What does it matter what makes me believe something?
The question wasn't about beliefs. It was about a claim that there was a global flood. What makes you
claim that?
And of course you have some posts of mine to point to that show exactly where I do this, right?
Not on me at the moment.
Nope...This is assuming the truth of your idea and asserting it as fact. We find higher iridium content in some layers that show some connectivity. There are multiple ideas surrounding how this might have happened.
There is only one idea about how a layer of iridium appeared around the earth because we know where and when the asteroid impact happened.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/16/science/dinosaurs-extinction-meteorite-volcano.html
Stuu: We know that global events leave global evidence.
Billions of dead things buried in rock the globe over.
What, in the 4300 ybp layer, and nowhere before that?
This is all parsed in the language of the ideas you hold to.
Funny that, eh? That's what happens when you decide to base your worldview on things that can reasonably be said to be true, regardless of how it makes you feel. But then that is not going to make sense to religious fundamentalists who would believe that it is special creation that makes a puddle fit its pothole so perfectly.
In a rational discussion, you need to present things in terms that both sides can agree to, not assert the primacy of your beliefs.
So you would rather have the alt-facts for the alt-worldview, the facts that you feel you will be able to agree to? Your beliefs and mine are irrelevant. Mr.Brown made up some alt-facts for you. They might make you feel better about something, but they are wrong. The ice cores don't care that your beliefs are being upset. The trees haven't grown their rings out of spite for you. The universe doesn't have to suit what we would like to believe, it just is.
Stuu: They have nothing to do with science.
Then quit the conversation.
I am interested in science, and this thread is supposed to be about real science. Who first mentioned Mr. Brown's book? Not me!
Where are you getting this stuff? You know I'm a Kiwi living in Taiwan, right? I've spent all of six hours in the US and hate schools.
Well since you are apparently an advocate for Mr. Brown's hydroplates, I feel you should know why he invented them. That doesn't necessarily count as an argument against his ideas, but it would be an explanation for why a man would devote so much time and energy to producing a body of work that is dismissed as a joke by science generally.
There is a niche in the political ecosystem, if you will forgive the analogy, for those who can produce and popularise so-called alt-facts. These days it tends to be populist politicians and commentators on the far right of politics who will make up lies then deny they are lies, but call them the alt-facts. Everyone is allowed to have their own set of facts, and these lies are their 'facts'. Why do you need facts that aren't facts? Because if you are the one who has the facts, whether they are true or not, you can pretend to win arguments and gain influence. The current US president is your prime example, and the UK Prime Minister is your second. So much for Exodus 23:1-3, if this is a bible-believing president.
But this is not just a recent thing. In the 1960s the US government put a very large amount of money into science education as part of its push to achieve a moon landing. If you are of the right age, this spending had an influence on your education in science too, in any English-speaking country into the 1970s and even 1980s. My contention is that during the 1960s fundamentalist christians didn't like the fact that all the biology and geology that contradicts scripture was being given more prominence than in the past, so 'creation science' was invented as a religious counter-culture.
Thus sprang up an industry of alt-science, one that started with the premise that, come what may, scripture must be right. If the science contradicts scripture then the science needs to come to different conclusions. Well I hope that you can see this isn't science. There was an early creation scientist, an Adventist called George McCready Price, but the modern ver
sion began with John Whitcomb and Henry Morris, and continued with Mr. Brown in the 1980s, although his version seems to have only limited appeal amongst fundamentalist christians.
An important objective of creation science to come up with arguments that appear plausibly scientific so they can push them into schools then try to win court cases brought against them on the Establishment Clause. Such court cases in Arkansas in 1982 and in the US Supreme Court in 1987 ruled that creation science was not to be taught in public schools because its sole purpose was to promote a religious view. In 2005, Intelligent Design was ruled against for the same reasons. You may have heard of the
Wedge Document. It gives you everything you need to know about why Intelligent Design creationism was invented. It's political ideology.
While you appear to be a fan of Mr. Brown, his creationism is really about attempts at political leverage and influence over school curricula to favour religious teaching, for whatever motives he might have. The alt-facts for the alt-worldview is his gift to fundamentalists. You may be interested in good science yourself, but that would not put you Mr. Brown's target demographic. He works for the fundamentalists in the US who want more god in schools. The global flood, which clearly is not relevant to natural history, has nothing to do with science but is almost entirely about American politics.
There is no single Darwinist view.
There is a neo-Darwinian synthesis. It's almost universally agreed as a 'single view' amongst biologists. Not that there aren't points of contention within it, of course.
Now because you appear unwilling to accept what scientific consensus is, I will not be going through what a synthesis is in this context, ok? If you want to know, look it up.
I feel sad not being allowed to tag an alternative discussion on the end. It was nice to end on a friendly note.
Cricket was bigger in the United State than in England in the 19th Century. The ToL mods may not appreciate the significance of what they gave away when they turfed all that tea into the harbour. Or something.
Stuart
