>
> On April 10, Randy Landrum (randyl@efn.org) wrote:
>
> > Ager insists, as do numerous leading geologists of today, that many of
> > the geologic deposits are actually a sequence of rapid catastrophic
> > deposits, usually water related.
>
> Again, I fail to see how this pertains to what you're really trying to
> show -- evidence for a unique global flood a few thousand years ago. Ager
> (1983) has a chapter on "Catastrophic Uniformitarianism." Allow me to quote
> from this chapter (p. 75)...
Now that a contradiction "Catastrophic Uniformitarianism" sounds like a
term trying to fit ones anti-biblical creation beliefs into scientific
evidence.
>
> "Papers have been written on 'the significance of the rare event
> in geology' and one must never forget the significance of the old
> truism that given time, the rare event becomes a probability and
> given enough time, it becomes a certainty. We certainly have
> enough time in geology."
>
> and (p. 83-84)...
>
> "However, I would not for one moment deny the continuity and the
> gradualness of the processes which are changing the earth. But
> we must always distinguish between the nature of the process and
> the nature of the record. I do not deny uniformitarianism in its
> true sense, that is to say, of interpreting the past by means of
> the processes that we see going on at the present day, so long as
> we remember that the periodic catastrophy (including sudden events
> like the rushing of a turbidity current) is one of those processes.
> All I am saying is that I strongly suspect that those periodic
> catastrophes make more showing in the stratigraphical record than
> we have hitherto assumed."
>
> Bottom line Randy, is that Ager believes in an old earth and when he speaks
> of catastrophic events, he's speaking of hurricanes, tsunamis, turbitity
> currents, local floods, sea level rises (not just one, but many throughout
> the earth's history) and other rare events which show up with some frequency
> given rocks that span hundreds of millions of years of time.
The fossil record is best understood as the result of a marine cataclysm
that utterly annihilated the continents and land dwellers (Genesis
7:18-24; II Peter 3:6)
You missed the point after my second attempt. Let me try to explain this
in a way you can understand. While attmepting to distance himself from
creationist geologists who believe in Noah's Flood, Dr. Derek Ager does
recognize catastrophism in geology. In the previously mentioned statment:
"The hurricane, the flood or tsunami may do more in an hour or a day than
the ordinary processes of nature have achieved in a thousand years..."
Which is not taken out of context as you have stated.
Now this sounds much more like he believes in some sort of catastrophism
than the unformatitarianist you are trying to make him out to be.
>
> It puzzles me that young-earth creationists like to quote Ager, implying
> that he somehow supports their ideas of a young earth or a global flood.
> Ager (1993, p. xi) himself has written...
>
> Pretty strong condemnation of your position by someone you appear to have
> quoted out of context.
>
Now you are putting words in my mouth or post that were never intended.
Never did I say or imply that Ager is a strict creationist. But then
again his statment as I hope you can grasp that there is some belief that
nearly all of the rock material was laid down rapidly, as sediments, by
catastrophic processes. He may believe that these events were separated
by great lengths of time.
I am supprised that you made that mistake given question about the
"Neo-catastrophist". I thought you would have understood that being one
does not make one a young earth creationist.
> > Do you deny that Dr. Ager has spearheaded a revival in geology back
> > toward flood processes?
>
> I absolutely deny it. Ager did not support a global flood -- reread
> the above quotations. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ not what I said
Yea, I could have guessed that. Maybe you should read a little more about
what a Neo-catastrophist really is. You may find it is closer that you
thing to what you really believe, at least I would hope so.
>
> Ager (who has passed away), spearheaded a revival away from a strict
> uniformitarianism that was current in stratigraphy before he wrote the
> first edition of his book (1973). He wanted stratigraphers to look at
> many parts of the stratigraphic record as composed of sequences of
> catastrophic events (like deposits from local hurricanes, for example)
> which appear uniform due to there being many of them given the millions
> of years the rock strata represent.
So? That is my point! Even someone who is not a young earth creationist
has problems with the evidence against uniformitarianism!
>
> > Are you a "neo-catastrophist"?
>
> No, because I never adopted a simplistic view of uniformitarianism.
> Maybe that's only because I started my geological education in the late
> 1980s. The geologic concept of uniformitarianism is summed up in an essay
> entitled "Uniformity and Catastrophe" by Stephen Jay Gould (1977, p. 147-152)
> where he showed that Charles Lyell's (the "father" of uniformitarianism)
> concept of uniformitarianism had four different components...
>
Simplistic view of uniformitarianism? Get real! Although I do not agree
with everything that the former President of the British Geologist's
Association Dr. Ager believed in, I would not call it simplistic! I
admire him enough to quote his words. Words that have a ring of truth
instead of sweeping the evidence which points toward rapid catastrophic
deposition under great amounts of time. Great amounts of time supposedly
pssed between the layers where there is no evidence! The "evidence" for
time is the lack of physical evidence. All the evidence points toward
rapid, catastrophic flood processes.
>
> I don't believe any geologist today believes in a strict uniformitarianism of
> rate for earth changing processes. The real world operates between the two
I am not so sure about that but we can always hope. I am glad you do not
put yourself in that darkness.
-Randy