Catastrophism - It's What's For Dinner!

Suppose your son has a serious case of bone cancer.  Would you trust a Young Scientist to treat your child?  That is, would you trust Doogie Howser (14 yo)?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096569/

 

Would you listen to a Young Earth Scientist #YES who shares evidence for a youthful world?  I have written two books on that account:

 

Is a Young Earth Possible? - How Science and History Point to a Youthful World and Why it Matters ★★★★½

https://www.amazon.com/Young-Earth-Possible-Science-Youthful/dp/1088860788/

 

YES - Young Earth Science ★★★★

https://www.amazon.com/YES-WorldView-Fallacies-Darwinism-2014-11-14/dp/B01K3RF10I

Catastrophism (most rocks formed fast) is a key pillar in the case for a #YoungPlanet ... Immanuel Velikovsky (Иммануи́л Велико́вский) brought #Catastrophism #CAT into larger public awareness with such works as Worlds in Collision (1950) and Earth in Upheaval (1955):

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Immanuel-Velikovsky

 

In 2015, Charles Ginenthal came out with Newton, Einstein, and Velikovsky which deals with the instability of the Solar System and challenges mainstream dating methods:

https://www.velikovsky.info/newton-einstein-and-velikovsky/

 

Einstein (d. 1955) and Velikovsky (d. 1979) corresponded with each other from 1946 to 1955: 

http://www.varchive.org/cor/einstein/index.htm

https://www.velikovsky.info/before-the-day-breaks/

What started the #OldEarth fad?  Rejecting #CAT ... we read this from the New International Encyclopedia (1915):

 

Geological work is so slow, and the evidence of vast changes in the past, so clear, that, so long as it was held that the age of the earth was to be reckoned in a period of a few thousand years, no other conclusion was possible than that the changes observed had been rapidly made as a result of stupendous  catastrophes. ... however, it was made clear by Hutton and his successors that the recorded facts indicates slow changes, it began to appear possible that the age of the earth was great [millions of years].  The promulgation of the doctrine of evolution, and the increased knowledge of past life, as recorded by the fossils, brought further evidence of the great age of the earth. [1]   

 

What can we say about prejudice against #CAT ?  According to Michael Rampino (Biology Prof, NYU),

 

In 1831, the Scottish horticulturalist Patrick Matthew (1790-1874) published a clear statement of the law of natural selection ... which both Darwin and Wallace later acknowledged. Matthew, however, was a catastrophist, and he presented natural selection within the contemporary view that relatively long intervals of environmental stability [and biological stasis ?] were episodically punctuated by catastrophic mass extinctions of life. https://nyuscholars.nyu.edu/en/publications/darwins-error-patrick-matthew-and-the-catastrophic-nature-of-the-

 

More on Patrick Matthew here:

https://dl0.creation.com/articles/p142/c14250/j29_2_119-123.pdf

 

Derek Victor Ager, former President of the British Geological Association, published The New Catastrophism - The Importance of the Rare Event in Geological History in 1995:

https://www.cambridge.org/us/universitypress/subjects/earth-and-environmental-science/sedimentology-and-stratigraphy/new-catastrophism-importance-rare-event-geological-history

 

Is a Global Flood, as described by the hundreds of #FloodLegends from around the world, really a thing?  Marilyn "super smart" vos Savant (see the graphic) said that if you flatten out the Earth, the oceans would cover the land to a depth of 8810' (1⅔ miles). [2]

One primary figure in the "No Young Earth" Movement was the late Ron Numbers (d. 2023).  I had the opportunity to hear his story in a small group @ OU's History of Science Department in the early 1990's.  Although raised Adventist, Dr. Numbers spurned Deluge Theory:

 

I vividly remember the evening I attended an illustrated lecture on the famous sequence of fossil forests in Yellowstone National Park and then stayed up most of the night … agonizing over, then accepting, the disturbing likelihood that the earth was at least thirty thousand years old. Having thus decided to follow science rather than Scripture on the subject of origins, I quickly, though not painlessly, slid down the proverbial slippery slope toward unbelief.

https://creation.com/the-yellowstone-petrified-forests

 

It is now widely recognized that the Yellowstone "fossil forests" - 27 layers @  Specimen Ridge & around 50 layers @ Specimen Creek - were formed catastrophically.  Dr Michael Arct studied the tree ring "fingerprints" of over a dozen trees in different levels and found that they all died around the same time which is consistent with rapid formation of the ash deposits.

https://creation.com/the-yellowstone-petrified-forests

 

Dr. Numbers should have changed his mind !!

The eruption of Mt. St. Helens (1980) #MSH is a clear parallel to Yellowstone:

https://origins.swau.edu/papers/dinos/yellowstone/eng/index.html

In 1962, Henry Morris (Genesis Flood, 1961) spoke to the Houston Geological Society and gave a presentation on #Catastrophism #CAT

https://www.galaxie.com/article/gj04-2-02

 

Dr. Morris spoke to a crowd of 500 folks and during the Q&A time there was dead silence!   According to one observer, the audience was "too stunned to speak!" [3] 

 

Interview with David Kitts - my History of Science Prof:

https://youtu.be/TmF7Y3kpucU

In spite of all this, they kept on sinning;

    in spite of his wonders, they did not believe.

So he ended their days in futility

    and their years in terror.

Whenever God slew them, they would seek him;

    they eagerly turned to him again.

They remembered that God was their Rock,

    that God Most High was their Redeemer. (Ps. 78:32-35)

 

my site: https://totalyouth.us

Notes:

1) New International Encyclopedia (1915), Vol. "G" (?), p. 595.

different vol. for reference:

https://books.google.com/books/about/New_International_Encyclopedia.html?id=qxooAAAAYAAJ

2) "Ask Marilyn" by Marilyn vos Savant, Parade, July 9, 2000, p. 14.

3) The Creationists by Ron Numbers (Harvard Univ. Press, 2006, exp. ed.), pp. 235, 236.

 

** kudos: graphic sources >>

https://avatars.mds.yandex.net/get-kinopoisk-image/1900788/c8f27e4f-d65c-4303-a36a-a7dbf80c55ce/orig

https://www.velikovsky.info/before-the-day-breaks/

https://arkencounter.com/christmas/

 

#CAT #Catastrophism #YES #YoungEarthScientists #DerekAger (d. 1993) #NeilPatrickHarris #DrDoogieHowser #TotalYouth #TrueTruth #TotalTruth  #MaxCasella #Vinnie Delpino #BelindaMontgomery #PressMan #J_Skewel

#DrBen #Canfield #KathrynLayng #James_is_Sik #PagingDrDavid  #Markus_NotWell #DrRay ... OR ... #UCan_Callmii ... #Luke #LUCY #DrJack   #BarryMcGuire ♫ #Eve_of_Destruction #CAT_that ! #Wanda_Getwell ?  

#RIF #Hutton #RonWelched #LIFE #UncleDougie #YES_Man #Y6K #Gen5and11 #Slurp_that ‼ ☺ #Creationista #RonNumbers ### 55-23-88 #hike ‼  

#DoubleNickel #Chevy #FAST  

The Argument: Aristotle to Thousands of Years

Aristotle's views on biology support the thesis that Essential Types of Life (horses, frogs, humans etc.) remain stable and vary within limits.  That is, stasis along with change that has a boundary.  There is an excellent episode of In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg (BBC) on Aristotle's Biology.  My interview with David Kitts, who taught Philosophy, Geology and History of Science, touches on Aristotle as well.

Now, when we combine this premise, stasis of Essential Types of Life (ETL's), with the fossil record, how do we proceed?  Tertullian pointed to fossils found on mountains as evidence of the Great Flood, the mega-catastrophe Earth endured just a few thousand years ago that even the founder of modern paleontology Georges Cuvier accepted.  Augustine saw fossils as the remains of creatures living before the Flood.  Martin Luther referred to fossils as being the result of the Deluge in his commentary on Genesis.  Agostino Scilla published a work in 1670 on fossils which he illustrated himself which pointed to the Flood as their cause. [1]

But what about the fossil order?  There are places on the earth where ALL the geologic periods overlay the Pre-Cambrian (Pre-Flood).  In fact, 23.2% of the Ordovician is directly on top of the Pre-Cambrian and 18.6% of the Devonian is directly on top of the Pre-Cambrian.  This would seem to imply a shrinking of the traditional geologic time scale.

What if most of the geologic record was part of a single event, how is the general fossil order explained?  Ecological zonation, shallow marine organisms would be in the lower layers, hydrodynamic sorting and the higher mobility of vertebrates seems to be the solution.  That is, there was no "Age of Trilobites" or "Age of Dinosaurs."

Now, if most of the rocks were formed rapidly, that is catastrophically, then we need to drastically reduce the traditional geologic timescale.  Derek Ager was President of the British Geological Association and wrote The New Catastrophism which provides a plethora of examples of rapid geologic action.  If most rocks formed fast, could this planet be young (thousands, not billions of years old)?

Is there a pointer that implies most of the geology came from one event?  Let's look at the Strontium ratio (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) combined with sea level changes through geologic time:

The fact that these graphs match up fits better with the idea the most of the rocks were made from a Singular Event of Rapid Geologic Activity (SERGA).  Did the giant dragonflies live Millions Of Years Ago (MOYA)?  Maybe not. 

For more cool info on the young earth, be sure to get your copy of Is a Young Earth  Possible? today!  Your feedback is most welcome:

  YoungEarthScience@yahoo.com

 

Note:

1) The Deluge Story in Stone by Byron Nelson (Bethany Fellowship, Minneapolis, MN, 1968), pp. 9, 10, 18.

A Young Earth with Critical Thinking (Rudwick)

Martin Rudwick's book Earth's Deep History: How It Was Discovered and Why It Matters came out in 2014.  So did my book YES - Young Earth Science which refutes much of Dr. Rudwick's content. 

Martin Rudwick is professor emeritus of history at the University of California - San Diego as well as affiliated scholar in the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge.

Rudwick seems to think that Aristotle and Plato go against the young earth view.  Both philosophers favored biological essentialism.  See chapter nine in my latest book on how essentialism naturally leads to supporting a planet of relatively recent origin.  Plato wrote of the disaster that destroyed Atlantis.  Once you favor huge catastrophes, then most of the rock record was formed rapidly.  If there is no major time gap between the layers (search "paraconformity"), then the "Millions Of Years Ago" (MOYA) goes extinct.

Interestingly, Earth's Deep History gives a critique of those scientists who go for Young Earth Science (YES) in an appendix at the back of the book.  A more balanced and related book is by my History of Science professor David Kitts, TheStructure of Geology.  Kitts work is one of the primary tomes on the Philosophy of Geology.  Kitts studied with Dobzhansky, GG Simpson (the greatest paleontologist of the 20th Century) and taught in 3 departments at the University of Oklahoma - History of Science (where he was chairman), Geology and Philosophy.

Kitts not only stresses the importance of presuppositions and worldview as geologists practice their trade, but also calmly discusses the challenge of overthrusts (older strata over younger beds) to mainstream science. [1]  Kitts realized that much of our geologic knowledge is limited, even with respect to radioactive dating. [2]  He further pointed out that the philosophical basis for saying that the fossil record "proves" evolution is weak. [3]  You can hear my interview with Dr. Kitts here.

Surprisingly, Rudwick's book does not contain the name "Ager" in the index.  Former President of the British Geological Association, Derek Ager, wrote an entire book on episodic geology - The New Catastrophism.  He even wrote a book as early as 1973 defending the thesis that most formations were created rapidly (The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record).  On the other hand, Rudwick does cover catastrophism to some extent, such as the Great Missoula Flood which was highlighted in a NOVA episode.

Rudwick deals with the Ice Age which is no problem for young earth theory.  I argue in my book Is a Young Earth Possible? that a recent global catastrophe is the key to explaining the Ice Age. [4]  Huge volcanism causes massive evaporation and precipitation.

In chapter ten of Earth's Deep History, Rudwick writes on the oceans.  The ocean floor in many places is covered with Manganese (Mn) nodules which are somewhat like pearls and grow from small bits of basalt and other materials.  The measured growth rates of these nodules indicate an age of only thousands of years. [5]

Rudwick deals with the Cambrian period many times in his book.  In the Cambrian, we find larger life forms compared to the Pre-Cambrian, some up to two feet.  It's a seldom mentioned fact that there is a Great Unconformity at the Pre-Cambrian/Cambrian boundary, as you can see in the Grand Canyon, which points to a global catastrophe which agrees with YES. 

Rudwick explains radiometric dating on a number of pages, but does it really deserve the trust as a magic clock that many scientists give it?  Geologist Bates McKee, writing in a book on the geology of the Pacific Northwest (McGraw-Hill), makes this stark admission:    

One might imagine that direct methods of measuring time [radiometric dating] would make obsolete all of the previous means of estimating age, but these new "absolute" measurements are used more as a supplement to traditional methods than as a substitute.  Geologists put more faith in the principles of superposition and faunal succession than they do in numbers that come out of a machine.  If the laboratory results contradict the field evidence, the geologist assumes that that there is something wrong with the machine date. [6] 

Please consider writing a positive review of my latest book, Is a Young Earth Possible?, on Amazon.

So, what do you think about Rudwick's book Earth's Deep History?  Let us know:

  YoungEarthScience@yahoo.com

Notes:

1) The Structure of Geology by David Kitts (SMU Press, Dallas, 1977), pp. xviii, xix, 79-82, 110-113.

2) Ibid., p. 32.

3) Ibid., pp. 160-162.

4) Is a Young Earth Possible? by Jay Hall (Institute for Catastrophism and Tectonics - iCAT, Big Spring, TX, 2019), pp. 264-266.

5) Ibid., pp. 66-68. 

6) quoted in Deep Time Deception by Michael Oard (Creation Book Publishers, Powder Spring, GA, 2019), pp. 105, 107.

YES - the Young Earth Science podcast 2081 (The Renaissance of Catastrophism)

In 1923, J Harlen Bretz boldly advocated that the Channeled Scablands of Washington (East of Seattle) had a catastrophic origin.  He was scorned by his peers for many decades.  NOVA had an episode on "one of the Earth's strangest geological riddles" in their show Mystery of the Megaflood which highlights Bretz' story.

Today catastrophism is on the rise and even underlies the mainstream explanation for the extinction of the dinosaurs.  Since around 1980, we are now in the Renaissance of Catastrophism - hear the podcast here.

Even Wikipedia has a page on the risk of global catastrophe.  According to a paper published in Nature in 1994, there's a 1-in-10K chance that a large asteroid (~2km wide) could hit the Earth within this century and wipe out a large portion of the world's population. 

Derek Ager was President of the British Geological Association and wrote The New Catastrophism which provides a plethora of examples of rapid geologic action.  If most rocks formed fast, could this planet be young (thousands, not billions of years old)?

The famous 1929 Grand Banks earthquake off Newfoundland caused a turbidity current where telegraph cables broke and thus recorded its speed of up to 60 mph!  This formed a turbidite which are abundant in the rock record.

For powerful evidence from History and Science that the earth is young, be sure to get your copy of YES - Young Earth Science and discover the clues refuting Deep Time.  D.S. Allan (science historian) and J.B. Delair (Geology museum curator, UK) have written Cataclysm!: Compelling Evidence of a Cosmic Catastrophe in 9500 B.C.  They provide abundant evidence of a great global catastrophe that occurred just thousands of years ago.  

"A science’s level of development is determined by the extent to which it is capable of a crisis in its basic concepts."

  - Martin Heidegger

We appreciate your feedback:  YoungEarthScience@yahoo.com

Deep Time – Mind Map

Kim Kastens (Columbia Univ.) and Cathryn Manduca (Carleton College, Northfield, MN) have produced a revealing mind map of Deep Time in their book Earth and Mind II which they edited.  Go to this map to see the details.

Note Historical Sciences in the bottom right.  Historical Science is often ignored by evolution advocates, but Butterflies-to-Brainiacs transformation is beyond the combined lifetimes of hundred of observers.  A Chemistry experiment can be repeated often, but not the demise of T-Rex. 

Catastrophism is referred to under Big Ideas of Science, but the implications are lacking.  Derek Ager, former President of the British Geological Association, wrote The New Catastrophism in 1993.  Ager held that most rock formations came about via quick geologic action.  If most of the rock record was formed rapidly and the time between layers is minimal (google “paraconformities”), then the geologic time scale must be shortened drastically.   

Under Pedagogy the assumption is that students are a little slow and can’t understand that a cube as wide as your hand has one thousand cubic centimeters (i.e. 1 Liter).  A thousand thousand make a million and a thousand million make a billion:

The problem is NOT that student can’t get Deep Time, it’s that the real evidence favors Young Earth Science (YES) which is overlooked by mainstream Geology.  A more helpful pedagogy would be debate.  Allow students to defend both sides of the issue.

A trend setting book, YES - Young Earth Science, defends a young earth from History, Geology, Biology and Philosophy.  Michael Crichton (Jurassic World) rightly said, "Consensus is the business of politics.  Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right … The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus."

What evidence would be required to confirm Young Earth Science?  Please contact us!

YoungEarthScience@yahoo.com