On Sat, 6 Jan 2001 17:54:01 -0700 "Allen Roy" <allenroy@peoplepc.com>
writes:
One does not have to accept the philosophy of naturalism to accept the
constancy of the laws of physics. God invented, design and made the
universe and all it's laws. And while God may, if he wished to, do things
outside of the laws which he originally set up, Creationists do not believe
that the Flood was something which would need to be outside the ordinary way
of things. There is no reason to make recourse to "miraculous" events.
Creationists do not reject or accept naturalism if ever they wish.
Creationists accept the laws of Creation which God invented -- the physical
laws and such -- and completely reject the philosophy of naturalism.
Looking for mechanisms to cause a flood is not tantamount to looking to the
philosophy of naturalism for answers. It is looking for explanations within
the way of things as designed by God.
Allen
Member MENSA
I fully agree with David Siemen's notation that YECs ignore the laws of
radioactive decay.
They also reject the laws of electromagnetic radiation(which gives us the
velocity of light) because they can't deal with the flight time of light
from distant objects that those laws require. Russell Akridge suggested in
a 1981 Creation REsearch Soc. Quarterly article that light was created in
transit--meaning that all events seen prior to 6000 years traveltime are
illusions.
They reject relativity for the same reason (See some of Tom Barnes old
articles in the Creation Research Society quarterly Barnes, T.G., 1980, New
proton and neutron models: Creation ResearchSociety Quarterly, v. 17, p.
42-47).
They even reject trigonometry as a means of determining distance. This is
because we can directly triangulate the distance to supernova 1987a in which
a gas cloud previously ejected from the star became visible by reflecting
the light from the nova 6.5 months after the nova. Thus we KNOW that the
ring is around 1.3 light years in diameter (and this is true regardless of
whether or not the speed of light has changed through the history of the
universe). We also can directly measure the angular size of that ring. These
two measurements allow us to determine the distance according to simply
geometric laws. That star was 170 thousand light years distant requiring a
universe at least that old. Of course YECs know that trigonometry can't
conflict with the bible so trig is erroneous in this case. (see Foundation
Fall and Flood, p. 63)
They reject the physical laws of sedimentation governed by Stoke's law which
determines particle sedimentation speed based on particle size and density.
The fact that the geologic column doesn't match the expectations of a
sedimentary column deposited in a global flood is ignored. One should expect
larger particles down low and smaller particles on top. We see small
particle beds (shale) throughout the column.
They also reject Stoke's Law when faced with the fact that not a single
modern specimen is found in the earliest rocks of the sedimentary column.
Stoke's law would have similar sized objects deposited together, yet not a
single modern diatom, planckton, fish, etc is found with similar sized
Paleozoic organisms.
They reject the laws governing heat flow, in which the body heat from the
animals on the ark would cause the top of the ark to radiate at over 100
degrees C, which would have the effect of cooking everyone in the ark.
They also reject the laws of heat flow and conduction when faced with huge
granitic batholiths that would require several hundred thousand to million
years in order to cool. They claim that this has no implication to the age
of the earth. If you don't, Allen, then explain how something like the Great
Stone Dome found on the east coast of the US occurred within a single year
long period. This six mile wide, deep to the mantle batholith intruded into
the sediments and metamorphosed those sediments by thermal alterationIn
other words the batholith cooked the rocks. . It even forced dikes into the
surrounding sediments. It was then eroded and covered by about 9,000 feet
of strata.. It looks like this in cross section
---------------water surface-----------
--------------water botom---------------
9000 feet of nonmetamorphosed sediment
------------erosional surface-----------
/ / | | \ d \ d= dike
/ / | | d\ \ \ metamorphosed sediment
/ | batholith |d \ \ \sediments
/ | | \ \ \
The batholith would require more time to cool than a single year. If this
were hot at the time it was covered by the upper 9000 feet of sediment, the
upper sediment should have been metamorphosed also. It wasn't. The only way
for a YEC to explain this is to postulate a miracle or the suspension of the
laws of heat and chemistry.
They reject the laws of respiration in which that many animals on board the
ark would use up all the oxygen in the ark in about 7 hours. (See Foundation
Fall and Flood, 1999, p. 103)
They ignore the fact that oxygen is a poison if there was a vapor canopy,
yet for more than 30 years YECs have argued for a vapor canopy. (see .
Joseph C. Dillow, The Waters Above, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1981)., p. 278)
They reject the laws of voclanism in that they never allow volcanos to have
heat which might burn anyone or anything in the flood. They use the
volcanism to evaporate the ocean waters so that the waters can fall and form
glaciers for the single glaciation envisaged by YECs, but then they don't
allow the volcanism to raise the temperature of the oceans so as to destroy
the life therein.
They ignore the laws of marine respiration in that if you raise the
temperature of water, it holds less oxygen for the animals to breath. As
noted above, volcanism is used by YECs to evaporate the ocean without a
single thought to the effect this will have on the ability of marine
creatures to respirate.
They reject the laws of nutrition which require animals to eat and poop.
They have the animals hibernating on the ark, even if the animal normally
doesn't hibernate. The alternative to hibernation is the silly suggestion by
John Woodmorappe, that animals could be trained to take a dump on command
into a bucket held by one of Noah's family. What a job!
"Some of the aforementioned arrangements would have been even more
workable if the animals had previously been captive before the Flood, and
had been trained to control their body functions. For instance, it is
possible to train animals to urinate, either spontaneously or on command,
into buckets. This has been done, for example, in the case of horses and
various large captive wild animals." ~ John Woodmorappe, Noah's Ark: A
Feasibility Study, (Santee: Institute for Creation Research, 1996), p. 30
The YECs ignore the laws of physics when it comes to how much work must be
done to eliminate the waste from the ark.
I hate to point this out, but some YECs believe that magical gems
illuminated the ark:
"I now consider non-biological sources of flameless illumination. There are
many references to 'luminous gems' in ancient literature, along with an
apocryphal account of luminous pearls being used on the Ark." ~ John
Woodmorappe, Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study, (Santee: Institute for
Creation Research, 1996), p. 44
THat seems to be a rejection of the natural and an appeal to things not
ordinary.
They reject the laws of potential energy and orbital mechanics by
postulating silly things like canopies of ice, or comets that zing through
the solar system like billiard balls dumping ice on the earth. Orbital
mechanics won't allow such motion, won't allow a solid canopy of ice, and
the potential energy of falling ice is such that it would boil much of the
water upon it hitting the earth. See Don Patton's Velikovskian book on the
ICE Ages and the Flood.
They ignore the laws of radiative transfer of heat by claiming that they can
place 50 feet of water into a vapor canopy and still have an earth's surface
that is habitable. see http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/canopy.htm
THey also reject the laws of radiation when it comes to the amount of CO2
put out by all the volcanism seen in the geologic record. If one assumes
that all the volcanism came out in a 1 year period (which it would have to
do if the geologic column is a result of the flood), the greenhouse effect
of that much CO2 would make global warming pale in comparison. Yet YECs
easily ignore such problems--they have "the truth, nothing but the truth and
don't show me any contrary evidence" see
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/co2.htm
They reject the chemical laws of acidity when ignoring the fact that if the
entire geologic column were the work of one year, strong acids that come up
with volcanism would be deposited in the ocean (and air). These acids of
course can have no effect on life in or out of the ark during the flood.
Thus the laws of chemistry are voided by the YECs. see
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/acid.htm
They reject the laws of genetics because they don't believe that coalescence
times for genes could possible give an answer older than 6000 years. They
must reject the data for mtDNA, they must reject the nearly million year
coalescence time for nuclear genes and they must reject the idea that
similarity in genetic structure means anything about common descent. But
then they must believe in an out of ordinary mutation rate to account for
the mutations we see on earth today?
"Moreover, mutation rates can increase by orders of magnitude under
stressful conditions, as must have been the case after the Flood. Finaly,
there is no reason why the mutation rates in a fruit fly should necessarily
be comparable to that of vertebrates." ~ John Woodmorappe, Noah's Ark: A
Feasibility Study, (Santee: Institute for Creation Research, 1996),p. 199
I guess it would be too much to expect documentation of this 'fact'.
They reject the laws of population dynamics by ignoring the fact that there
are too many animal fossils to be the result of a single pre-flood
biosphere. There are enough dead coccoliths to cover the entire earth to a
depth of 1 meter. There are enough dead diatoms to cover the entire earth to
a depth of 20 meters, there are enough dead crinoids to cover the entire
world to a depth of 30 meters. There is 45 times more carbon in the coal
reserves of the earth than are in the entire biosphere--both animals and
plants. To account for this would require a tropical forest all over the
earth 45 times + more dense than forests today. Yet this is impossible
because we need someplace for the crinoids to have lived. There is 600
times more carbon in petroleum than is in the entire biosphere. Yet YECs
blythly claim that all of this is the result of the burial of a single
preflood earth. Pardon me but in Texas we would say "Bull roar" or something
like that.
Contrary to Allen's contention that YECs see nothing out of the ordinary
occurring during the flood, the only way they can even have the flood is to
ignore every single law of science ever discovered--including trigonometry.
A note of paranoia added for Allen's benefit:
The last time (June 1999
http://www.calvin.edu/archive/evolution/199906/0220.html), I publically
criticized Woodmorappe you asked me if you could forward the mail to
Woodmorappe, who happens to be Polish(a point that will become important in
a second). I agreed. However, amazingly a Polish internet site started
e-mail bombing me (2300 e-mails per hour). I tried to e-mail to them to get
them to cease. They didn't. So I changed my e-mail account which is why I am
mortongr@flash.net rather than grmorton@flash.net. Anyway, after I changed
my address to avoid this e-mail bombing campaign, when I posted again to the
calvin list, this Polish site changed the address to follow me to my new
address. Again I was beseiged with thousands of e-mails. I am sure that John
had nothing to do with it, but I am risking being bombed again here. Someone
in Poland doesn't like me criticizing Woodmorappe or his ideas. So, Allen, I
specifically deny you the right to send this note anywhere.
By the way, Allen, being a member of MENSA is nice, my sister is a member,
but being able to pass a test doesn't mean one can't be very, very wrong.
glenn
see http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
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