No it wasn't!
;^)
Posted on 09/02/2006 11:15:06 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
OK fine. I will explain my thinking. I think that the phrase "the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up" means absolutely nothing more than "there was a big damn flood." Period. That's it. That's what I think the author meant by it. Nothing more. I think he was using extravagant language as authors are wont to do, and as authors who are trying to be dramatic and eloquent are especially wont to do.
Moreover, I think that not only would the author not have cared about the utterly ridiculous, downright imbecile modern exercise of trying to fabricate enough water to cause a global six-mile flood, but that the notion this could even be an issue would be absolutely incomprehensible to him.
However, if for the sake of argument one accepts that massive suboceanic geysers caused the floodwaters to burst from the ether underneath the oceans, then what I think is that this is no more cause for 96% of marine life to go extinct than a 40 day rainstorm would be. In short, no matter where you get the water - from the sky, from the ground, or from Mars - it's no more of an explanation for why 96% of marine life went extinct.
And finally, what annoys me most is that I even put myself into a ridiculous debate on Noah's Flood.
I can see where you would think that without giving the text some thought but for the reasons stated above, the author provides two separate things are occurring. To assume that he is only describing one phenomena would require the reader to impose his own interpretation.
I think he was using extravagant language as authors are wont to do, and as authors who are trying to be dramatic and eloquent are especially wont to do.
It would be an enticing thought but it would be contrary to most everything else in genesis. The book in genesis is very short on overly descriptive language. In fact that is the main reason we have so many interpretations. But again, you are arriving at a meaning based on a predetermination of what you believe the author is saying rather than letting the text speak for itself.
Moreover, I think that not only would the author not have cared about the utterly ridiculous, downright imbecile modern exercise of trying to fabricate enough water to cause a global six-mile flood, but that the notion this could even be an issue would be absolutely incomprehensible to him.
We have common ground. The writer would not think it is necessary to defend God. As to your wish to change the discussion to another topic, namely whether there is enough water or not, I feel your pain. If I were flat out wrong about my understanding of what a verse says I would want to change the subject also. FWIW, I never brought the amount of water into this. You really need to read before you write
However, if for the sake of argument one accepts that massive suboceanic geysers caused the floodwaters to burst from the ether underneath the oceans
There you go again assuming something the text does not say. The text doesn;t say anything about suboceanic geysers. Any chance you can find middle ground...in your mind either the text refers to a rainstorm it it refers to a process of underwater geysers. Any chance you could conclude as I do that it is referring to something we can make guesses at but could not really know from the text?
And finally, what annoys me most is that I even put myself into a ridiculous debate on Noah's Flood.
You got here by making an assumption based on ignorance and a desire for the text to support your world view without taking a breath and taking the time to read it.
It means your citings hit the nail on the head and will be ignored by those whose personal (and ignorant) reading of Scripture differ.
Once people latch onto an interpretation, they convert it to "fact" and thus reject any real world fact which challenges their set of "facts."
It is called willful ignorance and it is the saddest outgrowth of sanctimony.
Keep speaking facts. It is important that people be exposed to knoweldge, no matter how much they blind themselves.
There is no scientific evidence of a global flood.
Now, Siberia is antipodal to Antarctica, or near enough when we consider that continents drift. So wouldn't it make sense that the Siberian traps were the result of a similar shock wave from that larger impact that formed the Antarctic hidden crater?There's the rub. Wouldn't it make more sense to forget about the Siberian traps and stick with the actual cause? :') I've often been amused and bemused by the rallying positions on the retreat from gradual extinction models at the major boundaries.
Hey, you've inspired to add a list to my profile of pointless non-topics I personally no longer waste time on. Noah's Flood will head things off. I'm off to have a beer. See ya!
Unlike the paleontological record, the [geomagnetic] reversal record is fairly clean, at least for the past 165 million years of geologic time. About 300 complete reversals have been found in this interval, most well dated. There are smoe very long-term trends in the number of reversals per million years, and these have been known and accepted for many years -- even though there are no good explanations for them... I was encouraged to find a recent paper claiming periodicity in the number of reversals through time... J.G. Negi and R.K. Tiwari... concluded that there is a 32-million-year periodicity... a French group, headed by A. Mazaud, claimed a 15-million-year periodicity positioned in time such that every other pulse was a bit stronger and fell approximately at one of our extinctions... On the other hand, the problem had been looked at by a number of other geophysicists over the years... They had been unable to reject a hypothesis of randomness... I found an impressive 30-million-year periodicity that matched the extinction periodicity fairly well... Nature... neither accepted nor rejected the paper but returned it to me (with the reviews) to revise and resubmit. At the same time, I was invited to suggest the names of six additional reviewers. [pp 183-185]Dr. David RaupFor a while, I thought mass extinctions were merely instances of chance coincidence of independent species extinctions. That clearly was wrong... I have come to the view that large-body impact is responsible for far more extinctions that we appreciate -- perhaps including those pulses of extinction that usually define stratigraphic stages. Maybe even zones? ...For periodic extinction, I know of 13 complete re-analyses of the Sepkoski data that have been published by independent investigators. Of these, five found our periodicity to be significant whereas eight found no significant periodicity. Had these studies used the new genus-level data, I suspect periodicity would have fared better. In any event, the periodicity of extinction must, I think, remain an open question until we have either more data or data of a completely different kind... I believe they really are periodic but I cannot prove it. One problem is that in time-series analysis, one can establish a departure from randomness rather easily but proving a particular periodicity within that is nearly impossible... The extinction record has been analyzed about as thoroughly as possible and searches for Nemesis have failed to find the companion star... I think periodicity is on the back burner but not forgotten -- any more than continental drift was forgotten.
interviewed by Steve Brusatte
Dino Land Paleontology
1997
That's what I was taught in school science class. I don't have a better theory so it sounds fine to me. A quick "Google" on pole movement should reveal the north pole is moving as we speak and getting weaker. The animals were frozen standing up with fresh food in their bellies. In order to do that, they would have to be almost flash frozen. If it took longer than a day or so, they food would have wilted and they most likely would have laid down like most other animals to die.
The truth is we don't know ANYTHING about what happened in the past because we weren't there. Theories are just that, theory. Most theories on FreeRepublic today have anomalies, or things the theory can't explain. They are believed on FAITH. What I know is something drastic happened, but the cause is up for grabs. People that say they KNOW are liars. There have been many Discovery TV type shows on pole reversal, so it's as good as any to me.
Let's just say for instance the animal was eating his dinner on a spring day about the latitude of Vermont. All of the sudden, within hours he is at the latitude of the Arctic Circle. Nobody has talked about the size of the dung heap behind him buried in the ice, but I'm sure it would have been a wild ride.
Some Google results for "magnetic pole reversal"
http://www.pureenergysystems.com/news/2005/02/27/6900064_Magnet_Pole_Shift/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/magnetic/reversals.html
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/1753.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_magnetic_field
There are tons more, but that will get you started.
If I interpret you correctly, you are suggesting the possibility that the break up of Pangaea led to a magnetic pole reversal which led to flash-frozen mastadons. Here are the main problems with that reasoning.
(1) The plate tectonic movements that broke apart Pangaea took place over the course of millions of years. They certainly did not take place over the course of a human lifetime, which incidentally would've released enough energy to liquify the earth's crust altogether. So, to give you a more immediate example, Africa is breaking apart right now along the Eastern Rift Valley. Millions of years from now Africa will be two continents. Similarly, California is breaking off of North America (or, more precisely, is sliding alongside). Neither plate movement is causing pole reversals or flash frozen anything. Nor is India ramming up into Asia, a similarly violent plate tectonic event, causing either.
(2) Magnetic pole reversals have happened many times and will continue to happen many times and it's not altogether clear what causes any given one, but it is hypothesized to be the result of movement in the liquid core of the Earth. Whatever the case may be, there is no reason to think that magnetic pole reversals would cause any noticable effects on most lifeforms, with the exception of a few such as honeybees that use magnetic polarity to navigate. Even a very sudden pole reversal would have a very trivial immediate impact on any biological organisms. Assuming for the sake of argument that this would produce a shift in weather patterns (it shouldn't) then it would hardly be immediate: There would be a transition period of weeks, at bare minimum, and more likely years, during which the atmospheric currents would adjust and temperatures would shift and so on.
(3) There are many ways for a mastodon to die in permafrost and freeze in short order. The most obvious is to sink into a bog or be swept away in a flash flood. One hardly requires anything on the spectacular scale of the Pangaea breakup and a magnetic pole reversal to account for flash frozen mastodons. More importantly, the mastodon remains that have been discovered date from many different timeframes, so unless the magnetic pole reversals were taking place every few years - and we know they weren't - then you can't account for the frozen mastadons by way of magnetic pole reversals. And, finally, it's worth noting that we are not talking about a mastodon behind every rock: Only about 60 mastodon carcasses have been found in permafrost, with only a half dozen largely intact. If there was a "flash freeze" event there should be thousands and thousands of frozen mastodons, and they would be overwhelmingly found in family & tribe clusters, not as single specimens.
And the mastodons would have to have some biological structure that would involve the buildup of magnetite, etc (like birds do) for this to be plausible.
Just an aside - given how poorly understood pole reversal is, it's entirely possible that tectonic plate movement does influence the motion of mantle fluid, which may be responsible for the reversals.
I agree with you in the 'macro' sense, that tectonic motion over the millennia may very well influence pole reversals. What I meant to convey was that in the 'micro' sense plate tectonics do not induce pole reversals.
In short, the tectonic plates are moving constantly and this motion does not much vary on the grand planetary scale. The 'break up of Pangaea' sounds spectacular, but on a day-to-day basis was no more dramatic than the current plate movements.
So, while the movement of the geologic plates over vast stretches of time are probably very influential in the direction of mantle currents, the tectonic movement over the timeframe of, say, a human lifespan probably doesn't even qualify as trivial from the perspective of the Earth's magnetic field.
The antipodal characteristic (opposite major impacts) of both the Deccan and Siberian volcanic activity is a likely scenario leading to mass extinctions. Do you have a source for the geography of the world at the time of those impacts?
Get a spell checker, Einstein.
Thanks for the links to some very interesting material....
On account of all the spinning?
Full Disclosure: no, I'm not an EE, so forgive me if I got the details wrong for the sake of an attempted pun.
Cheers!
Get a spell checker, Einstein.
The word is spelled correctly. In fact, it was placed in my post by the spell checker.
And that doesn't do anything to my post's substance, which you fail to address.
On account of all the spinning? Full Disclosure: no, I'm not an EE, so forgive me if I got the details wrong for the sake of an attempted pun.
LOL! I can't resist when presented such an opportunity, why should you?
It shows the pitfalls of relying on spell-check. As I noted to the other poster, the word was spelled correctly :)
No it wasn't!
;^)
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