vendredi 19 décembre 2014

Flood Geology - a Slight Divergence in Method

Here I quote today's article by John D. Matthews on CMI:

In order to validate the biblical account of the Flood from geological evidence, it is not sufficient, though it was helpful as a precursor, to show that all our mountains were once under water. We need to ask if the whole of the UK was simultaneously under water recently.

Our foray into the uniformitarian literature to answer these questions, ignored by those who practise uniformitarianism, starts with our figure 1, taken from Rayner,* and based on primary sources such as Hancock and Rawson.** In what is described as the ‘Late Cretaceous’ period and dated around 65 Ma, her composite map shows all of England, much of Wales, and major parts of Scotland under water. It also shows the whole of the Ireland landmass under water, as well as major parts of continental Europe. Furthermore, this map is regarded as ‘conservative’ by Rawson20 and Gannon,15 who point out that a ‘radical’ view of the exposed land mass of Britain around 65 Ma is smaller than Rayner’s map shows, and may even have been nonexistent.

Others who have studied the ‘Cretaceous’ period have maps which show a small island of land in the Lake District (LD), and an extension of area ‘W’ to the south to include the Brecon Beacons (BB); for example, Gale.21 Rawson,20 in a solo-authored article, apparently contradicting what is described above, shows the area ‘W’ to be in the south of Wales rather than the north (his figure 12.2B). The latter is possibly a draughtsman’s error because of the relative heights of the respective areas. Whatever the individual causes for the differences, part of the explanation is the problem of identifying which igneous deposits were subaerial and which were subaqueous, as mentioned above.

* Rayner, D.H., The Stratigraphy of the British Isles, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981.

** Hancock, J.M. and Rawson, P.F., Cretaceous, Geol. Soc. London Mem. 13:131–139, 1992.


So far no problem. We do not have a very great area of land fauna from Cretaceous in UK, though its specimens are conspicuous and include pterodactyl kind fossils.

This accords with their take on adapting the labels like Cretaceous to Flood Geology and it accords with mine.

Next quote:

A further question is the relative height of the Snowdonian area and the other outliers in figure 1, during the ‘Cretaceous’. The height was what it is today, plus what was eroded in the ‘post-Cretaceous’ period less any rise in the basement rocks. Estimates of as much as 1.5 to 2.0 km for the additional height exist. Obviously, these put Snowdon above water, but these heights are ‘guesstimates’. If there was land in those positions, then there would be a high probability of land-derived clastics in the chalk. They don’t exist. The estimates of heights are based on the recognition that the dykes and the host rocks in these areas were once topped with much more ‘over-burden’ than they are now.

However, since the bulk of this ‘over-burden’ has since disappeared, we know that the top of the ‘over-burden’ was once under water much later than that first igneous intrusion, and that that water must have had extensive erosive power to remove that additional ‘over-burden’. This ‘Late Cretaceous’ period seems to fit closely.


My one divergence from John D. Matthews is that he seems here to take "late Cretaceous" as a definite period within the Flood, during a much shorter time span, like uniformiatarians do on a longer one.

What I would like to know - though this apporach might be OK while only classifying rocks - is, from a Palaeontological view, how do we know position x in UK was covered with water during Cretaceous?

If position x has marine invertebrates, like almost any position with fossils, well, that just means it was convered by water through the Flood. It tells us nothing of what the position was like before the Flood, because all was covered with clams and mussels and mussels and clams and "cockles and mussels alive alive O". (Not just punning : some creationist videos I have seen indicate that mussels were buried as alive by sediment and did not have time to die before getting buried and immobilised).

If position x has marine fossils of kinds associated with specifically Cretaceous vertebrate marine fauna, this probably means position x was in the Sea before the Flood. With some margin of displacement.

If position x has fossils associated with Cretaceous vertebrate land fauna, this probably means position x was on Land before the Flood - also with some margin for displacement.

Now take Ordovician. I don't know if one has found any Ordovician land fauna, but if position x has marine fossils associated with specifically Ordovician vertebrate marine fauna, this probably means position x was in the Sea before the flood. With some margin of displacement.

If position x has land fossils associated with specifically Jurassic vertebrate land fauna, this probably means position x was on Land before the Flood. With some margin of displacement.

But what is the difference between position x having Jurassic vertebrate land fauna or Cretaceous vertebrate land fauna? Both were, with some margin of displacement, on land before the Flood, but with different faunas.

And what if on point x you dig one metre and find Cretaceous vertebrate land fauna, and then continue digging and at 3 metres depth of same hole find Jurassic vertebrate land fauna?

My whole point is that all I know of Palaeontological discoveries and exhibit materials is that this has nowhere ever happened.

You can find and do find rocks, in which formation lies over formation. Each usually assigned to a different time period, and here the standard Flood geologists are right to say that the formations that lie on top of each other must have come into place during successive parts of the flood.

But in such places, you will not find that fossilised faunas lie on top of each other (except marine invertebrates, which for instance can have been sorted by size - heavier and larger ammonites getting lower down in GC, for instance). Where you find Cretaceous rock above (in the strict usual sense) Jurassic rock, you will not find Cretaceous land fauna above Jurassic land fauna with a clear demarcation of species belonging to the one or the other.

You may find a rock of type x and a rock of type y partially superposed so that x is above y, and beside you will find y containing Jurassic fossils and x containing Cretaceous fossils. Jurassic coast would be an ideal spot for this exercise. When this happens, this is taken as confirmation that Cretaceous is newer than Jurassic.

When you find a Jurassic animal in the Cretaceous fauna, you will usually take this as extending the time limits for the survival of the kind forward a few million years into the Cretaceous (if you do this, this means you can no longer tell Jurassic from Cretaceous on basis of this kind, but this doesn't stop someone else from doing so if he ignores or contests that you extended the life span of the genus or even species). If instead you find a Cretaceous animal in the Jurassic fauna, you will take this as a token you can extand the lifespan of the kind earlier, back a few million years into the Jurassic. It developed earlier than one had thought. And same observation applies, as to its use as "index fossil" for Jurassic/Cretaceous limit.

If you were on the other hand to find a rock of type x and a rock of type y partially superposed so that x is above y, and beside you will find y containing CRETACEOUS fossils and x containing JURASSIC fossils, you will supposed some shift has occurred. But this happens rarely, because the index fossils between these are taken from the majority and are, as said, sometimes devalorised by extended life span of the species.

It is usually true you never find Ceratopsians (a Cretaceous animal) UNDER Dimetrodon (a Permian animal). But it is equally true that you never find Dimetrodons under Ceratopsians either, if you take above and below in the strict vertical sense.

So, the Cretaceous islands of land on the map in figure one are the spots where UK had Cretaceous land fauna previous to the Flood.

I predict - in the way scientists use the word: I take this as a conclusion supposing my intelligent guess is right - that the islands of Jurassic and the islands of Permian (not sure UK had any such) will not coincide locally.

This said, hat off for the very intelligent observations about what Uniformitarians take as Eocene Amazon sized rivers and what Flood Geologist John D. Matthews takes more realistically as a sea current during the flood.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Timothée Diacre
Martyr en Mauritanie
19-XII-2014

Source for quotes:

CMI : Why was the UK once totally under water?
by John D. Matthews
http://creation.com/uk-once-under-water

mercredi 17 décembre 2014

Is Evolutionism or Antischolasticism Used as a Luck Charm?

Here we have some men basically admitting (basically as in giving reasons for them to admit it if they were more logical than they are) that Oil Companies are using the mantra of "millions of years" as a luck charm:

HGL's F.B. writings : Why do Oil Companies Drill For Oil and Find it, when Using Millions of Years?
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2014/12/why-do-oil-companies-drill-for-oil-and.html


Here I am debating with a "jamma" who treats antischolasticism as a Luck Charm:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Jamma starts giving examples! Yeah!
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2014/12/jamma-starts-giving-examples-yeah.html


Here I get talking to a young lady who is less heavily involved in accepting modern number theory in order to get results, and who abviously knows how to get them:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Erdős papers published with ...
http://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2014/12/erdos-papers-published-with.html


I would like to see geologists reacting to Deep Time like she does to i and similar./HGL

lundi 8 décembre 2014

An Extra Reason Against the "Unknown Ages" Apostasy

As readers of this blog might know, I have previously spoken out when I heard that in the Christmas proclamation the words "in the year from the creation of the world, when God in the beginning created Heaven and Earth, five thousand one hundred and ninetynine" had in US been exchanged to "unknown ages".

Here we have from Haydock another reason:

Concerning the transactions of these early times, parents would no doubt be careful to instruct their children, by word of mouth, before any of the Scriptures were written; and Moses might derive much information from the same source, as a very few persons formed the chain of tradition, when they lived so many hundred years. Adam would converse with Mathusalem, who knew Sem, as the latter lived in the days of Abram. Isaac, Joseph, and Amram, the father of Moses, were contemporaries: so that seven persons might keep up the memory of things which had happened 2500 years before. But to entitle these accounts to absolute authority, the inspiration of God intervenes; and thus we are convinced, that no word of sacred writers can be questioned. (Haydock)


Long age compromisers at least humanly speaking compromise the exactitude of the tradition of how the Fall happened - and therefore of the promises, given as a threat to the serpent. The promise being very relevant for the feast today, through the words "ponam inimicitias".

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Immaculate Conception
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
8-XII-2014

vendredi 5 décembre 2014

Emil Silvestru on Radioactive Decay Rates

If natural nuclear fission reactors existed deep inside the earth, in the core or/and in the mantle, there is no particular reason why they could not have a pulsating character, periodic or random. It is conceivable that during pulses, massive neutrino fluxes were produced which could have then affected radioactive decay rates of all radioisotopes on the planet.


This is from one of four articles on radioactive decay rate variations I was reading with great interest on CMI.

I will first list them:



What exactly was I saying about atomic warfare in the Nodian pre-Flood society, a few months or perhaps even a year ago? I was saying for instance such bombs may have accelerated decay rates very substantially for pre-Flood radioactive samples.

Whence my interest in Mahabharata poem as having possibly sth to do with warfare when Kali Yuga is supposed to have begun, i e 155 years before the Flood (if we date it by Roman Martyrology).

In other words, Hindoo Mahabharata freaks if succeeding in proving atom bombs existed and were used thousands of years ago, would be doing Young Earth Creationism a big favour. Perhaps not a necessary one, but still a big one.

For the reason stated by Emil Silvestru in the quote above.

Of course, there is this other take on very old ages by very long half lives - that they have not been tested as to the Geiger measurer ticking rate per se and calculated half life from there but rather calibrated half lives from old samples. I am not speaking as an expert here, but I am noting that something like that was done when a mummy supposed to have been historically dated was used to calibrate C14. As already noted on the three parts of the fifth part of a series that also includes messages here:



Take it as a suggestion. I have found consistent or near such mutism towards non-specialists among specialists of today, when adressing the essays to them and challenging for refutations if they have such. So I cannot claim to know for a fact exactly how it is claculated, but these are my musings on the matter.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Sabbas, Abbot
5-XII-2014

mardi 2 décembre 2014

CMI on Galileo again (not their most honest topic!)

It is actually a small paragraph from them* and then a paragraph from Peter Harrisson quoted by them which I will focus on. The rest of today's article is decent.

So what are the facts? With his telescope, Galileo carried out repeatable observations which refuted the geocentric (earth-centred) systems of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and extended the heliocentric (sun-centred) system of Copernicus. He observed that the sun had spots which moved across its surface, showing that the sun was not ‘perfect’ and that it rotated; he observed the phases of Venus, showing that Venus must orbit the sun; and he discovered four moons that revolve around Jupiter, not the Earth, showing that the Earth was not the centre of everything. He also observed three comets pass effortlessly through Ptolemy’s ‘crystalline spheres’ (in which the planets and stars supposedly moved around the Earth), showing that these spheres must be imaginary.


Bit by bit now:

With his telescope, Galileo carried out repeatable observations

Yes.

which refuted the geocentric (earth-centred) systems of Aristotle and Ptolemy,

but not the equally geocentric system of Tycho Brahe

and extended the heliocentric (sun-centred) system of Copernicus.

or the geocentric system of Tycho Brahe.

He observed that the sun had spots which moved across its surface, showing that the sun was not ‘perfect’ and that it rotated;

which was not condemned

and he observed the phases of Venus, showing that Venus must orbit the sun;

which was not condemned, and which is part of Tycho Brahe's system

and he discovered four moons that revolve around Jupiter, not the Earth,

which was not condemned

showing that the Earth was not the centre of everything.

... not the DIRECT centre of everything.

He also observed three comets pass effortlessly through Ptolemy’s ‘crystalline spheres’ (in which the planets and stars supposedly moved around the Earth), showing that these spheres must be imaginary.

Or aethereal. Either way, that observation also was not condemned. In fact none of his direct observations and none of their strictly logical conclusions were condemned.


Here is a quote from Peter Harrisson through CMI today:

Peter Harrison (Prof. of Science and Religion, University of Oxford) correctly refutes this disinformation, saying it was “a conflict between two sciences; a conflict between traditional Aristotelian science and a new science that Galileo is proposing. … Catholicism reacts because its authority is under threat, but that’s not a question to do with science and religion; it’s a question to do with the politics and authority.”


a conflict between two sciences;

between three actually: Galileo took account of his own and of Ptolemaic Aristotelians. He took no account of Tycho Brahe.

a conflict between traditional Aristotelian science and a new science that Galileo is proposing.

Peter Harrisson no doubt has Galileo among his scientific heros and read the conflict through Galileo's pen. So did Chaberlot, basically, though he provides information of other points as well.



What exactly is left out here?

Catholicism reacts because its authority is under threat, but that’s not a question to do with science and religion; it’s a question to do with the politics and authority.

That is an assessment, not a piece of factual information no one could think otherwise about.


The "authority of the Catholic Church" involves, as per Trent:

  • Inerrancy of all Scripture in each passage, at least as per original (translations used by Church can contain factual errors only if not doctrinal, say whether Vulgate is better or worse than Septuagint for dating the age of Heaven and Earth - but if translation x differs from original, it would stand to reason the matters are small and correctable from other versions).
  • Inerrancy of, not each single Church Father, but all Church Fathers taken together when unanimous on a matter.


But it is very possible Peter Harrison regards neither (outside religious topics) as "religion". I am not even sure he regarded the hasty conclusions of Galileo as science. Chaberlot named "six arguments" from Galileo and "six proofs" available later for Heliocentrism (I refuted all twelve, but that is in French).

It would be very wrong to say all Church Fathers had supported Aristotle or all had supported Ptolemy in every detail.

Someone wanted to ridicule Church Fathers on a forum and called in how such and such one had believed in Crystalline spheres. On that forum, I replied "sure, I'll believe that too, if all Church Fathers are unanimous on it." They are not. The ones that supported a Hebraising, flat Earth containing (but not exclusively defined by that) cosmology were believing each star and planet and sun and moon went as the body we see through basically empty space. Neither aether (which I support, see Coriolis) nor crystalline spheres for those ones. Hence, crystalline spheres can be attacked without attacking the authority of the Catholic Church.

But CMI continues lying (or at best repeating lies, but I have tried to point it out!) in its nearly Masonic reverence for Galileo.

Scientific establishment attacked Galileo and Church supported it?

What exact Scientific establishment? Sure, universities existed, but unlike Evolutionist quasi consensus now, debates existed too.

Picked on a few verses like Psalm 103:5?

How many times is it now that they neglect to mention the Joshua 10:13 verse which was very much up to a debate between Galileo and St Robert Bellarmine in the 1616 process against a book of his? They systematically explain the verse - when they mention it as if it were just any inquiry, and as if it had no relation to Galileo case - according to Galileo's and against St Robert Bellarmine's understanding of it. They also fail to mention that St Robert Bellarmine fully understood the position of Galileo and gave a refutation of it: "if Earth had stopped turning around itself, only, then Moon would have continued, since not tied to Earth". Their writer John Gideon Hartnett recently was on a forum from which I was excluded where I was repeatedly asked what my favourite verse was while I had made it clear alreay it was Joshua 10:12 (Joshua adressed no word at all to Earth, so we cannot suppose it was Earth that changed behaviour).

HGL's F.B. writings : How I answered Mike P with Scripture on Catholicism
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2014/11/how-i-answered-mike-p-with-scripture-on.html


Note how SDA female pastor Lea misses I have already answered what my verse is.

On this series 5 - 7 were on that forum and 5 - 8 were on topic of Joshua 10:12, here:

1) Assorted retorts: ... on Not Believing Vedic Astronomy Apart from Geocentrism, on Believing Scholastic Astronomy Including Geocentrism, 2) ... on Nicole d'Oresme refusing to apply relativity perfectly understood to Geocentric appearances, 3) ... on Black Holes and Geocentrism, 4) Back to Godinci, 5) HGL's F.B. writings: A "Biblical" Heliocentric Misciting Holy Scripture, 6) Vy considers I accused him falsely of mis-citing the Bible, Rod invokes relativity, 7) Vy makes his point more clearly - so do I, 8) New blog on the kid : Columbus and Joshua (Imagine Christopher Columbus had worked a miracle)


After I had been provoked to defend Catholicism on that forum (YE3C - Astronomy on FB), and had also mentioned my take on what Joshua 10:12 involves and defended it before that, I was banned and Alex Naszados informed another forum (Catholic Cosmology and Geocentrism) that debates involving Geocentrism were for the future banned on the forum where Mike P (SDA, self-employed lawyer, according to profile, I know his last name but abbreviate, since he is not a public figure that I know of).

What CMI is suggesting is that these Creationist astronomers were ONLY being as fixed on one position as the Scientific Establishment of Galileo's time. Not so.

And of course, it was Galileo himself with his heterodox understanding of the Joshua passage, which alerted the Church he was contradicting the Bible. A Dominican prior of San Marco struck the alarm bell on that very occasion. One more thing in Galileo: he refuted Ptolemy on a few points, no problem, but not only did he not refute the Geocentric position of Aristotelians, he did not even refute their "physics of astronomy". As I recently dealt with elsewhere on my blogs.**

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library***
St Bibiana
2-XII-2014

* Exploring the God Question: 1. The Cosmos, Part 1 (The big bang)
by Russell Grigg, Published: 2 December 2014
http://creation.com/exploring-cosmos-big-bang


** Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Kurukshetra War and Joshua's Long Day
http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2014/11/kurukshetra-war-and-joshuas-long-day.html


*** Will see if their hospitality extends to a coffee or even a slight lunch today ...