jeudi 31 janvier 2019

Biological Stromatolites?


In answer to "one or two" points in Michael Oard's article, republished today as blog post on CMI site and previously published in Creation December 2017.

Are all fossil stromatolites biological?
by Michael J. Oard | This article is from
Journal of Creation 31(3):10–12—December 2017
https://creation.com/fossil-stromatolites


Salient points:

Oard and Froede gave nine reasons why stromatolites in the rocks may not be biological.8 Four of them are especially significant.


Introducing:

First, it is unlikely that there was enough time during the Flood to produce true stromatolites, nor enough time during Creation Week, unless they were created de novo.


Pre-Flood world?

Most creation scientists believe the Phanerozoic is from the Flood, except for the continuing debate over the Cenozoic. Stromatolites are not rare in Phanerozoic rocks.12–15 Thus, it appears an abiotic mechanism is required for the formation of most, if not all, Phanerozoic stromatolites.


Unless a layer can be carbon dated to a post-Flood time, as is the case with Younger Dryas (just before Babel on my view), it can be either from Flood or from post-Flood mudslides. I'd consider many carbon dated dinos in the latter category, unless you presume there were nuke explosions pre-Flood in the area, leading to higher than normal C14 content in organic material.

It is unlikely pre-Flood stromatolites could be transported into Flood sediments because of the chaos of the early Flood.


Here I disagree very much. Some were not transported but buried in situ.

Moreover, if the stromatolites were transported and not totally destroyed, we would expect the pre-Flood stromatolites to have been broken in pieces and orientated differently from living stromatolites. This all suggests that some Precambrian stromatolites are also a result of abiotic processes.


This is a precise reason why many of the pre-Flood specimina of animals need to have been buried in situ. If they had been transported, they would have been broken into pieces or pulverised to total unrecognisable powder.

If there are 30 complete skeleta of T Rex, how were they transported and not buried in situ?

If there are complete "prehistoric" whales or ichthyosaurs, how are they not buried in situ?

This is the reason why the supposed "geological column" could very profitably be reinterpreted as a land and sea map of pre-Flood world. Where you find a whale (as in Lienz) you were in the sea. Where you find a seal (as in the Nussdorf vineyards in the outskirts of Vienna) you were on the seashore, seals not going too far offshore. Where you find a pterosaur, you are arguably on land or near some shore (less sure, not certain how far they could fly across seas) as in Ankerschlag in Tyrol. If they had been transported, you could not have identified them.

The reasons second, third and fourth are however less easy to answer, if one wanted to defend biological fossil stromatolites. Difference in shape, lack of organic material, carbonates .... wait, carbonates could be the residue of organic material in them.

So, on nature of stromatolites, I tend to probably organic, at least as long as no realistic anorganic process is proposed, but I am not fully confident. But on the reasons given in "first" I think this is a place to answer a misconception of "geological column" having labels that always really are about levels, in fact, where you find fossils of index fossil type, often it's about pre-Flood habitats.

This would also answer the "not enough time" argument on stromatolites. Now, as I argued for burial in site and as stromatolites are formed under water, was Green River Formation (mentioned in text) land or water?

I go past my no longer necessary back up blog palaeocritti.blogspot.com over last messages to not the site paid site palaeocritti.com but the googlesite on which the customised url is a short link (which ceased to function, while I thought all material would go away, not the case):

Palaeocritti - a guide to prehistoric animals > By Location https://sites.google.com/site/palaeocritti/by-location

But instead of looking for Green River Formation via Utah, I go to search bar, and go to

Showing 1-10 of 11 results for Green River Formation
https://sites.google.com/site/palaeocritti/system/app/pages/search?scope=search-site&q=Green+River+Formation


And I go to the creature articles, omitting other ones.

Falcarius utahensis (land), Icaronycteris (not sure, probaby land), Onychonycteris finneyi (not sure, probaby land), Sinopa rapax and Sinopa major (land), Tritemnodon agilis (land at Douglas Creek member), Prefica nivea (not sure, probably land), Limnofregata azygosternon (land or water at Fossil Butte Member, Lincoln Wyoming), Heliobatis radians (clearly water!).

Heliobatis radians is described in this publication:

Freshwater stingrays of the Green River Formation (early Eocene) with the description of a new genus and species and an analysis of its phylogenetic relationships (Chondrichthyes, Myliobatiformes). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 284


Would that be anywhere near the stromatolites?

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. John Bosco*
31.I.2019

* Augustae Taurinorum sancti Joannis Bosco, Confessoris, Societatis Salesianae ac Instituti Filiarum Mariae Auxiliatricis Fundatoris, animarum zelo et fidei propagandae conspicui, quem Pius Papa Undecimus Sanctorum fastis adscripsit.

mercredi 30 janvier 2019

What Does Genesis Leave Out?


There is no clear description of the beginning of Hell, of when Satan was cast down. Even if this certainly happened well before Nimrod's time.

There is also no clear description of how idolatry began. Even if it could have happened in Nimrod's time, according to some, and had certainly happened before Abraham's vocation.

Why are these left out? It is possible that Moses did not consider his people mature enough for demonology (except for the kohanim and levites who had access to information not written in the law). It is certain that idolatry was not discussed. There is a direct ban on mentioning the names of pagan deities.

"Keep all things that I have said to you. And by the name of strange gods you shall not swear, neither shall it be heard out of your mouth."
[Exodus 23:13]

Nevertheless, Moses does mention a false deity's name:

Numbers 25:[3] And Israel was initiated to Beelphegor: upon which the Lord being angry

One must however suppose, the Israelites of old were not allowed to mention Beelphegor by name on a daiy basis after the killing of the initiates. The name was retained in the narrative, but it was not a subject for free conversation.

Therefore, I suppose, Genesis does not tell us directly how idolatry began. Some say Tower of Babel was esoteric, magic, and idolatry began over that project to "build a portal" - but you do not find that speculation in the text itself any more than you find mine that it was mainly technological, a rocket project as an "extra Ark" by those mistrusting God, or that of some other men, simply a project of power politics in administration, making a one world government (btw, these two types of project do not exclude each other).

Historia scholastica in the part dedicated to Genesis, by contrast, says Ninus (the husband of Semiramis, and he is not identified but clearly disidentified from "Nembroth") started idolatry inadvertently by too much mourning over his father Belus and too much attachment to his image ... sth leading to the populace eventually attributing divinity to the image. Meanwhile, Semiramis was doing hanging gardens. This happened in the time of Sarug - which is then well after the birth of Peleg, well after Tower of Babel.

Genesis does not decide in the text.

Neither does Genesis tell us how Satan fell. It is most probable Isaiah tells us, but he was not discussing the days of creation. Hence there is a discussion on when Satan fell. Did he make Earth waste and desolate and pour darkness over the water when he fell down to Hell? Did he "survive in grace" to when Adam was created on day six, as Muslims say he was told to bow down to Adam and refused? Did he fall after the last time the words "they were very good" were pronounced by God? Here one could argue back and forth.

  • 1) Satan after his fall was not very good. Thus he fell after the mention in Genesis 1:31 of the qualification on all things God had made as very good.
  • 2) On the other hand, God had made his nature, which remains very good, it is only his will (not will faculty, but will content) which is very evil, and that he chose himself, God did not make it so for him. Thus he can have fallen before day six. This would be the position of St Thomas Aquinas, and it also explains why Hell fire is for eternity : God punishes the will, not the being, of the damned, since their being is sth which He has created and which remains good. Annihilation would be punishing the being instead of the will, the creation instead of the human choice.


Nevertheless, most Christians with some claim to theological profundity think they have use for a position on these two questions, and they are not directly adressed by the text of Genesis.

I noted that, while the fall of Satan is adressed on CMI - Russell Grigg argues Satan fell some time after creation week, Keaton Halley supports this (and presumably also Russell's using argument one of previous two options) - the beginning of idolatry is not adressed on their site. When Lita Cosner makes a kind of parallel to St Augustine's City of God where he follows the fates of the "two cities", she only says:

After every other judgment, there is still a clear ‘open door’ where there is assurance of God’s continuing salvific plan for humanity. But here there is no righteous remnant standing out. There is no indication that humanity is anything other than uniformly rebellious, mirroring God’s statement in 8:21, after the Flood subsided, that every thought of man’s heart was only evil, from his youth. Even the descendants of righteous Shem seem to be participating. And where is Noah in all this? Five generations have entered the world since the Flood, and it seems that the whole earth fell into idolatry. But the seeming victory of the serpent was only an illusion.


Eve’s offspring, the serpent, and his offspring—Part 1, Adam to Babel
by Lita Cosner, Published: 23 September 2014
https://creation.com/offspring-1


Her conclusion is actually wrong.* While Thare (mentioned at beginning of part 2) was an idolater, as his son Nachor, probably others were not yet such. At no single time was all earth in idolatry, with no man alive excepted. The City of God was not founded twice over, and while Abram received a call, he was also a heir, otherwise he would not have been able to transmit the story of Genesis 2 to 11 (creation days and up to Genesis 2:4 may have been Moses' vision on Sinai, added by Moses as final compiler and redactor).

Joshua 24:2b in Douay Rheims:

Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Your fathers dwelt of old on the other side of the river, Thare the father of Abraham, and Nachor: and they served strange gods.

This is perfectly compatible with idolatry beginning at the time of Sarug, as Historia Scholastica says, who was father of the older Nachor and grandfather of Thare.

In other words, Sarug at least refused idolatry even up to the vocation of his greatgrandson Abram, whom God renamed Abraham. God never left the Earth without true worshippers.

This is important because Abram was 51 years when Sarug died. His own vocation was at 75. The grand maximum of a void of believers would have been those 24 years. And it does not stand to reason he was even an idolater up to his vocation, it is possible God was giving him the needed chance to avoid falling into it, but without him having done so.

St Augustine is adament that the Hebrew patriarchs were not involved in the building of Babel. One reason why a geographic spread (but no linguistic or even political diversity) before Babel is a desideratum for exegesis is, this way the innocent Hebrew patriarchs could simply have succeeded in keeping out of the way, doing sth else - perhaps lowly work like growing crops or tending sheep a bit outside Babel. Like Djemdet Nasr and other agricultural places are outside Göbekli Tepe.

Now, why is this non-participation important? Because it means, you cannot have a Church falling into error and having God fix it only later, after generations had been left in error, through Mohammed or Joseph Smith, through Ellen Gould White or Martin Luther, through Calvin or through Zwingli. Sarug would have warned Abraham against idolatry, which was not yet there when he was a child, as one Francis lord of Sales, of Boisy and of Novel warned one St Francis of Sales, as yet a teen, against Calvinism, which was not yet there when the saints feudal lord father was a child. (Young future saint had been anguished that Calvinism could be true and he could be among the "foreknown"). Even the Reformation under King Joas presupposed that a Jewish Church had been continuing in hiding, but known to exist, while Athalia was persecuting it. So, the Protestant Reformation cannot have happened. Luther is no new Abraham, and one cannot make Abraham a proto-Luther. Without tradition from Sarug, Abram would not have been able to reasonably know for certain whether the voice came from God. With it, Abram could identify the voice of God as the one voice left keeping up the tradition he had received from Sarug.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Martina, Virgin and Martyr**
30.I.2019

Update: it seems Answers in Genesis have less reticence.

At the Tower of Babel, the concept of the unity and absoluteness of God had begun to be lost. When the people were dispersed at Babel, they would have taken with them a hybrid truth of the living God mixed with the twisted and distorted truth of that revelation about him. The loss of a unified language led to the loss of unified religion; every people and nation now deviated to worship its own national god. At Babel monotheism degenerated into animism, sorcery, magic, and polytheism—though some still retained it (e.g., Melchizedek, Genesis 14, Noah—who lived for another 350 years or so after the flood). The pure revelation of God had been generally lost, corrupted, and perverted by sin, leading to religious idolatry and giving rise to religious pluralism (Joshua 24:2).


Here, Religion: What Is It, Where Did It Come from and How Does the Bible View It?, Simon Turpin seems to imply that apostasy into idolatry (in the religious, not the more general moral sense) happened at Babel. This is not just more than Genesis says, it is even not well compatible with Deuteronomy 32 of which only selected verses were cited. Noting how verses 16 and 17 come after the mention of Jacob (9) and the mention of a specific Canaanean idolatrous people in Canaan (or apostasy of Israelites?), this is not talking of the immediate result of Babel./HGL

* Or Currid's : Currid, J., Genesis: Volume 1, Evangelical Press Study Commentary, Webster, NY, p. 128, 2003. ** Sanctae Martinae, Virginis et Martyris, cujus dies natalis Kalendis Januarii recolitur. (Going back to January 1:st) Romae passio sanctae Martinae, Virginis et Martyris; quae, sub Alexandro Imperatore, diversis tormentorum generibus cruciata, tandem, gladio percussa, martyrii palmam adepta est. Ipsius vero festum tertio Kalendas Februarii recolitur.

jeudi 24 janvier 2019

St Augustine Didn't Say So ... or He Did, But St. Thomas Said Otherwise


I was just reading this page:

Genesis 10:5 Parallel Verses / What does Genesis 10:5 mean?
https://www.bibleref.com/Genesis/10/Genesis-10-5.html


From parallel Bible versions, they were omitting Douay Rheims.

Here it is:

By these were divided the islands of the Gentiles in their lands, every one according to his tongue and their families in their nations.

Now, this is not extremely important, on this one verse, since it says basically the same thing as the other versions.

But here is the salient point:

It's helpful to remember that this spreading out and having separate languages came after the events surrounding the tower of Babel in Genesis 11. Until that time, all the people of the earth were concentrated in one region and spoke one language.


I would like to correct this, my version being like:

It's helpful to remember that having separate languages came after the events surrounding the tower of Babel in Genesis 11. Until that time, all the people of the earth spoke one language.

Note, what I left out is, geographic concentration up to Babel and therefore identity of the spreading out in Genesis 10 and the dispersion in Genesis 11.

So, I just checked with St Augustine, City of God, if you want Flood to Abraham, it is book 16 you look up. I also tried to check Theodoret, Questions on the Octateuch. I failed to access any text, either paper or electronic.

In St. Augustine, I got confirmation on one point I had debated previously:

After enumerating these, Scripture returns to the first of the sons, and says, "Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a giant on the earth. He was a giant hunter against the Lord God: wherefore they say, As Nimrod the giant hunter against the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Assur, and built Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: this was a great city." Now this Cush, father of the giant Nimrod, is the first-named among the sons of Ham, to whom five sons and two grandsons are ascribed. But he either begot this giant after his grandsons were born, or, which is more credible, Scripture speaks of him separately on account of his eminence; for mention is also made of his kingdom, which began with that magnificent city Babylon, and the other places, whether cities or districts, mentioned along with it. But what is recorded of the land of Shinar which belonged to Nimrod's kingdom, to wit, that Assur went forth from it and built Nineveh and the other cities mentioned with it, happened long after; but he takes occasion to speak of it here on account of the grandeur of the Assyrian kingdom, which was wonderfully extended by Ninus son of Belus, and founder of the great city Nineveh, which was named after him, Nineveh, from Ninus.


In other words, it is the nation and not the person Assur who builds Nineveh, later on.

Now, the point I was looking for was this one:

But nations are expressly mentioned among the sons of Ham, as I showed above. "Mizraim begot those who are called Ludim;" and so also of the other seven nations. And after enumerating all of them, it concludes, "These are the sons of Ham, in their families, according to their languages, in their territories, and in their nations." The reason, then, why the children of several of them are not mentioned, is that they belonged by birth to other nations, and did not themselves become nations. Why else is it, that though eight sons are reckoned to Japheth, the sons of only two of these are mentioned; and though four are reckoned to Ham, only three are spoken of as having sons; and though six are reckoned to Shem, the descendants of only two of these are traced? Did the rest remain childless? We cannot suppose so; but they did not produce nations so great as to warrant their being mentioned, but were absorbed in the nations to which they belonged by birth. But though these nations are said to have been dispersed according to their languages, yet the narrator recurs to that time when all had but one language, and explains how it came to pass that a diversity of languages was introduced.


Wait, it seems he did say so. The narrator recurs, that is runs back to before and the dispersion is according to languages.

So, I have one Church Father against me ... bad. That is why I'd like to know if I have another one for me. It seems I do have some in

Postilla in libros Geneseos
a capite VI ad caput XI
http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/xgn06.html


An omnes tunc simul recesserunt et in Sennaar insimul venerunt, an solum principaliores ex eis cum aliquibus sibi annexis, non plene claret ex hoc loco. Whether all then at the same time went back and went to Shinear together, or only the principal ones with someones attached to them, is not fully clear from this passage.
 
Licet enim infra dicatur, scilicet quod inde de Babylone dispersit eos dominus in universas terras, hoc potest dici, aut quia causa dispersionis omnium fuit ex illo loco, aut quia principaliores ibi erant et inde dispersi sunt, et in eorum divisione et dispersione divisae sunt gentes, quarum ipsi erant duces; quia nec alia potest dari ratio quomodo tunc omnes discesserunt de Babylone.  Because, while below it be said, namely that from there, from Babylon, the Lord dispersed them into all lands, this may be said, either because the cause of the dispersion of all was of this place, or because the principal ones were there and were dispersed from there, and in their division and dispersion the nations were dispersed of whom they were leaders; since also no other reason can be given how then all left Babylon.
 
Non est enim dubium quin plures ibi tunc temporis remanserint. For, no doubt, many at that time stayed there.
 
Refert autem Magister quod Philo in libro quaestionum super Genesim narrat, quod ex tribus filiis Noe, adhuc ipso vivente, fuerunt viginti quatuor millia virorum praeter parvulos et mulieres. But the Master [of sentences? someone else?] relates that Philo in his book of questions about Genesis tells, that of the three sons of Noah, while he was still alive, there were 24 000 men besides children and women.
 
Sed videtur quod longe plures fuerunt. But it's clear they were many more.
 
Noe enim, secundum literam nostram et Hebraicam, vixit usque ad exitum Abrahae de domo patris sui. For Noah, according to our and the Hebrew letter, lived to when Abraham left the house of his father.
 
Nam a diluvio usque ad ejus exitum computantur trecenti septuaginta duo anni. For from the Deluge to his going out are counted three hundred and seventy two years.
 
Noe autem vixit ultra hunc numerum per tres annos. But Noah lived three years beyond this number.
 
Tempore autem illo facta erat grandis populatio Chananaeorum et diversarum gentium et regnorum. But in this time the population of Chanaaneans and diverse nations and kingdoms had grown great.
 
Praeterea populus Israel in minus quam ducentis annis multiplicatus est in Aegypto usque ad sexcenta millia virorum praeter parvulos et mulieres. Furthermore, the people of Isreal in less than two hundred years is in Egypt multiplied even to six hundred thousand men besides children and women.
 
Quid ergo mirum si in trecentis quinquaginta annis Noe sit facta multiplicatio longe ultra viginti quatuor milia virorum? What marvel then if in three hundred fifty years of Noah the multiplication go far beyond 24 000 men?
 
Invenerunt campum, idest planiciem, in terra Sennaar. They found a field, that is a plain, in the land of Shinear.
 
Possibile est quod duabus ex causis de oriente recesserant. It is possible that they had receded from the East for two causes.
 
Primo scilicet ut magis accederent ad medium terrae habitabilis, ut exinde possent melius circumquaque diffundi, et regi a principalioribus, quasi in medio populorum regendorum manentibus. First, you see, in order to access more to the middle of habitable earth, so as to from there better diffuse around and be ruled by the principal men, as they stayed in the middle of the peoples to be ruled.
 
Secundo ut redirent ad terram in qua manserant Adam et primi patres eorum. Second, to get back to the land in which Adam and their first fathers had stayed.
 
Quacumque autem ex causa fuerit, est notandum quam mirabili ordine variavit Deus principales sedes patrum et divini cultus, et regnorum mundi. But for whatever cause it was, it is to be noted how wonderful the order is, by which God varied the seats of the fathers and of divine worship and of the kings of the world.
 
Nam primo fuit in Paradiso. For first it was in Paradise.
 
Secundo creditur fuisse in Hierusalem sive circa Hebron, ubi et Adam legitur esse sepultus. Second, it is believed to have been in Jerusalem or around Hebron, where also Adam is written about as being buried.
 
Tertio faciente domino quod arca post diluvium versus orientem subsideret, fuit in oriente. Third, the Lord making the Ark subside to the East after the Deluge, it was in the East.
 
Quarto rediit circa Hierusalem, licet tunc aliquamdiu fuerit in Aegypto. Fourth it returned around Jerusalem, though then for some time it has been in Egypt.
 
Deinde sub Christo cultus Dei diffusus in omnes, quantum tamen ad principalem sedem per Graecos venit ad Latinos, exinde rediturus ad omnes, et praecipue ad Judaeos. Thereon under Christ the cult of God is diffused among all, at least as to the main seat came to Latins by Greeks, and from there is to return to all, and foremost to the Jews.
 
Dixitque alter ad proximum suum, venite et cetera. And each one said to his neighbour: come, and so on.
 
Non est credendum quod Sem et ceteri sancti patres illius temporis in hoc consenserunt, et quamquam aliquis ex eis ad opus extrinsecus compelli potuit, praecipue cum videatur quod Noe adhuc viveret: It should not be believed that Shem and the other holy fathers of that time consented in this, and though a few of them may have been forced from outside to the work, foremost as Noah was still alive:
 
quia secundum literam nostram, a diluvio usque ad ortum Phaleg in cujus diebus divisa est terra, non sunt nisi anni centum triginta et unus: et usque ad mortem ejus sunt trecenti quadraginta: Noe autem post diluvium vixit trecentis quinquaginta annis, decem scilicet post mortem Phaleg. for according to our letter, from the Deluge to the birth of Peleg in whose days the earth was divided, there are only one hundred and thirty one years, and to his death three hundred and forty, but Noah after the Flood lived three hundred and fifty years, that is ten beyond the death of Peleg.
 
Ex modo autem isto loquendi innuitur quod aliqui fuerunt principales incitatores aliorum ad hoc aedificium; But from this mode of speach we can gather that some were principally inciting the others to this building project,
 
et etiam quod ex magno affectu, et cum multa et communi concordia hoc fecerunt. and also that they did it of great feeling and with great common unity of hearts.


St Thomas (though recent editors have said, for some centuries, it is someone else and someone unknown) was probably following a strictly non-LXX chronology, meaning he was not yet (if he it was) in Paris, where the Historia Scholastica implied the Babel project began after the death of Noah, but at least we have one patristico-scholastic voice saying, the gathering around Babel was a gathering of principal men, not of exactly everyone alive.

Apart from chronology, I also differ from St Thomas (in his youth, before Paris) in his saying some remained in Babel. Yes, if Babel had been Babylon, and if Babylon* had been continuously the head of Mesopotamian empires and kingdoms and not been founded by Amorrhaeans probably after Joseph in Egypt but before, or even around Exodus, this might have been right, as it is, it is the garbled history accepted in the Middle Ages. If Babel was, as I think, Göbekli Tepe, then strictly all left Babel.

However, he did say also "An omnes tunc simul recesserunt et in Sennaar insimul venerunt, an solum principaliores ex eis cum aliquibus sibi annexis, non plene claret ex hoc loco." Which I translated "Whether all then at the same time went back and went to Shinear together, or only the principal ones with someones attached to them, is not fully clear from this passage."

This means, if some were "staying at home elsewhere" there can have been geographic spread, if on the other hand very clearly no linguistic diversity, before Babel.

I still have a chance of being right, then!

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Timothy of Ephesus
24.I.2019

PS, St Thomas (or someone else if so) must have had access to more than one text, and one of them not known today, as in Noah living three years beyond threehundred and seventy two after the Flood, or as in Peleg born one hundred thirty one after the Flood. But he did recall the more normal lifespan of Noah too. The fact that he corrects himself silently seems to indicate we are dealing with someone still learning, but this definitely does not exclude all the ages of St Thomas Aquinas' life, he arguably did have a childhood and youth./HGL

* It is an intriguing possibility that first Babel at Göbekli Tepe and then whatever was the capital of Mesopotamia was entitled "Bab-El" or "Bab-Ilu" and that this meant capital and continued to mean capital until the one settled at 32° 32′ 31″ North, 44° 25′ 12″ East, the one which is where Nebuchadnezzar deported Daniel and the three young men. This would explain the confusion.

lundi 21 janvier 2019

Other Theory on Albertan Ankylosaurs


The ‘bloat and float’ ankylosaurs of Alberta1
by Andrew Lamb
https://creation.com/bloat-and-float-ankylosaurs


Citing "a 1970 comment by paleontologist Charles Sternberg (1885–1981)":

“Of the 36 ankylosaur specimens for which we were able to determine depositional orientation, 26 (70.3%) were upside-down. The remainder occurred right-side up, and a single skull … was preserved on its side.”


The theories eliminated:

  • Ankylosaurs were clumsy
  • Large carnivores flipped them over
  • The ‘armadillo roadkill’ theory


The theory retained :

That left just the ‘bloat and float’ theory, that in water dead ankylosaurs would flip over due to the heavy osteoderms on their backs and bloating tummy gases.


The fifth hypothesis not forwarded until I do it here:

  • If the ankylosaurs have carbon dates inferior to 40 000 years;
  • and if the dinosaurs having carbon dates inferior to 40 000 years a per the several carbon datings made are also often found upside down;
  • then these could be, rather than from Flood (as are most fossils), from post-Flood mudslides.


Note, Andrew Lamb is referencing work by uniformitarian researchers who are not carbon dating dinos and who do not - unlike he - arguing from this that the rapid burial was during the Flood.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr
21.I.2019

mercredi 16 janvier 2019

What Taxonomic Level Needs Representation on the Ark?


If the answer is "each species alive today", mission impossible. But if family is more like it ...

Mammals:
According to Mammal Species of the World, 5,416 species were identified in 2006. These were grouped into 1,229 genera, 153 families and 29 orders.

Reptiles
Jul 8, 2018 - Number of families: As of Feb 2018 there are 86 families of reptiles (see our taxonomic overview and the phylogenetic tree of squamates for lists). Note that this number is a bit arbitrary, depending on what is called a family (sometimes a subfamily). Number of genera: As of Feb 2018 there are 1199 genera of reptiles.
http://www.reptile-database.org/db-info/SpeciesStat.html

Birds
170 families
https://www.bto.org/about-birds/birdfacts/bird-families

Preliminary total
153 mammals
86 reptiles
170 birds
409

Dinosaurs
Add 15 dinosaur families 424, pterosaurs not included, so 425

"To date, scientists have identified thousands of individual dinosaur species, which can be roughly assigned to 15 major families—ranging from ankylosaurs (armored dinosaurs) to ceratopsians (horned, frilled dinosaurs) to ornithomimids ("bird mimic" dinosaurs)."
https://www.thoughtco.com/main-dinosaur-types-1091963

Amphibians
Shall we be really generous and involve amphibians?
https://amphibiaweb.org/lists/index.shtml

Anura (frogs and toads) families: 55
Caudata families: 10
Gymnophiona families: 10

Where we also ask, whether it's the 75 families or the 3 orders we should be considering as kinds ....

More like total
425, 428 or 500.


If you comprehend that deer and hedgehogs aren't species, but families, you might start seeing sense ....

Yes, for any given place on earth with one typical hedgehog, that hedgehog will typically be a species. In Great Britain, Scandinavia, Italy, France, we deal with Erinaceus europaeus. Meanwhile, in Romania, Austria, Poland, Balkans, Russia, Ukraine, Siberia, Crete, you will instead be dealing with Erinaceus roumanicus. In Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Holy Land, you will be dealing with Erinaceus concolor. In parts of China, in Korea, in neighbouring parts of Siberia (Amur oblast), you will find Erinaceus amurensis. Four different species of the genus Erinaceus.

Around the Caspian Sea, a long way East of this, into West China, into parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, into parts of Iran, into SE Turkey, West Syria, Holy Land, Egypt and Libya, you will find Hemiechinus auritus. In Pakistan and India you will also find Hemiechinus collaris. So much for genus Hemiechinus.

It also belongs to the Erinaceinae subfamily of the family Erinaceidae. Erinaceinae are 17 live species in 5 genera. Galericinae is the other subfamily, involving 8 species of moonrat in 5 more genera. Now you may start to comprehend why 153 is the number of mammals' families and why families is a better taxonomic level than species.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Franciscan Holy Martyrs of Morocco*
16.I.2019

* Marrochii, in Africa, passio sanctorum quinque Protomartyrum Ordinis Minorum, scilicet Berardi, Petri atque Othonis Sacerdotum, Accursii et Adjuti Laicorum; qui, ob Christianae fidei praedicationem ac Mahumeticae reprobationem legis, post varia tormenta et ludibria, a Saracenorum Rege, scissis gladio capitibus, enecati sunt.

A Reminder Why, as Young Earth Creationist, I am Wary of Proto-Indo-European Unity


Toward a phylogenetic chronology of ancient Gaulish, Celtic, and Indo-European
Peter Forster and Alfred Toth | PNAS July 22, 2003 100 (15) 9079-9084;
https://www.pnas.org/content/100/15/9079


Citing:

The rooted lexeme tree of Fig. 4, which normalizes the six dead and living language branch lengths to AD 2000, yields a date for Indo-European fragmentation in Europe at 8100 BC ± 1,900 years. Note that the standard deviation of 1,900 years does not include uncertainty in the calibration, but it does express the uncertainty caused by mutation rate fluctuation (both in items and in languages), unlike “pairwise” glottochronology as advanced by Swadesh (16). For the fragmentation of Gaulish, Goidelic, and Brythonic from their most recent common ancestor, the lexeme tree yields a date of 3200 BC ± 1,500 years, but this date should be regarded as exploratory because it is based on only three estimators, i.e., three descendent branches. The date of 3200 BC ± 1,500 years would represent an oldest feasible estimate for the arrival of Celtic in the British Isles, and indeed is expected to be close to the actual date if the phylogenetic split between Gaulish and Insular Celtic was caused by the migration of the Celtic language to Britain and subsequent independent development in Britain.


Obviously, the idea of glottochronology is not quite as regular as they think, but ... it's not totally off either.

Within one "branch of Indo-European," you can have two languages sharing c. 50 % vocabulary, like this is what I heard of Swedish and German within Germanic. Note too that the shared words are more numerous due to Low German loans into Swedish.

But "between branches" we have definitely less vocabulary identity.

This poses the question whether it would have taken more time to have all branches evolve from a common ancestor and change so much vocabulary, or whether it would have taken more time for originally unrelated languages to borrow from each other.

When the alternatives are different languages shedding more or acquiring less than 50 % of vocabulary from a common source (including possibly commonality of neighbouring languages), it would seem acquiring less than 50 % would take less time.

Whether the language of Crete before Greek was or was not Aryan, it would seem the language of the Mitanni was Aryan. This means you have a neat geographic lineup, West to East represented by left to right:

Greek - Luwian - Phrygian - Nesili (or Hittite) - Aryan - Armenian.

And Aryan and Greek would involve the full scale of "Classic" Indo-European verb tenses. If we go to finite forms, I think Latin has 143 simple ones and Greek over 340. Sanskrit version of Aryan over 900. Now, verb tenses are not all equally Classic all over the "branches" but some references to this Classic system is found in many other places. Especially in personal endings. Which can be borrowed, as some linguists would consider some Finnish personal endings to be from Indo-European.

Now, Swadesh lists are supposed to be about very "core" vocabulary which is hardly ever replaced by loans ... but precisely the core nature may have provoked mutual loans in an attempt of facilitating communications. And there are words on the actual or at least any reasonable Swadesh list for which we have no clear Indo-European gloss. Would "hand" be "hand", "cheir", "manus", "ranka"? Would "head" be "head" (perhaps same as "caput"), "kephale" (probably same as "galva"), "ceann/penn", "gluch" (that's Armenian, previous two were Irish and Welsh), "mastakam" or "Ḍōkē" (Sanskrit and Marathi)? Would "mouth" be "mouth", "os", "bucca", "genoù", "stoma", "burna", "usta" (which could be related to "os"?), "berani" (which could be related to "burna"?), "dev" ....?

For that matter, is "father" "father" or "atta"? Is "one" "one" or "heis"? While the "pater" gloss is more prevalent than the "atta" gloss, oldest known IE language, Hittite, has "attas" and oldest Germanic language with full texts, Gothic, has "atta" while using "fadar" for "daddy". Similarily, the "oinos" gloss is prevalent, but second oldest language, Greek, has the "sems" gloss for it. Not sure at all what Hittite has.

Obviously, you see a lot of "branches" of Indo-European missing from my lineup. Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Slavonic, Baltic, they are also Indo-European, and so was arguably Liguric. However, I think Celtic and Hittite both represent Gomerite, and may have been similar before mutual loans, then you have Illyrian, Thracian, Dacian just above Greek and Luwian, meaning, there are bridges to later Sprachbünder. Diverse Fenno-Ugrian may have on occasion been involved in some of them, explaining why Phrygian and Germanic share Grimm's law with Hungarian and Etruscan, explaining why Finnish has so close endings to Indo-European in the conjugation, explaining why Germanic has a tense system closer to Finnish than to Greek ...

So this is the hunch on which I think Indo-European languages or branches can have :

  • become Indo-Europeanised though originally diverse;
  • in a shorter time than the one one would expect for a common ancestor language to diversify even more, since common vocabulary is less than 50 % for any language.


I have written more on it elsewhere, here was a short one, where the dates given are one supplementary indication:

  • 3200 BC is before the Flood except in Syncellus, a date when everyone still spoke some version of Hebrew;
  • 8100 BC is before Creation, a date not existing.


Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Pope St. Marcellus
16.I.2019

PS, hat tip to Florian Blaschke for linking to an article which linked to above mentioned./HGL

PPS, as I mentioned 50 % identic vocabulary Swedish / German, the percent is much higher between Romance languages, at least those of the West (perhaps a bit lower between these and Romanian). French - Portuguese seem to have lexical similarity coefficient 0.75, same as with French - Romanian, while Portuguese Romanian is down at 0.72. Swedish isn't listed. German / English is at 0.60, while, across "branches" German / French is 0.29, English / French is 0.27, English / Russian is 0.24. All this according to item Indo-European Languages on article Lexical similarity.

Wikipedia : Lexical similarity : Indo-European languages
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexical_similarity#Indo-European_languages


Note that for German and French, English and French, and therefore probably also for Russian and English, the lexical similarity is not restricted to common inheritance from Indo-European. English has been Frenchified after Norman Conquest, English has not so much influenced French, but French and German have mutually done so "across the Rhine" meaning that some of the English French similarity is not just due to French loan words into English but also German ones into French having English cognates. As for Russian and English, part is probably due to both accepting lots of loans from French./HGL

dimanche 6 janvier 2019

Tas Walker Wrong on Chronology of Black Sea Flood


He is clearly right on it's not being the Flood of Noah, though, so read his article thoughtfully before you come to my quibble on chronology.

The Black Sea flood
By Tas Walker | This article is from
Journal of Creation 14(1):40–44—April 2000
https://creation.com/the-black-sea-flood


Now, here is the part with chronology:

If we accept that the Black Sea flooded towards the end of the Ice Age, we can link it with biblical chronology and the true history of the world. There is a good case for the Ice Age being post-Flood. Ussher’s chronology places the Flood of Noah at 2348 BC, and Oard suggests that the Ice Age took 500 years to reach its maximum and a further 200 years to melt back. (Remember these are estimates only.) Thus, the Black Sea flood occurred after most of the continental ice sheets had melted, thereby raising ocean levels and allowing the Mediterranean to overtop the Bosporus, some 700 years after the Flood.

So, with the Flood at 2348 BC, the Ice Age peak would have been around 1850 BC and the melt back completed by 1650 BC at which time the Black Sea area flooded. The discrepancy between this and the published date of 5600 BC (7,600 years ago) for the Black Sea Flood is because the date of the Black Sea flood is based on 14C analyses.

The problem is that the 14C dates have not been corrected for the increase in the atmospheric ratio of 14C/12C following the Flood. The sudden burial of masses of vegetation changed the balance in the carbon reservoirs on the earth, and equilibrium is still being approached. The corrected 14C dates would agree with the biblical date. Thus, the Black Sea flood is one of many post-Flood catastrophes that have occurred around the world (e.g. Siberian mammoths, Iceland’s mega-flood).


What is wrong, exactly? In his Biblical chronology, 1650 BC would be in the lifetime of Joseph.

14C date 5600 BC has to be before Abraham.

Why? Genesis 13 and 14 line up with early dynastic Egypt and (thank Osgood for this one) Chalcolithic of En-Geddi.

But this is in 14C terms as recent as "3000 BC" or "3200 BC".

Therefore, 14C date 5600 BC needs to be when Abraham was very young or before he was born.

I have precisely, unlike the unformitarians, corrected 14C dates for the increase in atmospheric ratio of 14C/12C. I also have a non-Ussher Biblical chronology, on which I should perhaps correct some details, later, but this is from an earlier article with a table.

Serug born
2294 BC

2288 BC
64.991 pmc, 5838 BC

2249 BC
67.347 pmc, 5499 BC

Peleg died
2217 BC


In this table:

Refining table Flood to Abraham - and a doubt
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2018/05/refining-table-flood-to-abraham-and.html


As said, in this table, I have four Biblical date to 14C date correspondences as a base, and I outline the rise in "pmc" = percent modern 14C between 1:st and 2:nd, 3:rd and 4:th correspondence.

2957 BC = Flood, giving 14C level a low estimate at around 1 pmc. This means 14C date corresponds to last Neanderthal and Denisovan skeleta, which I take as pre-Flood race types. This leads up to 2602 BC Babel beginning 5 years after death of Noah at 14C date 9600 BC for begnning of Göbekli Tepe, then 2562 BC corresponds to 14C date 8600 BC for end of it, forty years later, six years before Peleg is born, then Genesis 14 takes place in 1935 BC at 14C date 3200 BC.

For the discrepancies, Biblical to real, I calculate 14C level in pmc, through ...

Carbon 14 Dating Calculator
https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/c14/carbdate.html


Then I take the space between beginning and end of Babel, 40 years, as the division within each part. From 2562 BC at 48.171 pmc to 1935 BC at 85.811 pmc I presume an even rate of rise. And for each level, I calculate extra years, and therefore the 14C date. So, 5600 BC falls between 14C dates 5838 BC and 5499 BC that correspond to Biblical chronology dates 2288 BC and 2249 BC which are the real dates, and which fall between those of (this is what need to revise) birth of Serug in 2294 BC and death of Peleg in 2217 BC.

Well before Abraham was born in 2015 BC. And way out of the league from when Joseph was in Egypt.

Now, they have a methodology for the length of the ice age I disagree on. In fact, one factor influencing cold weather is cosmic radiation. And the rise between Flood and Babel in my table has c. 9 - 10 times faster production of 14C than now, which means the ice age would have happened faster.

Hans Georg Lundahl
La Courneuve
Epiphany
6.I.2019

Update next day:

How likely are the new claims to withstand critical scrutiny? First, the new conclusions rely on radiocarbon analysis which yielded dates up to 12,000 years. Obviously, those dates cannot be correct because the global Flood only occurred around 4,300 years ago. The discrepancy is mainly because the dates have not been corrected for the increase in the atmospheric 14C/12C ratio following the Flood. If this ratio increased smoothly and if carbon dioxide was well mixed in the atmosphere, then the relative timing of events as determined by radiocarbon dating method may well be correct. In this case, the new claims are likely to stand. However, if the atmospheric carbon concentration has been locally disturbed, the timing of events based on carbon dating may well be spurious. There are many factors which can disturb the carbon ratio including local volcanic eruptions.


The Black Sea flood may evaporate completely
by Tas Walker | This article is from
Journal of Creation 16(3):3—December 2002
https://creation.com/black-sea-flood-may-evaporate-completely


12,000 years = 10,000 BC = Approximately death of Noah in 2607 BC.

And the newest carbon dates, 5600 BC, are 340 years later. So, Black Sea would have been building up for 340 years, including the dates for Babel./HGL

PS : obviously this would rule out any sudden flooding of what is now the Black Sea, so, the Atheists who claim this as a possible "irl model" for "Flood myths" are behind the times./HGL