On Fri, 30 Aug 1996 21:51:55, Glenn Morton wrote:
[continued]
GM>..It is so much easier to criticise a viewpoint than to develop
>one that matches all the data. Let's hear your theory of how this
>all happened.
Agreed. I will answer Glenn's test to see if my PC "viewpoint ...
matches all the data".
GM>Where was Adam created?
Actually, the Bible does not say. Adam was put into the Garden of
Eden after he was made:
"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put
the man whom he had formed." (Gn 2:7-8)
Indeed, the Bible does not say exactly where the Garden of Eden was,
but the general view is that it was in modern Turkey.
GM>When did it happen?
Again, the Bible does not say. Ussher thought he could count back the
genealogies from the time of Solomon to Adam, but the genealogies
have gaps in them and are not necessarily father-son relationships.
Many conservative evangelical scholars who take Genesis 1-11 as in
some sense historical (ie. not a series of myths), would see a limit
in the amount of stretching of genealogies and the length of time a
family history tradition (eg. Gn 5:1 "This is the book of the
generations of Adam") could be transmitted orally. Of the latter
would not be a limiting factor if writing of some sort had been
present from the outset or Genesis 1-11 was revealed to Moses.
Generally I work on a date for the making of Adam somewhere between
100K - 10K, with my preference being closer to the 10K end. But if
the mtDNA and Y-chromosome data showed the origin of H. sapiens at
greater than that I would not reject it. OTOH, I do not necesarily
claim that Adam was the first anatomically modern H.
GM>Where was the flood?
Once again, the Bible does not say. I assume it was somewhere between
the mountains of Ararat (Gn 8:4) and Babylon (Gn 10:10).
GM>Was it global or local?
I assume it was a local Flood, covering the known world of Noah's
day, eg. Mesopotamia.
GM>Where did the flood waters come from?
The Bible says they came from underground springs and rain (Gn
7:11-12).
GM>Where did they go?
The Bible only says that a "God...sent a wind over the earth, and the
waters receded" (Gn 8:1). This is a parallel with "the Spirit of God
was hovering over the waters" (Gn 1:2), so it may have been more
than a wind.
GM>When was the flood?
This is obviously related to the date of Adam and the beginning of
building cities in Mesopotamia (Gn 10). I would assume the Flood was
somewhere between 10K and 50K years ago.
GM>Where do the fossil men fall into your theory?
In my Pre-Adamite theory "the fossil men" correspond to Genesis 1
man.
I wonder what is Glenn's "viewpoint" that "matches all the data"?
GM>How did the fossils form?
Voltaire believed they were food-scraps thrown away by the Crusaders!
:-) He wanted to avoid believing they were formed by the Flood.
Seriously, I presume the majority of fossils formed by being rapidly
covered by mud or sand. McDowell & Stewart (ghost-written by Glenn) say:
"The process of fossilization is itself an evidence of abnormal
deposition. Today, when an animal dies, whether on land or sea, the
body immediately begins to rot. The scavengers, such as vultures,
usually eat the carcass. These two agencies, bacteria and scavengers,
are very efficient at recycling the material contained in the body. The
bones of the animal will dissolve in the sea or be weathered away on
land, so not even the bones are sure to be preserved. Thus, there are
two agencies which tend to prevent the fossilization of any animal-
biological scavengers and weather. (Charles Schuchert and Carl O.
Dunbar, Textbook of Geology, Pt. 2, New York: John Wiley and
Sons, 1933, p13).
The only manner in which a carcass can be preserved is to remove it
from these two agencies. This means that for an animal to be
preserved, it must be buried deep enough so scavengers can't get to it
and deep enough so oxygen, which bacteria need, is excluded. This
implies, however, that the animal must be buried shortly after its
death or there will be nothing left to preserve. As Beerbower states:
`In general, the more rapidly an organism is buried and the tighter the
seal of its sedimentary tomb, the better the chance of preservation.'
(James R. Berbower, Search for the Past, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-
Hall, Inc., 1968, p39)
..Thus it can be seen that the mere presence of a fossil indicates
deposition of sediments had to have been thousands of times faster
than the normal estimated rates of deposition in order for a fossil to
be preserved. If you wished to cover a dead fish with two and one-
half inches of sediment, hoping that would be enough to preserve
him, you would need a 100 year supply of sediment. And it is
uncertain whether two and one-half inches would be deep enough
since worms can easily reach that depth and bring the bacteria and
oxygen which cause decay. When you look at the major fossil
deposits in the world, it becomes obvious that tremendous quantities
of sediment were required to preserve them."
(McDowell J. & Stewart D., "Reasons Why We Should Consider
Christianity", 1981, Scripture Press, pp191-192)
GM>When did they form?
today is rare:
"Modern sediments do not seem to satisfy the conditions for
preservation of fossils. It is very difficult to find creatures currently in
the process of being fossilized. Robert J. Cordell notes: `Modern
sediments average only about one percent organic matter...' " (Robert
J. Cordell, "Depths of Oil Origin and Primary Migration: A Critique
and Review," Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum
Geologists, Vol. 56, p.2035).
(McDowell J. & Stewart D., "Reasons Why We Should Consider
Christianity", 1981, Scripture Press, p191)
GM>Was there animal death before the flood? Before Adam?
Yes and yes. On the Pre-Adamite theory there would even have been
`human' (ie. Pre-Adamite man) death before Adam.
GM>Why are their no amphibian traces in the Cambrian.
Presumably because there were no amphibians then. The fist amphibian
fossils date from the Devonian.
GM>Why are no living forms of macroscopic life found prior to the
>Upper Cretaceous?
Is this a trick question? :-) There were large reptiles millions of
years before the Cretaceous. Norman in his book "Dinosaur!"
(Boxtree: London, 1991, pp38-39) has pictures of large dinosaurs
in the Triassic, eg. Plateosaurus, which he says was "4 to 6m long"
(p53); and the Jurassic, eg. Brachiosaurus, which weighed "close to
30 tons" (p46). These by any defintion would be "macroscopic"! :-)
GM>Why are there no modern mammal species prior to
>the Oligocene?
Another trick question? Hitching ("The Neck of the Giraffe", Ticknor
& Fields, New York, 1982, p13-14) has a table which includes:
------------------------------------------------------
PERIOD DISTINCTIVE FEATURES YEARS AGO
------------------------------------------------------
OLIGOCENE Large running mammals 36 million
EOCENE Many modern types of mammals 58 million
PALEOCENE First placental mammals 63 million
------------------------------------------------------
Bats in particular first appeared in the Eocene and have remained
"modern" (ie. the same) ever since:
"Bats are probably descended from insectivores but their origins are
rather obscure because they have left few fossils. The earliest
known bats, from the Eocene period, are remarkably similar to present
day forms. (Phillipson J.D., "Encyclopedia of the Animal World", Bay
Books: Sydney, 1977, 2:157-159)
GM>Why do whales and dolphins not appear in the Devonian strata with
>the remains of other large fish?
Probably because they aren't "fish"! :-)
GM>And why is there no evidence of grass on the planet prior to the
>Miocene? Neither pollen grain nor blade of grass. But there are
>lots of plant fossils.
Although the fossil record of the grasses (family Gramineae, or
Poaceae) dates from the Miocene, it is thought that they appeared
much earlier but have left a poor fossil record:
"Since the grasses are primarily herbaceous plants, they have not left
an impressive fossil record. While claims have been made for the
presence of grasses from the Cretaceous Period of some 65,000,000
to 136,000.000 years ago, all reasonably well identifiable fossil grass
remains are from the Tertiary Period (beginning 65,000,000 years
ago) or later. Vegetative remains of rhizomes and stem bases ascribed
to the genera Arundo or Phragmites have been described from
Europe. An excellent series of fossil grasses from the Great Plains of
central North America was described in 1942. These fossils consist
mostly of hardened fertile florets of species of grasses related to the
living genera Stipa, Oryzopsis, Piptochaetium, Nassella, and Setaria
or Panicum. They span the period from the early Miocene Epoch
through the Pliocene (beginning about 26,000,000 years ago to about
2,500,000 years ago). Their nature, relationships, and associated
plant and animal fossils indicate that they were inhabitants of open,
dry plains. It is significant that the first appearance of these fossils of
steppe-type grasses coincides closely with the evolution of ancestral
horses having high-crowned teeth and strong jaws, suited to eating
siliceous dry-land grasses. Their elongated legbones and sharp hooves
enabled rapid running. These adaptations indicate that the animals
evolved and lived in extensive grasslands. The presence of the grass
fossils over a wide area indicates that rather modern type grasses and
grasslands were well developed by the Miocene time and that the
origin of the family must have occurred much earlier."
("Encyclopaedia Britannica", Benton: Chicago, 15th edition, 1984,
14:592)
OTOH, they may be just one more example of sudden appearance (due to
the supernatural intervention of an Intelligent Designer?).
God bless.
Steve
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