Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 / QGSI 2.0; site qubix.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!sun!qubix!lab From: lab@qubix.UUCP (Q-Bick) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: A *scientific model* for creation Message-ID: <1431@qubix.UUCP> Date: Tue, 16-Oct-84 03:40:35 EDT Article-I.D.: qubix.1431 Posted: Tue Oct 16 03:40:35 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 17-Oct-84 09:23:06 EDT Distribution: net Organization: Quadratix ... Quartix Lines: 111 [this line has not evolved out of existence] [#1 in a series of 3 articles at this time. #2 is general responses. #3 deals with Richard Carnes article on Scientific theory.] Since Mike Ward, Ethan Vishniac, and many others have apparently kept themselves in the dark rather than doing any research on their own about scientific models for creation and have ignored previous postings regarding a scientific model for creation, I suppose posting the following *again* will mean little to them. Nevertheless, I can hope it will. "The creation model thus postulates a period of special creation in the beginning, during which all the basic laws and categories of nature, including the major kinds of plants and animals, as well as man, were brought into existence by special creative and integrative processes which are no longer in operation. Once the creation was finished, the processes of *creation* were replaced by process of *conservation*, which were designed by the Creator to sustain and maintain the basic systems He had created. "In addition ..., the creation model proposes a basic principle of disintegration now at work in nature (since any significant change in a *perfect* primeval creation must be in the direction of imperfection). Also, the evidence in the earth's crust of past physical convulsions seems to warrant inclusion of post-creation global catastrophism in the model." Morris, _Scientific Creationism_, p.12 A key difference between this and the evolutionary model that is so often presented in this group can best be stated by Byron Howes' own admission: "Evolutionary theory doesn't have to deal with the genesis of matter because the scope of evolutionaty [sic] is only (!) the development of life forms. Creationists explicitly include the unobservable as the creator of life forms." Evolutionists thus neatly dodge some very basic issues, such as origin of life and origin of the universe. Unfortunately, the evolution model cannot escape its uniformitarian basis; thus it is not out of line for creationists to force the concurrent study of all three origins. (My appreciation to Professor John N. Moore of Michigan State for noting the three parts of origins study in _How to Teach Origins (Without ACLU Interference)_.) My question is "Why are the evolutionists unwilling to deal with the *entire* issue of origins?" One of the building blocks of the creation model is the recognition "...that the evolution model ... assumes that natural laws and process suffice to explain the origin and development of all things. The creation model ... says that present laws and processes are *not* sufficient to explain the phenomena found in this present world." Morris, op. cit., p.92 Some postulate the existence of matter/energy at some point, dismissing any further study as "beyond the realm of science." This is the very pseudo-science that evolutionists accuse creationists of. Even if the events appear not to have left any evidence, there still remains the study to see whether natural laws and processes, operating as they do now, would have been sufficient to account for what is. And it is the claim of creation scientists that they are *not* sufficient, thereby justifying the pursuit of other possible causes. Inevitably (as Ray Mooney did), the philosophical question of "First Cause" arises. And well it should - the evolution model CANNOT provide a satisfactory answer to it. Yet it must, for by its statements, all things must have an answer within what we see. The creation model, on the other hand, admits to a realm beyond science, where a First Cause is fully possible. Apart from the study of "what was before," we can study "what it was like as far back as we can see." In this, the evolution and creation models separate. Evolution views a very simplistic world, later to be built up both biologically and geologically. Creation views a completed world, later to degenerate. The geology of the evolutionary world was built fairly uniformly. The geology of the created world was broken down and restructured by catastrophes. We can study the implications of the two models as they pertain to geologic features. Ethan Vishniac presented his views to support his ideas that overthrusts actually occurred. Among his six points are the following implicit observations or fallacies: 1. That sections of the Earth's surface appear to be moving relative to one another at typical rates of about 1"/year. 2. That these motions are persistent? Observation: how do we know that the 1"/year has been so for the 4.5 billion years of Vishniac's point 3? 4. That 4.5 billion years * 1"/year = 71,000 miles. 5. That the above points imply that continents have more than enough time to collide repeatedly. Observations: would the continents "collide repeatedly"? If the 1"/year motion has been continuing for 4.5E9 years, the continents would have all come back together again! The big problem with "overthrust geology" is the complete lack of evidence that it ever occurred. The challenge to the evolutionist: APART FROM THE ASSUMPTION OF EVOLUTION, what evidence is there that overthrusting has occurred? There is very good evidence that it hasn't - * we're not talking about a few small boulders moved by a flood (:-); these rocks are HUGE and the distances on the order of 35 miles! * a noticeable absence of brecciation at the contact plane (i.e., moving the top rock into place should have devastated the surfaces of both rocks. The contact plane is particularly noted because later surface erosion could not occur there). * the rock on top rests very comfortably on the rock below - not a very natural occurrence, yet distinctly present in all "overthrusts." To the contrary of Bill Jefferys claim, it is not Flood Geology which is preposterous, it is evolutionary geology which has more holes than a tax law. -- The Ice Floe of Larry Bickford {amd,decwrl,sun,idi,ittvax}!qubix!lab You can't settle the issue until you've settled how to settle the issue.