>Tue, 06 Jan 1998 23:02:15 -0600 Glenn Morton wrote:
>
>> Alkaline waters, I am told, can preserve things quite effectively. The fact
>> that there are huge flamingo nests there combined with the fact that in
>> Africa Flamingos live in the alkaline lakes of the rift valley, makes a
>> convincing explanation.
>
>OK for flamingo nests which rest on the bottom anyway, but you didn't
>refer to fish which _float_ when dead. Do the bottoms of the alkaline
>lakes of the rift valley contain varved sediments with fossil (or
>proto-fossil) fish buried in the sediments?
>
>You have not answered this YEC argument for catastrophic deposition.
>
>Bill Payne
Why is this a 'YEC argument' at all? No OEC rejects the idea that there
have been catastrophes in the 4.5 billion years the earth has been here, so
long as there is evidence of them.
The 'uniformitarian vs. catastrophist' debate is a hoax, a pseudo-issue.
This issue has long since been settled. The two views are not opposites;
they can coexist, and in fact there are numerous examples of catastrophic
events, including huge floods, volcanoes, meteors, ice ages, plagues, and
even natural nuclear chain reactions. No conventional earth scientist
disputes these.
But there is also evidence of vast ages and long, slow processes like
cosmic expansion, galaxy formation and collisions, star formation and
evolution, and continental drift, about which tens of thousands of articles
have been written which the YEC must refute, but usually prefers to dismiss
or ignore.
That's one of the reasons, by the way, why I admire unusual people like
Glenn Morton, who has been willing to confront this evidence at face value,
and change his mind, and find a way to resolve the problems to his own
satisfaction. I commend his rational approach to us all.
Paul Arveson, Code 724, Research Physicist, Signatures Directorate
Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division
9500 MacArthur Blvd., West Bethesda, MD 20817-5700
arveson@oasys.dt.navy.mil bridges@his.com
(301) 227-3831 (301) 227-4511 (FAX)