Re: Flood Model and Brachiopods
Kevin O'Brien (Cuchulaine@worldnet.att.net)
Mon, 8 Feb 1999 22:35:06 -0700>
>Dear Steve,
>
>You wrote:
>
>>>> 2. The occurrence of igneous plutons and batholiths within
Phanerozoic
>>>> sedimentary strata of such a size as to require, using standard
>>>> thermodynamic calculations, that the bodies would take tens of
>>>> millions
>>>> of years to cool (depending upon their size, of course). How does
>>>> one have rapid sedimentation with a thick gabbroic sill in the
middle
>>>> of the package of sedimentary rocks?
>>>
>>> Glenn has shared some of his calculation on this, and others have
offered
>>> alternative viewpoints. I am no geophysicist, but I know that water
>>> conducts heat well, and there are many earth processes that require
>>> tremendous amounts of heat. Clearly the oceans have not boiled away in
>>> the past. The marine environment has been stable enough to maintain
life,
>>> despite extensive extinctions. And land areas (if they took tens of
>>> millions of years to cool, would they be devoid of life all that time?)
>>> have supported its biota as well. I don't think we have all the
answers
>>> about heat balance.
>>
>> You can't address this. Fair enough but it HAS to be addressed. Where
are
>> the young-earth creationist or flood model creationist igneous
petrologists?
>> This is a real (and fatal, in my opinion) problem with your idea about a
>> global
>> flood. Bottom line - it ain't science without the numbers.
>>
>
>True, I don't have the answers. But does lack of answers mean no science?
>To me, it means research opportunities. The position I hold leads me to
>suggest that calculations indicating that the oceans would boil away, etc.
>are missing some major factors. At this point I don't know what those
>factors are, but I am open to finding them. This is no more unscientific
>(and possibly less unscientific) than paleontologists looking for missing
>links, or astronomers looking for "dark matter". I have a different
>paradigm of science, but that doesn't mean it is non-science.
>
The problem is that these "major factors" would have to violate certain
known and well-verified physical laws. Besides, invoking unknown "major
factors" simply to refute an otherwise damaging argument is ad hoc and
unscientific. Paleontologists look for (and find) missing links and
astronomers look for (and find) dark matter because the evidence shows that
they must exist. What evidence do you have that demonstrates that the
liberation of 5.76 x 10^26 joules of heat into the oceans would not boil the
water or raise the surface temperature over 1000 degree Celsius, in
violation of all the physical laws that say these things must happen?
Kevin L. O'Brien