#9409: Jody — 11/20  at  01:57 PM
And if you checkout this link from the Gallup report that "Red State/Blue State" divide (really rural vs. urban) we keep talking about rears its ugly head again.

#9410: — 11/20  at  01:58 PM
There's a plus side to knowing that we're living in a country with 135 million YECs. 135 million people who aren't just ignorant, but probably would refuse to understand even if they discussed it with biologists, can be a liberating thing. These days when some idiot says a YEC thing around me, it hardly attracts my attention. Why get hot and bothered and waste my time trying to convince such a stupid person who would refuse to learn any better? They never do, and there's an ocean of them, so I let it go. And the result is, less wasted time.

#9411: — 11/20  at  02:02 PM
If talking to creationists has any value, it's not with the YECs. Those people are just stubborn retards. The old earthers are more reasonable. They've at least decided that science is not entirely trumped by a book of fairy tales written by Middle Eastern primitives.

#9420: — 11/20  at  07:14 PM
So, how would Kennewick Man and the Lake Missoula floods fit into this 'hydrologic' hypothesis ... or any other fossil record out in eastern WA for that matter.

My limited knowledge indicates that the scientific community was reluctant to agree to the catastrophic flood theory in this region, partly because of the irrational/theistic implications which would be siezed upon by the benighted 45% and their feeble followers.

#9421: — 11/20  at  07:15 PM
.... benighted 45% and their feeble leaders.

#9423: — 11/20  at  08:03 PM
'All considered, the various limits on the ice sheet and floods suggest that glacial Lake Missoula existed for 2,000 to 2,500 years between 15,300 and 12,700 years Before Present.' (USGS)

'Kennewick Man bones dated at 9,200 years old' (Tri City Herald)

Following up, it appears that Kennewick Man met his demise some 3500 years after the last flood dates.

Are there other places on earth with these patterns of catastrophic flooding, or is this a unique set of circumstances in the Pacific Northwest? Everyone I ever knew just assumed that Noah stories were based on Ice Age flooding, if based on any facts at all.

So, I would say to Creationists 'Yes there were floods, and how does that support your postion exactly?' Genesis - myth and Fairy Tale, Noah's Flood - 'docudrama', Reality - priceless.

#9427: — 11/20  at  10:18 PM
I'm just taking a break during an on-line course, and I need to get back to it . . .

But, oh, my!

Hydrologic sorting and the Grand Canyon? Among the chief, disproving difficulties for hydrologic sorting are these: Creatures of various sizes are found in many different layers -- there is no way these layers could have been put down at anything close to the same time. The creationist hypothesis is not demonstrated in the sediments that make up the walls of the Grand Canyon.

And, of course, there is the difficulty that some of the layers represent fossilized sand dunes -- a desert, in other words -- and these are overlain by sediments left by water, overlain by lava, and overlain by other sediments of different origins, all of which deny a large flood hypothesis.

Mr. Donkey should be alerted that there are other sites on Earth where late ice age ice dams had burst and left dramatic flood incident evidence. The gorge below Niagara Falls was carved in a very short time, for example, when the ice dam above it burst and unleashed a deluge. And there is the Black Sea, which once was a broad valley with a much smaller, fresh water lake. At some point the melting ice sheets raised the level of the oceans, including the Mediterranean, and the narrow dam that held the Mediterranean out of the Black Sea was ultimately breached unleashing one of the greatest inundations ever on Earth. There are several scholars who cite this as the basis for the Noah story and the older, similar Gilgamesh Epic flood story.

Now, can I find the link to the website that explains how each layer of the Grand Canyon denies creationism? Drat these ISP changes!

#9428: — 11/20  at  10:43 PM
Ed,

Thanks for the other flood locations. I was quite sure they existed, but just had never heard anything about them. It is no doubt easy for creationists to sell these genuine flooding events as indicative of such nonsense as 'hydrologic sorting', and ignor other factors/data that indicate long term erosion and layers. In the northwest there has been interspersed volcanic activity from the Cascade range (ongoing) to add ash layers as another guidepost of time and events.

So much to investigate.

#9436: — 11/21  at  01:57 AM
You can't take those poll results and say that 45% are "young earth creationists". Just because they believe humans were created by a god 10,000 years ago does not automatically put them in the category of YEC's.

The people who are "gap theory" creationists would select the 10,000 year option, but they do not espouse a young earth and universe.

The National Science Foundation's survey has some interesting results as well http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind02/c7/c7h.htm

In that survey, 53% of respondents agreed that humans developed from earlier species of animals. It also shows how pathetically ignorant the general public is of science and technology. Only 22% (!!!) could define "molecule" and only half knew that electrons are smaller than atoms.

I honestly think this will all come to a head some day. Some other country is going to beat us to a significant biological discovery (maybe this will happen multiple times) and everyone will ask, "How did this happen? How did our science education get so poor".

Remember, it wasn't until the Soviets launched Sputnik that the US made a serious effort to improve science education, including teaching evolution. Since that time creationists have been slowly eroding it all away, one local school board at a time.

It may take the biological equivalent of another Sputnik to put us on the right path again.

#9469: Chris Clarke — 11/21  at  02:46 PM

The gorge below Niagara Falls was carved in a very short time, for example, when the ice dam above it burst and unleashed a deluge.

That would be very late Ice Age, as I understand it: the Niagara Gorge was carved contemporaneously with the Amratian period in Egypt and the invention of writing in Sumeria.

Also, I believe the rerouting of the Great Lakes drainage had as much to do with isostasy as it did ice.

#9501: — 11/22  at  09:50 AM
There has been so much hoo-hah about Kennewick Man, I just wish enough time would pass that someone could write an objective, dust-settled account of the whole thing. A woman told me her husband had worked on it and that the teeth were distinctly NAA, and that the scientists just wanted more time to study it, so they said it was Caucasian to muddy the water. Other shows I've seen have him looking sort of vaguely Eur-ized. Could he have been Ainu? The Ainu were of Indo-European stock/linguistic background. Maybe one went for a "three-hour cruise" and....

#9508: — 11/22  at  10:57 AM
I can't let the comment about the Ainu pass, even though it's off-topic. The Ainu language bears no special relationship to Indo-European. Most linguists would call it a "language isolate", with no discernable relationships to any other language. The most credible claim for relationship says that Japanese, Korean, and Ainu form a clade which diverged many millenia ago; linguists who are more firmly in the "lumper" camp claim that this clade is in turn a subclade of the Altaic superfamily. (Of course you will find fringe linguists who claim that all languages are discernably related.)