From: Glenn Morton (glennmorton@entouch.net)
Date: Thu Oct 09 2003 - 19:37:41 EDT
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Josh Bembenek [mailto:jbembe@hotmail.com]
>Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 10:27 AM
>To: glennmorton@entouch.net; Fivefree@aol.com; asa@calvin.edu
>Subject: RE: RATE
>http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/faq/dont_use.asp
>
>Canopy theory is placed under the strongly discouraged but not completely
>disproven category. Others are listed as completely refuted.
>
>This is a significant step in the right direction, lets try to acknowledge
>that!
Why should I acknowledge them for the work I did? It seems to me that if
they were honest with the data they wouldn't say very much on their web
site.
Take this site:
http://answersingenesis.org/docs/4005.asp
They have several 'young-earth' arguments which are just pure cr.p.
1. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast
The galactic arms are not ridgid things which 'wind' up around a spinning
galaxy. I have run galactic simulations and find that even after one
'winds' up the initial arms, other arms appear.
2. Comets disintegrate too quickly
Six brand new comets enter our solar system every year. There are plenty of
comets to replenish those that decay.
"Five or six comets are picked up each year in the average, and two thirds
of them have not been previously recorded" Robert H. Baker and Laurence W.
Frederick, An Introduction to Astronomy, (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Co.,
Inc., 1968), p. 159
Note how long this has been known, but do the AIG folk tell their readers
this? Of course not. Why, Josh?
3. Not enough mud on the sea floor
They can look at http://home.entouch.net/dmd/erosion.htm, but of course,
they don't want to find out that they are wrong.
4. Not enough sodium in the sea
There is a KNOWN(to scientists but unknown to AIG) limit to how salty the
oceans can become. There is a limited sodium supply in the earths crust.
“The data presented above support the contention that the concentration of
many of the major constituents of seawater could have varied only modestly
during the Phanerozoic Eon. This conservatism extends to the concentration
of Na+ and Cl- as well. Zharkov (1981) has compiled the available data for
the quantity of sulfate and halite rocks in Paleozoic strata, and has
proposed that the volume of 'salt rocks' in Paleozoic evaporite basins is
2.944 X 106 km3. If all of these rocks consist of pure halite, Paleozoic
evaporite basins contain 6.4 x 1021 gm NaCl. This corresponds to
approximately 15% of the NaCl content of the present-day oceans. Holser
(personal communications, 1981) has estimated that the entire inventory of
halite in sedimentary rocks of all ages amounts to ca. 30% of the NaCl
content of the oceans. There is no disagreement between the two estimates."
~ Heinrich D. Holland, The Chemical Evolution of the Atmosphere and Oceans,
(Princeton Univ. Press, 1984, p. 461
Given this, it means that if one dissolves all the earth's salt into the
oceans we would have a 4.5% salinity rather than the current 3.5% salinity.
Thus, the argument salt argument is undermined in that
1) the oceans would never be too salty for life.
2) only a relatively small percentage of the earth's salt is found outside
of the oceans. Clearly this could have been removed by evaporation of
restricted basins as geologists suggest. Such basins would have been the
Mediterranean in the Miocene, the Gulf of Mexico in the Jurassic, the North
Sea in the Triassic (the Zechstein formation),
etc.
5. The Earth’s magnetic field is decaying too fast
This is really laughable because AIG also has used Humphreys theory of the
magnetic field elsewhere. And Humphreys thinks the magnetic field has
reversed 'scores' of times over the 6000 years of earth history. Thus How on
earth can they seriously claim that the earth's magnetic field is decaying
too fast. Humphreys has it decaying much faster than secular science. Here
is what Humphreys says:
"Old-earth proponents, however, correctly point out that the earth's
magnetic field has not always decayed smoothly. Archaeomagnetic (magnetism
of pottery, bricks, etc.) data indicate that the present steady decay
started around 500 A. D. For several millennia before that, the overall
strength of the field had fluctuated up and down significantly.
Paleomagnetic (magnetism of geologic strata) data provide persuasive
evidence that the field reversed its direction scores of times while the
fossil layers were being laid down." ~ Russell Humphreys, "The Mystery of
the Earth's Magnetic Field," Impact, February 1989, p. ii
6. Many strata are too tightly bent
show they don't know beans about rheology--it is a hard science, you know.
7. Injected sandstone shortens geologic ‘ages’
Laughable. I have spent the past 3 years studying and working with oil
fields that had injected sands. Injected sands are evidence of an old
earth. They occur when water gets trapped in a sandstone and can't get out.
The water becomes overpressured for its depth. The sand is undercompacted
for its depth. Then an earthquake happens and the shaking of the earth forms
fissures through which injected sands squirt. We see this in most
earthquakes today. But do AIG tell their readers this? Of course not.
8.. Fossil radioactivity shortens geologic ‘ages’ to a few years
This is a rehash of Gentry's radiohalo business that has been so thoroughly
refuted that it is amazing this isn't on their list of arguments not to use.
9.Helium in the wrong places
This is the helium escape issue. They miss the fact that the atmosphere has
electrical discharges which heat the outer atmosphere up to high enough
temperatures so that helium will escape at measurable rates.
10. Not enough stone age skeletons
Any anthropologist can tell you that acidic soils will eat a skeleton in
about a year. Preservation of skeletal material is the exception not the
rule. But over geologic ages, lots of those exceptions make the fossil
record.
11. Agriculture is too recent
And exactly when was it supposed to have been invented?
12. History is too short
Once again, it presumes that mankind would not have a preliterate period.
Why should writing have been invented earlier? I can think of no reason.
so, Josh, defend them, but they put out trash, garbage, and misleading junk.
And they refuse to tell their readers of counterfactual evidence. Why?
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Thu Oct 09 2003 - 19:37:55 EDT