Re: Creationism is a falsified scientific theory

in article 1156432279.921491.54060@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Richard
Forrest at richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 8/24/06 8:11 AM:

George Evans wrote:

in article 1156323141.582046.166550@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Richard
Forrest at richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 8/23/06 1:52 AM:

George Evans wrote:

My model involves the impact of a number of massive solar system bodies
over a period of approximately half a year.

And your evidence for such impacts is.....?

Craters interspersed in the same formations that fossils are buried in.
Evidence, Richard.

The energy of the impacts, dissipated by high speed tidal action, direct
excavation, and oscillations induced in the motion of the earth would be
the cause of geological reshaping.

And the evidence that bolide impacts leads to orogeny is ......?

Have you heard the one about Bermuda being the rebound peak of a huge crater
of the basically nestled into the Carolina dip of the east coast of the US.
Not my idea. Look at a globe. The guy thinks the impact could be what created
the Appalachian ridge.

Well, that's not an interpretation accepted by many geologists. The Appalacian
ridge is part of an ancient mountain chain, part of which is now the Scottish
Highlands, and was formed when continental plates collided many hundreds of
millions of years ago as part of the process of forming the supercontinent of
Pangea. Pangea subsequently broke up, and the different parts of the mountain
chain ended up on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

The way in which evidence was used to unravel of this series of events is one
of the standard case studies in most geology courses, incidentally.

Where did you say you studied geology?

When did I say I stopped? This idea is something I came across while pocking
around the internet looking for information about impact craters. The guy
was not a creationist, so that should put your mind at ease. He put the
impact at the "correct" geological age, as do I. I have no trouble with the
methods of geological interpretation such a superposition. I think that
geologist have done a good job of organizing the order of events. And since
when does it matter if many geologists accept an idea?

Next, some team has looked at gasses trapped in Xenon in sand grains in one
of the upper sandstone formations in the western states. It turns out the
sand came from the Appalachians, across the Mississippi and then up and over
the continental divide.

And how do you think this supports your theory of bolide impact contributing
to orogeny? You *do* know what orogeny means, I suppose?

Are you trying to say there isn't enough energy in an asteroid impact to
wrinkle a plate? If the Bermuda feature is an impact crater it would be
close to a thousand miles across. Is that enough energy?

The rain is merely the first effect caused by dust rising into the upper
atmosphere.

The tectonic motion we see in plates is a remnant of more rapid motion in
the period shortly after the flood as the earth absorbed the excess energy
in the form of massive continental collisions and uplifts.

I suggest that you calculate the kinetic energy of a tectonic plate moving
quickly enough to raise the Himalayan plateau, which has an area of about a
million square kilometers, five kilometers into the air.

Then explain why the earth has not be vapourised.

Let me guess. The amount of kinetic energy would be about to the energy
necessary to raise the Himalayan plateau 5 miles, and the reason the earth
didn't vaporize is BECAUSE the Himalayan plateau raised 5 miles instead.

How do you do that much work without releasing as heat the kinetic energy of
the motion of the plate?

Another basis law of physics bites the dust!

Not so fast. There are other forms of energy besides heat. Fortunately the
crust is on the surface where energy can be dissipated as potential energy
and deformation. As the plateau rises energy is "sucked" up in huge
quantities. Most heat will be generated in the mid and lower level where
deformation is not as available.

But what you're really worried about is frictional heating as the plate moves
over the asthenosphere and I don't have the foggiest idea how to determine
that.

I've no worries at all about frictional heating. That's why I referred to
kinetic energy. For a continetal plate the size of India to move across the
surface of the earth at speeds great enough to raise the Himalayan plateau in
a few decades requires inconceivably vast and rapid energy input.

I'm glad we're dropping friction. I keep hoping that the added heat in the
slip zone will completely liquefy the material. Then friction would be low.

The geology of the Himalayan Massif tells us that it was raised over a period
of about 15 million years. You are proposing a rate 100,000 times faster. As
this energy derives from the relative motion of the tectonic plates which form
that part of Asia and India, you need a speed of motion of the Indian plate
relative to the Asian plate 100,000 times faster.

We're talking about 100,000 times the power output, so I think the square
root would be in order for speed. So that means about 300 times as fast.

Let's ignore for now the fact that plates *can't* move that quickly - the
physical properties of the earth won't allow it - just consider the energy
involved. The kinetic energy of a moving object is proportional to the square
of the velocity, which means that the energy input required to move the Indian
plate so quickly would be 10,000,000,000 greater than that which accounts for
the measured movement of that plate today (and which is, incidentally,
entirely consistent with the geological timing of events).

Nope. You're trying to double up on me. You better leave the physics to me.
To get the plateau to lift in 100,000th the time you need to speed the
plates up by 300 times. Nice try though at leveraging the laws of physics in
your direction. Very clever.

The energy input from moving plates drives phenomena such as earthquakes and
volcanos, and what you propose needs to produce and dissipate through
earthquakes and volcanos 10,000,000,000 and times as much energy.

Now you're compounding the confusion. First, the energy input of plate
*collisions* drives those phenomena. There is very little of that kind of
activity out in the middle of plates which are *moving* just as fast as the
edges, I hope.

Second, I have to create and dissipate the same energy as you do. I just
have to do it faster, meaning more power and roughly 300 time the speed.

Can you imagine the effects of 10,000,000,000 times as much volcanic activity
as exists today?

No, but I can, just barely, get my mind around plates moving 300 times as
fast causing it all to happen in a few decade or a few century. BTW, I
wanted to remind you of an observation I shared earlier about the Hawaiian
Island chain. If you imagine a plate moving over a stationary hot spot, the
chain, which extends a surprising distance to the west under water, gives
the impression that the plate is slowing down and has nearing come to a
stand still.

Second, the peak cataclysmic upheavals occurred during the five of six
month of water level recession. Through most of that all potential
recorders of history were floating, isolated from any seismic activity. But
fortunately this seems to be nicely recorded in the geological record.

It hasn't. What the geological record shows is many events over a very, very
long period of time. Even the early geologists who looked at the rocks
without the benefit of radiometric dating methods concluded that the earth
was very ancient - hundreds of millions of years at least - based on
observations of existing rates of sedimentation.

Why can't you just expand your thinking a little. Look at that last phrase
you wrote and tell me what that says about compare their model with mine. Get
back to me when you figure it out.

It says that early geologists made estimates for the age of the earth based on
observations of existing rates of sedimentation.

Figure it out.

What they *didn't* do is cherry pick the data, make invalid and inapt
analogies, and ignore evidence which contradicted a priori assumptions of the
age of the earth. They made a genuine attempt to estimate the age of the earth
based on the evidence available.

And why, exactly, is that the best way to do geology? And more precisely,
what would "existing rates of sedimentation" have to do with my model?

The only thing I can offer to explain what happened in these guys minds is
that they weren't envisioning such a cataclysmic flood event. If someone had
gone to them with what we know now about impacts interspersed with dead
animals, I think they wouldn't have dropped a fast paced geology, so quickly
at least.

As did this one. When I was a little boy I learned about Noah and the
Flood.

That is not evidence.

Yes it is evidence!

No, it's a story in a book. It is not evidence.

You need to get a grasp on the basics of science.

Do you complain when an archaeologist uses contemporaneous documents as
evidence of volcano timing? When an astronomer uses an historic reference to
a bright star appearing in the vicinity of the Crab Nebula and correlates it
to measurements of the rate of nebular expansion, do you stand up and
holler?

George Evans

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