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How to debunk these creationist claims? - need help

pnerd

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How should I debunk these claims with hard scientific facts:

They have found fossils in vertical postions - running through layers of strata that supposedly have 'millions of years' worth of time between them. http://creationismunleashed.blogspot.com/2005/08/kamikaze-ichthyosaur-pummels-millions.html
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Limestone And trilobite fossils found on Mt. Everest. Read: http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2106
And why aren't there any 'transitional' fossils? As of yet, fossils (plant and animal) found worldwide are fully formed. Scientists do not dispute this. When evolutionists point out supposed 'transitional' fossils, they too, are fully functional and fully formed. So where are the fossils showing how mutations and natural selection produced the eye, mouth, gill, fin or scale? And you can't say that they were soft bodied and thus do not show up in the fossil record - because in southern China, soft bodied sponges and embryos have been found in abundance.
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Using rocks to date the fossils and using fossils to date the rocks is circular.
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The last one is refuted in this TalkOrigins page: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dating.html#Circularity
But it's a bit technical. Can anyone help me with a less technical explanation?
 
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For your 1st quote, rock layers shift. Timelines embedded in rock need not be horizontal. Check this out.

For the 2nd point, who ever said "transitional fossil"="not fully formed"? That's like saying a sapling isn't a transition between an acorn and an oak tree because after all, it is fully formed, complete with trunk, branches and leaves. In fact, every fossil is a transitional form (with the exception of the few that went extinct as a result of being fossilized). You can even point out to your friend that he is a transitional form too.
 
You will have trouble because, as a creationist, he probably doesn't believe in plate tectonics, especially the part in which the Himalayas were/are being formed by a collision between the Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate which caused sedimentary rock formed on the ocean floor to be pushed up five miles. The time spans involved are probably outside the limits of his his beliefs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayas
 
Arguing with creationists is useless since they always fall back on: "Well you weren't there to see for yourself."
There is simply no way to debate them.
Their position requires zero evidence.
Just faith.
 
And why aren't there any 'transitional' fossils? As of yet, fossils (plant and animal) found worldwide are fully formed. Scientists do not dispute this. When evolutionists point out supposed 'transitional' fossils, they too, are fully functional and fully formed.
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Transitional fossils are expected to be fully formed. This is just a straw man.

As for fossils on Mount Everest, I don't see how that's an issue for evolution. The rock that is now at the top of Mount Everest used to be underwater. Since Everest is pointy instead of rounded, we know it's a relatively newer mountain. I can't remember if I learned that in 5th grade Earth Science or 9th grade Earth Science, but it certainly isn't college-level geology.
 
The basic answer to the "Circular" argument is that fossils can still be dated independently of rocks, and rocks still be dated independently of fossils.

Sometimes shortcuts are possible: If it happens that the dates of something in the enviornment are already well known enough to be a reliable indicator (from previous independant assessment), they can be used to date something else quickly, easily, and cheaply.
If anyone has serious doubt as to the age offered, they can still date it independently of those quick & dirty factors, if they wanted to.

But, it's hardly circular. Only someone unfamiliar with all the various dating methods scientists have at their disposal would see it that way.
 
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pnerd said:
Using rocks to date the fossils and using fossils to date the rocks is circular.
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Originally, geologists noticed that there are distinct, recognizable layered patterns in rocks, and that the layers always occurred in the same order (unless there was signs of rock folding in the area -- in which case the order would be reversed, but not jumbled). The conclusion was that the deepest rocks were the oldest, and they got younger as you rose through the column.

Of course, the whole column isn't available everywhere -- you have to do a little pattern matching to work out the whole pattern. But in any given area, the order of the sub-section of the entire column that's there is preserved.

Then scientist noticed that there were characteristic fossils that only ever occurred in certain layers: large mammal fossils are only in the highest layers, dinosaurs are only in layers below the KT boundary, etc. If you find a rock with a T. Rex fossil in it, you can be pretty sure it's from the Cretaceous layer, since all other T. Rexes ever found have been in Cretaceous rock.

Of course, that doesn't actually give you dates, just order. With just this information, if you find a fossil in a Jurasic layer, you know it's older than from an Eocene layer, but you don't know how much older.

That's where this argument leaves off, but it's deliberately ignoring an important fact: the rock layers can be independently dated, in absolute terms, using radiometric methods -- and most rocks can be dated using multiple, independent methods so you can cross-check your results.

We know that the the KT boundary is at the end of the Cretaceous epoch and the start of the Paleocene epoch, but we also know that the KT boundary is 65 million years old, thanks to (non-fossil-related) radiometric dating. So we know that the Cretaceous epoch ended 65 million years ago -- and similar dating establishes the ages of all the other layers.

All of this establishes that:
  • Certain fossils are only found in certain layers
  • We know the ages of those layers from non-fossil-related methods
  • Therefore, we know the ages of those certain fossils by the ages of the layers they are in.
We can date rocks from fossils and fossils from rocks, but only because we have dated the rocks using a completely independent method. The rocks-from-fossils and fossils-from-rocks cross-dating is just a convenience afforded us from that other work.
 
pnerd said:
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How should I debunk these claims with hard scientific facts:

They have found fossils in vertical postions - running through layers of strata that supposedly have 'millions of years' worth of time between them. http://creationismunleashed.blogspot.com/2005/08/kamikaze-ichthyosaur-pummels-millions.html
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This one is precious. They appear to express incredulity that, because a dead marine animal gets bloated and floats, that therefore it couldn't "plunge" down into the soft mud to achieve it's vertical position of fossilization, across a million years of strata.

Just what do these bozos think happens after a corpse rots away? The bones rot away, too? Or keep floating?

And it wouldn't have to "spear into the mud" to be upright, either. It could have slowly been twisted around by god knows what. Muck at the bottom of the ocean is thick and sloppy indeed. There's a lotta dying crap up there that floats down eventually.




Limestone And trilobite fossils found on Mt. Everest. Read: http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2106
And why aren't there any 'transitional' fossils? As of yet, fossils (plant and animal) found worldwide are fully formed. Scientists do not dispute this. When evolutionists point out supposed 'transitional' fossils, they too, are fully functional and fully formed. So where are the fossils showing how mutations and natural selection produced the eye, mouth, gill, fin or scale? And you can't say that they were soft bodied and thus do not show up in the fossil record - because in southern China, soft bodied sponges and embryos have been found in abundance.
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I'm not even sure what the heck they're trying to say is wrong here. The rock that is Everest was, at one time, flat, and below sea level. Things died and were fossilized, then Everest was lifted up with its two continental plates colliding.

It sounds like they may be arguing that fossilization takes awhile, and requires no oxygen for fossil formation. I don't know, but I presume this means actual petrification, and not just the first few years of not rotting away the flesh and disintegrating the bone.

So they seem to be suggesting that the rocks were, umm, pushed up through the oxygen-heavy normal air before they got to the low-oxygen high altitudes, so how in god's name did the fossilization occur?


This is beyond stupid. Are you sure this web site isn't a put-on?

A legitimate response, again, lest the frauds try to claim victory: Stuff is buried deep in rocks, where oxygen won't get at it. That's why it doesn't have oxygen in the ocean, not because there's water "keeping the air away". Fossils happen to land animals, too.
 
pnerd said:
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How should I debunk these claims with hard scientific facts:
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You should have posted this on the science forums.

Let's debunk it.

They have found fossils in vertical postions - running through layers of strata that supposedly have 'millions of years' worth of time between them. http://creationismunleashed.blogspot...-millions.html
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This is a flat lie. There are many fossils in vertical positions --- but not one single fossil "running through layers of strata that supposedly have 'millions of years' worth of time between them".

This is why your friend cannot produce a single example of a fossil passing through strata which are dated millions of years apart. This is simply a lie that creationists have made up.

And why aren't there any 'transitional' fossils? As of yet, fossils (plant and animal) found worldwide are fully formed. Scientists do not dispute this.
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Another plain falsehood. Of course scientists dispute the creationist lie that there are no transitional fossils.

For example, here is the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould saying that intermediate forms are "abundant" and "often found".

That would be a scientist disputing the creationist lie. And merely by doing so, he proves that creationists are liars, since part of their lie is that no scientist disputes their lies.

Using rocks to date the fossils and using fossils to date the rocks is circular.
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And this, of course, is why no-one does any such thing. This is a creationist lie about what geologists do that has nothing to do with what geologists actually do.
 
This is a flat lie. There are many fossils in vertical positions --- but not one single fossil "running through layers of strata that supposedly have 'millions of years' worth of time between them".
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Just to be a pain in the rear..technically, this does happen. In condensed marine sections for example, individual ammonite fossils can at times penetrate several layers of strata after they plunge to the bottom and embed themselves in the bottom mud. Microfossils like forams and diatoms can be used to date these individual strata sometimes to very high resolution...better that that available with ammonites for example. Creationists ignore the fact that a single specimen (or many thousands of specimens) CAN in fact pierce through millions of years of sediment in a fraction of a second, and become preserved.

Just trying to keep everyone abreast of the facts that get distorted during arguments...

carry on...
 
Not to mention burrowing critters may also be fossilized after digging their own graves...
 
Rock formations often are turned sideways due to plate tectonics. But creationists usually don't believe in that either.

To turn the tables, a creationist believer once came up to me and asked "Do you know that seashells have been found in Colorado"? as proof of the flood and Noah. I said of course, and then proceeded to explain about the Great Inland Sea that once existed within what is now the North American continent. He had no reply to that one.

You must realize that when it comes to their belief, you cannot penetrate the wall their brains have created. It seems that such intense belief actually changes some of the brain's rational thinking ability, causing it to literally "bounce off" any proof that their belief is wrong.

In other words, you can't win. All you will feel is intense frustration.
 
DecayingAngel said:
You must realize that when it comes to their belief, you cannot penetrate the wall their brains have created. It seems that such intense belief actually changes some of the brain's rational thinking ability, causing it to literally "bounce off" any proof that their belief is wrong.
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This is known as "Morton's Demon", after Glen Morton.

Also keep in mind that they've been lied to repeatedly. The idea that transitional fossils wouldn't be fully formed is ridiculous, but someone planted it in their heads.
 
If radiometric dating was the sole means of setting a date for a given formation, then the circular argument argument would hold.

But it's not.

Smith's Principle of Superposition says- Other things equal, the rock on top is younger than the one below.

This was established in England and wales at the start of the 19th century.
The order of formation of the major stratigraphic divisions has been found to be consistent around the world - an excellent test of a theory.
The changes in fossils within those strata is equally consistent around the world.
This does not give an absolute age, but does give relative ages.

It is then a strange coincidence, that several Radioisotope dating schemes give absolute ages which are an excellent match for the order of relative ages. |It is either a very, very strange coincidence, or it is evidence that the theory behind radioisotope dating is correct.
As this is the same theory that powers nuclear plants, hydrogen bombs and enables atomic clocks to be so accurate that GPS systems can find you to one metre accuracy from orbit, I think we can say it works.
That's not to say there are no problems with the application of the theory. There are.
Rocks get moved around. They get hot. They get wet. They get shoved up into mountains and down along plate margins. In the process, the "clocks" can get reset.
Sometimes , radioisotope dates are wrong because something has reset the clock along the "lifetime" of the rock. But that actually supports the fact that rocks have hugely different ages and were not all created at the same time. If there were no aberrant dates, something truly would smell bad.
 
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On the subject of Everest and plate tectonics.

People have measured plates moving over time with GPS systems.

For example here

Of course that is just part of the government conspiracy...


A very brief googling was unable to tell me if there are any GPS measures for the rate of growth of the Himalayas.

Calling any geologists here...
 
jimbob said:
On the subject of Everest and plate tectonics.

People have measured plates moving over time with GPS systems.

For example here

Of course that is just part of the government conspiracy...


A very brief googling was unable to tell me if there are any GPS measures for the rate of growth of the Himalayas.

Calling any geologists here...
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I am a geologist, but my specialization is in sedimentary rocks. However, I will say that it is correct that rates of uplift and plate movement have been measured not only with GPS systems, but with traditional surveying equipment long before there was such a thing as GPS.

One of the most amazing ways of measuring plate movement is found near mid-oceanic rifts, also known a "sea floor spreading zones". These are places where new crust is being formed at very thin plate margins, where the mantle is extremely close to the surface and slowly forces its way up, to harden and force the plates apart. The Mid-Atlantic Rift is one of the most well-described of these. The rocks that are formed are almost always basalt or similar igneous rocks, but they are easy to date radiometrically because they are so young. You can see a continuous progression of older rocks as you sample farther and farther away from the rift.

And here's another interesting thing. These rocks also demonstrate polar reversals. The north and south poles have swapped position many times ing geologic history. This is easily documented in the basalts near sea-floor spreading zones, because ferromagnetic minerals are "frozen" in time when they harden. Only while magma is viscous can these minerals align themselves with the magnetic fields. (This is how lodestones, or "natural magnets" are formed too.) Geologists can map the polar reversals in the bands of rocks on either side of the sea floor spreading zones. The timing and with of the bands on either side of the rift are nearly perfect mirror images. Since the invention of GPS systems, the measurment of sea-floor spreading has been much more continuous and precise, but it has been observed since early in the development of the theory of plate tectonics. It is one of the most clear and conclusive pieces of evidence available for the ongoing evolution of the planet.
 
pnerd said:
I didn't really understand how that refutes my friend's "argument"? Can you please elaborate a little?
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Basically, sedimentary rock layers are formed in progression. Imagine a river delta spewing sediment out into the ocean. In the high energy areas near the mouth of the river, large-partical sediments are formed, like sandstones. As you get farther away from the mouth of the river, the settling time becomes longer and you get smaller particles like silts and clays. So what you have are several zones of deposition, all formed at the same time. The so called "time line" runs through them all.

Now as the delta grows and moves oceanward, the position of sands, silts and shales also shifts. So you get the same layer of rock, but deposited at different times. Often you will see a change in the fossil content of a rock as you move laterally, even though the lithology hasn't changed at all. That is what is meant by "time lines cross rock lines". It's much more complex than this, but this is the simplest example I can come up wit.

pnerd said:
And can you please help me with this one:
Limestone And trilobite fossils found on Mt. Everest. Read: http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/fo...showtopic=2106
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Of course they are. Marine fossils and marine sediments (like limestone) are found wherever post-Cambrian oceanic strata have been uplifted by tectonics and deformed into hills and mountains. Quite often, you can find analogous beds in nearby areas where uplift hasn't occurred, which correlate extremely well. Think of a perfect bed of fossilifierous limestone that covers a large area. When it is deposited, it is (mostly) horizontal. Then tectonics occurs. One or more parts of that bed are forced upwards, sometimes because the edge of the plate "crumples" as it crashes against another plate. Other times, the same forces that bring volcanoes to the surface may push parts of the bed upwards. So this stratum, which used to be totally underwater, is now part of a mountain, bringing with it, all the fossils and lithologies it had when it was underwater.

Some creationists argue that the "mountain fossils" were deposited there by the great flood, but this is patently ridiculous. Floods deposit things in a haphazard jumble of broken pieces, not as whole, ordered sets of strata. We have mountain sediments that are composed of ancient reefs, complete and unbroken. If the diluvianists want to claim this was placed there during the flood, they have to argue that a large reef grew in fourty days or that a gigantic, unbroken layer of rock somehow "floated" to the top of a mountain. Only a person totally untrained in earth sciences would ever make such a ludicrous statement.
 
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