I present this information for your consideration. I pray that it will help you in your walk.
The age of the earth
I) The need for great ages
1) The modern synthesis of evolution requires vast amounts of time for the process
to occur.
2) Without it the idea of gradualism to explain how large changes evolve as a result
of the accumulation of micro changes could not be even considered.
3) Time, to the evolutionists, becomes the hero of the plot. Given enough time anything
becomes possible.
4) The age of the earth is a central issue in the debate. Many evolutionists will deny this
simple fact. They say it is a separate issue. They are not. They are forever linked.
A) Darwin and his supporters realized this at an early stage. They realized that
their theory demanded vast reaches of geological time to support it.
B) Equally, evolutionists needed a geological basis for this great age. They
needed a mechanism that worked slowly and gradually rather than one that
worked suddenly and all at once.
1) This reasoning is clear. The theory had no observational proof.
2) There were no examples of this process that could be observed in the
present. It was all linked to the past.
C) They rejected catastrophism and instead found the mechanism they sought in
an idea taking shape among a new generation of secular geologists who
asserted that sedimentary rocks (fossil bearing rocks) were formed slowly by
the same processes that they observed on the oceans bottom; the deposition
of silt and sand that became cemented and compacted supposedly over
millions of years to form successive strata of rock.
D) These ideas later became known as uniformitarianism.
1) The uniformitarian doctrine can be summed up by the phrase
“The present is the key to the past.”
2)Within scientific philosophy, uniformitarianism refers
to the principle that the same processes that shape the universe occurred in the past as they do now, and that the same laws of physics apply in all parts of the knowable universe. This axiomatic principle, not often referred to as an "-ism" in modern discussions, is particularly relevant to geology and other sciences on a long timescale such as astronomy and paleontology. The leading geologist of Darwin’s era, a Scot named Charles Lyell (1797 – 1875), incorporated James Hutton’s gradualism into a theory known as uniformitarianism. The term refers to Lyell’s idea that geological processes have not changed throughout Earth’s history. Thus, for example, the forces that build mountains and erode mountains and the rates at which these forces operate are the same today as in the past.
E) Darwinists needed time, and lots of it; uniformitatians had the geological
theory that demonstrated great antiquity. Geologists needed a firm
foundation for the relative dating and correlation of the many sediments
piled one on another in the past-the many strata of the geological column.
F) Darwinists were able to supply the key to the strati graphical succession
of the rocks by comparative anatomy of the fossils contained in the strata,
interpreted along evolutionist lines.
G) Thus an unusual academic interdependence sprang up between the two
sciences that continues today. A geologist wishing to date a rock stratum
would ask an evolutionist’s opinion on the fossils it contained. An evolutionist
having difficulty dating a fossil would turn to the geologists for help. Fossils
were used to date rocks, and rocks were used to date fossils.
II) The Geological Time Scale
1) History and Development
A) Was developed by James Hutton (1726-1797) Who was a Scottish geologist.
B) He set the stage to the development of the geological time scale with the
publication of his Theory of the Earth (1785).
C) Hutton advanced the term “uniformitatianism”, a geological doctrine which
basically assumes that current geological processes, occurring at the same rates
observed today, in the same manner, account for all of Earth’s geological
features.
D) This principle was later championed by British geologists Sir Charles Lyell
(1797-1875).
E) Next, British civil engineer, surveyor and amateur geologist William Smith
(1769-1839) made the discovery that fossils are found buried in a definite
order.
F) The geological time scale was developed shortly thereafter.
2) What is it?
A) The Earth’s crust consists of many layers of sedimentary rock (called strata).
B) Geologists assume that each layer represents a long period of time, typically
millions of years. This is actually a secondary assumption based upon the
primary assumption of Uniformitatianism.
C) These layers of sedimentary rock contain billions of fossil remains and some’
of these fossils are unique to certain layers. The layers are catalogued and
arbitrarily arranged into specific order (not necessarily the order in which they
were found). This order reflects the assumption of macro-evolution.
D) The creatures thought to have evolved first are considered to be the oldest and
and are thus placed at the bottom of the column of layers. The creatures
thought to have evolved later are higher up and so on.
E) A variety of fossils from each layer of strata have been chosen to be what are
called “index fossils”
F) “Index fossils” are a set of fossils that are used to date sedimentary rock layers.
Paleontologists assume the age of an index fossil by the stage of evolutionary
history the fossil is assumed to be in. They guess how long it would take for
one kind of life to evolve into another kind of life and then date the fossils
and the rocks accordingly.
G) But why use this method?
1) This arises because radioactive dating techniques can be applied only to
volcanic rocks that contain some radioactive minerals- the primary
rocks of the earth’s crust.
2) But the geological time scale (or column) consists of sedimentary rocks-
rocks formed from the sediments laid down on the beds of seas and
composed of particles of those primary rocks.
3) Any age determination made using these particles will be the same as
that of the primary rocks from which they are derived. In short, the
particles were already formed before the sediment was laid down.
This would give an inaccurate age of the sediment since the particles
were not formed when the sediment was laid down.
4) Also, in some sedimentary rocks, such as chalk or limestone, there are
not even particles of the primary rocks present and so radioactive dating
cannot be used at all.
3) Circular reasoning
A) Evolution is the basis for the geological conclusions in the geological time
scale, yet the geological time scale is used as a basic evidence for evolution.
B) Index fossils are used to date the rocks in which they are found, yet, the fossil
record is then used to show the pattern of evolutionary change through time.
C) The age of the rock is determined by the assumed age of the index fossils it
contains. Then, to determine the age of all the other fossils in the same rock
layer, we look to the age of the layer of rock in which they are found.
D) Geologists are arguing in a circle. The succession of organisms has been
determined by a study of their remains embedded in the rocks, and the relative
ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of organisms that they contain.
4) The column does not exist anywhere in the world
A) Uniformatarian theology
1) According to uniformatarian time scale the deposition’s have been
happening for 600 million years.
2) The rate of deposition has been estimated at about .2 mm/year.
3) At this rate we should see a depository 75 miles thick.
4) Due to erosion and other factors, the thickness is said to be around
100 miles to 200 miles thick.
5) This would mean that somewhere on the earth we should be able
to observe this thickness.
6) It is composed of 10 primary layers
7) Somewhere on earth we should be able to see the 10 primary
layers and their thicknesses that come to about 100 miles thick.
B) What we actually do see
1) The only place we see the complete geological column is in the
textbook. It is a myth that it is actually visible on the earth.
2)There are places on the earth in which one can view all 10 layers
(or called lithologies). Some include North Dakota, Cuba, Indonesia,
The Himalayas.
3) The problem is in the fact that the average thickness of each local
geological column is about 1 mile (in some places, the column has
essentially zero thickness, in a few places it may be up to 16 or so
miles, but the worldwide average is about 1 mile).
4) Nowhere on earth is the geological column complete in the sense of
having the maximum thickness of sedimentary rock attribute to it
by uniformatarian theory.
5) Common sense tell us that 16 miles (at most) which exists, out of a
total of 100 or 200 miles, is a very incomplete column. It remains
primarily an invention of the uniformitarian imagination, and a
textbook orthodoxy.
C) Out of place fossils
1) According to uniformitarian theory, fossils should line up in the
column. Oldest toward the bottom and the youngest toward the
top.
2) Also, we should see the extinction of life forms in one era and
something else taking its place.
3) What we actually find is fossils that are out of place (not where they
should be according to the column).
4) We also see living fossils (those that were thought to be extinct, yet
now have been found alive). Some are the Coelacanth — Dates back
400 million years. Coelacanth fossils pre-date the dinosaurs by millions of years, and were thought to have gone extinct with them 65 million years ago until one was discovered alive in 1938. Ginkgo tree belongs to the family Ginkgoaceae which dates back 270 million years. They were unknown to Europeans until discovered in 1691 in temple gardens in Japan.
E) Paraconformity
1) A paraconformity occurs when two parallel layers from different
parts of the column lie one above the other, lacking the rock layers
that theoretically should lie between them.
2) A paraconformity exists when part of the geological column is
missing in the layers.
3) An example is the Ordovician and Silurian periods are missing in
the Grand Canyon but are found in sequence between the Cambrian
and Devonian in Wales.
4) Paraconformities challenge the geological timescale. The lack of time
at the surface of the underlying layer of a paraconformity, especially
the lack of erosion, suggest that the long ages never accurred.
(Ariel A. Roth; Implication of Paraconformities).
The Geologic Column seems to be only a mental abstraction. There are sufficient assumptions made in classifying fossils and rocks to justify questioning its legitimacy. There are also sufficient anomalies to show that the timescale is wrong and that the fossil order depicted in the Geologic Column is at best a local phenomenon. In short, the Geologic Column is found only in books and web-sites and does not really exist.
What is needed is a statistical study of fossil locations that does not involve the geologic column classification system, but is based only on the actual three dimensional location of fossils, latitude, longitude, and depth relative to sea level. Surface altitude above sea level should be included as well, as this would give a true picture of both local and global fossil distribution, not one based on a theoretical classification system.
In closing as Sean D. Pitman, M.D. said,
“ It seems then that the popular theories of geology and the formation of the geologic column may in fact have significant flaws that might be better explained by a relatively sudden global catastrophe or closely spaced series of very large catastrophes.”
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