flood, maybe
    a minor one dumps a few inches of shale. In the future the tree will
    start in clay, the trunk will traverse a layer of sand and truncate
    into a layer of shale. PROOF of the 1993 global flood.

    >
    >The earths magnetic field decay is too fast, therefore RC.

    Haven't these guys every heard of what goes up also comes down? Magnetic
    fields revers all the time. I would point them to Mark Monte's letter in the
    Creation Research Society Quarterly. Mark Montie, "More Study Needed on
    Magnetic Fields," Creation Research Society Quarterly, 19:3, December, 1982,
    p. 196. He points out that the sun's magnetic field reverses every 22 years.
    If the sun's field can reverse during our lifetime, why can't the earth's
    field reverse over longer periods? I would suggest these gentlemen read the
    creationist literature. They might learn things like this.

    >
    >(Joe carefully stayed away from the evidences of field reversal. and, of
    >course, the incredibly inept work done by the professor, Thomas Barnes,
    >at UT El Paso ? on the source data. I really thought that this argument,
    >like moon dust, had been buried by even AIG.)
    >
    >Cited with approval the work and writings of Humphreys. Asserted that
    >Humphrey’s creationist model had accurately predicted certain findings of
    >the space probes.
    >
    >Seafloor sedimentation evidence supports RC.

    This is that old chestnut that the oceans would fill up in 500 million
    years. I would suggest they see http://home.entouch.net/dmd/erosion.htm. Of
    course, I don't expect them to actually go there but some lurker on this
    list might.

    >
    >Joe turned to radiometric dating. Described accurately the three boundary
    >conditions and assumptions,
    >
    >possible intrusions,
    >amount of daughter element present at the beginning,
    >decay rate constant,
    >
    >which surround any such measures. (Did not mention the absence of short
    >life radioactives on the planet.) Asserted that researchers get many
    >“wrong” answers, publish only those which agree.
    >
    >Asserted that many researchers in radiometrics “deliberately lie.”
    >
    >Said that their techniques do not work on objects of known age.

    For all of this see http://home.entouch.net/dmd/age.htm especially the part
    with SN1987A because it shows that the radioactive constants have been
    constant for 169,000 years.

    >Oil/gas pressures

    having spent 30 years in the oil business, this is false. It is based upon
    false info. I traced this arguemnt back in the creationist literature. From
    Foundation, Fall and Flood by Glenn Morton
    " Another faulty argument from the young-earth creationists needs to be
    discussed. It concerns the length of time that oil could remain trapped in
    the geologic strata. Basically the argument states that due to high
    pressures in many oil reservoirs, oil and gas could not remain trapped for
    more than 10,000 years and thus the world is less than that age. I read this
    argument in Petersen's book Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation.76 Having
    worked in the oil industry for over twenty years I was quite interested in
    this argument and wanted more information. I wanted to see the equations.
    Petersen referenced the 1966 version of Melvin Cook, PreHistory and Earth
    Models.89 Not being able to get that book immediately, I looked further and
    once again found this argument in a book by Huse from 1983. Huse actually
    stated that "calculations" proved that oil could not be retained in
    reservoirs for the millions of years required. Huse cited a book published
    by the Institute for Creation Research. On the page Huse referenced, there
    was nothing on oil and gas. Out of luck. But Huse also referenced Robert
    Kofahl's book, The Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter.90 I found the argument on
    pages 122-123, but no calculations to prove the assertion that oil and gas
    would leak at such a rate. But, eureka, Kofahl cited two other sources, one
    from Science,91 a respected scientific journal and an older book by Melvin
    Cook, PreHistory and Earth Models.89 Immediately, I got the Science article
    and found that it said nothing about oil and gas leaking out of the
    reservoirs! I also found the argument in a 1976 book, The Creation-Evolution
    Controversy, by Randy L. Wysong.92 He also cited the Science article and
    Melvin Cook's book. Finally I discovered a way to get a copy of Cook's 1966
    book, which I had seen cited in other books in other contexts over the
    years. Turning to the cited pages, I found a simple statement that oil
    could leak from high-pressure reservoirs but there were no references for
    that assertion nor any calculations. Apparently the whole argument was
    generated by a few lines of unsupported assertions in a book from 1966.
            But like all the arguments for a young earth there is a serious process
    that is being overlooked. While it may be true that abnormally high
    pressure can not exist forever in the subsurface, it is most often found in
    the most recent of sediments, like those found in the Gulf of Mexico. The
    Gulf of Mexico is currently undergoing active and rapid deposition from the
    Mississippi and other rivers. This rapid influx of sediment has the effect
    that sediments are buried more rapidly than the water can escape causing the
    pressures to rise. In sediments water escapes from permeable rocks.
    Permeability is the connectivity of the pore spaces. Water can escape
    through permeable rock. The Gulf of Mexico is undergoing observable
    tectonic activity that increases the pressure on the sediments. A former
    employer of mine bought a building in Houston in the late 1970's. By 1986
    one half of the building was 4 inches lower than the other half because the
    building had been constructed over a previously unknown active geologic
    fault. As the fault moved over the next few years, it carried the seaward
    side of the building with it. This type of tectonic activity can easily
    replace the pressure that leaks due to permeability. By this means the
    pressure can be maintained, even in a permeable rock. The argument is a
    straw man. Sadly, none of the young-earth creationists tried to verify
    Cook's assertion; they just believed it because it fit their views." Glenn
    Morton, Foundation Fall and Flood, 3rd ed. (Spring, TX, DMD Publishers,
    1999), p. 48-49



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Wed Sep 24 2003 - 21:09:53 EDT