3rd Creationist Cartoon change.

Brian Tweed: 2nd Response to 1st Question

As before I will be putting his questions and responses, as well as when he quotes me, in Blue, while my replies will be in Bold Green.

Brian,

Looking at the response I had already started, I found I’ve almost completed it, but I also found a pattern.  What I found is you were almost never giving explanations for your claims.  Instead you answer my questions with statements that seem to be based purely in opinion with NO facts to back up what you have stated. 

My current responses below have “Brian2” directly after the section I am replying to for clarity of new verses old entries to you.

Hi SP
Since you have stated on your twitter account that you do not think I answered the question “Does the fossil record match claims of a Noachian Flood” and then added “I don't think he answered the ?” I will attempt to respond to both your additional questions and your accusations in this post.

First of all, I thought that it was a bit underhand to post your ‘accusation’ that I had not answered your ‘question’ in your twitter post, before you replied on Facebook. You know that I did not use twiiter, and therefore your accusation of me trying to sidestep your question was made ‘public’ even before you had informed me. The fact that you have chosen to ‘selectively publish’ our conversation on a blog is an interesting development, as this seems to indicate that you are more interested in having a ‘public discussion’ than you are interested in having a meaningful exchange of views. I also find it interesting that even though I am willing to stand behind my statements as my personal opinion, you would rather hide behind your anonymous pseudonym and avoid so many of my questions, whilst you accuse me of not answering yours.

As you can no doubt pick up from my statement above, I am not too happy with your actions, but as I have now made public a much fuller account of our discussion on my own blog, I will leave anyone that is interested in reading it, to get a better feel for how are discussion has ‘progressed’ over the 6 months since you suggested we have a discussion.

All this said, I will now try to respond once again to your posts, though I do not feel that you have put the same amount of time or effort into replying to my posts.

Brian2: The above three paragraphs after your introduction paragraph will be quickly addressed.  First, the posting of your reply and my response to my first question occurred in the order of Blog, Twitter, & Facebook all within an hour of each other.  It was not my intent to selectively publish content from our conversation on my blog, but it was of course (as the public can see from our conversations on March 25 and May 20) for it to be easier to track  the treads of thought as Facebook posts are singular in nature and not an open forum.  I’ve already discussed the reasons for having a Nome de Plume (being a public school teacher) and will address questions you feel I’ve avoided, but isn’t this why we agreed to restart the conversation with one question to each other?  I’m sorry you feel like I’ve not put the “…same amount of time or effort into replying…” but I would have hoped you would have pressed those points at the time they were made.  I will try to address them now.

As I stated in my reply to your twitter post, I do not think that you asked the question as succinctly on Facebook as you did in your ‘tweet’ If you had really asked me “Does the fossil record match claims of a Noachian Flood” I would have replied in a much different way than I did. As I do not believe that there is a clear ‘fossil record’ but it is actually closer to the truth to say that there are various ‘interpretations’ of the fossils that are found.

I would say that the questions that you asked were far more convoluted than the one you suggested on your tweet, and I was not really sure what you were asking. Perhaps that is more down to my ability to understand your question, than it was down to your ability to form your question, so I will attempt to answer it for you now, taking your additional questions and clarifications onboard.

Brian2: I find this explanation confusing to say the least.  I started my first question to you by laying out the Young Earth Creationist position as it is most commonly expressed by various organizations and individuals (such as AIG, Henry Morris, and Kent Hovind) with dates and events. I then mentioned various types of organisms, the list could have been much larger, that should have been found on the Ark according to YEC’s claims the fossil record being formed by the Noachian flood.  My question was then based on the information I listed from YEC claims and the sequence of the fossil record/geological column and was very specific in that I was asking about recent/top layers and living organisms matching while the organisms from older/deeper layers not currently found alive and why there is no mixing of recent organisms throughout the fossil record/geological column.  I asked a very specific question after clarifying the YEC position I feel it is the same question I posted on Twitter, but, again, I was focusing on specifics.

SP stated “the Earth was covered by water for a year which destroyed all life except that which was brought aboard a ship with eight humans”

To which I replied “it was only the ‘land dwelling animals with breath in their nostrils’ that needed to be saved, as those plants and organisms that could survive a flood did not need to be taken onboard the Ark”

Brian2: What is your basis for the claim that only those with “…breath in their nostrils…” were taken and are you also claiming that there were some animals/plants (what about fungi, protists and bacteria) that were on the Ark because they could not have survived the flood otherwise? 

SP writes
Brian: Which is why I asked about a list of land dwelling animals that do not currently exist being on the Ark

Perhaps you are aware of the clarifications that I mentioned, but your original words did not convey them, which is why I felt it necessary to highlight the fact that not ‘all life’ on the planet was destroyed, as many sceptics try to suggest.

Brian2: What is your basis for this claim?  What life was not on the Ark & not destroyed by the flood and how did it survive a yearlong deluge?

SP stated “In Genesis 6 & 7 it is claimed that the Ark contained 2 of every beast and foul of the Earth (7 of the clean types) including “every thing that creepeth upon the earth“

To which I replied by informing you that there only needed to be about 2-10000 animals, and not once again ‘everything’ as you suggested.

Brian2: What is the basis for this claim and can you give me a list of what organisms were taken aboard the Ark?

(SP comments)
Brian: So then what is a “kind” are all carnivores a “kind”, what about all animals in the same genus??? What is a scientifically testable definition of the word that would apply to all instances?

First of all, I will point out that these are actually new questions, even though we had apparently agreed to answer just one question at a time, to prevent the conversation ranging too far in each post. But as I do not mind answering your questions, as it helps me to further clarify the YEC point of view on this matter I will take some time to reply to these ‘new’ questions.

Brian2: These are not new questions I have brought up, but instead they are questions you have created by making claims without backing up or explaining your reasons for making these statements in answer to my original question.

As you are no doubt aware the statements in the bible are not claimed to be ‘scientifically testable definitions’ of words, but rather the recounting of historical facts to people such as us that were not there to witness the events. 

Brian2: But you are claiming that the Noachian flood is a real event and therefore it should be scientifically testable.  This means when you claim that “Kinds” were aboard the Ark, we should be able to discuss what this means and how it matches with the present.

Obviously, when we try to ascertain details about the events that happened many thousands of years ago in a distant land, we are limited in what we can actually ‘know’ for sure. This problem is multiplied many times over when you read a ‘scientific’ article by someone trying to work out from a few small damaged clues, what supposedly happened ‘millions of years ago’. This is one of the reason why ‘scientific’ articles are full of so many ‘fuzzy words’, such as ‘may have’, ‘could have’, ‘some think’, ‘it is hypothesized’ and such like. Though the articles may be written by great scientists, they are aware that much of what they believe to have happened in the distant past is just speculation and a certain degree of imagination.

Brian2: Yet, when a peer reviewed article is published it then becomes open for discussion and debate which can lead to predictions that are testable (of course the article itself is most likely based on this exact same situation which is why there are always citations to previous studies).

I therefore cannot give you a ‘scientific’ definition of a ‘kind’, but since we know that creatures only bring forth after their kind, we can speculate that this meant any animal that could mate and produce other viable offspring in the original created order was of the same ‘kind’. None of us know for sure what these created kinds were, but then as the bible is not a scientific text book which is to given to us to answer ‘every’ question we have, this is not surprising. Though it is only speculation at this stage, most YEC would agree that the ‘kind’ is closer to the ‘family’ level of the current system of biological classification. 

Brian2:  So then, how does this match with the fossil record?  Are you now claiming that the organisms that boarded the Ark would not look like the ones that currently exist today?  Can you give evidence to back up your claims? This claim is also invalidated by the FACT of the fossil record having organisms that look very similar to the ones we have today and that they are arranged in a order showing common descent.

Obviously, this means that the answer to your question: “are all carnivores a “kind”” the answer is no. As to your question “what about all animals in the same genus?“ we obviously cannot say for sure, but as the ‘family’ order can cover more than one ‘genus’ then it is unlikely that we can restrict a ‘kind’ to this order. 

Brian2: Again, I am requesting evidence for this claim, but sticking your opinion that the Order Carnivora is not a “Kind”, but that Families are a “Kind” are you claiming (focusing on Families under the Order Carnivora) that what boarded and departed from the Ark were two of each of the Families in this list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivora#Classification ?

This is not a problem only for creationist though, as when we find a fossil, we cannot be sure what ‘species’ it came from, and so sometimes “Families can be used for evolutionary, palaeontological and generic studies because they are more stable than lower taxonomic levels such as genera and species” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_(biology) 

Brian2: First of all new species are assigned to new fossils all the time, so I’m not sure your basis for that claim.  Secondly, you do realize that Humans are in the Family Hominidae which includes all species of Gorilla, Chimps and Orangutan.  Lastly, your use of the quote from Wikipedia shows a lack of understanding of Cladistics & Systematics, so I suggest you do some research into what Monophyly and Clade mean in biology.

As most YEC would accept that a ‘kind’ is a much broader term than both ‘species’ and ‘genus’, we can accept the fact that all our present ‘breeds’ of dogs came from some representative of perhaps the ‘canidae’ family. If we found a fossil of all the different breeds of dogs, it is likely that they would be classed as different ‘species’, due to their immense differences in morphology. In fact apparently even Darwin realised that this may have been true of the pigeons.
Whilst reading Sean B. Carroll’s book “The making of the fittest”, he made this statement.
“Darwin pointed out that the varieties of pigeon were so markedly different from one another that if shown to an ornithologist and told that they were wild birds, they would each be ranked as well-defined species. But Darwin deduced correctly that they were all descended from the rock pigeon.” (P46) 

Brian2: I’ve made the same claim about dogs, but of course these are a domestic species which means that humans are doing the breading and as such if humans disappeared then dogs would become biological species as they would be geographically isolated and many would be morphologically incapable of reproduction (AND they might be behaviorally different enough that they will not interbreed ***Added after my post on Facebook to Brian yesterday). 

So, YEC would believe that all the animals that were on the ark were of the ‘kinds’ of creatures that were the ancestors of the living species we see about us now. We believe the principle that ‘life brings forth life’ and so we accept that all land animals alive now had a common ancestor on the ark, though it may have looked much different than many of the varieties of creatures alive now.  

Brian2: And you evidence for this claim is…? But it is also nessesarry to point out that this statement CONFILCTS with your claim that all organisms found in fossil formations are there due to a one time flood.  I made this point earlier in this round of replies and would like to you explain the evidence for why, as you say above,  the life before and on the Ark “…may have looked much different…” and yet we find organisms in the fossil record that are almost exactly the same as “…varieties of creatures alive now.”

You on the other hand, believe that all organisms alive now came from a common ancestor that was once just dead chemicals.
Your belief that ‘dead matter brings forth life’ does not seem very scientific to me. 

Brian2: Abiogenesis is a field of science we can address later, but will stick with questions relating to how you answered my question about the fossil record and the Noachian flood.


(SP comments)
Brian: So if we take your statement as is, how would we know the sedimentary rocks that were formed before the flood? Would we rely on the Law of Superposition only or is there another way to date these pre-flood fossil beds? The ones formed after the flood would be easy, again Law of Superposition, but they would only contain modern animals I assume? Would you agree??? Since you are claiming that one Flood that lasted only a year created all these (besides the aforementioned pre&post deposits), how do you explain Aeolian layers (some are so delicate as to contain spider footprints) mixed in with all the other layers? How does this occur when the whole Earth is completely covered by water?

Again, you are now breaking the agreed format, and whilst you want to pick and choose which questions that I have raised that you are willing to answer, I will attempt to give AN answer to these additional questions, though I doubt that they will satisfy you.

Brian2: This, again, is not a new question, but instead is my asking you to explain your answer to my original question.

Firstly, “how would we know the sedimentary rocks that were formed before the flood?“ 

As I mentioned at the beginning of my earlier post, I am not an expert in this area, and I would have to research this before I could give you a better informed opinion on it. My view is though that they are likely to be few and far between as they would likely be due to local flooding, so I cannot say much more about this at the moment.

Brian2: Ok, so I will wait for you to do the research necessary to answer this question.

Secondly, “Would we rely on the Law of Superposition only or is there another way to date these pre-flood fossil beds?”
The short answer would be no, we would not rely on the Law of Superpositon, as though this was an interesting hypothesis, it was not tested experimentally until recently, and it was seen to incorrect in the experiments that were carried out by Pierre Y. Julien, Ph.D of Colorado State University. If you doubt his qualifications they can be seen here, and you can watch a video of the experiments on youtube, though I am sure you will find some reason to dispute his findings.

Brian2: Instead of making an argument from authority, how about explaining your understanding of why you think the Law of Superposition is incorrect.  What I found interesting about the video is lamination occurs all the time in all different types of layers and I’m not sure how it supports your claim that the Law of Superposition has been disproved. In my original question (and first response) I also brought up that Superposition correlates with Radiometric dating, but I’ll await an explanation.

Thirdly, “The ones formed after the flood would be easy, again Law of Superposition, but they would only contain modern animals I assume? Would you agree???“

No, I do not accept this, as I do not think that the Law of Superosition is actually a scientifically verified ‘law’, and therefore, I do not think that we can rely on it to ‘date’ fossils. Also, you seem to be ignoring what I acknowledge in my last post, that I accept variations and change over time in the creatures since the flood, so I do not think that every ‘species’ has remained unchanged since the flood but I accept what is now known as ‘micro-evolution’ in that organisms have changed over time, in minor ways that were present in the genetic code of the creatures when God created the various ‘kinds’ of animals. So, it is clear that I would believe that the creatures we see around us now are probably different in outward appearance from their ancestors that exited the Ark. 

Brian2: And your evidence for these claims are…? 

Perhaps you could define the ‘evolutionary biology’ that you want to discuss, and what you think you have ‘proof’ for, as perhaps I will agree with you more than you would seem to believe. I do not reject all definitions of ‘evolution’, so you will need to define what you mean by ‘evolution is a fact’ before we continue our discussion.

Brian2: That is a whole new question that I will address after you can answer my original question.  If you like I will include that in my response to your first question of me as it relates to the part on Natural Selection.

Fourthly, “how do you explain Aeolian layers (some are so delicate as to contain spider footprints) mixed in with all the other layers? “

Obviously, as I am not an expert, this would require some further research before I could answer this, but our claim is not that the Flood covered the whole Earth for a year, as parts of it may have been covered at a later points than others, and as the land masses changed after the flood, there may have been parts that were covered slowly and as the tides rose and fell it may have been uncovered at various times too. Have you now changed that you want to discuss the fossil record and geology? If so I will have to read up more on these topics, but I thought you wanted to concentrate on the firm scientific knowledge about ‘biological evolution’ rather than on the highly speculative thoughts and hypotheses about what things may have been like ‘millions of years ago’. 

Brian2: What evidence do you have for the claim that the entire surface was not covered for a whole year?  Again, this is not changing the topic as it relates to my original question.  I hope you can better answer this question after you do some research into Aeolian sedimentary types.

Fifthly,” How does this occur when the whole Earth is completely covered by water? “
The Flood was sent to destroy all the life forms that God had sent it to destroy, but this does not mean that all of the Earth was covered by water for the full year, it is likely to have ebbed and flowed over various parts of the land as some areas arose due to the tectonic activity that is likely to have accompanied the events, as mentioned in other parts of the bible.

Brain2: And your evidence for this claim is…?

To be continued...