Comment on An apology to PUC by Sean Pitman.

@OTNT_Believer:

Since Sean and others seem so certain of their “weight of evidence” in favor of a worldwide flood, and they cite Brand as their champion in this cause, I thought I would just post couple of quotes from his book “Beginnings: Are Science and Scripture Partners in the Search for Origins.” ISBN 9780816321445

“Modern technology shows that the continents are now moving about 0.4 to 2 inches (1-4 cm) per year. Short age geology says that while the continental plates are moving slowly today, at some time in the past they must have moved quite rapidly. However, rapid continental movement poses difficulties for short age geology that we don’t know yet how to solve–for example, what became of the large amount of heat we would expect such movements to generate?” p. 129

It is hard to know how much heat would have been generated by more rapid movements. There may have been lubricating effects of water and molten rock that would have reduced the heat to a manageable degree. Also, water does absorb a great deal of heat and the post-Flood world seems to have been much warmer, globally, than it is today for at least a few hundred years. This is what helped to make the post-Flood world very lush and verdant, even above the arctic circle, for long enough to establish millions of mammoths and other large herbivores and warm-weather animals and plants in such northerly regions.

The fact is that bringing up problems like this for which a definitive answer might not be known does not change the fact that much more substantial problems exist for those who think that there never was much more rapid continental drift in the past… to include the apparent lack of coastal erosion that would have been expected given mainstream thinking and the lack of an adequate mechanism for the long-term slow movement of continents that produce the energy needed to build extensive and rather massive mountain ranges and ocean trenches.

In short, in addition to Brand’s book, it might be worthwhile for those who are interested in this topic to read a paper Brand published in 2007 entitled, “Wholistic Geology: Geology Before, During and After the Biblical Flood” (see Link).

I believe this paper fairly presents the potential and problems with the Biblical perspective and presents interesting alternatives. I do not personally agree with all of Brand’s arguments or conclusions, but I think he presents many interesting points that are worth serious consideration. It also seems, to me anyway, that Brand himself strongly suggests in this paper that the weight of evidence does in fact favor the Biblical model of origins and a recent formation of the geologic column/fossil records to include features consistent with a Noachian Flood of worldwide proportions.

“The sequence of fossils. Interventionists face another challenge. They must explain how it is that trilobites, dinosaurs, and humans all lived at the same time yet didn’t enter the fossil record together. The ecological zonation theory says that we find trilobites, dinosaurs, and humans in different parts of the fossil record because they lived at different elevations. That theory is interesting, but it doesn’t seem to explain some complexities.

Ecological zonation is only one factor that was most likely in play. There are numerous other factors that likely influenced the sorting of the fossil record. Take, for example, the apparent separation of crabs, lobsters, and trilobites in the fossil record. One might reasonable hypothesize that trilobites appear in the fossil record before crabs and lobsters at least party because of the relative abundance of trilobites compared to crabs and lobsters. This hypothesis is at least plausible given the arguments of some authors who conclude that, “Species identities and their relative abundances are non-random properties of communities that persist over long periods of ecological time and across geographic space. This is consistent with species abundance contributing heavily to evolutionary patterns.”

After all, “It’s very rare to find fossils of lobsters”, while fossil trilobites are relatively common. General mobility, ability to survive catastrophic conditions, and other ecological/habitat factors could also reasonably contribute to the differential location of trilobites vs. lobsters and crabs in the fossil record. Various sorting factors associated with floods could also have contributed.

As another example, consider the coelacanth fish. This fish was preserved in the fossil record for what mainstream scientists claim to have been 400 million years of time. Then they suddenly disappear from the fossil record some “80 million years ago” only to reappear alive an well swimming around in oceans today. Clearly, some types of coelacanths lived in habitats that did not lend themselves to fossilization while others did. Obviously then, some habitats are clearly more susceptible to the preservation of fossils. If those specific habitats are not occupied by a particular kind of creature, it may not be preserved in the fossil record even though it is still alive and well in some other habitat.

Consider also that the crayfish was once thought to have evolved from lobster-like ancestors around 140 Ma. This was until very modern-looking crayfish were subsequently found in sedimentary rocks dating up to 300 Ma according to the mainstream time scale.

In short, the problems for evolutionary thinking outweigh the problems and unanswered questions from the young-life perspective – at least as far as I am personally able to tell.

One striking example of a problem for the mainstream perspective is the common finding of “Megabreccias” throughout the geologic column. For a detailed discussion of this phenomenon, please refer to the following 2009 paper by Arthur Chadwick:

http://origins.swau.edu/papers/geologic/mega/eng/index.html

Another example, also by Chadwick, are continent-wide, even worldwide, paleocurrents flowing in the same direction as recorded on the surfaces of the sedimentary layers within the geologic column.

“Paleozoic paleocurrents indicate the influence of directional forces on a grand scale over an extended period. Various authors have attributed the directionality to such things as “regional slopes,” but it is difficult to see how this could apply to deposits of such diverse origins over so wide an area. The lack of strong directionality in the underlying Precambrian sustains the need to seek understanding of what makes the Paleozoic style of sedimentation unique with respect to directional indicators.”

http://origins.swau.edu/papers/global/paleocurrents/eng/index.html

“For instance, if truly catastrophic conditions started at the beginning of the Flood and deposited the sediments in the lower Paleozoic within a few months, huge amounts of rain must have fallen in the uplands where the people lived. We would expect that the resulting catastrophic flow of water from those highlands down to the ocean would have carried with it an abundance of mice, earthworms, pollen grains from flowering plants, grasshoppers, and other terrestrial creeping things . (Picture this process occurring in fig . 10.3.) Why don’t we find these organisms until much higher up-much later-in the fossil record? This fact is difficult to explain if a highly catastrophic, one-year-Iong flood process created the fossil record.” pages 129-131

These are just two examples of many in the book that suggest the evidence isn’t there.

That’s not Brands suggestion. Brand believes that there is a great deal of evidence to support, or at least is consistent with, the theory of a worldwide Noachian Flood. Just because there are a few unanswered questions does not mean that the weight of evidence for the young-life perspective isn’t there. It is there.

Brand’s response to these challenges is to be commended and he periodically suggests we need to do more research. If our evidence is already so strong, then why a need for more research?

This is a rather silly question. As long as there are unanswered questions, more research will be needed to search for answers to these questions. Again, just because questions remain doesn’t mean that we don’t know anything or that we don’t have the weight of currently available evidence strongly favoring the young-life perspective.

I don’t know an SDA geologist that will agree to the assertion that the weight of the evidence favors the flood. Admittedly I only know a few SDA geologists, such as Brand, Clausen, and Buchheim, so maybe I’ve missed one that knows enough to assure me of how strong the weight of the evidence for the flood is. On the other hand I know a number of individuals who are armchair geologists who are perfectly willing to be a bit strong on the topic, although none that seem to be so strongly convinced as Sean.

Perhaps you should contact someone like Ariel Roth or Arthur Chadwick?

It hardly seems to be fair to fault our SDA college biology professors for not being more certain about the weight of the evidence supporting the flood than our prominent SDA geologists. I trust someone like Brand to be open and forthright with the evidence, and when he says the evidence has problems we cannot yet solve, I trust him on that. I’m not a geologist and know the literature on the topic almost not at all, so who should I trust? Feel free to point me to some other quotes by Brand or another trained SDA geologist that gives more weight to the evidence, and maybe I could be convinced, but for now, I think I’ll have to accept the worldwide flood on faith, and like Brand, hope for better evidence to come as our SDA geologists study the problem more thoroughly.

Your personal beliefs are not the issue here – nor are mine for that matter. The issue here is over the SDA Church hiring professors to teach students that the Church’s fundamental position on origins is scientifically untenable and irrational. That sort of thing will more effectively undermine the Church from within than any external attack could do to destroy the effectiveness of the Church as an organization.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

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