Phil said:
"if you think the simplifications in Alan's model caused it to
over-predict how long the water will stay in Mesopotamia, then the
burden of proof is on you to write the equations, have a computer solve
them, and publish a paper. "
No- I don't think I have to offer alternative equations and publish a
paper to discuss this. It that were the case and requirements for
discussion, discussion on this list would go down by 99%, I'd guess. I
think I can also just give my opinions for feedback and for discussion.
My critique is with the initial assumptions. I think the geographic
topology is grossly oversimplified- and that is just one of many
criticism I would have. I also think there is some dishonesty going on
when it specifies 2500 species (and resulting average weight) as if it
was really considered. Where did that number come from? On the surface,
it looks like it was intelligently chosen, but there is no discussion of
it, and I suspect it was picked-out of thin air. And apparently it is
important to the equations because it was mentioned.
Phil- you say you make these kind of mathematiccal calculations for
landing spaceships on the surface of planets. There's a huge difference
in that very local and small space, compared to the massive territory
and variables involved in calculating currents for a hypothetical
massive local flood over changing landscapes over many miles. To me,
that's like saying someone familiar with designing lawnmower engines can
use the same principles in jet engine design. Everything changes, esp.
due to the massive scale and variables. Really, I'm not impressed with
this math any more than I am with Dembski's approach in calculating the
impossible odds of life forming by itself... for many of the same
reasons (overconfidence and overstatement on the part of the author
stating initial conditions and variables).
Just my opinion, I could be wrong. ;-)
...Bernie
________________________________
From: philtill@aol.com [mailto:philtill@aol.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 28, 2008 6:17 PM
To: Dehler, Bernie; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Noah's local flood?
Bernie,
if you think the simplifications in Alan's model caused it to
over-predict how long the water will stay in Mesopotamia, then the
burden of proof is on you to write the equations, have a computer solve
them, and publish a paper. Alan's work was published and has been
reviewed by scientists, including myself, in great detail. My research
is in fluid flows and sedimentation, and my main effort is to produce
models to predict the fluid flow and sedimentary interactions. I can
tell you from many years of experience that there is nothing wrong with
the aspects of Alan's model that you have mentioned. Nobody to date (to
my knowledge) has refuted Alan's work. If you think you can, then it is
up to you to do it or else accept that Alan's model is accepted by the
scientific progress. YEC's can make conjectures against science like
political pundits on the sidelines, but science doesn't work like that.
It makes progress only by doing the math or experiments and then
publishing papers with peer review. Your objections would never be
accepted for publication in any scientific journal because they don't
contribute to making progress and only serve to take valuable time away
from the real progress.
If you want to overthrow Alan's work, then you need to take Alan's
equations and code them, either in Mathematica (as he did) or in Fortran
or some other code. Then take two additional cases besides Alan's case,
each with increasing complexity in the shape of the terrain. If your
conjecture is correct, the water will flow faster the more complicated
the terrain. If you can show that sort of increased flow, AND show that
the magnitude of the increased flow is adequate to render a long flood
implausible, then you have disproven Alan's work. Anything short of
this will not overthrow Alan's work.
However, I don't seriously think you should spend your time trying to do
this because scientists and engineers have already studied this precise
question extensively, and that's why Alan and others already know that
his simplifications are perfectly fine. The more complicated the
terrain, the slower the water moves. A straight channel and smooth
surfaces without realistic topography, exactly as Alan has used in his
model, allows the water to rush out to the Persian gulf much faster than
it really would have. That's well established. Alan took a worst case
in his modeling because he was trying to demonstrate plausibility.
Since he proved plausibility for the worst case (simplest terrain), then
we already know it will be even more plausible when the terrain details
are put in. And as I mentioned before, he also omitted the water
transport due to waves in shallow water and the surface shear stress
induced by the wind, both of which also make the flood more plausible.
You have pointed out a further thing that makes the flood more
plausible.
Also, Alan was only demonstrating plausibility and hence he was
interested only in orders of magnitude. You don't need precise numbers
or detailed models to demonstrate plausibility. If keeping the flood in
Mesopotamia for 9 months would require two or three orders of magnitude
more rain in the mountains than could reasonably occur, then Alan would
have shown that the long biblical flood was implausible apart from a
miraculous overthrow of nature. But Alan showed that the entire
scenario was plausible within reasonable orders of magnitude.
Therefore, even if he over- or under-estimated the animal masses by a
factor of two or three, it makes no difference, because the entire
scenario is still within a plausible regime. There could have been more
or less wind, more or less rain, etc., to make up the differences in
animal masses. The actual numbers don't matter, as long as the orders
of magnitude demonstrate that the overall scenario is plausible.
Further, suppose Alan left of certain species in his estimation of
animal mass, then a flood without those species is plausible, and you
can't overthrow his paradigm unless you prove that the particular
species and all the other species in his estimate were required by the
biblical account so that his masses were unrecoverably too low, AND that
it throws you outside the order of magnitude for plausibility.
Now, if you disagree with this, and you think that the orders of
magnitude are not plausible, then you should repeat his analysis but
with different animal masses and see if you can prove that the scenario
is implausible for the majority of the parameter space. I doubt you
can, because he picked numbers that he thought were about in the center
of the parameter space, and for the scenario to be plausible only one
set of parameters needs to be plausible.
I hope this discussion gives a better sense for why PhD scientists with
expertise in fluid flow and years of flow modeling experience (myself
included) don't think Alan's model is wrong.
God bless,
Phil
-----Original Message-----
From: Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com>
To: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 6:51 pm
Subject: RE: [asa] Noah's local flood?
I just glanced at the paper. It seems crazy to me to think that someone
could calculate water outflow. The path of outflow must be very
complex, with the varying landscape. Seems to me it would take a
supercomputer to figure out, using satellite images of the topography.
I agree with this part of the article, though:
"First, this model, and the nature of the assumptions it embraces, are
crude at best."
At best- it is crude, as he says. I don't understand how this is not
obvious to anyone. For example, it says this:
"The three regions dealt with separately include: (1) the alluvial
plain, which is one of the flattest places on Earth, its gradient is
only 0.00072, over which the ark is being assumed to have traveled some
360 miles; (2) the foothills of Mount Ararat, where the gradient
increases to 0.0017, over which the ark is being assumed to have
ascended some 80 miles; and (3) a marshland delta region of some 120
miles, where the floodwaters could have escaped through marshlands to
the Persian Gulf (figure 1 of the previous paper, p. 121)."
What kind of massive over-simplification is that for a real-life
terrain? It is great for plugging numbers into an equation, but as
Einstein said something like "Break things done into their simplest
components, but never simpler." This all seems way over-simplified to
me, to the point of being worthless.
In addition, the author makes his own assumptions- how massive was the
"local flood" and how many animals on board (2500 species he says). I
suppose he has those 2,500 in a spreadsheet to calculate the weight, or
he just did a common-sense ballpark average? He says avg. weight was
250 lbs... where did that come from, and isn't it important? I think it
likely came from thin-air, as he probably didn't take time to define who
was included in the species list (how many deer, bear, lion, bird,
squirrel, rat, snake, etc.).
...Bernie
________________________________
From: philtill@aol.com <mailto:philtill@aol.com>
[mailto:philtill@aol.com <mailto:philtill@aol.com?> ]
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 3:28 PM
To: Dehler, Bernie; asa@calvin.edu <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
Subject: Re: [asa] Noah's local flood?
Bernie,
you obviously haven't read Alan Hill's paper, which proves that the
water would stay in Mesopotamia as long as the Bible says it did. I
personally believe the flood was probably smaller in scope that Alan
believes. But nonetheless he did prove with valid hydrology modeling
that a Flood of the larger scope could have stayed in the Mesopotamian
basin for as long as the Bible says it did. If you "don't think" it
could be so, then you are claiming to have intuition that is more valid
then the actual hydrology equations. I gave the link to his paper
yesterday -- here it is again:
http://www.asa3.org/aSA/PSCF/2006/PSCF6-06Hill.pdf
<http://www.asa3.org/aSA/PSCF/2006/PSCF6-06Hill.pdf>
Let nobody _ever_again_ say that it's not possible for the water to stay
in Mesopotamia as long as the Bible said it did. Anybody who wants to
say so had better come forward with math models that are better than
Alan's.
I want to add this, too: Alan did not take into account that the wind
blowing the ark inland would also have kept the water in-place. Wind
would provide a shear stress in the uphill direction, and because water
is quite viscious, and the flood plain quite shallow over most of its
extend during the flood, it would be very easy for the water to stay
indefinitely as long as the modest wind kept blowing.
Also, you need to add the effect of waves, which Alan further neglected.
Because waves in shallow waters are asymmetric in the upper versus lower
branches, they produce net transport of water. Wind that blows over
long stretches of open water cannot help but create significant waves,
and these would add to the water transported uphill through the
Mesopotamian basin.
Alan neglected these two features in his math analysis, and so therefore
he was being more conservative than was necessary. It is actually much
easier for the water to stay in Mesopotamia for as long as the Bible
says. And even though he negelected these things, he still proved that
it was easily possible via his valid mathematical solution of the
hydrology equations.
Let nobody ever again dispute this without math equations.
Phil
-----Original Message-----
From: Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com
<mailto:bernie.dehler@intel.com> >
To: asa@calvin.edu <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:58 pm
Subject: RE: [asa] Noah's local flood?
" I really have no idea what geological evidence would be expected given
a
full range of scenarios incorporating "dunking" with rain augmentation."
I think that one of the biggest problems is that for a massive flood
(one that kills all life around it), you need a geographical bowl shape
to contain the water- or else all the water will follow the river and
drain into the ocean. I don't think there's any bowl. And I don't
think the water can come down faster than it can leave via the rivers,
let alone stick around for a significant time. Sure, floods happen all
the time, but a flood of "Biblical proportions?"
...Bernie
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu <mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu>
[mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu <mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu?>
] On
Behalf Of George Cooper
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 9:16 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
Subject: RE: [asa] Noah's local flood?
That doesn't surprise me. Yet, as much as I like natural processes to
work
within God's plan, the Flood certainly could be an intervention event
since
judgment was upon them. This is not unlike Sodom and Gomorah (but not
like
hurricane Katrina since Bourbon Street was, essentially, missed).
I really have no idea what geological evidence would be expected given a
full range of scenarios incorporating "dunking" with rain augmentation.
Coope
-----Original Message-----
From: j burg [mailto:hossradbourne@gmail.com
<mailto:hossradbourne@gmail.com?> ]
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 10:35 AM
To: George Cooper
Cc: asa@calvin.edu <mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
Subject: Re: [asa] Noah's local flood?
On 6/27/08, George Cooper <georgecooper@sbcglobal.net
<mailto:georgecooper@sbcglobal.net> > wrote:
>
> Is there any conjecture as to the possibility of the Arabian Plate
dipping
> in its NW region by, say, 0.08 deg.?This would drop that area by 2
miles.
> That dunk would only be 0.05% of its total height from Earth's center.
> Or, perhaps, the Eurasian plate rose slightly as the Arabian plate
dropped.
> I have no idea about such matters, admittedly, but am curious if this
has
> been discussed. [My apologies if I've missed it in these
discussions.]
>
> I had some discussion with Glenn Morton on this recently. He has what
looks like a convincing argument that such a dip is beyond the pale. I'm
not
expert to ay, however, if his argument is airtight.
> Burgy
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