" For example, did God create a coral polyp, or a whole stable
ecologically functional reef system? I think the latter is the only
rational answer,..."
OK. That is exactly Gosse's answer also. Have you read Gosse? Do you
agree with Gosse? If not, what is wrong with his YEC explanation?
You continue:
"Likewise, there is no reason to suspect that if the Paleozic forests
were
floating mats of vegetation, as seems likely to me from a lot of
different
angles, then God may have created the mass of vegetation on which the
forests floated (quaking bogs are a good modern analog). Thus there
could
have been considerably more "biomass" on the preflood earth than on the
present earth, and in fact there indeed was, if one subscribes to a fiat
creation of life (as I do). A factor contributing to our ignorance may
be
that crucial experiments have never been done on the effects of, for
example, higher CO2 levels on growth of plants. "
This seems to me to also be a Gosse-type of explanation. "God created a
mass of vegetation... ." But if he created "a mass of vegetation" and
then turned it into coal during the flood -- why not just create the coal
directly and not go through the intermediate process? Well -- I know --
who knows why God did anytrhing, really?
I think, however, that the explanation won't fly. It would require far
too much biomass. No room left for the animal kingdom, for one thing.
If your last sentence is correct (I seem to remember that such
experiments HAVE been conducted, BTW) -- then there is a great research
project for ICR and all the YECs. I'd LOVE to see some empirical --
testable -- science come from them of this type.
Burgy