Scientific Evidence of a Global Flood

Creationists don't believe that carbon dating is unreliable. They believe that carbon dating is not reliable past 5000 BC, and there's a good reason for that. Carbon's half-life is 5700 years, which means that after 10,000, most of the carbon should be gone.

Furthermore, carbon-dating cannot be used to date non-organic materials, i.e things without carbon. What happens is that they date the rocks that contain the fossils, using some other methods, then they assume that the fossils must also be the same age, that is disingenuous.

a reply to: np6888

Quite lucky there's a whole slew of other dating techniques that all correlate to the same results, really.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

The answers to your argument here:

answersingenesis.org...

But first, we need to verify the age of those trees, and we need them to show us the methods of how they obtain that age.

originally posted by: np6888
a reply to: Krazysh0t

The answers to your argument here:

Oh boy, here we go...

answersingenesis.org...

Haha thanks for the laugh, pal.

a reply to: GetHyped

Like what? For example, K-Ar dating can only date rocks, so how can you verify the fossils independently?

a reply to: GetHyped

Did you actually read? The skeptics pointed out that all the plants now all date back to the Flood, that's actually an argument in favor of Creationists. This means that the Pando trees need to be examined more carefully, or perhaps they were merely an exception that managed to survive.

Anyway, how can you prove a flood happened? To me, the only way to tell is to show that no current living plants or animals date back pre-flood.

a reply to: np6888

This paper is a little old but gives a pretty detailed analysis of deposition stratigraphy which is how you determine where and how large a flood is.

archives.datapages.com...

a reply to: np6888

Howdy,

You're right that carbon 14 is worthless when it comes to dating rocks.

However, you completely misunderstand what "half-life" means. After 10,000 years, you should have more than 25% of the parent isotope left, which is still a significant amount. See, half-lives are the time it takes HALF of the parent isotope to decay to daughter product. So, 50% remains after 5700 years, and 25% remains after 11400 years, so after 10,000 years, more than 25% of the original remains. Simple.

Now, back to timescales. There are actually "two" geologic timescales. One is the relative timescale (with chunks of time known as the Devonian, Cretaceous, or Cambrian...) which is based off of the fossils species found in the layers. Major extinction events mark the end or beginning of new geologic periods of time. In this way, faunal succession is the tool that makes the relative timescale possible.

The second timescale is the absolute timescale. It is based most often on radio-isotopic decay rates, but another method would be to look at the growth of corals and determine the length of days compared to mathematical models the solar system.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

Now, some methods are better suited for different types of rock. For example, potassium-argon is quite useful for rocks high in potassium, such as granite. Uranium-Lead is good for zircon crystals in igneous rocks, and can even be used in applications of understanding sedimentary rocks (when looking for the oldest material from which those sedimentary rocks are derived). Note that these methods below are used mainly for igneous rocks, which often crosscut or confine sedimentary layers. This is useful for giving a time interval during which the sedimentary rocks, and thus the fossils, must have been put in place.
en.wikipedia.org...

Most shales are mineralogically equivalent to granites, with a slight enrichment in quartz. So, the geologic model (and observations in modern times confirms this) proposes that mountains weather and erosion deposits these sediments elsewhere based on grain size and susceptibility to weathering... Fossils accumulate with the sediment, so the fossils are roughly as old as the sediment. Now, there are examples where fossil sea shells (on the order of 5-10,000 years) are found on modern beaches. This might seem like a big problem, but 10000 years is trivial on the order of hundreds of millions of years, which most rocks are dated to be.

The beauty of the modern geologic timescale is the combination of these two other timescales (relative and absolute) into one complete picture. Both fit and operate well together, meaning neither conflicts with the other. Both measure and convey different things, but both can be used together as well as independently.

I do hope this clears up some of your misconceptions.

Sincere regards,
Hydeman

a reply to: np6888

Creationists don't believe that carbon dating is unreliable. They believe that carbon dating is not reliable past 5000 BC, and there's a good reason for that. Carbon's half-life is 5700 years, which means that after 10,000, most of the carbon should be gone.

Creationists believe that 14C dating is unreliable because it conflicts with their religious belief based on James Ussher's chronology, not because of any scientific flaw in the method.

I just had this conversation with a J Witness the other day.

My comment was simple. If you read the original txt on the flood. It says the water came from above and below. There is zero reason to believe a cosmic / gravitational shift in the past would not have caused the vast amounts of water stored below the crust to bubble up and cover most of the land.

Such an event would become part of our history. Bible or no bible. God or no God.

Another point..... Some people view the Bible as a historically accurate book. But plenty of major historical events are not in the bible as well. It is at best a patchy historical book about small groups of people / events that had certain impacts on society.

originally posted by: np6888
a reply to: GetHyped

Did you actually read? The skeptics pointed out that all the plants now all date back to the Flood, that's actually an argument in favor of Creationists. This means that the Pando trees need to be examined more carefully, or perhaps they were merely an exception that managed to survive.

I actually read and it doesn't name any skeptics, it just says

Another assumption skeptics make is that the species we have today are the same as at the time of the Flood. Though some species were probably around then, like the Wollemi Pine, it is safe to assume that most species around today are not exactly the same as what was around before the Flood 4,400 years ago. Why is this significant? One big reason is that plants today have undergone 4,400 years of speciation, mutations, and genetic deterioration.

The entire "paper" and I use the descriptor loosely, is filled with similar qualifiers such as the ones I've put in bold above.the absolute lack of certainty about anything by the author is extremely telling and lacking intellectual honesty ad integrity. None of the alleged skeptics are named and the citations are laughable at best and you earlier mocked my citations as arcane? Come on... This wouldn't pass a high school class let alone any legitimate form of review. Typically a paper reaches a conclusion and supports that conclusion. This one starts with a conclusion and uses anecdote to support it and is very light on facts.

Who refutes that there was a global flood? There is evidence around the world that a global flood happened at the end of the last ice age. When the ice melt finally pooled over the sides of the huge glaciers and poured into the ocean, causing the sea to rise up 10 feet over night. Say bye to huge chunks of history when that happened.

a reply to: WonOunce

Care to show a citation that backs that up? All the data I've seen indicates a slow thaw over a period of around 6,000 years with the occasional massive outpouring from glacial lakes occasionally dumping a lot of water quickly but still it wasnt all at once and certainly not 10 ft rise in world wide sea levels overnight.

originally posted by: np6888
a reply to: GetHyped

Like what? For example, K-Ar dating can only date rocks, so how can you verify the fossils independently?

If I have fossils in a rock layer below a volcanic or igneous deposit, I can tell you that they are older than the rock due to the law of superposition.

originally posted by: thedeadtruth
I just had this conversation with a J Witness the other day.

My comment was simple. If you read the original txt on the flood. It says the water came from above and below. There is zero reason to believe a cosmic / gravitational shift in the past would not have caused the vast amounts of water stored below the crust to bubble up and cover most of the land.

Such an event would become part of our history. Bible or no bible. God or no God.

Except there is no evidence for such a flood event due to a pole shift.

a reply to: Cypress

What if you have the clams on mountains where you have nothing above them? In fact, the fact that they are exposed now suggests that what happened is that they died under the weight of sediments, got petrified, and now the sediments have disintegrated or eroded.

The question is, if the clams have been up there and exposed for million of years, shouldn't they have dissolved also?

a reply to: np6888

Howdy,

I know I'm not Cypress, but I thought I might be able to help answer some of your questions.

Now, you're asking about marine fossils on top of mountains, yes (you say clams, but I assure you that brachipods were likely more common)? Perhaps the most famous example being marine fossils on Mt. Everest. Yes, Mt. Everest, and many other mountain ranges (I'm more familiar with the Appalachians, so I'm going to be more focused on those) are composed of marine sedimentary rocks and contain marine fossils. Now, the question becomes how did they get there?

Modern geological theory suggest that rock is weathered, eroded, and deposited in a watery environment (most usually) where it accumulates along with the remains of organisms. Brachiopods (which look like clams, but are not) usually died with their shells closed due, while clams usually open their shells upon death (due to anatomical differences in mechanisms of shell opening/closing). Both clams and brachiopods created shells made of carbonate, usually calcite, but sometimes aragonite. These are hard, mineralized shells which are essentially made up of the same mineral as most clean limestones. Because they are not soft tissue, the shells can accumulate slowly (as I have said, even modern beaches have "ancient" shells kicking about) and be buried by sediment. Don't mistake my words, though, as sudden depositional events (stormbeds and turbidites) did happen to rapidly bury living organisms and remains alike.

That said, the rocks and the fossils inside of them are indeed weathering and being eroded. I can assure you that it is the case, as I have recently been digging around in regolith of the Onondaga (limestone) formation in Appalachia for fossils (trilobites/rugose corals/brachiopods). These organisms also made calcite exoskeletons/shells. However, the trilobites I find have most often a brownish orange shell, indicating a replacement mineral/alteration has happened. See, replacement is a common form of fossilization, but there are others. Commonly, a fossil is just a cast or mold of the original fossil organism. I have personally found several casts of bivalves where the original material has been weathered and new minerals filled the void and formed a cast. This too is common.
en.wikipedia.org...

Now, do you know why I know that sedimentary rocks need to be solid before fossils are "petrified" (I'd say fossilized...) as you say? Fossils are quite handy in that they can show you the relative stress/strain of the rocks around them. See, fossils are often deformed by tectonic forces that effect the rocks around them.
link.springer.com...

If the folded sedimentary layers had become folded when still sediment, the fossils would not be affected by the stress/strain. Rather, the sediment would flow around the hard fossil and the fossil would keep it's shape, preserving the strain/stress as minerals bending around it. This is not what is observed in sedimentary rocks. Instead, this behavior is seen in mineral strain shadows in metamorphic rock, where easily (in a mineralogic sense) deformed minerals "flow" around harder, less deformable minerals. That's a bit more petrology than faunal succession, though... You might find this useful.
earth.geology.yale.edu...

So, I guess to answer your question more simply, yes the clams and the rock that are exposed are indeed weathering and eroding, and as this material is eroded, the mountain becomes a less heavy lithospheric block and isostatically rises, exposing more rocks and fossils... Tectonic uplift of Mt. Everest is even* quantifiably measurable.
www.nationalgeographic.com...

Sincere regards,
Hydeman

a reply to: Krazysh0t

After reading about the Pando trees example, it appears that only the root system is 80,000 years old. The parts above ground are actually only 130 years old.

en.wikipedia.org...

You can see that the "verified" age of the oldest tree is no more than 5000 years old.

originally posted by: WonOunce
Who refutes that there was a global flood? There is evidence around the world that a global flood happened at the end of the last ice age. When the ice melt finally pooled over the sides of the huge glaciers and poured into the ocean, causing the sea to rise up 10 feet over night. Say bye to huge chunks of history when that happened.

Didn't happen that way the water rose slowly over many years. Care to explain how someone would know that it rose exactly 10 feet in twelve hours?