Talk:Flood geology/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions about Flood geology. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Reliability of Genesis

This section is certainly relevant (I think the discussion of Augustine's views is especially interesting). However, it is mostly a general discussion of Biblical accuracy and does not focus on the Flood. I'd like to prune it (maybe moving part of it to another article... Young Earth creationism or Biblical inerrancy). Any thoughts? -- Jpacold 21:20, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that would make sense given how wrapped up flood geology is with the doctrine of inerrancy. JoshuaZ 21:38, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to delete the whole section -- just shorten it and add a link to one of the broader articles on inerrancy. My objection is that most of it (especially the second and last paragraphs) is too general for this article. It deals with the overall debate instead of flood geology in particular. -- Jpacold 22:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Age of the Earth

O.K. Schroeder, since you have reverted the edit on Age of the Earth, PLEASE supply a REFERENCE for the unneeded initial concentrations and non-closed-system hypotheses. I.e., SHOW haw isochron analyses sidestep these issues. Dan Watts 00:12, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

From the perspective of the creation/evolution debate, this website is informative, though very basic in how it illustrates this. It would be better if you looked at one of the textbooks they reference. However, the paragraph in the above work is quite illuminating:

Some doubters have tried to dismiss geologic dating with a sleight of hand by saying that no rocks are completely closed systems (that is, that no rocks are so isolated from their surroundings that they have not lost or gained some of the isotopes used for dating). Speaking from an extreme technical viewpoint this might be true--perhaps 1 atom out of 1,000,000,000,000 of a certain isotope has leaked out of nearly all rocks, but such a change would make an immeasurably small change in the result. The real question to ask is, "is the rock sufficiently close to a closed system that the results will be same as a real<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Lupin/navpop.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css&dontcountme=s">ly closed system?" Since the early 1960s many books have been written on this subject. These books detail experiments showing, for a given dating system, which minerals work all of the time, which minerals work under some certain conditions, and which minerals are likely to lose atoms and give incorrect results. Understanding these conditions is part of the science of geology. Geologists are careful to use the most reliable methods whenever possible, and as discussed above, to test for agreement between different methods.

To really "SHOW" how the isochrons "sidestep" the issues, we'd have to go into detail about each condition in which you were interested: all the energy regimes, and the particular parameter analysis that is done. Joshuaschroeder 00:52, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

By the way the "initial amount" argument doesn't really make any sense since the dating is done by means of parameter fitting where the initial amount itself is a parameter that is fit -- not assumed. As explained in the above article:

A good part of this article is devoted to explaining how one can tell how much of a given element or isotope was originally present. Usually it involves using more than one sample from a given rock. It is done by comparing the ratios of parent and daughter isotopes relative to a stable isotope for samples with different relative amounts of the parent isotope. For example, in the rubidium-strontium method one compares rubidium-87/strontium-86 to strontium-87/strontium-86 for different minerals. From this one can determine how much of the daughter isotope would be present if there had been no parent isotope. This is the same as the initial amount (it would not change if there were no parent isotope to decay). Figures 4 and 5, and the accompanying explanation, tell how this is done most of the time. While this is not absolutely 100% foolproof, comparison of several dating methods will always show whether the given date is reliable.

What the article doesn't do is say exactly how the "comparisons" get done which is by means of normal parameter fitting. It is fully rigorous from a physical standpoint and the errors are characterized well by the central limit theorem since there are enough systems to give a decent gaussian model. Joshuaschroeder 00:56, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Fossilization

Why is there an incorrect characterization of the T. Rex bone in this article? The investigator in the linked article was reprted as saying "This is fossilised bone in the sense that it's from an extinct animal but it doesn't have a lot of the characteristics of what people would call a fossil.... It still has places where there are no secondary minerals, and it's not any more dense than modern bone; it's bone more than anything." Why (other than dislike of the article subject) is there a rejection of the bone not being completely fossilized (mineral replacement)? In an online Washington Post article [1] it gives more detail concerning the demineralization: '[They] remove[d] the mineralized calcium', i.e. the solid matrix of the bone. If there is no explanation forthcoming within a few days, I propose that the (not supported by evidence) sentence ("But the tissue is fossilized, and appears to be flexible and contain cells and vessels only after demineralization."), which is at LEAST misleading, be removed. Dan Watts 15:24, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree, if the process used is more analogous to demineralising recent bone than true fossilised bone. It would be best if percentages of biogene and exogene calcium (and other minerals) could be given (if it's technologically possible-which I doubt). But it should be mentioned that an alive appearance does not infer the bone to be recent. Given this, dinosaur and Tyrannosaurus rex need an update. Phlebas 10:13, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

The flood IS disproved

If the global flood actually occured, then it would have had a radical effect on geology, and evidence of that flood would be observable today, making the idea falsifiable. Conclusive evidence exists that such a flood did not occur, making a global flood in historic times a myth according to science. Belief in the supernatural allows for belief in such a flood, but because it relies on the supernatural to explain away evidence, it is not a valid scientific theory. 4.250.177.59 4 July 2005 23:31 (UTC)

Perhaps you would be so kind as to point out this conclusive evidence. Dan Watts 5 July 2005 13:06 (UTC)

If you do so please do so privately not on this talk page. Talk pages are for discussing edits to the articles (although on reading this one that may not be clear) Barnaby dawson 5 July 2005 15:06 (UTC)

Which is EXACTLY the point of my request. The above wording is now in the article, therefore discussion of it is MOST germaine. Why do you feel otherwise? Dan Watts 5 July 2005 16:08 (UTC)

Apologies. I didn't see the edit by our non member friend. I interpreted what he wrote above as just being his opinion stated on the talk page. Something which does happen quite frequently. Barnaby dawson 5 July 2005 18:45 (UTC)

I rewrote the passage our anonomous friend wrote to become "Mainstream scientists hold that the evidence available is sufficient to conclusively disprove the notion of a recent global flood." Barnaby dawson 5 July 2005 18:54 (UTC)

There is conclusive evidence presented on the page itself. Joshuaschroeder 5 July 2005 19:10 (UTC)

One thing I've noticed is that this (on the page) seems to be a battle between "creationists" and "mainstream scientists", but in reality it is against a very small group (we could call them "creationists" or "flood geologists" or whatever) versus pretty much the entire population of the planet in the developed world, and most of it which isn't in the developed world to boot. This seems to be a common problem; evolution also essentially has the same problem in the creation v evolution articles, that far more people support it than is presented. And as for their obviously being conclusive evidence that there was no flood - yes, there is, but we aren't allowed to say so much. We are supposed to show reality, though - a mistake many make is that NPOV = give everyone equal time or equal credence to all opinions. That is not the case; we are supposed to present all opinions and not draw conclusions for the reader, but we are supposed to present evidence as well which (in this case at the very least) should show the reader that flood geology is in fact incorrect. If you feel that this is not presented strongly enough at the criticisms section at the end of the article, please add or reword it. 69.59.212.172 18:37, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

Surely, the attempt of all scientific research and analysis is to find the true science which runs throughout the world. Sadly, as the majority of scientists presume that evolution is the ultimate truth to our origins without questioning it's validity in many cases, Creationism is disregarded as a valid theory. How you can automatically assume that flood geology is incorrect I do not know. There are so many situations which fit perfectly with the flood which do not fit with that of the mainstream scientists' view. For instance, could you please explain to me the prescence of feldspar on the Atlantic Ocean sea bed? Surely this could only have been sedimented if the bed had been formed in a short amount of time. There are several other facts which do not fit with mainstrea geology but do with the Young Earth Creationists' theories. In light of this, I would ask that you present the scientific VIEWS of the Creationist on flood geology at least, and not simply disclaim it in one swift blow. Presumptions are applied to the flood geologists' view which apply to mainstream science, which may not be true if the flood geologists' stance is correct.

Feldspar, a silicate mineral is extremely common on the surface of the Earth wherever igneous rocks are found. Since the ocean floor is formed by divergent plate boundaries, we expect to find common igneous minerals such as feldspar there. --ScienceApologist 14:59, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Scientific views of flood "geologists"? Please. The concept of a global flood is contradicted left, right and centre by so many strands of evidence from so many different areas of science that it's frankly perverse to continue to believe that it has credability. The only reason for continuing to do so is if one is a member of that minority who refuse to read religious works (such as the Bible) as allegorical in parts. In doing so, they're forced to shoe-horn bits and pieces of science into ridiculous (e.g. dinosaurs-ran-slower-than-mammals stratigraphy) and non-physical (e.g. where did the water come from? where did it go to?) "theories". Just because one piece of evidence can be construed as indicative of a flood doesn't mean that one can disregard all of the evidence that doesn't point to a flood (if one does, that's not science).

As an aside, for fundamentalists, flood geologists are seriously forgetting their fundamentals. One of the cornerstones of religion is faith. How does one square this with the flood geologists' craving for evidence at any cost? --Plumbago 11:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

"The concept of a global flood is contradicted left, right and centre by so many strands of evidence from so many different areas of science..."

Could someone please identify any examples of these strands?

Has anyone considered how this evidence (from the 2004 Sumatra Andaman earthquake) backs or contradicts the concept of a Biblical global flood? The earthquake had made a huge impact on the topography of the seabed. Previous activity on the fault over geological periods of time had created large thrust ridges, about 1,500 m high, which collapsed in places during the earthquake to produce large landslides several kilometres across. One landslide consisted of a single block of material some 100 m (300 ft) high and 2 km (1.25 mi) long. The force of the displaced water was such that individual blocks of rock, massing millions of tons apiece, were dragged as much as 10 km (7 mi) across the seabed. An oceanic trench several kilometres wide was exposed in the earthquake zone.^[1]

Is it too far fetched to speculate that if a brief earthquake, of just a few minutes, could cause those massive changes, that prolonged continuous seismic activity of 40 days or even a whole year or more could cause much greater changes?

Most certainly, anyone who has read the Biblical account could realize that the description of the source of the flood waters involves continuous massive seismic activity for 40 days. However, the disappointing fact is that few do realize this. Real evidence points to the probability of rapid massive geological changes in the presence of significant seismic activity when geological features are submerged.

Is there a flood geologist that could compare this phenomenon with the section entitled Submarine canyon formation? --Ep9206 11:16, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Augustine -- misquoted

"On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis: an unfinished book", Chapter 19:39

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”

Augustine was NOT taking to task the 'reliability of Genesis', as the misquoted text is headed; rather, he was speaking about talking nonsense--perhaps, for example, being dogmatic about Arguments creationists should not use--and failing to maintain Christian integrity ("...maintaining his [the Christian's] foolish opinions about our books [the Bible] ..."). Furthermore, this passage is taken out of context of the whole (a/k/a quote mining), as Augustine goes on in Chapter 20 to condemn those that would take the word of men over the Word of God (which definitely shows he was not against the reliability of Scripture):

But since the words of Scripture that I have treated are explained in so many senses, critics full of worldly learning should restrain themselves from attacking as ignorant and uncultured these utterances that have been made to nourish all devout souls. Such critics are like wingless creatures that crawl upon the earth and, while soaring no higher than the leap of a frog, mock the birds in their nests above. But more dangerous is the error of certain weak brethren who faint away when they hear these irreligious critics learnedly and eloquently discoursing on the theories of astronomy or on any of the questions relating to the elements of this universe. With a sigh, they esteem these teachers as superior to themselves, looking upon them as great men; and they return with disdain to the books which were written for the good of their souls; and, although they ought to drink from these books with relish, they can scarcely bear to take them up. Turning away in disgust from the unattractive wheat field, they long for the blossoms on the thorn. For they are not free to see how sweet is the Lord,73 and they have no hunger on the Sabbath. And thus they are idle, though they have permission from the Lord to pluck the ears of grain and to work them in their hands and grind them and win-now them until they arrive at the nourishing kernel.

Therefore, I think that the quote from Augustine should be corrected, or stricken entirely. --138.130.203.177 16:31, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, do it yourself. Don't hold your breath for those who disagree with you to change it. Just because you have shown the premise to be false, doesn't meak that it will be retracted. Dan Watts 17:09, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

uniformitarianism

Is there a single quote anywhere that shows a notable proponent of flood geology dismissing "uniformitarianism"? This word is peppered throughout this article, and several statements are made regarding what flood-geologists think of it and what mainstream-geologists think of it. However, there isn't a single quote anywhere to support any of these claims. can anyone find some URL's that show what flood-geologists say in response to "uniformitarianism"? Otherwise, I think some of the article will need rewriting to avoid the term. FuelWagon 17:53, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

I think that's a bit like looking for a modern-day chemist who dismisses "atomism". Uniformitarianism is so rigorously proved that it is, for all practical purposes, axiomatic--much like atomism in chemistry. -216.145.255.2 04:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that I can find a single, solid quote, so I will try a shotgun approach.

"If it can be shown that the column rests, even in its supposedly empirical aspects, on presuppositions of evolution, uniformitarianism, and deep time, all inimical to creationism, then its role in creationist models should be discontinued." [2]

"Although monolithically applied within historical geology, uniformitarianism itself is a non-scientific axiom. It represents the only possible hold on history for naturalists, since their positivism restricts knowledge to observation. It is demonstrably falsified by at least three tests for truth:

(1) There is imprecision and potential contradiction in the definition itself.

(2) Even a consistent definition contradicts empirical evidence of both modern processes and products of past processes.

(3) Finally, the underlying concept of the uniformity of natural law, a necessary condition for uniformitarianism, cannot be justified within the naturalist worldview." [3]

The second one doesn't look too bad. Dan Watts 18:59, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

fuelwagon, i added a bit from a cited, sourced paper by grimel on the ideological origins of uniformitarians, per your request. Ungtss 19:24, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

"The assumption of uniformitarianism is also truly unscientific". Henry Morris, What is Creation Science, 1987, p. 15. --- "The gradual undermining of confidence in the Scriptures, resulting from the rise of uniformitarianism and evolutionism in the nineteenth century, inevitably was followed by a revolt against the social and political institutions erected on that faith." Henry Morris, The Bible Has the Answer, 1976, p. 46. --Ian Pitchford 19:52, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Is it just me, or is Grimel a bit of an odd source? Among other things, he seems to favour Velikovsky in his paper. There may well be something in his reading of political history around the beginnings of uniformitarianism, but just because particular science has been press-ganged into service for this or that political cause, doesn't mean that it should be thrown out for that reason alone. This whole section in the article seems like it's trying to tar uniformitarianism for its connections to politics rather than its service to science. --Plumbago 09:32, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Quite, also the name is Grinnell not Grimel and no one ever cites the book chapter! I've restored the deleted sections and have added additional context on Hutton's views and on flood geology's rejection of uniformitarianism. --Ian Pitchford 10:06, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

My browser edit window kills the page after about 30K, which means, when I edited the intro, it cut the page off in the middle of section 6. If somebody could please revert past my edits, I'd me much obliged. My apologies! Neocapitalist 15:51, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Umm -- proposed incorporation of 'pseudoscience' in the ntro:

Flood geology, creation geology and diluvial geology are terms used by creationists to describe the study of geologic phenomena with reference to the purported events of the Great Flood as reported in Genesis. Creationists regard Genesis as providing a scientifically accurate record for the geological history of the Earth. However, the scientific community widely disputes flood geology as pseudoscience.

Thoughts? Neocapitalist 15:55, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

This makes the pseudoscientific status of flood geology sound like an opinion among scientists, whereas it's a fact of geological science. --Ian Pitchford 17:45, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Okay. Try two:

Flood geology, creation geology and diluvial geology are terms used by creationists to describe the study of geologic phenomena with reference to the purported events of the Great Flood as reported in Genesis. Creationists regard Genesis as providing a scientifically accurate record for the geological history of the Earth. However, the scientific community widely disputes flood geology, which relegates flood geology to the status of pseudoscience.

Neocapitalist 18:10, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

Flood geology isn't a research program within geology. This is a fact. It's not a matter of opinion or consensus. --Ian Pitchford 11:33, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

I didn't know that the field of geology did any accepting/rejecting. It is sometimes quite surprising what one can learn from reading introductory paragraphs. Dan Watts 13:35, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Science is a process that is all about accepting and rejecting through the scientific method. Joshuaschroeder 14:21, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Calling creationism "pseudoscience," and giving the philosophical objections of mainstream science the last word, shows a strong post-Christian bias in the article.Alfarero 00:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

cited material censorship

why, duncharris and ian pitchford, do you insist on removing this cited academic material precisely on topic? is it because you think it's wrong? is your opinion the slighest bit relevent? -- ungtss

It's incorrect, in the wrong historical sequence, by an author that no one cites and from a disreputable source. --Ian Pitchford 20:23, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

those are your opinions, mr. pitchford. you have not presented facts to defend your opinions, in this case. here are my facts: the text is from an academic studying the field, is cited, sourced, and you've provided no evidence to prove it wrong. since when did undefendend opinion come to trump facts? 1859 or so, i guess:(. -- ungtss.

The article was published in a trade book, not an academic book and also appeared in the Velikovsky journal Kronos, not a reputable academic source. The historical facts are wrong and no other academic cites the paper. --Ian Pitchford 20:59, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm wondering if your still unsure how gender evolved. - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 20:45, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

i'm wondering if you're here to discuss the censorship occuring here, or simply make irrelevent remarks. 64.241.37.140 20:54, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

If I can add my five cents. While I'm not sure about the academic/trade nature of the cited manuscript, if one looks at the PDF of the article, it's clear that it relates to Velikovsky. Hardy a good start. However, while fearful of slippery slopes, I think that citing it briefly would not pose a serious problem. At the moment it appears that the creationist side of the debate is using this single reference as an excuse to shoe-horn a ton of material in, while the science side is seemingly belligerently removing all reference to it. I can live with a short reference to it (while I understand the academic/trade distinction, popular science writing could be classed as trade). However, I would protest at the text that's been inserted up till now. As well as being non-NPOV, it also has a right-wing nut-job flavour to it when it refers to certain scientists as "liberals". Sounds distinctly like one is betraying one's roots methinks. --Plumbago 08:21, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

If the reference is included we'll have to expand the article to say what's wrong with both the material and the source. It would be easier to employ a minimum standard with regard to sources. The fact that no one cites this work is easily verifiable using Google Scholar and other research tools. The status of the book as a trade book published by "Metron Publications" (a catastrophist/self publisher?) is easily verfiable via Amazon.com which shows it ranking #2,727,826 in books. --Ian Pitchford 08:48, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Grass evidence

This article [4] mayhave some bearing on the 'swimming grass' phenomenon. An associated AP report gives a (uniformitarian) date for grass to have appeared of at least 80 Myrs ago. Dan Watts 03:26, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

grasses as we currently know them (ubiquitous to plains) didn't show up until 60 Myrs ago. Joshuaschroeder 18:08, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Paleontological evidence

I'm confused by this section:

"If fossilization took place extremely quickly during the Flood, then — paleontologists claim — fossilized remains should be far more numerous and widespread than is actually seen." "Additionally, paleontologists claim that if all the fossilized animals were killed in the flood, and the flood is responsible for fossilization, then the average density of vertebrates was an abnormally high number."

The first paragraph seems to say that fossilized remains are too few. The second paragraph seems to say that fossilized remains are too many. I'm not sure what was intended, but it should be fixed.

I think you're right, the text reads rather strangely and appears to contradict itself. Not knowing very much about fossils and fossilisation, I can only speculate about the point that the writer/s is/are trying to make.

As regards the first point, it could be that, for an individual modern species, their density in the fossil record is low relative to that which we encounter today (which wouldn't make sense were a flood to be responsible for fossils).

On the second point, it could be that, when one adds up all of the fossils of all species in a particular area, and if one assumes that they were all laid down in a very short period of time, then this suggests a standing stock of biomass much greater than that observed today.

If this is what's meant, then it could be expressed better. Further, if this is what's meant, there's still a problem. Namely, the first point assumes modern population sizes, while the Genesis world purportedly contained all of the species, extant and extinct, at the same time (i.e. a lot more species than the present day). Thus, the populations of ecologically similar dinosaur and mammal species would be sharing a resource that the modern mammal species would have all to themselves. So one should expect modern populations to be larger.

Anyway, either way this is a rather ambiguous section. Would anyone more qualified (e.g. its author(s)) care to comment? Cheers, --Plumbago 09:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Mainstream

I'm sure this will have been discussed before, but is it really necessary to describe science as "mainstream science" (or geology as "mainstream geology")? It gives the impression that flood geology is also science, albeit a minority viewpoint, despite the point at the head of the article that specifically relegates flood "geology" to pseudoscience. Furthermore, in a media-savvy world, "mainstream" has connotations that don't flatter science. --Plumbago 09:32, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. I would be happy with the removal of the weasel adjectives. Joshuaschroeder 18:08, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I worked as a Geologist with the British Geological Survey, and was interested to see that there are none of Velikovsky's books in the library there. In fact, Velikovsky drew together a large amount of geological evidence for catastrophic events - which are now the basis for mainstream geology. In the 1950's we liked to think of nature as being stable and predictable rather than producing catastrophic events of civilisation-shattering proportions in short timeframes. But he did it in such a controversial manner, too many years before his time, that he's been expunged to the dungeons of pseudoscience. Since rapid gelogical events have become acceptable, even some large quartzitic metal deposits are thought to be capable of being created in a matter of hours or days. I'm not sure about the biblical flood covering the whole world, but there is now some pretty good evidence for something along that scale when the Black Sea flooded about 5600BC.

The thing about the bible is that if you don't believe every word is true, there is a lot of historical basis. And I guess some of it must be allegory. However, given the discovery of mercury under the Chinese emperor's tomb, it makes you wonder how much old "mythology" is really based on fact. Dictostelium 16:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Since it keeps creeping back into the article, can we agree that while 'mainstream' can be appropriate when describing a debate among scientists, like for instance, gradualism v. PE, it's a meaningless qualifier when comparing science to junk-science, and gives undue weight to the aforementioned junk-science. cornis 09:08, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

We have the media to thank for this term: absent mainstream, a sentence like, "creation scientist say X, but scientists say Y" would be politically incorrect, hence the need for mainstream. Anyway, I agree with you that it's a nonsense term. Jim62sch 16:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

An editor removed "mainstream" from the article. This makes many statements false. Scientists who are creationists would disagree with many statements that appear to include them. That is why I added the Note to the top of the article, explaining that the term "scientist" in this article generally excluded creationist scientists. This was so we do not require multiple entries of "mainstream science" or "non-creationist scientists". Any comments? ^ross ^nixon 01:46, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

<undent> It is very hard to argue that creation scientists are scientists, at least in the areas concerned with evolution, flood geology and similar fields. That is why creation scientist is more synomous with religious apologist--Filll 01:58, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

"Scientist", to me, means "has a science degree". No argument is possible. Do you have evidence of any self-described "creation scientist" who has no such degree? ^ross ^nixon 02:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

<undent>You are free to believe whatever you like personally. However, it does not necessarily belong in the public square, including venues like public schools or secular encyclopedias like Wikipedia. If you call anyone with a science degree a scientist, you are engaging in obscene qualification inflation which I do not believe we should permit. For example,

the science degrees from unaccredited schools are not really worth anything
the science degrees that are more like "liberal arts" degrees are not really science degrees
the science degrees from religious schools like Liberty University or Regent University are not worth anything
political science, computer science, mathematics, engineering science and law are not sciences
a bachelor's degree does not make one a scientist; usually a master's degree qualifies one to be a technician, not a scientist. Many schools produce PhDs that are not trained in research so do not qualify as scientists
if one has a degree in field A, this does not qualify them as a scientist in field B. For example, having a PhD in classical mechanics does not make one an expert in thermodynamics and the second law.
once someone trained as a scientist stops using the scientific method when addressing a certain problem, they are not really acting as a scientist any more. Since all creation scientists rely on the introduction of the supernatural, which is not part of science or the scientific method, then essentially all creation scientists are not doing science. --Filll 02:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

It is extreme POV to say that someone's science degree is worthless. (I don't know what "unaccredited schools" are - there are none in New Zealand.)

"Acting as a scientist" is a very subjective notion.
Since all non-creation scientists rely on the presumption of naturalism when dealing in "origins" (non-observational) science, which is not subject to the scientific method, then essentially all non-creation scientists are not doing science. But I will allow you to continue calling them scientists.
Creation scientists with PhDs don't have to submit to mainstream dogma in order to be considered scientists; they only do that sometimes to avoid being sacked.
Can you point out any flaw/problem with the disclaimer note itself? ^ross ^nixon 02:16, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Radiometric dating assumptions

There is no assumption made about loss or retention of either parent or daughter nuclei when one makes a determination of an age based on radiometric dating. All that is assumed is that the rates are known and then the parameters are fit. If one of the nuclei is out of equilibrium with other radionuclides, then the composition problems can be parametrized. However, no assumption is made as to the retention of components since the parameter fitting analysis allows for this to be fitted along with the age. --Joshuaschroeder 20:29, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Let me understand this. We have some N parent-daughter nuclide ratios. Then a fit of the 2N+1 {n*(parent(time0) + daughter(time0)) + (time - time0)} parameters is taken and the process does not need the initial daughter concentration? Isn't this set of equations somewhat underdetermined? Wouldn't there be a family of {time,Daughter(time0)} values which would be solutions? Dan Watts 21:26, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

There also is the ratio of parent and non-radiogenic-isotope of daughter. This constrains the solution space to one. There is a rather good FAQ at talkorigins.org. --Stephan Schulz 22:26, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

To one, but that's no fun. Or is it? I'm confused. - Roy Boy ⁸⁰⁰ 06:52, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Biased attempt at labelling uniformtarianism as dogmatic

This passage does not show a "priori" when examining data. It merely shows a SCIENTIFIC approach and thus i resolve it should be deleted. I haven't done it yet, to allow for commentary and so a consensus can be formed. The offending passage is

"It is worth noting that the founders of uniformitarianism likewise had an a priori commitment before examining the evidence. For example, James Hutton, the "Founder of Modern Geology", suggested :

"the past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now … No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle" (emphasis added)

(from ‘Theory of the Earth’, a paper (with the same title of his 1795 book) communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and published in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1785)"

Keio

Agreed. I have been bold and editted this. --ScienceApologist 00:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

Is there support for the statement below which appears in the Vapor Canopy section? If not, this should be removed as it would show a biased point of view.

. The vapor canopy model has lost favour and is no longer accepted by most creationist scientists.

65.165.142.98 21:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC) Pat

what?

mammoths with grass in their mouths is proof of rapid freezing? er........ how?

the flood does not explain any sedimentary phenomena whatsoever.

this page gives this farce of a science way too much attention. someone shorten it.

When a scientist explains a single finding

it isn't a "hypothesis" unless it is going to be tested with observations. Since the explanation for the single fossil found is not going to be tested, the explanation is not a hypothesis. However, neither is it a guess because it is based on the understanding provided by context and other observations as well as knowledge of physical processes. --ScienceApologist 05:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

It still could be a hypothesis that is not going to be tested. But how about conjecture or surmisal? ^ross ^nixon 11:14, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. To me, "explanation" is a rather strong word which would suggest that the expert completely understands what's going on here. I see what you're (ScienceApologist) getting at re: hypothesis (given the fossil's uniqueness, I doubt anyone's allowed to breathe on the specimen, let alone destructively test hypotheses on it), but it seems a more appropriate word either than "explain" or "guess". Cheers, --Plumbago 11:25, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

"My suspicion" is not a solid basis for an explanation (at least in my experience). This does not have to be a one-of-a-kind test. "Schweitzer and Wittmeyer have now found probable blood vessels, bone-building cells and connective tissue in another T. rex, in a theropod from Argentina and in a 300,000-year-old woolly mammoth fossil." [5] But then, I am biased and put in "scare quotes" (as I have been told). Dan Watts 13:06, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

The issue with the "scare quotes" is that it wasn't an actual quote. I wasn't trying to insinuate you were biased. --ScienceApologist 13:47, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality

This article seems to me not to be neutral. I for one do not believe in a young earth, but the article as a whole seems bent towards an old-earth, evolutionist standpoint, and does not appear objective. Maybe a disputed neutrality tag should be added? --scienceman 01:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

While I think the article is somewhat bloated and overwritten in places, it's bent towards an objective treatment of pseudoscientific "evidence" of the so-called flood "geologists". Flood geology consists of cherry-picking those bits and pieces of the vast body of geological knowledge that suit one particular literal reading of a religious work. For flood geology to be correct, the whole of geological science would have to be thrown out. This is not a case of a rival theory trying to explain the data, and it certainly should not be presented as such for "balance". Most readers of WP have a non-technical background, and it'd be a disservice to them to present this as anything other than a disingenuous attempt to rubberstamp a particular religious myth (in the proper sense) as fact. That said, if you'd like to discuss particular changes to content or structure, I'm all ears. Cheers, --Plumbago 08:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

This article seems not to be discussing Flood Geology so much as arguing that it's wrong. Surely the main thrust of the article should be explaining what Flood Geology is and what it's proponents actually believe, and then, if it deemed necessary and appropriate, it could link to another article that discusses the problems with Flood Geology. As it is, this article is highly biased. --Ephrathah 1548, 8 Sep 2006 (BST)

Any article that deals with the subject without mentioning the problems is automatically biased. This article, as it stands explains what flood geology is and what it's proponents actually believe, and then, discusses the problems with Flood Geology. -- Ec5618 14:52, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Echoing Ec5618, Flood Geology presents itself first and foremost as science, so it would be remiss of any article on it to avoid seriously discussing the scientific case for it. That no such case exists, and that Flood Geology is literalist theology masquerading as science, is difficult to avoid mentioning. Even on an operational level, Flood Geology has no ongoing research programme and has no presence in the scientific literature. For something that wants to be accepted as science, this is pretty damning, and it is crucial that the evidence, or absence of evidence, is presented up front and not consigned to a separate article. Otherwise, we would be giving licence to all manner of patent nonsense to present glowing articles up front, while brushing overwhelming critiques to secondary articles. Cheers, --Plumbago 09:22, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

"That no such case exists, and that Flood Geology is literalist theology masquerading as science" - this is an opinion that you hold, but is not shared by all. I concede the point that there should be discussion of the problems with FG - my previous post implied (unintentionally) that there should be none. However, much of the article seems to be written by someone antagonistic to FG, not remotely sympathetic (which makes me wonder why they wrote it at all), and this shows in the way that FG is presented only in order to debunk it, which - whether you agree with it or not - is not neutral presentation. --Ephrathah 15:48, 12 Sep 2006 (UTC)

You might not like it, but it is an opinion shared by the scientific community. Were Flood Geology to have the slightest grounding in fact, there'd be research effort exploring it, and papers in the scientific literature. There just aren't, and Flood Geology's claims are so extraordinary they'd merit treatment in Nature or Science were support discovered for them. What "research" there is, is simply the cherry-picking of geological evidence that appears to fit a literal reading of the Bible (cf. most of the examples in the article). That the vast majority of the body of geological evidence collected over centuries flatly contradicts Flood Geology is studiously ignored by so-called Flood Geologists.

Fundamentally, the problems with Flood Geology pretty much begin and end with its foundation : that the Bible should be interpreted literally. The contortions of common sense and scientific method required to fulfil this are quite breathtaking in their audacity (flash-frozen mammouths; running-speed stratigraphy; etc.). It would be irresponsible for an article on the subject not to draw attention to these flaws. And neutral point of view is not a blanket 50-50 treatment of viewpoints on subjects of science. The minority point of view (here pseudoscientific Flood Geology) should be described clearly as such. Something can't claim to be science and then completely avoid all of science's methodologies and standards. Hence the page as is. --Plumbago 16:07, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

"Were Flood Geology to have the slightest grounding in fact, there'd be research effort exploring it, and papers in the scientific literature." Somewhat question-begging. Lots of areas of now-accepted science have been left out in the cold by the scientific community for a long time before anyone started taking them seriously.

Ah, the classic "they said Einstein was mad but now look ..." objection. Flood Geology was taken seriously in the early days of geology. It was then rejected because evidence continued to be found that was inexplicable by it. This is already detailed in the article. Although, as you've noted in a good section of the article, there are several flavours of FG at this time, all fall in the same way as "classic" FG. If anything, they're in much worse shape now because of the plethora of data sources we have about Earth history now (e.g. radioisotopes were unheard of when FG was originally rejected). --Plumbago 08:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

"The contortions of common sense and scientific method required to fulfil this are quite breathtaking in their audacity" Another highly subjective assessment. Whether they are breath-taking or not depends on your starting assumptions. I am highly critical of much that passes under the name of creation "science", but there's nothing intrinsically stupid in its basic ideas, as you imply.

True, it does depend on one's starting assumptions. But there is something intrinsically stupid in starting with the assumption that Book X is correct, and then searching for evidence to back up the extraordinary assertions in said book. Not only stupid, but not science, end of story. This is why FG is correctly labelled pseudoscience (as has been debated endlessly here before). --Plumbago 08:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

"The minority point of view (here pseudoscientific Flood Geology) should be described clearly as such." You can clearly describe it as the minority point of view (accurately and neutrally) without any need to vilify it (which demonstrates bias). You can even say that many people regard it as pseudo-science (accurately and neutrally) without needing to be perjorative and biased in insisting that this is the only reasonable interpretation. An intelligent reader can make up their own mind about whether the charge of pseudo-science is a fair one.

By any reasonable definition of science, FG is not science. They may use some geological evidence, they may even use fancy measurement devices or clever computer programs, but starting from the answer then working backwards to find evidence for it is simply not science. It is not POV to assert this (unless one takes the lawyer's view that all views are POV). Regarding WP's readers, all of them are non-specialists in at least some areas of the encyclopedia, and it's important we cater for everyone by expressing things clearly when dealing with pseudoscience. A superficially balanced article (half camp A's points, half camp B's points) would give the impression that both camps had equal validity. Fine on matters of subjective politics or art, but emphatically not fine on matters of science. --Plumbago 08:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

"Something can't claim to be science and then completely avoid all of science's methodologies and standards." I don't think that is a fair reflection of Flood Geology in general - certainly not in recent years - although as I said before, I am always critical of the creationist community when they publish sub-standard material, as they have rather too often been guilty of. But then, anti-creationists have been known to use very unscientific methods of argument too.--Ephrathah 17:18, 12 Sep 2006 (UTC)

Even publishing "sub-standard material" might be a start for FG. They haven't published anything in the peer-reviewed scientific literature - there isn't a single item of primary science literature in the references section of this article. To date all of their work has appeared in publications by creationist organisations, which simply doesn't count as scientific publication. The old maxim "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen" has been rigidly followed by FG - it can't take the criticism doled out by the scientific community, so it only publishes in friendly venues where its disregard for evidence is forgiven because it adheres to the principles of creationism (Book X is literally correct above all else). Regarding anti-creationists, I'm sure that rhetoric is often used in place of reasoned argument (I'm sure, for that matter, you could find it in many of my edits), but that doesn't deflate the charge that FG is unscientific against all its protestations to the contrary.

Anyway, it's pretty clear that we're going to have to agree to disagree here. Perhaps contrary to the above, I do agree with your point about the article bloating and containing only semi-relevant material at times. It's also lost much much of its structure, and some of the items you've flagged up below are at least partially to blame. So I'm happy to try to follow your suggestions to improve it. Cheers, --Plumbago 08:30, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

By "Book X" I assume you mean Theory of the Earth or Principles of Geology - since FG is no more dependent on Genesis than conventional geology is on books such as those. Genesis is not treated as a science textbook, but it is considered a valid historical resource, which would be accepted in other historical sciences such as archaeology, and is also accepted in geology for more recent events (eg. volcanic eruptions). You also imply that FG today is the same thing as that which was thrown out 150 years ago: this is not correct as you will discover if you do a small amount of research. FG is as much science as conventional geology (hypothesis -> field observations -> modify hypothesis). Creationists have tried to publish in the secdular journals, but their contributions are usually ruled out due to bias such as yours, so that is not in itself evidence that FG is not science and is circular reasoning (FG can't be published because it's not science because if it was science it would be published ...) -- Ephrathah 11:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, the old "ruled out due to bias" ruse. Listen, were there any basis to FG ambitious scientists would be rushing to embrace it. It would herald such a revolution in geology that people would be clamouring to claim a piece of it, whether for fame or for research funding. Just think about it : billions of years of Earth history slashed to just ten thousand years; brilliant new explanations for why dinosaurs precede mammals in the geological record; a quantum leap in atomic physics as new modes of radioisotope decay are discovered; untapped reserves of Flood water used to irrigate the Sahara; etc. Scientists are pretty much as egocentric as everyone else, and wouldn't miss a trick capitalising on the sorts of opportunities that FG would offer. And journals like Nature and Science, ever eager to pull one over on each other, would sell their grandmothers to be the first into print with such revelations in science. That this doesn't happen should tell you something about where the evidence lies, or it would do if conspiracy theories about bias weren't promulgated by creationists.

Regarding your model of FG, it emphatically is not "hypothesis -> field observations -> modify hypothesis". Were this applied honestly the "modify" bit would be replaced with "bin hypothesis and start again". Too much evidence simply points the wrong way, whether it's geology, biology or even physics. To give just one simple example : the Antarctic ice sheet preserves a year-by-year record of atmospheric and climate properties for hundreds of thousands of years. We know that it does this because we can look at its recent record and compare it to those we've made in more conventional ways. What possible grounds do we have for saying, "well, these records are fine up to ~2000 BC, but further back than that they're rubbish"? Not least because it can be successfully tied to other records from completely different proxies (tree rings, ocean sediment cores, etc.). This is the sort of evidence that FG is quite simply turning a blind eye to. And there's no shortage of it - and almost none of it is addressed, let alone taken account of, by FG. --Plumbago 12:15, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I think you would have a lot easier time bringing people to your side if you weren't so antagonistic toward other editors, Plumbago. Aplomado ^talk 21:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Irrelevant Sections and Misrepresentation of Facts

Since this article is already longer than the recommended Wikpedia article length, I want to suggest some changes to move less relevant information to more relevant pages. In particular "Reliability of Genesis" has nothing to do with Geology, and shouldn't be on this page. "Philosophical Objections" doesn't really belong here either - perhaps a one-sentence comment would be merited, but not a whole section. [edit: I have subsequently extended this section to make it more balanced, but maintain it would be better for the whole section to be moved elsewhere.] Similarly "Age of the Earth" is not directly relevant to Flood Geology, so merits a single sentence in the introduction, and then should be dealt with more fully under other creationist topics.

In addition to this, much of the information presented as being what Flood Geologists believe is actually not correct because, as my inclusion of the section "How creationists interpret the GC" was intended to show, there is no single "Flood Geology" paradigm. This page would be better off giving a general overview of things that are broadly agreed today (rather than 30 years ago) in the creationist community, particularly discussing the problems with conventional geology that a new (catastrophist) geological paradigm has the potential to solve. Information specific to particular Flood models should then be discussed in separate articles, rather than giving the impression that Flood Geology is a monolithic entity. This would improve both the accuracy and the clarity of this article.

As an an example of how this page ought to look, I just looked up "Physics", "Chemistry" and "Geology" - each of which contains a brief overview of the history and main ideas of the discipline, and links to other pages that explore the detail, rather than trying to prove or disprove everything on one page. Any comments? -- Ephrathah 15:39 (UTC) 12 September 2006

Controversial subjects must be dealt with differently than non-controversial subjects as per WP:NPOV. --ScienceApologist 10:57, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Strong Bias in Philosophical Objections

If you're going to include philosophical points from one side you must allow a response or the article is strongly POV. What was wrong with my additions? Please put them back (edited if you must). I request a disputed neutrality flag be added to this page. -- Ephrathah 11:42, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

The issue is that there are no "sides" to speak of. There is the flood geology supported by the creation science advocates and then there is mainstream science. The philosophical criticism is dependent on mainstream science demonstrating the flaws with flood geology. The general creationist critiques of mainstream science belong on the creation science or creationism page because they are not about flood geology per se.

This puts "mainstream science" (geologic age of the theory: blink of an eye) in the place of both co-defendant and judge. Criticisms of the theory, as you mentioned, belong on the respective pages of their theories' proponents rather than on this page. It's time for an explanation, not an evaluation.

The philosophical objections are just sophistical fallacies. Perhaps a joke will explain:

Greene and Hawking decided to have a contest with God. "People don't need you anymore," Hawking said. "We can make life in a test tube from dirt."

"You're on!" said God. "You go first."

Greene stooped down to grab a handful of dirt.

"'Scuse me?" God interrupted. "Go get your own dirt!"Alfarero 01:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That joke is funnier than you think. SheffieldSteel 03:20, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Come to think of it, I don't think this is about epistemology or logical consistency. Instead, I believe it's like Jesus said: "Whoever will not accept the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." God is not someone we impress with logic. Sorry about that. Alfarero 03:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Getting back on topic, I don't think we're in a situation where science is both co-defendant and judge. Science may be the judge, but theories are what is being judged. To follow the law analogy, arguing as to whether or not something is unlawful is very different from challenging the law itself. SheffieldSteel 13:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Where did the water go?

Where do flood geologists believe the flood waters went to? How can thousands of feet of water just disappear after a flood? I think there should be some discussion, at least, on this topic. Brokenskittles 02:13, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Short answer: Into the ocean. Note: The mountains weren't so tall and the ocean was shallower before the flood. Long answer: Here is a creationist geophysicist's theory http://www.globalflood.org/papers/2003ICCcpt.html ^ross ^nixon 10:38, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

How creationists interpret the Geologic Column today

Have removed link to 'recolonisation' – no article under this head and any such article would transgress the Wikipedia prohibition of original research. ‘Recolonisation’ amended to ‘recolonisation theory’ to limit the term.

Have added some detail to say what recolonisation theory is.

Have deleted:

The main reasons put forward to support this hypothesis are (1) that it offers an explanation for why the fossils (particularly vertebrate trackways) are concentrated towards the end of the fossil record, not the beginning as would be expected if the Flood laid down the rocks, and (2) that it offers an explanation for rocks that don't appear to have been laid down underwater or that appear to have taken years or decades to form. The main arguments against recolonisation are (1) that it appears to require a far longer timescale than a straightforward reading of Genesis would allow, and (2) that it requires a lot of post-Flood destruction in a relatively short time, which humans, animals and plants may not have been able to survive outside the Ark.

This is on the grounds of space, which is perhaps more usefully devoted to explaining what the theory consists of. The 'main arguments against recolonisation' are main arguments only from the point of view of YECs. Proponents of recolonisation have gone to some length to explain why the YEC interpretation of the genealogies as if they gave a chronology is not a straightforward exercise. When making the second criticism YECs understand 'a relatively short time' to mean a few hundred years, not the possibly tens of thousands that the main proponent of recolonisation (Steven Robinson) has been suggesting for post-Flood time. Fastnet 10:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Any new research?

Is there no research going on into Flood Geology? I mean, I know everyone likes to say that it's not really science, but if you look at it, there's no reason why it has to be, say, unfalsifiable. Mainstream geology can't be reproduced because of the crazy timescales involved, sure, but a laboratory-based recreation of the flood, sedimentation of different animal carcasses etc. should be complete in only forty days or so.

So where's the research? It must be out there somewhere... and I think this article is exactly the place where it should be documented. SheffieldSteel 21:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Correct. "Flood geology" isn't unfalsifiable. However, it is totally falsified. And by no end of objective evidence. That's why there's no research going on. Once upon a time (probably up until the very early 19th century) "flood geology" really was considered a viable history of the Earth by many people, but then geology developed as a science and all manner of inconvenient evidence turned up. So science just followed the evidence and discounted a geological history based on a worldwide flood. And by now there's so much evidence that runs contrary to the idea of such a flood that it's very hard to see how such a view could ever again be taken seriously (radioisotopes, sedimentary records, ice sheets, dendrochronology, etc.). Which isn't to say that the Biblical Flood isn't a record of some sort of localised event (as some geologists believe), but it's safe to say that a global flood's out of the question (unless the Good Lord tidied up afterwards, and faked a whole lot of evidence as He did so). --Plumbago 22:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Then again, the evidence is subject to assumptions and interpretation to fit ones' worldview. ^ross ^nixon 00:38, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Not really. Science doesn't presupposed anything, especially a world view. Flood geology, Creationism, Intelligent Design and related myths all require the belief in a supernatural being. Once you do that, you violate one of the fundamental pillars of science. Orangemarlin 01:35, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

^ross ^nixon, you do realise that you sound like a conspiracy theorist don't you? Using the examples I've mentioned above, can you please explain where the following statements are incorrect, and perhaps elucidate Flood Geology's superior interpretation:

Radioisotopes are observed to decay at fixed rates; radioisotopes are found in rocks and sediments; they are found such that deeper rocks have less parent radioisotopes than shallower rocks; using multiple radioisotopes, with different decay rates, the age of rocks can be estimated to relatively high precision

To add: By looking at distant supernovae, we can even determine that decay rates have been the same in the past (in the case of SN 1987a, about 168,000 years ago, unless, again He fakes a lot of evidence). --Stephan Schulz 10:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Sediments, composed of both organic and inorganic material, accumulate on ocean or lake floors; although, as with everything, there is variability, these sediments record similar patterns of accumulation at the global scale; lots of calcifiers at this point, lots of silicifiers at this point; given present-day processes, these records indicate long (very long) periods of gradual accumulation
Ice sheets are accumulations of snow over land masses; because of the Earth's seasonal cycle, fresh ice is added at different rates during the year, leading to banding in the ice; while, again, there are discrepancies between ice cores taken in different places, synthesis of the results from multiple cores indicates long periods (much longer than 10 ky) of gradual accumulation
Similarly to ice sheets, tree trunks exhibit banding in their growth rings caused by the seasonal cycle; examining living and long-dead tree trunks allows one to build up a climatic series of "good" and "bad" years (at least as far as the tree is concerned); comparing multiple tree records (nearby or distant in space to one another), it's possible to stitch together records back to more than 10 ky

Each of the above cases (ordered, by the way, from the longest to the shortest timescales) represents a semi-independent method for studying the past (and there are other methodologies too). None is prefect, but there is broad congruence between them, and all agree that there has been no global flood of the Earth within the last 10 ky as (most) Flood Geologists maintain. Sometimes the simplest and most straightforward explanations for things really are the correct explanations. But, of course, I say this as someone who's swallowed the "theory" that seasonal tree growth creates rings. --Plumbago 09:49, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

P.S. As an anthropological aside: each of the methods I've described above is studied by a different group of researchers. Obviously they get together from time to time to collaborate and intercompare results, etc., but human nature being what it is, if any one group found an "anomaly" (e.g. the Flood) in their data that could undermine any one of the other methods, they'd be falling over themselves to publish it. It's always satisfying to get one over on your scientific rivals. This is one of the reasons why conspiracy theories about "scientific covens", etc., make no sense whatsoever. --Plumbago 09:59, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Plumbago. My fingers are sore from typing these responses over and over and over again. There is no evidence for a worldwide flood, although there are localized ones, of course. I like the Black Sea flood as being the one that lead to the myth of Noah's Ark. Orangemarlin 18:42, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Plumbago, your 3 or 4 examples have presumptions. Ice sheets can occur with one storm. Tree-rings can represent more than one growth spurt in a year. Radiometric dating has many assumptions. (e.g. Carbon 14 levels in diamonds and coal are far too high for them to be millions of years old. [6]) ^ross ^nixon 01:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Ice sheets can occur with one storm, but won't show the typical yearly banding (including not only visible changes, but also changes in isotope ratios of included gases). Also, a single storm will not create ice sheets that are kilometers high. Tree rings are nearly exclusively annual, and correspond excellently for items with a known history. And "radiometric dating" is not just one technique, but many, and with very different assumptions (all of which are not arbitrary, but follow from well-established scientific principles). C14 dating is based on the near-constant ratio of C12 and C14 in the atmosphere (and hence the biosphere). But C14 can also be created in small amounts in-situ, as the result of other nuclear processes. Hence C14 dating is not useful to date items with extremely low amounts of C14. --Stephan Schulz 01:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing ^ross. You'll note that I carefully mentioned that none of the techniques I outlined are perfect, and even briefly noted both the variability in the data that they produce, and that the techniques are independent enough to perform checks on one another. The uncertainty that I highlighted stands in stark contrast to the certainty that Flood Geologists profess in the historicity of the Flood. It's a cornerstone of science, and neatly encapsulates why Flood Geology is less scientific than basket weaving (to unfairly pick an arbitrary example; my apologies).

Furthermore, it's characteristic of Flood Geologists to pick away at trivial methodological limitations of scientific techniques (thanks Stephan for picking these up), all the while blithely ignoring truly appalling "limitations" of their own "science". To give my favourite example: the stratigraphic ordering of fossils. Does that occur because:

mammals run faster than dinosaurs that run faster than reptiles that run faster than amphibians?
dead mammals float more than dead dinosaurs that float more than dead reptiles that float more than dead amphibians?

Leaving aside, of course, the matter of extant reptiles and amphibians (who, I know, somehow blagged a free ride from Noah). Anyway, as much fun as this is, it's old ground, and I'm sure I've bored SheffieldSteel to death already. --Plumbago 08:58, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

(undent) No sir, I am far from bored by this debate. I'm still surprised, not to say a little disappointed, that all these flood geologists, creation scientists, and institutes of discovery have not managed between them to publish the results of any experiments featuring mammals / saurians / amphibians / birds being differentially buried in sediment after forty days and forty nights of suitable drenching, pummelling, and so on. But hey, since that isn't happening, I think I will go and poke about at the article and see if I can't improve it ;-) SheffieldSteel 19:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah-ha, you're not dead. Actually, it's more than just simply failing to publish experimental material on fossil sorting that could be interpreted as supporting the Flood. I only raised that particular example because it's one of the most amusing things I've ever come across. The proper way to examine the Flood would be to compare broader predictions we would make using it as a working hypothesis with what can be found in markers of Earth history (including, of course, the sedimentary record). Fossil layering would be one of the first and most glaring problems to arise were one to do this, but there would be many more (including the radioisotopes already mentioned). Then there's the problem of where the Flood waters went; why we have long-term records such as ice sheets that shouldn't have survived the Flood but conspicuously fail to record it; etc. Significantly, the Flood was once considered to be a reasonable interpretation of Earth history, but as geology picked up as a science it was realised that it couldn't possibly explain things, and so was dropped (and this is already in the article). Anyway ... --Plumbago 17:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

What I've discovered after several months of debating the Creationists on various topics, I've come to realize that logic doesn't matter. They presuppose a supernatural being that is untestable under any known scientific method. That is what is called faith. Scientists, like us, believe in testing, and sometimes re-evaluating, hypothesis to build a model for the natural world, which does not contain a supernatural being (or, for that matter, aliens from far off galaxy). Instead of accepting their faith, they spend hours of our good time finding minor flaws in the science or the technology that studies the science to prove their point. Here's one that I dealt with in a conversation with some creationists. They stated that because glaciers in California were less than a couple of thousand years old, that proves the flood. Of course, that ignores all of the much older glaciers in the world, but this is the type of discussion we have with them. Don't expend too much frustration on this article. Just try to keep them intellectually honest. Orangemarlin 18:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The Aborigines had no ancient civilisation

Australia has been populated for at least 51,000 years. But there was no civilisation on the continent until it was colonised by Europeans. Australia has no indigenous plants suitable for agriculture. The Aborigines never got the chance to learn it from others ether. Consequently, the very basis for civilisation was lacking! Aboriginal culture was no civilisation any more then the Aurignacian culture.

2007-03-20 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Hmmm. I suppose that depends on one's definition of civilisation. Anyway, it's really an irrelevance. In the article here, the point that's being made is that civilisations existed before/during/after the purported Flood. As such, they constitute evidence contrary to Flood Geology. If you're not happy with it, change "civilisations" to "cultures", or something similar (come to think of it, perhaps I'll do this myself anyway). --Plumbago 12:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

That's a rather eurocentric definition of Civilization. And I though some Americans were bad. Orangemarlin 19:17, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

This article is a uncited monstrosity and joke

Is this someone's idea of a encyclopedia article? Where are all the necessary citations as per Wikipedia rules? 128.205.191.52 22:14, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

What parts of the article do you think need the most attention. There are 24 footnotes and 9 references. I do agree that most of the creationists claims have no citations to back up their ideas and that some of the scientific claims should have more, but where would you start or do you think that some parts of the article are totaly lacking any citations at all? RiverBissonnette 22:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

It's hard to respond to such a statement as the one made by anonymous 128. You're right, Creationist articles are hard to source, unless you want to use things like Answers in Genesis. And truly, the neutral POV would be describe Flood Geology, followed by a scientific perspective (which is easy: there was no flood, well short of some massive local ones, such as the Lake Missoula glacial flood). I don't think the article is THAT bad. Orangemarlin 22:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Fossilization (again)

So, an off-the cuff response to a perceived threat to long ages is O.K.? Dan Watts 03:04, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Long apes? Orangemarlin 01:38, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

"[S]oft tissue structures were found as evidence that the bones cannot be reasonably understood to have survived for millions of years without the soft tissue either decomposing or fossilizing. However, an expert in ancient biomolecules has proposed a novel unknown mechanism for this unusual find: "My suspicion is this process has led to the reaction of more resistant molecules with the normal proteins and carbohydrates which make up these cellular structures, and replaced them, so that we have a very tough, resistant, very lipid-rich material - a polymer that would be very difficult to break down and characterise, but which has preserved the structure""

Are we supposed to take Dr. Collins' supposition at face value with whatever credulosity necessary? Should it not rather bother Dr. Collins (or at least those that uncritically include his remark) that "Recent studies on bacterial populations and processes in subseafloor sediments: A review" in the Hydrogeology Journal (2000) 8:11-28 reports bacterial presence and activity at up to 800+ meters below the seafloor (and that the reported depth - which was apparently limited by the sediment sampling hardware- would likely support bacterial activity down to 4 km depth)? This should give him some pause to the face-value statement of "very difficult to break down." Would not Occam's razor lean toward the theory of not-so-advanced age of the T. Rex fossil? Dan Watts 02:06, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

This is too easy:

The reports of the soft tissue, though remarkable, have been sensationalized further. The tissues were not soft and pliable originally. The tissues were rehydrated in the process of removing the surrounding mineral components of the bone. Moreover, it is unknown whether the soft tissues are original tissues. Fossil flexible tissues and nucleated cells have been found before in which the original material was not preserved. In other words, it's not like this tissue has undergone a lot of changes over 70 million years.
The age of fossils is not determined by how well they are preserved, because preservation depends far more on factors other than age. The age of this particular bone was determined from the age of the rocks it was found in, namely, the Hell Creek Formation. This formation has been reliably dated by several independent methods. Occam's razor states that you take the simplest explanation, and that would be that the fossil was found in rock formations that date to the appropriate time.

By the way, I copied these comments nearly verbatim from Talk Origins. I'm too lazy to find more references. Orangemarlin 05:02, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

One more thing, and this is really the most important. It's not the job of a scientist to "prove" that the soft tissues are from 70 million years ago, because all of the sediment, rocks, radiometric dating, etc. confirm its age. Of course, the person who found the tissues, Mary Schweitzer, has made numerous and emphatic statements that it does not support YEC. However, please provide one reliable and peer-reviewed reference that establishes the soft tissues have any age other than 70 or so million, and you can use it. Just one. Orangemarlin 06:23, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

As Orange has observed this is all more or less irrelevant since we have no reliable sources making the connection and it is original research, but the TOA response handles the matter niceley anyways. And note that the person who discovered the relevant soft tissue Mary Higby Schweitzer who is a devout Christia (if that matters at all). Now as to the OR And in any event, the presence of some bacterial activity deep<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Lupin/navpop.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css&dontcountme=s"> down has little to do with how common it is or whether they are bacteria that are likely to break something down. Furthermore, one can have what amount to soft tissue that has been broken down a fair bit or cannot be further broken down due to other environmental factors. JoshuaZ 06:26, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't the simplest dating be 14C AMS on the tissue, which will NEVER be done? Dan Watts 09:53, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

If it will never be done, it's not the simplest. Or are you suggesting a conspiracy? -- Ec5618 09:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

¹⁴C? On a T. rex bone? You do know that ¹⁴C has a half-life of ~6000 years don't you? 10,000+ half-lives will pose something of an accuracy problem for laboratories. --Plumbago 10:04, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, 7 pair of clean, one of unclean, but no dinos (who just happened to be animals). So, in the Manichaean world of the OT there's actually a middle ground between clean and unclean. Wow, who'd'a thunk it? Jim62sch 11:51, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

So there should be no fear of a null result unlike such measurements in RADIOCARBON, VOL 28, No. 2A, 1986, P 215-222 or VOL 28, No. 2A, 1986, P 246-255, or VOL 29, No. 3, 1987, P 323-333, or VOL 29, No. 3, 1987, P 335-346, or VOL 32, No. 3, 1990, P 335-339, or VOL. 34, No. 3, 1992, P. 312-317, or VOL. 35, No. 2, 1993, P. 295-300, or Vol 37, No. 2,1995, P. 697-704, or Vol. 40, No. 1, 1998, P. 85-93, or Vol 41, No. 2,1999, p 127-140, or Vol 43, No. 2A 2001, p 169–176, or Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B I23 (I 997) 97- 101, etc., or the really interesting: Use of Natural Diamonds to Monitor ¹⁴C AMS Instrument Backgrounds, Nucl. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res. B(2007), doi: 10.1016/j.nimb.2007.01.239 (not that I expect referenced work would have any sway in these discussions). Dan Watts 12:46, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Yawn! Haven't we had this discussion before? All that would happen is that the T. rex fossil would report a relatively young age for all of the accuracy reasons that have already been covered. 10,000 half-lives would reduce any item to practically nothing, even one made 100% of ¹⁴C. Why should anyone want to destroy a valuable, possibly unique fossil just to find out the background accuracy of ¹⁴C measurements? That's not a conspiracy, it's common sense. --Plumbago 12:55, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Who needs to destroy a fossil? The strong lure of AMS testing is the relatively small sample size needed (or am I mistaken?). How would that destroy a fossil? Perhaps you believe that no measurement is needed. That doesn't sound like science. I agree that there would be an inequality of expected results between you and I. Dan Watts 01:11, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

You're just baiting us here; you know what the answer we'll give is. Even if the T. rex made entirely out of ¹⁴C (which would represent a fairly singular biological feat), a period of ~65 million years would be sufficient for practically every single atom of it to have decayed away by the present-day. That's why I suggested one would need to use the whole fossil to (fail to) find any ¹⁴C. It's for this reason even the slightest contamination of the sample will introduce a signal massively larger than any the fossil carries. Anyway, this is clearly pointless; we've had this discussion before (and I'm sure you've had it many times before). No amount of evidence is ever going to shift your position; I just hope I never find myself in the dock of the court with you on the jury. Cheers, --Plumbago 08:04, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

First of all Mr. Watts, I'd suggest a nice long read of WP:CIVIL before you make an accusation that reference works would have no sway. I'd take references over anything. As for your commentary about null results? Oh well, after a few million accurate results, I'd expect occasional errors. Sheesh. Orangemarlin 12:58, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

So, how many of the referenced articles have you read? Dan Watts 01:11, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

<reducing indent> In life sciences? Probably 10,000, maybe more. In Paleontology, geology and the earth sciences? Probably 2-3 thousand. In Radiometric dating? Maybe a hundred. But once again, please list out a referece anywhere that is peer-reviewed and support your POV. Orangemarlin 01:16, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

John R. Doughty, Isotopic Analysis of Fruitland Formation Coal Bed Carbon Dioxide and Methane, Creation Research Society Quarterly 2006, pp 105-110. (Peer reviewed [7].) Dan Watts 01:49, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

BTW, I just randomly chose one of your references. RADIOCARBON, VOL 28, No. 2A, 1986, P 215-222. Did you read it? I guess you missed the discussion and conclusions that stated how much they helped archeologists determine the age of wood samples. Anyways, this isn't getting anywhere. T. Rex died out 70 or so million years ago. There was no flood (maybe some local ones, such as the Minoan eruption that helped create the Exodus myth). Etc. etc. Orangemarlin 01:23, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the imprecision. I was alluding to the articles listed above. So the answer is one? Dan Watts 01:37, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

This discussion is done. You are too uncivil to continue, and this is a repeat of a prior one, in which you provided no new or verifiable information. Orangemarlin 01:52, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Was my latest reference unverifiable? Dan Watts 01:56, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. creationresearch.org is not a reliable source. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:16, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

What's worse is that Dan seems to know that it's not a reliable source; hence citing all of the reliable but unsupportive sources before turning to the unreliable source. --Plumbago 08:04, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll have to ask for evidence concerning those allegations. As for the logic supporting the solid ¹⁴C T. Rex hypothesis, I believe that the fossil evidence of the Coelecanth supports an error of time of extinction of at least 65 million years. Cheers! Dan Watts 11:37, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

"Allegations?" Orangemarlin gave an example of a reliable source you cited that was no help to you in his last post not even a day ago. That you know creationresearch.org is unreliable is a simple deduction made by Plumbago.

When you find a fossil of a creature of which no extant specimens are known, the rational thing to conclude, absent evidence to the contrary, is that it has gone extinct between the time the fossil was laid down and the present. This is the only reason the coelacanth was thought to be extinct. Were there no fossils between 65 mya and now? Then there were no fossils. It happens. In this case there are probable reasons for it, as you'd have discovered had you actually read the article. It simply doesn't make the point you want it to. TCC (talk) (contribs) 18:52, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

<reduce indent>Once again Dan, your lack of civility makes it difficult to want to engage in this conversation. I randomly took one of your references, and it proved nothing. Why should I waste my time doing anything further? It only shows me that you failed to do your research, because if you had, you would not have put in those references. There is no C14 with T. Rex, because, per above, the C14 has gone through so many half-lives, that it's impossible even with the most sensitive of equipment. Lastly, Coelecanth?? Give me a break. First of all, today's species have evolved over the past 65 million years, although not in any remarkable way. There are enough species that have not that it is not unique. Second, the lack of fossils is a result of where it lives, deep water, where the sedimentary rocks are rarely uplifted to a place on land where the rocks would erode to find the fossils. I don't mind engaging in these type of discussions, but I prefer the other party to have facts in hand. You do not. Orangemarlin 19:09, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, from previous experience (c.f. the above for starters), Dan does appear to have the facts. Misusing/misrepresenting them seems to be the name of the game. --Plumbago 19:30, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Strange, when I do a Google search on deep-water fossils it comes up with ~1,200,000 hits, e.g. [[8][9]][[10]][[11]][[12]]. This is incongruent with "Deep water fossils are only rarely lifted to levels where paleontologists can recover them" and, I did read the article before I referenced it. As for the unreliability of the Creation Research Society Quarterly, the reason for my late reference to it is that the other sources are much more easily available. True, they do not blatantly state the point that I was making, but how controversial do you expect such an article to be? They DO show that AMS ¹⁴C measurements RARELY give an age > 50,000 years. I would not expect those papers to supply the same reason for their result as I. I will add more when I have more time. Dan Watts 19:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, they don't state the point you're making at all, blatantly or otherwise. The limitation on ¹⁴C dating is built into the method. You'd have to re-write the laws of physics to make it otherwise. The "reason for their result" you so fervently wish existed is just an unfalsifiable assertion consistent only with the omphalos hypothesis. Why? Because we can use other radiometric dating methods that -- again, according to independently discovered laws of physics -- can be consistently applied to older inorganic materials. This can only be true if God is a deceiver and wanted things to appear older than they really are for some reason. That's not the God I believe in, myself.

By the way, when I duplicate SheffieldSteel's properly conducted Google search, I get only 65 hits. If you omit the quote marks, not only do you get relevant hits, but also such useful sites for the question as this, which was fourth on the list and therefore not hard to notice. Or is the EPA a fossil? (It's a government agency, so I concede that perhaps it is.) Why didn't you mention that when you crowed about your number of hits above? (You believe in the God revealed in the Bible, do you not? I refer you to the 8th Commandment. Or 9th, depending on how you count them. But I'm sure you know which one I mean.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:15, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems reasonable to assume that an isotope with a relatively short half-life is not suitable for dating older materials - as has been explained above - and since competent people tend to use the best tool for the job, ¹⁴C dating will tend not to be used for older specimens, hence most of the results you'll see for that technique will be younger ages. SheffieldSteel 22:20, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and you might want to be a bit more discriminatory with your use of Google. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22deep+water+fossils%22 returns 350 hits, not 1.2 million. SheffieldSteel 22:22, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I stand Google-corrected. If a Google search is made with {fossil "deep water " -fuel} (which omits the EPA result) there are 2350 results from JSTOR alone. Since there will still be random hits which are not on-topic, examining the first 20 from the 55 hits in adsabs.harvard.edu (please examine more closely yourself - I don't have the time), there was one abstract which was concerned with fossil methane, giving 95% on-topic hits. Doubling that error rate to 10% leaves ~300,000 hits. It appears that the availability of deep-water fossils is greater than was implied in the Coelecanth article, and the current experimentally-derived error on extinction ages is ~60 million years. Dan Watts 09:51, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Google hits doth not a reliable source make, as you should well know. Of course I expect you to believe that the laws of physics were changed around six thousand years ago, for did God not give the rainbow as a sign that He'd changed the physics of light? Here endeth the lesson. .. dave souza, talk 11:52, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Is Google a biased source? I know of no overt (or covert) bias in its search engine. I am limited to english in my understanding of the (French or Farsi paleontology may give entirely different) results. I have no control over your expectations. Dan Watts 12:26, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I think we're getting off base here - this was supposed to be about ¹⁴C ages. The Coelacanth Google-hunt is a diversion. Fossils are rare at the best of times (helpfully providing "gaps" to fuel the creationist blog industry), so it shouldn't come as a shock that we don't have a good record for one particular species (which, technically, may not even be a single species; all we really know is it looks the same). So the idea that, just because we haven't found one, this entitles us to put an error of 65×10⁶ years onto our dating estimates is a nonsense. Among other things, do we have access to < 65×10⁶ year-old seafloor rocks for the location that archaic Coelacanths would have lived above? Anyway, this sniping might be fun, but none of it is improving the article. Unless someone can show how that's going to happen can we drop it? --Plumbago 13:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I already dropped it. Do you realize, the original question I placed to Dan at the top of this section was "Long apes?" in response to a non-sequitor that used "long apes." How we got to all of this other stuff is beyond me. Really this article is supposed to be about Flood Geology, both the pseudoscientific claims and the scientific knowledge. Not that it's my right, but I've allowed a lot of flexibility to the Creationists to prattle on in most of the article (cleaning up language and overt POV). The science section isn't so well done, but I'm certainly not going to let science be polluted by a C14 bogosity. Orangemarlin 16:26, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I sent, earlier today, an e-mail to Dr. Collins enquiring of him if he has any research to support his quote, or if it was an off-the-cuff remark. (I did not realize that Orangemarlin truly wanted a response to the misquote of my long ages remark.) Dan Watts 16:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

When humor needs to be explained, it really must have been bad. Sorry. What quote are you talking about? Orangemarlin 17:14, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

This one: "My suspicion is this process has led to the reaction of more resistant molecules with the normal proteins and carbohydrates which make up these cellular structures, and replaced them, so that we have a very tough, resistant, very lipid-rich material - a polymer that would be very difficult to break down and characterise, but which has preserved the structure" - Dr. Collins Dan Watts 17:30, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

<Reducing indent once again> So? What is your point? The article wasn't speaking about 10's of millions of years but just a few. You pick out a singular quote and try to prove everything about Creationism with it? Huh? Orangemarlin 19:08, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Um, I was replying to your request that I discuss a modification to the descriptive verbiage preceding Dr. Collins' quote. I gave a referenced statement as to why I thought his remark may be unsupported, and the back-and-forth began from that. You brought up radiometric dating, JoshuaZ - tissue preservation, you - peer-reviewed support of my position. Dan Watts 19:21, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Removal of Pseudoscience category

I recently removed the Pseudoscience category tag from the page, because it already includes Category:Creation Science which is a subcategory. I'm trying to clean up the pseudoscience category, which contains huge amounts of redundancy due to the multiple vertical categories on many of its member pages.

Personally, I think creation science is nuts and is quite obviously pseudoscience. However, that's not the point of the pseudoscience category. We're not allowed to label things as pseudoscience, but only to point out what other verifiable sources say. The point of the category is to declare that there is an association between the topic of the article and the topic of pseudoscience, which is why skeptics like Michael Shermer are included in the category, as well as general concepts like False precision that show up in pseudoscientific theories with some frequency. As such, we only need to show that there is a notable association between Flood geology and pseudoscience, which there undoubtedly is (even the supporters would have to admit this).

So, I didn't remove the category because I don't think Flood geology is pseudoscience (quite the contrary) but rather because it's already included under a sub-category of pseudoscience, and I'm trying to reduce clutter in that category.

Unless there are further objections (I'll wait a while) I'd like to remove the redundant category. --Sapphic 20:48, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

As we are discussing your talk page, I don't mind reverting my revert of your revert, but I would think that pseudoscience should be a listed subject in Category:Creation Science. Orangemarlin 21:51, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm still not sure what you mean by that last point.. "Creation Science" is a type of pseudoscience, not the other way around. I could add some text to the description part of the category page for creation science, but I don't think adding pseudoscience as a sub-category of creation science is a good idea. --Sapphic 22:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm opposed to using the category system as a means of "tagging" articles. The article clealy states that flood geology is pseudoscience, and that's where those labels should be applied (and referenced, which they are). The category system is meant as an aid to navigation, and as such it actually makes the pseudoscience category less useful to overload it with redundant listings in both the parent category and one or more sub-categories. If you want to make the fact that flood geology is pseudoscience more prominent, I would suggest doing so in the article itself, rather than cluttering the category. A "see also" section that includes pseudoscience is a good option, and one that many other similar articles have taken. --Sapphic 22:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Just to say that Sapphic makes a good point. Anyone looking for pseudoscience will find the subcategory "Creation Science", so not only is there no need to list it in the main category as well, but this is positively discouraged in guidance, as I recall. .. dave souza, talk 22:47, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Relocated from User_talk:Sapphic

Hi. I noticed that you removed the pseudoscience category from the article. You said it was already within a subcategory. Well, first, I couldn't find a subcategory, so I assumed (I know, my bad) that it was some underhanded attempt to hide the category, because, zout alors, you were trying to do something sneaky. Then I looked at your contributions, and you did it to dozens of articles (well, i gave up counting). Can you please explain what you're trying to do, and where is the subcategory? Flood geology is most definitely a pseudoscience, so if you don't think it is, we should discuss it on the talk page of the article. However, if there is some wiki thing that I don't quite understand, then a quick explanation will be very nice!!!! Thanks, I appreciate your taking your time to guide me in this matter. Orangemarlin 20:31, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Category:Creation Science is a subcategory of Category:Pseudoscience. In order to clean up the pseudoscience category I've been doing some subcategory sorting, adding or moving new subcategories under pseudoscience as needed. Hope that clears things up! --Sapphic 20:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Sort of. But shouldn't Category:Creation Science also refer to Category:Pseudoscience? My issue is that all this creation science stuff is definitely pseudoscience, and it is referred to as such. Orangemarlin 20:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Category:Creation Science does refer to Category:Pseudoscience — scroll down to the bottom of the first category, and you'll see that it's included as a member in the second. Or (more usefully) go to the second category and you'll see that the first is listed as a subcategory. Do you mean that the category description for Category:Creation Science should itself mention pseudoscience? I'm not sure I'm following your meaning. --Sapphic 20:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

You know I didn't see that at the bottom. I was looking for pseudoscience in the list. I'm going to say, yes I think it should itself mention it. I just don't want pseudoscience to be hidden or difficult to find in the category. Orangemarlin 21:48, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that it's important to identify pseudoscience, but I disagree with using the category system to do that, so please take the discussion to the talk page of the article so we can see what others think. --Sapphic 21:52, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Similarly, please do not remove the pseudoscience cat from homeopathy - the removal/insertion of the cat has caused rancorous disagreements on the talk page, and the current consensus is that it should stay. Skinwalker 23:07, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Category:Homeopathy is a sub-category of Category:Pseudoscience, so anyone looking in the Pseudoscience category can find all the articles categorised as Homeopathy. Normally they would not be put directly in the parent category as well, see the guidance below and check it out in detail if you consider it should be an exception...... dave souza, talk 21:35, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with both OM and Skinwalker: these sub-cats do not express right up front that the topics are considered pseudoscience. Jim62sch 15:06, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

That's not the point of a category. Those types of assertions should be made in the article, where they can be referenced. Incidentally, this approach makes it easier to get topics listed in the pseudoscience category, and diffuses much of the conflict that might otherwise arise in these situations. Even supporters of a particular field would have to acknowledge that the field is considered to be pseudoscience by a notable number of people (which qualifies it for inclusion in the category) even though they'd still like to argue that their field isn't actually pseudoscience (which can be addressed in the article itself). --Sapphic 20:39, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you've stirred up a tempest, and it's not in a teapot. I think the point of many of us is that some of these articles are plain and simple hooey. Whether it's homeopathy, this article, or Creation science, it needs to be in the lead, in the body and in the category that it is a load of hooey, that is Pseudoscience. Yes, I agree that it's there, but it's hidden. If there was a discussion on your doing these changes, I would have liked to have participated. If I were the only editor and this was the only article where anyone cared, you could say I was full of manure. But I'm not and it isn't. Orangemarlin 01:59, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Some guidance

As Wikipedia:Categorization#Some general guidelines says,

Categories are mainly used to browse through similar articles....
An article will often be in several categories. Restraint should be used as categories become less effective the more there are on any given article.
Articles should not usually be in both a category and its subcategory...

So far so good, but then #3 continues "However there are occasions when this guideline can and should be ignored." So then it's a judgement call, balancing the problem of finding anything in a huge list against having to look through subcategories to get to what you want. The main point is that cats are not there to label articles or their subjects, they're to find related articles. Have fun, ... dave souza, talk 21:26, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I might agree with you save for the fact that people get so angry about it. You must have watched the Noah's Ark editors' hissy fits about the keeping the Category called Mythical Ships. I think you were involved, not as a hissy fit person! Look, maybe I'm not a normal person (I know I'm not), but I love the categories to find out similar articles. Admittedly, it's on better stuff like (I need to know more about volcanoes or something). I'm just saying more editors than not care about this. That's why the original reverts of the categories have caused so much controversy. Orangemarlin 01:47, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I know these are controversial topics, but if we stick to the guidelines and reference everything, it's harder to deny the relevant points. Proponents of (say) Flood geology might argue that their beliefs aren't pseudoscience — but they can't really deny that various referenced sources state that their beliefs are pseudoscience. The problem comes in when people start thinking of categories as labels that assert X is Y because article X is a member of category Y. And then they get all bent out of shape because there's no way to attach a reference to a category inclusion, or to qualify it, or whatever, which is all true but beside the point. To use your example, I think that Category:Mythological ships should probably include noted scholars in the field as well articles on the ships themselves, just to make it clear that membership in the category doesn't mean that the subject is a mythological ship, necessarily. If more people thought about categories this way, as associations between topics meant to aid navigation, I don't think there would be quite so much hostility towards inclusion, or at least it would be easier to focus on the relevant criteria for inclusion — that there is a notable association between flood geology and pseudoscience, not that Flood geology is pseudoscience. It's not the job of Wikipedia (or us as editors) to "prove" that flood geology is pseudoscience, it's our job to point out that various reputable sources say it is.

As for whether the parent Category:Pseudoscience and the sub-category Category:Creation Science should be mentioned, I would like to point out that although having the parent category explicitly listed does add one more mention of the term "Pseudoscience" to the Flood geology article, it also clutters up the category page itself. What's the point of having subcategories at all, if we're just going to list all of these items in the parent anyway? Personally, I like being able to quickly navigate between different articles in Category:Vitalism or Category:Emergy rather than having to go through one big tangled mess. --Sapphic 02:32, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I understand your point--especially about proving. However, I think that 80% of people reading these articles already know what they believe, they're filling in the blanks. Part of the reasons I consider it important on many of these articles is because they are patently pseudo scientific hooey. I know that Flood Geology is part of Creation Science. But I don't consider Creation Science science--it's pseudo science. I don't want anyone to think that Flood Geology has one microgram, no nanogram, of science behind it. Creation Science, as a category, sounds like science. Remember, those of us that take the Scientific Point of View have concluded that Flood Geology is pseudoscience. Those with the Creationist POV think that Flood Geology is a fact. It's those people who are seeking the NPOV (that 20% whose mind is not made up) need to know that it is pseudoscience. I guess that's where I stand on this matter. We can go back and forth on it, but I guess that what has happened is done. I just wish we all could have discussed it and gained some consensus. Orangemarlin 05:41, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'm wondering if one of the subcats needs to be here. Category:Fringe subjects without critical scientific evaluation doesn't really seem to fit. When you consider the history of geology, it was all flood geology to start with. That model was gradually rejected as scientific evidence contradicting it piled up. So yes, this has been subjected to critical scientific evaluation. It's just that it happened a very long time ago, and no evidence has surfaced in the meantime to compel a re-evaluation. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:40, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Deleted material

I removed the following sentence and citations from the article:

However, even this proposed mechanism would produce molecules composed of material from the bone itself.^[2]^[3]

These two articles discuss plant material, do not make any inferences on discounting age of fossils, and don't really seem relevant to disputing fossil ages. We can put it back in when the editor gives some explanation of the logic, and we all agree to said logic. Orangemarlin 17:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The point that I (apparently only vaugely approached) was attempting to show was that the material would most likely still be from the original animal (and at least one of the papers should have also mentioned weevils also. If not, there is one that does). Dan Watts 18:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll review the articles again, but again, the link to the statement in the article seems tenuous at best. I think you're attempting to make a logical leap, which might work, but it's really hard to tell from the articles themselves. It really doesn't matter if it's animal or plant material--I just think you need to write out the point you're trying to make. Orangemarlin 18:54, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The point that I am trying to make is that the connotation of replaced in "...reaction of more resistant molecules with ... proteins and carbohydrates ...and replaced them ...." is that the original atoms are not there. The papers cited differ with that understanding. Dan Watts 21:23, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

This whole paragraph is problematic. There isn't a single creationist source cited - just a BBC news piece which carefully avoids making the sort of claims that the article currently implies, i.e. that soft tissues were preserved, therefore this can't be a 63MYo fossil. SheffieldSteel 21:44, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm trying to help out here, because you are well-aware that I'm never going to be on board with this train of thought. But, Dan Watts is trying to get sources together to make a case, and I'm willing to help out, because it is important to present the "Creationist" case along with the science case.. These are actually interesting articles, but they don't prove the case he's trying to make. I think that it would be best to pull a reference to a creationist website, and see if we can go from there. Orangemarlin 21:59, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I can help with that. Dan Watts 22:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Dan. I've been reviewing the section, and you're not making the case right. You linked to the soft tissue part of the T. Rex article here on wiki. All the sources for that section of that article negate your argument. You need to find better references, and don't try to make a case with a logical chain of unrelated articles. It's not going to work. Get a creationist reference, it will make your case better. Science is not going to help you here right now. Furthermore, your writing needs to be cleaned up. I think I know what you're saying, but it's not clear. Finally, and I'm not beating you up here, I'd like to improve this article by a lot, you need to review how to do wikilinking. You should read Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links), because it gives you lots of information. Look how I put the link to T. Rex soft tissue within the sentence so as you're reading along, you can click on what is interesting. Again, I am strongly in disagreement with your POV, but I do want you edit better. You can make a better article with some catching up on some Wiki things. I hope you understand that I'm trying to help and the criticism is supposed to be helpful. Orangemarlin 22:14, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

SEM data of T. Rex bones show intact mummified collagen fibers. The existence of mummified anything in a T. Rex bone must at least give pause to attributing a 65Myr age to it. Dan Watts 00:04, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

That's just about the shittiest excuse for a reliable source I've ever seen. Find a peer reviewed article and get back to us. --ScienceApologist 00:57, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Careful. No one needs to be uncivil here. OM asked for a Creationist source, and Dan provided one. That paper is actually better-written than almost anything I've seen come out of the Creationist camp (it's still flawed), but it appears to be peer reviewed (by Creationists, of course). If you think that's shitty, you have seen nothing written by "Dr." Baugh. Firsfron of Ronchester 02:06, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Look, everyone here knows I think most of this stuff is hooey. But if Dan wants to present the Creationist side of this story, who am I to care? This article says "Flood geology", meaning the biblical flood, not the Lake Missoula glacial flood. Dan wanted to write a clear argument, using Creationist sourcing, of what constitutes the Creationist POV for the Flood. It just has to be sourced. There are other sections that deal with the SPOV (being the scientific POV). If this article was called "Geology of catastrophic floods of the Holocene", well I'd not want that source either. This is a creationist article. I'll fight hard to keep it balanced, but Dan Watts gets to write his POV in the section that clearly states that it is the Creationist POV. BTW, the article does what I suggested. So Dan, my suggestion is you incorporate that article into the paragraph as we discussed previously. Don't worry, we'll attack it later in the article. :) Orangemarlin 02:18, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

If Dan wants to present material on the talkpage, that's fine. However, such nonsense does not belong in article space. I'll also note that peer review by CRSQ is a misnomer, they engage in rubberstamping. We must use only papers published in a mainstream journals for reliablity reasons. --ScienceApologist 03:01, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

By the way, there is plenty of precedent opposed to your opinion that the article should be divided into two sections: a sympathetic creationist section and a scientific section. This kind of pandering is a basic violation of the spirit and law of WP:WEIGHT as well as being pretty much opposed by WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV/FAQ#Pseudoscience. --ScienceApologist 03:01, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

How about some evidence that CRSQ peer review is rubberstamping? Dan Watts 15:39, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

According to Kevin Henke, this is pretty much all that CRSQ does. --ScienceApologist 22:04, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

<reduce indent>Dan first of all the rules apply to everyone, not just favorites. SA, I don't get your points. This article is called "Flood geology", so it is in essence a Creationist article. No, I don't mean it's "owned" by Creationists, it's just that it's part of the category. If we don't allow the writing of the article to include Creation based references, then honestly the article can't be written. Look at Creation science and other ones like it. The quote that Dan used is no better nor any worse than any other reference from CRSQ. Creationists completely dispute our interpretation of scientific research--we dispute theirs. SA, the science part of this article balances out the pseudoscience. Any reasonable person will be able to see that. Orangemarlin 15:49, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we should use creationist references, only they need to be properly contextualized as such and the errors that they parrot need to be properly exposed. --ScienceApologist 20:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

SA, believe it or not in order to shoot a theory down you actually have to present the theory first, then you can rebut it. As science, Dan's ref sucks, but that's not the point: it states the creationist viewpoint, which is a necessity for this article. I fail to understand your intransigence on this issue. Remember, whether or not we prefer the SPOV, we are bound by Wikipedias policies to be NPOV.

Dan, just get the stuff in the article. Jim62sch 22:40, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Before we can present a theory in Wikipedia we need to have a consistent and verifiable accounting of it. Dan's reference as-is doesn't exactly work as anything more than being patently erroroneous source. We can report it in the article if we are willing to point out its errors. --ScienceApologist 20:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

As long as it is presented as the Creationist view, what's the problem? No matter how unreliable X may be as scientific fact, it's still acceptable as a source for what X has to say on the subject. SheffieldSteel 23:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

We need to have some method for determining what the "creationist view" is and what's only the opinion of some random creationist. Not an easy task. --ScienceApologist 12:11, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

That this isn't an easy task is telling in of itself. By disregarding objective evidence when it doesn't suit (= most of the time), creationism effectively undercuts its own ability to have a coherent narrative. And since agreement with said objective evidence has never been high on the creationist agenda, there is no reliable yardstick for determining "the creationist view". Not that this helps improve the article ... --Plumbago 12:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

<Reduce indent> Well there are several "Creationist" journals and of course there is the anti-Talk.origins sites. If a creationist is going to write dogma in these articles, it better be sourced dogma. That makes it POV, but sourced POV. Orangemarlin 18:05, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

As per usual, sourcing is pretty easy to do, but finding reliable and notable sources is another matter. We can safely say that most creationist source accurately describe the views of the particular creationist who is offering them, but the source may or may not be indicative of creationists in general. What makes one particular view notable and another not notable? Perhaps we should develop a guideline such as Wikipedia:Notability (pseudoscience). --ScienceApologist 22:05, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

From my perspective, we hold our nose for creationist sources. Most of it is secondary stuff. I'd actually be in favor of your suggestion. Orangemarlin 22:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Why not use a well referenced secondary source (also here) that cites creationist sources? ... dave souza, talk 23:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Claimed evidence for a recent global flood

What does any of this have to do with the subject of the article? "Flood geology" is specifically the pseudoscience of trying to reconcile the geological record with the Biblical flood story. The end of the Pleistocene may be recent geologically, but in terms of human history was very long ago. In what sense could the evidence discussed be related to the Biblical flood? TCC (talk) (contribs) 16:31, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, it has nothing to do with it, at least directly.--Filll 16:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Page semi-protection

I've semi-protected this page for a while, as there was a lot of IP disturbance. These edits in particular are problematic, as the sources cited do not seem to verify the information they purport to support. For example, the sentence which reads Evidence that there was a large comet impact event on the Laurentian Ice Sheet covering Northern Canada towards the end of the Ice Age that suddenly triggered a mega super flood of several super floods occurring simultaneously. was supported by this link, which mentions the word "flood" just once, with no mention of superfloods, or of numerous superfloods occurring simultaneously. Other "sources" appear equally problematic, and as this sort of material has been added numerous times recently by various IPs, semi-protection may be in order. Comments? Firsfron of Ronchester 00:03, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. That anon editor has tried to put that impact event thing on here a dozen times or so. There is no evidence of an impact event on the Laurentian Ice Sheet. Orangemarlin 02:20, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

"This is a creationist article"

Orangemarlin reverted my contributions with the rather oblique comment that this is a "creationist" article. I point out that there is no such thing as a "creationist" article on Wikipedia. All articles are representive of the entire encyclopedia and are not owned by any one perspective or ideology. We need to be aware of the policies of verifiability, reliability, and neutrality when reporting on these subjects. As such, my contributions represent a more verifiable, reliable, and neutral (that is, dispassionate) treatment of the subject. If other editors disagree with me, I challenge them to make their cases directly rather than simply reverting. --ScienceApologist 02:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that creationist beliefs should be stated, described, examined critically and dismissed. By pretending they do not exist, we do not do our jobs in writing an encyclopedia.--Filll 03:17, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh absolutely. We do need to present them as they exist. My version does a fairly good job of this, I'd say. I'd like to hear your opinion, however. --ScienceApologist 13:10, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Filll. I'm sorry to see you revert Orangemarlin's excellent edit, Science Aplologist. Please note that his/her version is factually the same as yours, but written in a much more neutral and dispassionate tone. To simply revert the whole of it, and then "challenge" everybody else to not revert you, is... well, not good practice. I have reverted to the Orangemarlin, as the better version. I challenge you not to revert wholesale, but to look carefully at all the formulations and rewrite any particular detail you have a problem with, in a neutral way. Bishonen | talk 09:43, 9 June 2007 (UTC).

Orangemarlin's "excellent edit" was a revert. You seem to be parroting my post above and offer nothing substantial to back up your claim. I'm going to go ahead and revert back because I find this kind of commentary to be a little bit like gaming here. --ScienceApologist 13:10, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

By the way, Orangemarlin's well-justified removal of creationist pandering was kept, so his actual edit I preserved, it was only his revert that I undid (the old-fashioned way). --ScienceApologist 13:17, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure which is best, but we should strive to be clear and succinct but still accurate. I am glad we agree that creationist views should definitely be described as clearly as we can.--Filll 13:27, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

We definitely need to get as many well-referenced and common creationist views out there as possible and provide an immediate comparison to scientific explanations. It is important that the facts are not segregated from the lies and that ducks are called ducks. Weasling away from accurate descriptions of creationist views is unfair to our readers and opposed to the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia, I'd say. --ScienceApologist 13:52, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely correct.--Filll 16:00, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Comment: Regardless of who made the edit originally, as Bishonen has about 30 FAs to her credit, I'd tend to listen to her judgment about edits. SA, I don't know if it was a bad day for you, or what prompted you to make your edit summary so accusatory, but IMO you may wish to apologise and mend fences. KillerChihuahua^?!? 18:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

The article as it is now is a bit unbalanced. It's certainly not NPOV, much of it is written in attack mode. We all agree that flood geology is bullshit, but we might want to not be so blatant about saying so in the article. Jim62sch 22:15, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Bishonen is indeed an excellent editor, but her revert of my edits back to Orangemarlin's revert was neither well-justified nor well-grounded in any editorial rationale. I have commented on her talkpage to that effect. As for this new accomodationist spirit emerging, I'm not sure what to say. I don't think flood geology is "bullshit", I think that it simply contradicts geology. People need to indicate where the version is "attacking". These vague accusations are not going to get us to an agreeable article. --ScienceApologist 12:57, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Scientists

I reverted this statement at the top of article: (Note: The term "scientist" is this article refers to the vast majority of scientists, and excludes "creationist scientists" except where indicated.) I'm not sure why it's there. Scientist is a standard term. Creation scientists should be identified as such, since they don't follow scientific method. Orangemarlin 03:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

This has already been explained to user:rossnixon above, in quite some detail, and he still insists on trying to stick it in where ever he can, claiming no consensus, POV, OR, or just lies. ornis 09:26, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The term "creation science" is inherently misleading, since it implies that it is science, whereas it is reasonably clear from a comparison with the scientific method (and has been found in court) that creation science is not science. The term "creation scientist", then, refers not to a scientist who studies creation, but to a believer in creation science. Any disambiguation, clarifier, or disclaimer should be attached, if anywhere, to use of the term "creation scientist", rather than to the use of the word "scientist" to mean exactly what most people think it means. SheffieldSteel 13:10, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Valid point. So I feel even more justified in removing that thing on the article. Orangemarlin 21:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

We generally don't include disclaimers at the tops of our articles anyway. This has now been reverted by several editors. Firsfron of Ronchester 22:45, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

You're now watching this article aren't you? Because now you know there are really post-KT event dinosaurs that were on the Ark. Orangemarlin 22:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm still wondering, though, how ole Noah got seven pairs of Bruhathkayosaurus and Amphicoelias onto the ark, and how he kept Tyrannosaurus and Spinosaurus from fighting during the trip. They didn't last an hour together in Jurassic Park 3. Firsfron of Ronchester 06:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Some of the omnivorous post K-T event dinosaurs (A. californica californica) around my house really enjoy dry cat food. Maybe Noah just took along huge sacks of Friskies to keep them sated and pacified. TCC (talk) (contribs) 17:40, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

You know, I hadn't thought of that. Dry cat food, you say? As opposed to freshly sliced cat? That's going straight to my grocery list, then! Firsfron of Ronchester 16:45, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

They would no doubt prefer fresh cat, but between the cats and them it's always an open question of who eats whom. So they share the cat food instead and it's more or less amicable. On the ark question, cats breed quickly, but probably not quickly enough to keep Spinosaurus happy for the full diluvial period and still have any left over afterward. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

An example of the problem in the article. Scientists hold that the evidence available is sufficient to conclusively falsify the notion of a recent global flood. "Creation Science" advocates who have PhDs in a related scientific discipline would disagree with this statement that includes them. (There are other similar statements in the article). As this article is about a subset of Creationist belief, it is not unreasonable to add an explanatory note to the top of the article. If the article was not directly Creationism-related (e.g. Dinosaur, there would obviously be no need for any such note. ^ross ^nixon 02:37, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

<undent>Even if you have a phd in science, if you stop using the scientific method, then you are not really acting as a scientist. As an example, if a doctor stops using medicine to treat people, but instead uses discredited voodoo nonsense, then he will likely lose his license and no longer be regarded as or referred to as a doctor. The same is true of creation scientists. They have voluntarily decided to no longer be scientists. The presence of the word "science" does not mean that there is any science involved in their practice, just as Christian scientists or scientologists are not scientists.--Filll 02:50, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

"No true scientist..." huh? Reminds me of the No_true_Scotsman logical fallacy. ^ross ^nixon 02:59, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes. And aubergines remind me of omelettes. That doesn't mean they have anything to do with each other. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Once you decide to use magic, it is no longer science. And that is that. However, there are many other reasons why they are not doing science which I will not bother to list here. I will just point out that even the US Supreme Court agrees with me. So if you have a problem with it, take it up with the US Supreme Court...--Filll 03:05, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Ross Nixon--a Ph.D., even if from MIT or Harvard, does not make you a scientist, although I doubt that they would confer a doctorate on someone in the natural sciences who believes in Creationism, unless said creationist lies in writing dissertation. And you cannot self proclaim that you are a scientist. Science follows the scientific method. Stating that some magic or miracle created a flood, arranged all of the various organisms into fossils, removed the water, created sedimentary rocks, etc. etc. is not science, since it isn't testable. Creation Scientists aren't scientists at all. The editors here are just being sweethearts and allowing the false name to be used, because we all know better. However, if you keep pushing this point, you're going to convince every one of us that you're right. We shouldn't lump non-scientists with scientists, and completely ignore Creationists. Orangemarlin 06:24, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I like ^ross's suggestion of "creation advocates". Given that they're pushing a particular position regardless of the evidence, describing them as "advocates" seems to fit the bill (and it sounds better than "lawyers"; let's not insult them). Failing that, we reword the article to avoid references to people ("scientists", "geologists", "creationists") and instead stick to broader, all-encompassing concepts ("scientific community", "creationism").

On a slightly related note, we should probably consider the small number of published (and publishing) scientists who profess unpublished, creationist ideas (for instance, Nature had a story the other week about an astronomer who also advocated ID). While creationists, sorry, creation advocates, these people are also clearly scientists. So long as the article "personalises" concepts by attaching them to people (c.f. "scientists", "creation advocates/scientists") this group provides something of a conundrum. Anyway, I don't think it affects the article at the moment, but whatever solution we arrive at here, it might be worth ensuring that it covers such people. Cheers, --Plumbago 08:59, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I used to go through these articles and change all the instances of "creation scientists" to "creation science proponents" or "creation science advocates". However, it seems that the problematic terms keep getting reintroduced. --ScienceApologist 12:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

(un-dent)I agree that the most problematic term is "creation scientists". Perhaps a solution would be to simply use whatever combination of "creationist" and "scientist" is most accurate, prefixing either or both with "non-" if necessary to be more exact. So, a believer in creationism or creation science would be referred to just as a "creationist". I see no need to distinguish between the two in most articles. A scientist who believes in creationism would be referred to as a "creationist scientist". We can leave it to the reader to notice or ignore any contradiction in terms implied there. It's not our job to worry about inconsistencies; just to report them. If it becomes necessary in cases such as rossnixon's example above, we could use the term "non-creationist scientists" to make it clear that we were deliberately excluding those who have scientific qualifications but nevertheless believe in creationism. SheffieldSteel 13:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Of the course the problem doesn't start with the term creation scientist. Creation science is not science, either. but there is no other term commonly used to describe the activity/belief. Putting it in quotes or prefacing it with "so-called" would be a rational solution, but both of these are too emotionally loaded to be considered NPOV. (For years, a popular conservative West-German magazine never wrote "German Democratic Republic" without putting it in quotes.) I don't see the term creation scientist as being much worse than the term creation science, and always adding advocate or proponent strikes me as a bit ugly, from a stylistic point of view. This may be the point where we should trust our readers to have a minimum amount of intelligence. --Art Carlson 14:13, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

We definitely should use the terms "creation scientists" and "creation science" because these are the terms in common usage and the terms that this creationist community has chosen for itself. This is no different than the Christian Scientists or the Scientologists. In fact, using this phrase but making clear that everything they stand for in this area is not at all supported by any reputable scientist and is clear nonsense reflects very negatively on them. This makes it clear that their agenda is one of dishonesty and perfidity and deceitfulness. Which fits in with many other parts of the fundamentalist agenda. So I say, leave the name and term alone. It makes them look awful, as it should. They deserve it. --Filll 17:53, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Filll - a scientist who is not "acting as a scientist" is still a scientist. Orangemarlin - "Creation scientists" sometimes do science & sometimes do pseudoscience. In fact this is true of all scientists! It's the same thing as AGW alarmists do - sometimes science, sometimes pseudoscience. They are scientists regardless. The argument here is not whether "Creation science" is scientific or not. The question is whether "scientist" excludes "scientists who are creationists". I have not seen a valid argument that they are not scientists. I propose (again) that an explanatory note be added to the top of the article. It may not be usual Wiki style, but obviates the need to qualify "scientist" wherever it occurs in the article. ^ross ^nixon 02:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Climatologists and meteorologists do NOT claim that a miracle happened to cause Global Warming. Climatologists and meteorologists do not consult a magic book that is 5000 years old to learn what the weather will be like tomorrow. Climatologists and meteorologists publish their work in peer-reviewed respected mainstream scientific journals. Climatologists and meteorologists change their theories to fit the evidence as it is collected, since they use the scientific method. ALL of these are not true of the "creation scientists" when they are working on "creation science". The US courts accept the work that climatologists and meteorologists do as science, but they do not accept the work that "creation scientists" do when they are doing "creation science" as science, but classify it as pseudoscience at best. If you want to argue with the US Supreme Court, be my guest. Just get a few million dollars together and go ahead and mount an attack. However, I choose to side with the Supreme Court and the US National Academy of Sciences and the majority of the Nobel Prize Winners that have weighed in on this topic and over 99.9% of the biologists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and every other major scientific body in the US and many dozens of others in other countries. I think that demonstrates pretty convincingly that I am on the side of what is verifiable and reasonable and what the overwhelming majority of those able to judge this issue with any authority are on. I feel comfortable being on this side. You are welcome to stay on the opposite side, but you are NOT going to be able to claim the term "science" to use to mislead the public about this superstitious nonsense called "creation science". Climatologists and meteorologists do not engage in the kind of scientific fraud that "creation scientists" do when they do "creation science". There is NO basis for calling climate science pseudoscience. --Filll 05:43, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

In 1999, I had to prepare several population reports on the endangered Ramsey Canyon Leopard frog, Rana subaquavocalis, which was dying off because of human encroachment and a bad case of Chytrid fungus. We had to use scientific methods to determine the cause of the population decline; I couldn't just stick in the report "They're dying because God wills it so," or whatever. These are the sorts of things Creation Scientists claim: that there are fossils in the earth because God was Displeased, so He caused a Big Flood. That's not science, and the people who continue to make these claims aren't using science; they're using their faith to "remake" science to fit their faith. Those who subvert science with garbage aren't scientists, and I can give you specific links to many cases where supposed "scientists" received fake degrees from diploma mills/fake universities. Firsfron of Ronchester 02:28, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ross, I'd really like to see some proof of your claim that all scientists do pseudoscience. They may form hypotheses that cannot be experimentally confirmed, they may make inadvertent errors in methodology, they may draw incorrect conclusions from experimental results. None of this is pseudoscience. Yes, some scientists engage in pseudoscience, but if it must be said that they remain scientists afterward it can at least also be said that they are not working as scientists when doing pseudoscience.

I disagree with SheffieldSteel's definition -- a Creation scientist should be someone who actively works in the field; who has drunk the kool-aid as far as his working methods and epistemological approach go and who still presents this work as science. I could easily imagine, say, a research chemist who happened to be a creationist but whose approach to chemistry remains sound, and who doesn't regard creationism as a valid scientific field. It would be unfair to slap this pseudoscientific label on him. I really think that a large majority of creationists (in some sense of the word) don't think of their beliefs are or can be established on a scientific basis.

By that standard, I also don't agree that Creations scientists "sometimes do science & sometimes do pseudoscience". Whenever they're working as Creation scientists per se they cannot be doing science. If they were, it wouldn't be Creation science but real science. TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:38, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Firsfron, You said "Those who subvert science with garbage aren't scientists". But some of them ARE scientists! Scientists are ideally objective and use the scientific method whenever possible. But they are subject to peer pressure, time pressure and funding pressure that unfortunately makes them do pseudoscience at times. It's just the "way things are". Csernica, Creation scientists are usually picking holes in evolutionary and related sciences; but they also do some real science at times. An example is the RATE Project. [13] ^ross ^nixon 11:40, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

RATE is not a scientific project, but at best an inept propaganda attempt. It has not, to my knowledge, produced any peer-reviewed papers, and most of the claimed results have been shot down as either shoddy or plain falsification.[14]--Stephan Schulz 11:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

RATE used the scientific method, I assume was peer-reviewed (not that this means a lot); and sure it has provoked controversy, but so did the Big Bang Theory (in fact this is still controversial). But that is a side issue.

[15]

^ross

^nixon

12:03, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ross, just because a creationist claims to be doing science does not mean that he IS doing science. What do other scientists say? What do the courts say? If you believe creationists, you are just gullible and deluded.--Filll 15:17, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Careful, Filll. I'd prefer to not get into the tar-pit of attack-ish language. Calling another editor deluded, no matter what the reason, doesn't seem entirely appropriate. I suppose, however, that this is partly my fault, as I've allowed, even assisted, this conversation to wander considerably from its original purpose. Please refrain from calling other editors deluded, as I don't think it will help anything, and only antagonize an otherwise good editor. Firsfron of Ronchester 16:41, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok let me rephrase that to make it more gentle. If you believe creationists, you are just gullible and HAVE BEEN DELUDED. And what evidence do we have that we are dealing with a good editor? I suppose we can AGF, however, I see some contrary evidence, frankly.--Filll 16:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

User does have some good edits, for the record. Thank you for rewording your statement. The last thing we need is an upset editor who feels he's been attacked and harassed for his religious beliefs. Firsfron of Ronchester 17:07, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ross!

I appreciate your passionate defense of your beliefs and these fellows. However, the RATE folks have been widely discredited. For example, this site and many others refute their conclusions, point by point. The only people who take RATE seriously are creationists. RATE's propaganda, as Stephan correctly calls it above, is clearly visible on the top of the web-site, where it says "ICR... revealing the Truth of Creation." No real scientist begins his or her research trying to "reveal the Truth of Creation" or "prove" the Bible right. If you begin your research hoping to prove your faith right, and you're a true believer, it's not at all surprising that you'd find plenty of evidence backing up your beliefs. That's not science, Ross; I am sorry, though. Firsfron of Ronchester 12:16, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, according to Ross's link, the creation scientists really are being scientific; in fact, the only difference between them and those other scientists is that they also consider the possibility that the world was created by a supernatural entity that we cannot know ~~except through Bible study~~. They go so far as to say that their hypothesis fits the available data better than all those conventional Big bang / evolution / cosmology / geology hypotheses.

This leads right back to the use, and meaning, of the terms "pseudoscience" and "faith". The presentation of something as science, when it is not scientific, is as good a definition of pseudoscience as I've seen. And the essence of faith is refusing to let one's beliefs be changed by available evidence, or its lack. Given that there is no dispute that it is presented as science, the only remaining question is, are creation scientists being truly scientific in their work, or are they acting in faith? Does the data fit their hypothesis better than everyone else's, or are they selecting their data to match their "conclusions"? Is creation science really science, and evolution really a religion, or could it be the other way around?

This discussion isn't getting the baby washed. If there's to be a disclaimer, it needs to apply to the term "creation scientist" and make it clear that it is not used to imply a scientist who studies creation, but a believer in creation science. There has not been, nor does there need to be, any implication that a "creation scientist" is by definition not a scientist. To "not imply" and to "imply not" are different. SheffieldSteel 13:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

<unindent> A similar discussion came up at Talk:Creationism#Clarification of the clarification and the question of creation science was particularly addressed by the McLean v. Arkansas Decision by U.S. District Court Judge William R. Overton in January 1982, in which creation science proponents are referred to as creationists, as for example "The creationist organizations consider the introduction of creation science into the public schools part of their ministry." [16] There could be merit in having a statement at the top of article: (Note: The term "scientist" is this article refers to those who follow the scientific method, proponents of "creationist science" are described as "creationists".). .... dave souza, talk 13:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

My feeling is that disclaimers should be avoided like ebola. However if it's absolutely necessary a statement like that, could perhaps be worked into the introduction. "It should be noted that the term 'creation scientist' is a misnomer, as they eschew the scientific method, and frequently lack credible qualifications. Hereafter, creation scientists will be referred to as creationists. This is in line with the US District court ruling bla bla bla..." Or something like that.ornis 14:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I like Dave's solution, removing the word "creation scientist" in favor of "creationist", as then there may be less conflict because we are avoiding a word that obviously carries confusing connotations. Like 'Ornis, I also would prefer to see no disclaimer, and think something like what he suggests could be worked into the prose. Firsfron of Ronchester 16:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Creationist certainly resolves the inherent oxymoron of "creation scientist".

Plumbago brings up an interesting point about "an astronomer who also advocated ID". That's precisely the thing that creationists and IDists (ok, redundant) cling to: "Well he's an astronomer, so he must be a scientist, and, yaddda-yadda-yadda...". Being a "scientist" hardly makes the guy an expert on biology, it just means he studied a specific science. What's next, a biologist providing a theory for Tired light? ;) Jim62sch 20:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The solution seems a good one, as it qualifies what is meant by "creationism" well enough to not impugn creationists who are not literalists. However, I take issue with SheffieldSteel's conclusion over Ross' link. If the valid sciences had seen any evidence of supernatural activity they'd have to take it into account and make it part of the scientific framework. This is, as even this page concedes, exactly what was done when geology was starting out as a scientific discipline. What it does not say is that it was abandoned because it became increasingly difficult to support given the physical evidence, not merely because of a new philosophical underpinning.

The "creation scientist" wants to categorize anything poorly understood as "God did it" with no evidence in particular that it's the right explanation. This is exactly what they do regardless of what that page says. It also includes a number critiques of the scientific community. Error in the sciences is not difficult to find; scientists are human and make mistakes, and can also be blinded by their own assumptions. But the claim that the scientific method is not always self-correcting blows up in the author's face, since every single example he gives was eventually corrected! What he meant was that it doesn't always correct itself as quickly as we'd like. That's true, but it doesn't invalidate the entire method or those who do their best to use it. And of course, the invocation of Gödel's incompleteness theorems is a bright red flag. (They patently don't apply. Two preconditions of these theorems are that the system under consideration must be sufficiently powerful to represent itself, and that it is a formal system. The first is not at all clear and is probably false; the second is certainly false.)

Can a "creation scientist" be a real scientist? Maybe, if he also works in areas where he doesn't use a "God of the gaps" to fill in areas he doesn't understand. But if he does not, or where he works as a "creation scientist" per se -- then no, he is either not a scientist at all or he is not working as one. I suppose in the latter case we must not say he isn't a scientist if we regard "scientist" as an irrevocable title conferred by an academic degree and not a practitioner of a particular method. It's analogous to an MD who abandons his medical practice in favor of chiropractic or homeopathy.

With regard to Jim62sch immediately preceding, I'd like to point out that a theist may well believe in ID in a broad sense, while understanding it to be a theological opinion and not scientific. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

<Reduce indent>It is hard to keep up with these conversations. The standard that establishes what makes a scientist is complex, but I guess it fits back with the old "if it looks like duck, walks like a duck and quacks, it must be a duck." (Apologies for not getting that completely right.) A scientist, to me, should have a graduate degree in a natural science (physics, biology, chemistry or related disciplines) from a respected university anywhere in the world. They should engage in research in one of those scientific fields and publish in peer-reviewed journals. I am a scientist by those standards (although I have a grand total of two publications, separated by 10 years, and the last one 10 years ago, and the last time I did research of any type was 20 years ago). I won't grant the moniker of scientist to someone who claims that he is a scientists, although there are a great number of people who understand science and the scientific method, and only accept results that arise out of the scientific method. For example, most physicians aren't scientists by my definition, but they will only practice using techniques tested and established by research using valid scientific methodology. Homeopathy another junk pseudoscience along with Creation science does not utilize scientific methods to establish a hypothesis and to test that hypothesis. In both cases they assume the results and find the data to confirm their results. Well, I could prove that the earth is flat by utilizing a certain amount of data. I can lay a level on a 10 meters of ground, and find that it is essentially flat. But I'm utilizing just a piece of the totality of data to confirm my hypothesis. I am all right with the fact that creationists have faith in what they believe. That is perfectly acceptable to me intellectually. But it is an insult to that faith to try to prove what is unprovable, or to test what is untestable. It can't happen. Orangemarlin 21:53, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Comparison with geology -

Local floods do not explain similar names, people, and other details found in the flood stories.

The edit is Local floods do not explain similar names, people, and other details found in the flood stories.

20:09, 26 June 2007 Art Carlson (Talk | contribs) (56,002 bytes) (Undid revision 140803746 by Yqbd (talk) unsourced)

20:04, 26 June 2007 Yqbd (Talk | contribs) (56,099 bytes) (→Comparison with geology - Local floods do not explain similar names, people, and other details found in the flood stories.)

Believers in Flood Geology also point out that flood stories can be found in many cultures, places and religions, not just in the Bible; this, they suggest, is evidence of an actual event in the historic past. Anthropologists generally reject this view and highlight the fact that much of the human population lives near water sources such as rivers and coasts, where unusually severe floods can be expected to occur occasionally and will be recorded in tribal mythology. Some commentators have suggested that a massive local flood in the Black Sea area, or possibly even the huge rise in sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age, may be responsible for the preponderance of the flood myths in the Near East and across the world. Local floods do not explain similar names, people, and other details found in the flood stories.

The Same Source

The source for the edit is the same source used for the rest of the paragraph.

I believe "Believers in Flood Geology" suggest flood stories is evidence of an actual event in the historic past not just because the flood stories have a flood. The flood stories have other similar details like names, people, number of people. "Anthropologists" and "commentators" respond to the event of a flood by saying local floods happen. I do not see an explanation about the other details in flood stories from "anthropologists" and "commentators". Therefore, Local floods do not explain similar names, people, and other details found in the flood stories. --Yqbd 20:41, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

No, it's still unsourced and as POV as all get out. I reverted. Jim62sch 21:02, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

What is the source for the rest of the paragraph? --Yqbd 21:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

"Believers in Flood Geology" know about local floods and point out flood stories because of the details. --Yqbd 21:24, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

What? Jim62sch 22:10, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Objections

Comparison with geology

Believers in Flood Geology also point out that flood stories with similar details can be found in many cultures, places and religions, not just in the Bible; this, they s The edit is Believers in Flood Geology also point out that flood stories with similar details can be found in many cultures, places and religions, not just in the Bible; this, they suggest, is evidence of an actual event in the historic past because local floods would not explain the similarities in the flood stories.

(cur) (last) 21:01, 26 June 2007 Jim62sch (Talk | contribs) (56,002 bytes) (rv to last good edit by Art) (cur) (last) 20:51, 26 June 2007 Yqbd (Talk | contribs) (56,104 bytes) (→Comparison with geology - because local floods would not explain the similarities in the flood stories.)

Believers in Flood Geology also point out that flood stories with similar details can be found in many cultures, places and religions, not just in the Bible; this, they suggest, is evidence of an actual event in the historic past because local floods would not explain the similarities in the flood stories. Anthropologists generally reject this view and highlight the fact that much of the human population lives near water sources such as rivers and coasts, where unusually severe floods can be expected to occur occasionally and will be recorded in tribal mythology. Some commentators have suggested that a massive local flood in the Black Sea area, or possibly even the huge rise in sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age, may be responsible for the preponderance of the flood myths in the Near East and across the world.

An NPOV version of the text you want to insert would be: Believers in Flood Geology also claim that flood stories with similar details can be found in many cultures, places and religions.... Deciding on whether or not a feature of a story is a "similarity" is a judgment call. And it still needs to be sourced. TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

What are you saying they are claiming: with similar details, or flood stories with similar details can be found in many cultures, places and religions? There are similarities in the flood stories. Please, read the Wikipedia article flood stories and the references at the article. --Yqbd 15:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

There are necessarily similarities in all flood stories. They all involve a flood. Beyond that, the only strikingly similar story I know of is the Ziusudra/Utnapishtim/Atrahasis one from Mesopotamia. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Accurate and NPOV Edit

The source of the edit is Flood stories and the same source of Believers in Flood Geology also point out. The edit also better explains why they suggest flood stories with similar details are "evidence of an actual event in the historic past". --Yqbd 21:18, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Provide the source so it can be proven -- that is your job, not mine or anyone else's. And no, the edit explains nothing. Jim62sch 22:13, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Flood stories is the source for similar details in the flood stories. There are also external links in flood stories if you want more detail. For example, Parallels Parallels between versions of the Ancient Near East flood myths. --Yqbd 22:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you know why Believers in Flood Geology also point out flood stories besides because they all have a flood? What is wrong with because they believe local floods would not explain the similarities in the flood stories. --Yqbd 22:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

What is POV about adding the reason why Believers in Flood Geology also point out flood stories? --Yqbd 22:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Anthropologists generally reject this view and highlight the fact that much of the human population lives near water sources such as rivers and coasts, where unusually severe floods can be expected to occur occasionally and will be recorded in tribal mythology. What is the source for anthropologists highlighting that "that much of the human population lives near water sources such as rivers and coasts"? --Yqbd 22:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

What is the source for Believers in Flood Geology also point out flood stories? The same source would show the reason why Believers in Flood Geology also point out flood stories which would be because they believe local floods would not explain the similarities in the flood stories. --Yqbd 22:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

This, "because local floods would not explain the similarities in the flood stories", is a supposition without basis. It is also flawed as various flood stories have many differences as well. And, it's unsourced. Jim62sch 10:17, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Please, read the context of "because local floods would not explain the similarities in the flood stories" as it is preceded by "they suggest" and "evidence of an actual event in the historic past". You probably don't believe flood stories is "evidence of an actual event in the historic past", but that is what "they suggest" "because local floods would not explain the similarities in the flood stories". We don't need your POV in the paragraph because you think it is flawed because of your flawed reasoning. We know there a differences in the stories. We are making it clearer to the reader why flood stories are brought up which is because of the similar details! --Yqbd 14:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you actually disputing this fact, "that much of the human population lives near water sources such as rivers and coasts"? I can't think of one ancient civilization that grew and flourished that was not located at a water source. Jim62sch 10:17, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, the answer is no to Are you actually disputing this fact, "that much of the human population lives near water sources such as rivers and coasts"? --Yqbd 14:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Sources

Feel free to add these to the article for me. --Yqbd 22:45, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Flood stories
http://nwcreation.net/noahlegends.html
http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/EarthSciences16.html#wp1031450
Parallels Parallels between versions of the Ancient Near East flood myths.

The following is from http://nwcreation.net/noahlegends.html

“... there are many descriptions of the remarkable event [the Genesis Flood]. Some of these have come from Greek historians, some from the Babylonian records; others from the cuneiform tablets, and still others from the mythology and traditions of different nations, so that we may say that no event has occurred either in ancient or modern times about which there is better evidence or more numerous records, than this very one which is so beautifully but briefly described in the sacred Scriptures. It is one of the events which seems to be familiar to the most distant nations—in Australia, in India, in China, in Scandinavia, and in the various parts of America. It is true that many look upon the story as it is repeated in these distant regions, as either referring to local floods, or as the result of contact with civilized people, who have brought it from historic countries, and yet the similarity of the story is such as to make even this explanation unsatisfactory.” Stephen D. Peet, “The Story of the Deluge,” American Antiquarian, Vol. 27, No. 4, July–August 1905, p. 203.

Feel free to add them yourself, if you think they belong. Orangemarlin 18:48, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Weasel words and citations needed

I tagged the section with a weasel words tag (for using the words "some" and "most" here and there), and tagged specific sentences and phrases requiring citations. Please do not remove these tags; either find proper citations or delete the sentences. -Amatulic 04:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Idiots like amatulic need to be banned. WP:CIVILITY will not work on them. --76.214.201.28 07:04, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of effectiveness or veractiy, calling another editor an idiot is in violation of Wikipedia policy (WP:CIVILITY). If you want to play in this sandbox, abide by the rules. --Art Carlson 09:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Interesting language ("idiots") for someone touting civility. Nothing I wrote was uncivil, just pointed and factual. Weasel words should be eliminated, and questionable claims should be tagged until citations are provided, or deleted. -Amatulic 21:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Bad behavior

I'm pretty disgusted with the treatment of an annonymous user by users I have normally respected on this page. I told a geologist friend and colleague about this page today and she went in and made a number of good faith edits to this article under the CCC IP. She told me this afternoon that she had to report one editor for 3RR and was generally finding it impossible to edit since most of her edits were reverted almost immediately.

Now, I realize that there is a close-nit Wikipedia cultural inertia at work here, but I expected more good faith consideration to be extended then what I saw in the article. The quality of her contributions were described by some as vandalism which seemed to me to be the height of absurdity. Seems to me that I made the right decision in leaving this community.

She asked me to make an edit to the section she found particularly damaging (regarding the preponderance of global flood stories) because she was afraid that touching the section would violate 3RR. Now I realize that I'm acting as her meat puppet in this case, but I hope to be extended some forgiveness in light of the shoddy treatment this user received. I was shocked to see what kind of prose was considered better than hers by many of the Wikipedians.

This group should be ashamed of themselves.

ScienceApologist 20:58, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Josh. 216.125.49.252 21:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Josh, you are hardly the person to give lectures -- you've done more than your fair share of treating people uncivily, although I don't feel your anonymous friend was treated uncivily. You know as well as I do that changes to controversial articles, especially changes that essentially constitute a complete rewrite, are probably going to being reverted unless they are brought up on the talk page first. Now, do I think a bit more thought could have gone into some of the reverts -- yes; some of what you're friend added was OK, some of it quite questionable.

Seems to me maybe you were playing this as a test, yes? Well, if you're leaving, be done with it. Ta-ta. Jim62sch 21:11, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you should be giving lectures on civility either, Jim. That's a really pleasant send-off you're giving too. Hope to see you round. --ScienceApologist 21:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Nowhere did I give a lecture on civility; if you're seeing one in what I wrote, perhaps you might want to reread my comments. Jim62sch 21:06, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but the anon user in question (who perhaps simply came at an awkward time), began by removing some freshly-added (check the timestamps!) references [17]. After attempting the same sort of thing a few more times, she then redirected the page to creationism [18]. Now editors had probably had enough of this, because although the edits [19] may have had some merit, it was difficult to see this as anything but POV-pushing. I grant that this article has major problems, but this friend of yours clearly got off on the wrong foot. For one thing, she did not deign to provide a single edit summary (which was my first warning). Building some consensus is important on Wikipedia, and it's difficult to take anyone's edit seriously when they fit the MO of a vandal so perfectly. Perhaps that was part of the test you have orchestrated? Silly rabbit 21:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

There was no "test" orchestrated and I was trying to make no point. I told a friend about my leaving Wikipedia and this article happened to come up in the conversation. She teaches introductory geology classes and was intrigued that such an article existed. As far as I'm concerned the group monitering these controversial pages simply decided that they could go ahead and bite away. It's really sad to see that my fellow Wikipedians seem to be more committed to the cultural processes of Wikipedia then perhaps improving the content of the encyclopedia. My opinion, of course, but you'll forgive me if I express my distaste for this bullshit. --ScienceApologist 21:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Enough with the self-righteous bit. Enough. Jim62sch 21:03, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm. I suppose I should respond too. I concur with Silly rabbit about the nature of the edits and the lack of edit summaries. I intervened when I saw what appeared to be rather obvious, and unexplained, anti-creationist POV-pushing, which looked all the world to me like the vandalism we routinely get here. I probably should have just dropped it and let the anon burn out, but their editing was rather persistent, and only latterly explained to any degree at all (mostly after I, eventually, dropped out). So, mea culpa, I should have been more careful in my reverting. But I agree with Jim62sch about the use of the talk page. One could write-off the lack of talk page commentary as the hallmark of a new user (especially an anon), but hauling me off to WP:3RR doesn't strike me as the mark of someone new to things here. Anyway, my apologies if I've caused disruption here. That sincerely wasn't my intention. --Plumbago 21:34, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

In our conversation yesterday, I explained to her that I was blocked for 3RR, so she was faimiliar with that policy anyway. At any rate she has said that she simply will not be editing Wikipedia anymore and has decided to tell her students that they should avoid it too. (Probably tilting at windmills, in my opinion, but seems to be the way academia has been leaning lately.)

I appreciate your apology, Plumbago.

I also offer my apologies to this project: it seems to be going in a very different direction that cannot accomodate my visions of how an encyclopedia that anyone can edit should be run.

--ScienceApologist 21:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Josh, I want to say I appreciate what you did for the project when you were more active in it. For a bit less of what may seem to a new user to be something of a "free-for-all", perhaps your expert friend would also have a look at www.citizendium.org, which has no article at all on flood geology thus far, and where people introduce themselves to one another by [presumably] their real name. Here in WP, any handle will do of course, but it does take time for participants to make associations with a username, particularly in a controversial topic such as this. If the anon IP is genuinely an expert in this area, it seems to me it would be appropriate for that user to show evidence of this expertise, in whatever way she may wish to do so. I know you already know this, but I should actually state it because it appears relevant to the present situation and necessary to inform this new participant. Ordinarily expertise is shown around WP, without needing to divulge one's personal identity, by pointing out explanations for issues that participants are having difficulty with and by pointing participants to appropriate cites. If there are errors in an article, such an expert participant can of course be extremely valuable to the project by calling attention to why and how such errors are erroneous, or in cases where the existing state of part or all of an article is so far off-base to be of no practical value, can at least offer an appropriate explanation of what is a correct recitation or synopsis of what the reliable sources say about the issue. But I think it's somewhat unrealistic to expect participants in a controversial article, or any article, to merely assume as a matter of course that an anon user is somehow "doing the right thing", whatever the "right thing" may be said to be.

So, I'd want to welcome the anon IP user to WP, and thank her for her good intentions, as well as look forward to reading more about what she may have in mind for the article and/or why some of the approaches in the article merit a particular kind of improvement. Good regards to you. ... Kenosis 22:23, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the anon user should have been 3RR blocked before she begain making constructive explained edits. Seems all OK now. As an aside, how should such a project be run? Don't answer here, but I'd be interested in reading your views on one of the Wikipedia:Village pump pages. -Amatulic 21:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Josh missed this I guess: If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed by others, do not submit it. Enough with the games and the whining. Jim62sch 21:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

SA. I'm sorry to see what you're writing, but first of all, the anonymous editor "acted" like a vandal. The redirect to Creation Science not only does not look like what a Wiki-amateur would do, but was also completely unacceptable. We don't necessarily treat anonymous IP editors badly, but when they come in, do some massive edits without summaries, it looks like a vandal. I have seen you in action to know that your tolerance of anonymous vandals to be at the rest of our levels...pretty intolerant. So spare us your lecturing of what we've done or not done. The anonymous editor acted in every way like a vandal, but not one of the childish ones, but like one that knows what they're doing. You are totally unfair to the editors who have worked to make this a quality article, and overly protective of someone who tested all of our patience, and who deserve the reaction that was given.Orangemarlin 22:22, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The more I look at the edits by SA and his anon friend, the more concerned I am that the creationists arguments have been pretty much wiped out and replaced by a geology lesson in several areas. While I have no problem with trying to bring science to bear to show the opposite side of what the creationists believe, we have to state the creationists opinions first and foremost, as this is an article about a belief system. Right now, we're really not at NPOV, we're at SPOV. The article needs to be balanced out. Jim62sch 10:56, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Being lectured by SA on proper etiquette on WP? Well, I hardly know what to say to that, given what I have observed over the months. I realize that it is tempting to firebomb creationist views away, and not even include them at all in WP, even in articles about creationist views. However, we should at least describe what those views are and provide links and references to them so the interested reader can understand the players and the playing field. This reminds me of previous interactions with SA, where his aggressive tendencies seemed to result in way over the line editing and edit warring and assorted insults and charges etc.--Filll 11:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad I'm not the only person who caught the irony, Filll.

OM, very nice job on the article! Jim62sch 21:03, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

^ Knight, Will. "Asian tsunami seabed pictured with sonar." New Scientist. February 10, 2005.
^ Gupta, N.S. Briggs, D.E.G., Collinson, M.E., Evershed, R.P., Michels, R., & Pancost, R.D. (2007). "Molecular preservation of plant and insect cuticles from the Oligocene Enspel Formation, Germany: Evidence against derivation of aliphatic polymer from sediment". Organic Geochemistry. 38: 404–418. doi:10.1016/j.orggeochem.2006.06.012. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^ Gupta, N. S. Collinson, M.E., Briggs, D.E.G., Evershed, R.P., & Pancost, R.D. (2006). "Reinvestigation of the occurrence of cutan in plants: implications for the leaf fossil record". Paleobiology. 32 (3): 432–449. DOI: 10.1666/05038.1.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[1] Knight, Will. "Asian tsunami seabed pictured with sonar." New Scientist. February 10, 2005.

[2] Gupta, N.S. Briggs, D.E.G., Collinson, M.E., Evershed, R.P., Michels, R., & Pancost, R.D. (2007). "Molecular preservation of plant and insect cuticles from the Oligocene Enspel Formation, Germany: Evidence against derivation of aliphatic polymer from sediment". Organic Geochemistry. 38: 404–418. doi:10.1016/j.orggeochem.2006.06.012. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

[3] Gupta, N. S. Collinson, M.E., Briggs, D.E.G., Evershed, R.P., & Pancost, R.D. (2006). "Reinvestigation of the occurrence of cutan in plants: implications for the leaf fossil record". Paleobiology. 32 (3): 432–449. DOI: 10.1666/05038.1.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

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