Institute for Creation (Credulous) Research (Retards), PO Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021 Voi
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Institute for Creation Research, PO Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021
Voice: (619) 448-0900 FAX: (619) 448-3469
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No. 238 "Vital Articles on Science/Creation" April 1993
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Studies in Creationism and Flood Geology
by John Woodmorappe*
Copyright (c) 1993 by I.C.R.
All Rights Reserved
* John Woodmorappe has a Bachelor's and a Master's Degree in Geology and
Bachelor's Degree in Biology. He is a science teacher and is also a
research fellow at a university.
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Over the last 15 years, I have engaged in intensive scholarship in
scientific creationism, with which I would like to acquaint the lay
creationist reader. Many questions and issues in flood geology have
been given at least a tentative answer as a result of my little-known
research, which has been written for scientists, especially geologists.
The purpose of this Impact article is to summarize my research in
everyday language for the average reader.
In my "Causes for the Biogeographic Distribution of Land Vertebrates
After the Flood" (Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on
Creationism, 1990, Vol. II, pp. 361-370), I explain why the animals on
different continents are so different from each other if they originated
from one point (Noah's Ark in the mountains of Ararat).
The interior regions of the continents were very cold for some time
after the Flood, due to blockage of sunlight by volcanic aerosols
released during the Flood, and animals did not freely spread in all
directions upon their release from the Ark, but were shunted across
narrow bands of land warm enough to support life. This ultimately
caused very different animals to end up on different continents.
The postdiluvian peoples, after their post-Babel dispersion, probably
introduced different animals to different continents (such as
the Australian marsupials, South American mammals, and Madagascaran
primates). I point out that South America, Australia, and the island of
Madagascar are all in direct line of maritime routes emanating from the
Middle East, and hence are natural stopping points for the postdiluvian
peoples.
Flightless birds on islands possibly resulted through microevolution
(or, better, variation) from birds which had flown there.
I present evidence that this can happen in a short time. Also because
of this, we need not suppose that God created birds with useless wings.
In my "The Antediluvian Biosphere and its Capability of Supplying
the Entire Fossil Record" (Proceedings of the 1st International
Conference on Creationism, 1986, Vol. II, pp. 205-218), I refute
anti-creationists who have claimed that the material found in the fossil
record could not possibly all have been alive on a recently created
earth. I prove that the world's coal, oil, fossil crinoids, Karoo
vertebrates, limestone components, etc., could all have come from the
remains of creatures having lived in the short time between creation and
the Flood and then buried by the Flood.
In "A Diluviological Treatise on the Stratigraphic Separation of
Fossils" (Creation Research Society Quarterly 20(3)133-185; December
1983), I examine, in great detail, how one flood accounts for the fact
that different fossils are found in different layers of rock. I test,
using over 9,500 global locations of fossils, the tendencies of over 30
different types of fossils to overlie each other in rock. Then I
propose and test a new mechanism to explain, through one flood, the
relatively few cases where rocks bearing many different kinds of fossils
overlie each other.
This mechanism, which combines biogeographic zones of living things
with a tendency for crustal rock to downwarp also is used to explain
why, in the lower layers of fossils, there are fewer fossil types that
have any representatives still alive today. I demonstrate that
evolution with geologic ages is not the sole (or even the best)
explanation for this trend.
I address the fact that there are few, if any, human remains in
lower fossiliferous rock. According to evolution, it is because humans
did not appear until very recently. I provide a diluvian explanation
for this, showing through actual calculations that the antediluvian
humans were so dispersed in the great volumes of sedimentary rock that
it is extremely improbable that any of them ever would have been
discovered. Alternatively, such discoveries are so infrequent that any
such find could be easily ignored or discounted by evolutionists.
In "An Anthology of Matters Significant to Creationism and
Diluviology: Report 2" (Creation Research Society Quarterly,
18(4)201-23, 239; March 1982), I discuss various topics, including
further evidences against organic evolution, against the existence of
ancient reefs in ancient rock, and against the usual claim of
overthrusts (rock strata mechanically pushed over each other) to explain
away instances of fossils overlying each other in wrong order, according
to evolution. I also provide 200 examples of fossils occurring in
"wrong" rock strata, according to evolution, and show that there usually
is no evidence to support the usual evolutionary rationalization that
these are situations where fossils from older rock were washed out and
redeposited in younger strata.
In "The Essential Nonexistence of the Evolutionary-Uniformitarian
Geologic Column: A Quantitative Assessment" (Creation Research Society
Quarterly, 18(1)46-71; June 1981), I show, by overlying world maps of
rocks attributed by evolutionary geologists to different ancient
geologic periods, just how small a percentage of the earth's land
surface has rocks of many alleged geologic periods all in one place. I
also show, through calculations, that rocks of geologic periods supposed
to have succeeded each other in time, rarely succeed each other as
layers of rock.
In "An Anthology of Matters Significant to Creationism and
Diluviology: Report 1" (Creation Research Society Quarterly,
16(4)209-19; March 1980), I cover many topics. For example, I document
recent discoveries which show that many fossils once thought by
evolutionists to have been restricted to certain layers of rock strata,
have now been found in many other layers of rock. I also provide
evidence against the usual claim of evolutionary geologists that certain
processes, whose effects are seen in rock, must have taken a long time
to happen.
In my "Radiometric Geochronology Reappraised" (Creation Research
Society Quarterly, 16(2)102-29, 147; September 1979), I engage in a
thorough and systematic refutation of the dating methods used by
evolutionary geologists to support their claim that the earth's
fossil-bearing rock formed gradually over hundreds of millions of years,
supposedly indicating that the earth must be billions of years old.
Whereas other creationists have questioned the assumptions underlying
isotopic dating, I provide numerous geologic demonstrations of the
invalidity of radiometric dating. This includes over 400 published
instances of serious discrepancies between isotopic age and the
expected age of the rock based on its fossils, according to standard
evolutionary thought. I also show that, contrary to intuitively held
beliefs, internal consistence in dates obtained by these methods, and
even agreement between results of different dating methods, are not
proof for their validity.
I refute the claim that various dating methods agree that the earth
is 4.5 billion years old. I demonstrate that there are gross
contradictions in billion-year values from earth's rock, and that there
are even some values obtained which are much greater than the
4.5-billion-year accepted age of the earth.
Most creationist research on the fallacies of evolution (for example,
that of Dr. Duane Gish of the Institute for Creation Research)
has focused on vertebrates. In "The Cephalopods in the Creation and the
Universal Deluge" (Creation Research Society Quarterly, 15(2)94-111;
September 1978), I focus on a group of invertebrate animals which
include the modern squid and octopus. This group of animals is used by
evolutionary geologists to a greater extent than any other fossil
animal, to subdivide rock strata into alleged different spans of time.
I show, in detail, the fallacies of these practices, as well as the fact
that there is an even greater absence of expected evolutionary
transitions among cephalopods than is the case among the vertebrates
surveyed by Dr. Gish. Finally, I demonstrate how the ecological
differences among cephalopods explain why all the living and fossil
cephalopods were buried by one flood in the order in which they are
found in rock strata. A popular level version of this work on
cephalopods, entitled "Cephaloped Conches," appeared in Ministry,
January-February 1980.
In "A Diluvian Interpretation of Ancient Cyclic Sedimentation"
(Creation Research Society Quarterly, 14(4)189-208; March 1978), I show
how one flood explains the fact that most of the world's coal deposits
occur in sandwich-like layers interbedded with rock, and that standard
evolutionary geology has a difficult time explaining this. I then
develop a model to show how vast sheets of rising and falling flood
waters buried floating vegetation (which later became coal) in between
layers of mud (later shale) and sand (later sandstone).
Currently, I am working on several creationist projects which I
anticipate publishing in the future. I would hope that creationists
will make full use of this research, and that it will serve as a
springboard for further research by other creationist scholars. It is
only through careful and intense scholarship that creationism can grow
in explanatory power, which is the goal of all scientific research.
The publications mentioned by Mr. Woodmorappe in this article have
been combined into a single volume entitled Studies in Flood Geology. It
is available through the Institute for Creation Research. Approximately
200 pages, it sells for $12.95 and is intended for the serious reader.
Reproductions courtesy Creation Research Society Quarterly, P.O. Box
28473, Kansas City, MO 64118, and Creation Science Fellowship, 362
Ashland Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15228.
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This "Impact" was converted to ASCII, for BBS use,
from the original formatted desktop article.
Comments regarding typographical errors
in the above material are appreciated.
Don Barber, ICR Systems Administrator
Fax: (619) 448-0900
All ICR staff members adhere to a Statement of Faith
in the form of two documents:
"Tenets of Scientific Creationism,"
and "Tenets of Biblical Creationism."
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