ericmurphy
Posts: 2460
Joined: Oct. 2005
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Well, it’s coming up on the five-month anniversary of Absolutely Fraudulent Dave’s UPDATED Creator God “Hypothesis,” and now seems like a good time to take stock of Dave’s progress in supporting his “hypothesis.” Naturally, Dave thinks he’s won every debate he’s engaged in here, but anyone who troubles to read this thread can judge for themselves how true that claim is. And naturally Dave, being a creationist, has spent virtually no time supporting his own “hypothesis,” but rather has attempted, in a floundering and ineffectual fashion, to discredit thoroughly supported and solidly-verified science, everywhere from biology and genetics to paleontology to chemistry to geology to quantum physics to astronomy and cosmology. And he's attempted this feat without making the tiniest effort to actually educate himself on any of these topics, but instead seems to believe that any layman can pick this stuff up in an afternoon on the AiG website.
In the meantime, Dave has left a not-inconsiderable number of questions about and objections to his “hypothesis” unanswered and un-responded to—many of them never even acknoweldged. Now, on the five-month anniversary (more or less) of Dave’s circus act, I thought it would be good to reprise the list of them. This is far from an exhaustive list, so feel free to add as necessary, and of course thanks to Deadman_932 for compiling the original list, which has grown significantly since he last posted it.
So, without further ado:
Dave’s Unanswered Questions, Sorted by Category
Problems with the Creator God “Hypothesis” Generally
- Why can't you provide a means of falsifying your "hypothesis?" This is your job, not that of others.
- Why are you bothering? Most people here don't deny that God may exist.
Problems With Biblical Inerrancy
- You admit you've never seen the supposedly "inerrant" originals of the bible . So-first-how do you know they're "inerrant"? Because the admittedly flawed copies tell you so? And you believe them why? From PuckSR, p.124
- I asked you what was equivocal about the clearly discounted Tyre prophecy, and you all you have done is ignore my questions...for thirty days (from 7_Popes) p.124
- You claim that humans have been literate since your flood. How come none of them had anything to say about an ice age that froze most of the planet solid? How come there's no independent evidence of it from any written source?
- You claim that humans have been literate since Adam. If Adam and the origin of the universe are coeval, i.e., 6,000 years ago, then why don’t we have written records dating back to 6,000 years ago? You claim Adam’s “secretaries” followed him around with stone tablets taking dictation. Whatever became of those stone tablets, and why is it that the oldest written records are less than 5,000 years old?
Problems With a Young Earth
- Why are there so many profitable companies that use the Old Earth paradigm as the basis for a successful business case?
- Why is there not a single company anywhere in the world that uses your 6000 year old Young Earth paradigm as the basis for a business case?
- What evidence do you have independent of the Bible that converges on an age of 6,000 years for the age of the earth?
- If the universe were only 6,000 years old, there could be no visible stars, or galaxies, or quasars, or galactic superclusters, that are more than 6,000 light years away. But numerous methods of determining distances which all result in similar values demonstrate that the closest galaxies are several hundred thousand light years away, and the most distant visible objects are almost 14 billion light years away. How do you explain the observation of these objects?
- 6,000 years is not nearly enough time for a solar system to form, to say nothing of a galaxy, or a galactic cluster, or a galactic supercluster. How does your “hypothesis” explain the existence of these objects?
- It would take at least several million years for the giant molecular cloud that birthed the sun to undergo gravitational collapse to the point of self-sustaining thermonuclear fusion. How do you explain this happening in only 6,000 years?
- It would take at least another few millions years for the planets to have formed through a process of gravitational accretion. How did this happen in only 6,000 years?
- Photons produced in nucleosynthesis in the sun's core take a minimum of several tens of thousands of years to reach the photosphere, and an appreciable quantity would take hundreds of thousands to millions of years to reach the photosphere. Why don’t we see the sun’s power output increasing noticeably from one year to the next if it is only 6,000 years old?
- Why isn't plutonium-239 found to naturally occur? It has a good 20,000 year half-life, or thereabout, and could easily exist from the point of creation. Certainly we have any number of radioactive elements, but other than the ones that are produced by ongoing processes, we find none that would have disappeared to undetectable levels within 4 and a half billion years.
- The half-life of Uranium 235 is 704 million years. If the earth were only 6,000 years old, essentially none of this U-235 should have decayed by now. U-238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. If the earth were only 6,000 years old, it should be essentially impossible to detect any decay products of U-238. Why does observation demonstrate that an appreciable fraction of both has decayed since the earth was formed?
- Please explain the Oklo natural nuclear reactor.
- How do you cool an iron sphere massing over 10^24 Kg in less than 6,000 years?
- Did the earth cool down several hundred degrees in 6000 years or so? Please explain the thermodynamics of such a cooling process.
- For any of these things to have happened in 6,000 years or less would have required multiple miracles, Dave. But you say you believe in science. In fact you claim, overwhelming evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, that you accept "90-95%" of science. So if you believe in science, Dave, why do you also believe in miracles? Isn't that just a little bit inconsistent? And a little bit useless, in that you can wave away any phenomenon with an unknown cause by appeal to miracles?
Problems with Noah’s Ark
- How did 35,000 or fewer "kinds" on the ark end up proliferating into over ten million species in less than 5,000 years? How is this not ultra-mega-supendo-fantastico-enormo-macroevolution?
- Who do you think had syphilis on the ark?
- If Noah and his little group were the only humans left, can you calculate for me the average number of children each female would have to have in order to achieve the population levels we have today...in 4,356 years??
- Why on earth do you want living dinosaurs in your timeline at the end of the flood ? When did they die out?
Problems with the “Global Catastrophic Flood Hypothesis”
- Identify precisely the source for the "waters of the deep" Dave. point to any geology references that show this "layer of water" existed under the crust.
- How much water was involved in the flood, Dave? Estimate of the amount of water that was underground, and how deep was it? Was it spread uniformly under the crust, or was it in localised (and deep) reservoirs?
- Where did all that sediment come from? (Hint: it didn't wash down from the mountains.)
- Where did all that water in your “global flood run-off”---run off to?
- Eric (p.129) notes: The continents are covered by an average of 2,600 meters of sediment. How does your 5,000-foot deep flood produce 2,600 meters of sediment?
- Dave, since this is supposedly your "hypothesis" we're talking about here, how do you date the Grand Canyon?
- Since the Bible makes no mention of the Grand Canyon, nor any other canyon, nor North America for that matter, what is your justification for assuming the Grand Canyon was carved by the Noachian flood? You’ve admitted you know of no way to date the Grand Canyon; therefore how do you know if the Grand Canyon was formed before, during, or after the “flood”?
- Which sediment layers were laid before the “flood,” Dave? Which were laid during the “flood”? Which were laid after the “flood”? Or do you still maintain that all sedimentary layers worldwide (all several kilometers of them) were laid during the flood?
- How did those tracks get in the coconino sandstone in the midst of a raging flood that deposited billions MORE tons of sediment on top of the sandstone? Sandstone can't "dry" in the middle of a flood that continues to deposit layers under a "water canopy", Dave. Nor would those animals survive UNDERWATER, nor would their tracks survive the pressure of the layers above on the wet sandstone during the "flood year"
- Explain the presence of eolian and evaporite deposits between fluvial or marine deposits, carbonate and dolomite deposits, coal, and why there are clear cycles of regression and transgression present in the rock record allowing for things like sequence stratigraphy to be done.
- Why are large shale formations consistently oxidized and red while others are consistently black and unoxidized?
- How did the Mile-High cliffs of the Grand Canyon harden enough in ONE YEAR so that they didn't SLUMP under the weight of the deposits over them?
- I'm incredibly interested in how the Kaibab was formed in your model, Dave. Tell me how limestone was preferentially deposited in that layer. How is it that calcium carbonate was deposited in a flood, with the turbidity of a flood?
- Explain the Paleosols we see in the Grand Staircase
- Explain the buried vertical Yellowstone forests that have paleosols between them.
- Explain PRECISELY how the incised meanders, oxbows and the steep sides of the Grand Canyon were formed, given that these meanders are not in Mississipian-type soils, but through rock, including the igneous base schist (obviously , that is not "soft ")
- If there was extensive volcanic activity following the flood, why are there no large ash layers or igneous layers in the upper Canyon stratigraphy showing it?
- The Arizona Barringer Meteor penetrates the Permian Kaibab and Toroweap Formations and has caused shock effects on the Coconino Sandstone. Because the crater penetrates Permian strata, it is Permian or younger. And since the crater contains some Pleistocene lake deposits, it is Pleistocene or older. The Geomorphology of the crater itself indicates only a small amount of erosion. The Crater is dated at 49,000 years old. Explain this, DaveStupid.
- How was a canyon is carved in limestone and buried under 17000 feet of sediment in the Tarim Basin in far western China?That's over three miles deep of overlying rock and soil for the mathematically challenged Fundies out there.
- Why don't we see evidence of your massive flood and "tsunamis" in the deep-sea cores?
- Why don't we see evidence of your massive volcanic activity, and carbon dioxide levels and HEAT in the ice cores?
- Why don't we see disruption of the varves?
- How did the iridium layer between the Cretaceous and the Tertiary appear within flood waters... the iridium layer is especially interesting, since it is global. How could iridium segregate markedly into a single thin layer...and why does the iridium layer "just happen" to date to the same time as the Chicxulub crater?
- Explain why it's more likely that all the hundreds of billions of fossils worldwide were laid down by a single gigantic flood (even the ones in sediments that were not laid down by water), rather than in innumerable smaller events over the last few billion years.
- Layers should have SOME animals in them jumbled up *everywhere* dave. There should be dinos with modern rhinos, with deinotheriums and giant sloths, with Devonian amphibians...yet we don't see that. "Hydraulic sorting" won't do, Dave..or claims that mammals are "more mobile"-- this is utter nonsense.
- Why are certain species of animals (fossilized trilobites) found in the lowermost layers, while others of the same approximate size and shape (fossilized clams) can be found at the top layers, even at the top of Mt. Everest? Did the clams outrun the trilobites in the race uphill from the flood waters?
- Fossils of brachiopods and other sessile animals are also present in the Tonto Groupof the Grand Canyon. How could organisms live and build burrows in such rapidly deposited sediments?
- If "Noah's Flood" transported the brachiopods into the formations, how would relatively large brachiopods get sorted with finer grained sediments? Why aren't they with the gravels?
- You said that there was only one land mass before the Flood, correct? this would mean that Africa and North America moved away from each other at the rate of 1 kilometer per HOUR per the Morris/Austin scenarios, Dave. What would that heat do? Where did that energy go? Why do we still have ANY oceans?
- Why don't we see evidence of fast sea-floor spreading paleomagnetically? Remember, Africa and the Americas have to be FLYING away from each other at the rate of 1 kilometer PER HOUR.
- JonF noted that such rapid movements of plates and "sudden stopping" would melt the rock. Dave doesn't give a response or answer to that little problem.
- Why are mountains near each other differentially eroded if they were all formed at the same time in your "hypothesis?"
- Precisely how were the Vertebrae Ridge mountains you posted...metamorphosed?
- Dave said that as the continents shifted the layers were folded, heated (and metamorphosed) and uplifted, all in a very short time span. He claimed "These are all very well-understood processes and this is a very plausible scenario". I asked Dave to show me references for this "well understood process " in regard to the Vertebrae Ridge gneiss. He failed to answer (p.125)
- Dave says that the rocky mountain- andes form a north-south chain that was created by rapid movement of the plates.
| Quote | | I say they moved away from the Mid-Ocean Ridge, then stopped rather suddenly. This caused folding and thickening onthe leading edge of the plate and generated massive quantities of heat and pressure leading to metamorphism. |
This does not explain the east-west tending ranges of the Americas, Eurasia and Africa (himalayas, atlas mts., transverse ranges). Dave was asked: Did those continents STOP TWICE? IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS? IN ONE YEAR?
Why does the magnetic dating of oceanic basalts show a longer period of time than your flood claim, Dave?
Why is the basalt cooler the further away you move from the rift zones? Calculate rates of cooling for basalt.
Problems with Attempts to Refute Standard Dating Techniques
- How do you plan to refute every single age ever given by any dating method (and there are least 40 radiometric dating methods, and multiple other non-radiometric methods) that is in excess of 6,000 years? How will you explain even one date in excess of 6,000 years?
- Are discordant dates published, or is the observed concordance between methods an artifact of hiding all the discordant dates? If the discordant dates are hidden, how come the program managers and accountants haven't noticed?
How's that inquiry to the Menlo Park dating lab coming along?
- Exactly how many of the dates given to you by deadman (for far more than four of the layers of the Grand Staircase) are argon dates?
- Is Snelling's inclusion of xenoliths in his Ngauruhoe dating study fraud? If not, would it have been fraud to inject argon into the samples? Is there any difference between the two scenarios?
- There are hundreds of thousands to millions of dates derived from both radiometric and non-radiometric techniques that range from more than 6,000 years to ~4.55 billion years. Note that no object that is known to have originated on the earth has ever been dated beyond ~4.55 billion years. I.e., nothing has ever been found that dates to 10 billion years, or a hundred billion years, or a trillion years. Why do you think this is? “Evolutionists” have no reason to believe it takes 4.55 billion years for life to evolve.
- You believe that isochrons are meaningless—invalid. Would you care to compute the probabilities that isochrons [I]ever converge on any particular values? Why is it that rock formations that are expected to be of Precambrian provenance due to their location in the geologic column all date to—wait for it—the Precambrian? Why is it that rock formations that are expected to be of Triassic provenance due to their location in the geologic column all date to—wait for it again—the Triassic?
- There is no reason to believe that life would have taken more than several hundred million years to evolve. Why don’t scientists claim that the earth is 700 million years old (20% of its currently-accepted age)?
- How is the dendrochronology for Catal Huyuk wrong?
- Dave claimed ( p.138, this thread) that only 3 radiometric dates had been given him, then that only three layers were dated. I asked:
| Quote | | Okay, dave shithead...you said that I only provided three radiometric dates...want to make a gentleman's agreement on that? I'll bet you that I have given you much more than that. I will leave this forum and proclaim your victory if I am wrong." |
And:
| Quote | | Okay, let's switch it to your claim that only three layers have been dated, DaveShithead...want a gentleman's agreement on that? I'll not only leave this forum, but I'll pay for my plane ticket to your church and proclaim in front of them how I was wrong...IF I am wrong. In return--if you are wrong, you will get in front of your group at church and film it while you say you were wrong, begging my forgiveness, and post it on the internet here. |
Cowardly Dave refused to answer.
Theological Problems with a Creator God “Hypothesis”
- Dave, do you understand the difference between these two statements?
A) I believe that there is a Creator who takes an interest in the welfare of human beings;
B) I believe that Jesus Christ is my personal lord and savior.
[ ] Yes
[ ] N
- Why did God need a "global catastrophic flood" just to murder all the bad people in the world? Couldn't he come up with a more elegant solution that didn't involve wiping out 99.99999999999% of the life on the planet, the vast majority of which was completely innocent?
- Why does God lie by making the earth look like it's 4.55 billion years old, and why does He lie by making the universe look like it's 1.37 billion years old? Is it to set an example for you, Dave?
- What did God think he was accomplishing by nailing his own son to a tree?
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2006 MVD award for most dogged defense of scientific sanity
"Atheism is a religion the same way NOT collecting stamps is a hobby." —Scott Adams
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