What is evolutionary geology?
Bill Payne cites this on karst geology from the journal; "The Quaternary,
the shortest era according to evolutionary geology, has managed to make up
for it all."
When people talk about "evolutionary geology " like this I know they know
nothing about geology and are only dismissing vast ages of geology by using
an evolutionary smear tactic.
A little familarity with how the discovery of geological time and the
geological column would help. basically most early geologists who gave us
our geolgy were anti-evolutionary and evolution did not come into their
thinking. The reason why all geolgists accepted the vast age was that the
evidence they saw pointed that way. Consider the non-evolutionists Smith
Werner Cuvier de Saussure from 1780 to 1810. It was they who gave us the
basic geological column and time. (Hutton did a bit in Scotland and was
stuck with philosophical ideas of an eternal earth). From 1810 to 1860
geolgy was developed with explicit rejection of evolution by Sedgwick,
Buckland Conybeare Lyell (only accepted evolution in 1865 -despite YEC
propoganda) Murchison, D'Orbigny, Agassiz, Silliman, Hitchcock Owen etc.
Yet it was entirely Old Earth except for a few fringe geologists in 1820s.
Only later was the sense of geollgiocal time and the fossil succession seen
as supporting evolution, though Darwin first recognised thsi in a notebook
in 1838 - before reading Malthus.
The whole idea of "evolutionary geolgy" is a Creationsit misreading which
stems I think from McCready Price and then reiterated as nauseam by Morris
and successors.
What I have written above has been said before dozens of times.
All that needs to be said is that the geological column and geological time
not only preceeds evolution but is independent of it.
Can anyone explain to me why creationsits are not willing to listen to the
clear arguments?
Jack Haas' project is absolutely essential but will have an uphill struggle
against invincible ignorance and perjorative definitions like "evolutionary
geology".
I became a Christian a month before graduating in geology at Oxford
University in 1968 through the IVF. If I had been confronted by Creationsim
I would have rejected the claims of Christ.
Michael Roberts
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Payne" <bpayne15@juno.com>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2001 3:58 PM
Subject: Re: Creation Ex Nihilio and other journals
> On Fri, 05 Jan 2001 10:38:11 -0600 James Mahaffy <mahaffy@mtcnet.net>
> writes:
>
> > I have also run across references to Creation Ex Nihilo, which I think
> > has a popular and technical journal. I know little about the
> journal(s)
> > other than glancing at some of the articles on a web page:
> > http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/c_wieland.asp
> >
> > It appears that one or both might be published by Carl Wieland. I
> > assume neither is peer reviewed and I sense from a glance at the
> > articles that there is a lot of variation in quality. Perhaps a little
> > like the old Bible Science News letter.
>
> I have subscribed to the Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal for the
> last year and very much enjoyed it. The "Editorial Team" consists of:
> Dr. Pierre Jeristrom (co-ordinator), Dr. Don Batten, Dr. Jonathan
> Sarfati, Dr. Tas Walker, and Dr. Carl Wieland. There is also the
> "Creation Ex Nihilo" magazine, which is a colorful, popular-level
> magazine. My impression is that both are head and shoulders above "the
> old Bible Science News letter."
>
> I think that the articles in the Technical Journal are peer-reviewed. My
> general impression is that the Journal is quite professional. In the
> latest issue, I particularly enjoyed the exchange of letters in response
> to an article on "A Biblically-based cratering theory" by Danny Faulkner;
> the paper "Age determination of coastal submarine placer, Val'cumey,
> northern Siberia" by Alexander V. Lalomov and Serguei E. Tabolitch; and
> the paper "Paleokarst - a riddle inside confusion" by Emil Silvestru.
> Two book reviews were included on Halton Arp's books: _Quasars,
> Redshifts and Controversies_ and _Seeing Red: Redshifts, Cosmology and
> Academic Science_.
>
> As an example of why I find this Journal refreshing, I seem to remember
> seeing on this list a statement to the effect that paleokarst proves long
> ages. From the "Summary and conclusion" of the article on "Paleokarst"
> in the Journal:
>
> "From the Proterozoic to Mesozoic, all paleokarst features seem to have
> been reduced to local minor surface features.
>
> During the Mesozoic, it is claimed that major karst features formed only
> in some parts of Europe (namely Yugoslavia). The other regions of the
> earth, even when karstification conditions were much better than today,
> seem to have produced nothing but bauxite ore deposits in minor surface
> karst features.
>
> Similarly, the Tertiary produced little, if any, aerial paleokarst, even
> though karstification conditions were supposedly good enough and long
> enough to generate a complex and widely developed surface and subsurface
> karst.
>
> The Quaternary, the shortest era according to evolutionary geology, has
> managed to make up for it all. In this 'short' period, karstification
> processes have been able to generate the grandiose karst features we see
> all over the world today, from the equatorial to polar regions.
>
> It is clear that there must have been a major qualitative change in the
> gnensis of landforms, especially karst landforms, at the end of the
> Tertiary.
>
> A logical inference from this change is that true karstification
> processes, like the ones we are witnessing today (which after all are the
> ones that inspired the very idea of karstification), only occurred in the
> Quaternary. All previous karst-like features represent protokarst
> (incipient or incomplete karst) or pseudokarst." (from Silvestru, Emil,
> Paleokarst - a riddle inside confusion, CEN Tech. J., v 14(3): pp100-108,
> 2000)
>
> The paper contains 37 references, only one of which appears to be from a
> creationist source (another CEN Tech. J. article). Silvestru has a
> Masters and Ph.D from Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj, Transylvania,
> Romania, where he has worked as an associate professor in karst
> sedimentology. "A world authority on the geology of caves, he has
> published 26 scientific papers, six abroad. He was until recently the
> head scientist at the first speleological institute in the world, the
> Emil Racovitza Speleological Institute founded in Cluj, Romania in 1920."
>
> Comments anyone?
>
> Bill Payne
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Jan 06 2001 - 03:08:04 EST