'Set in Stone: Evidence for Earth's Catastrophic Past'

[a_haworthroberts]

The DVD helpfully comes with a full (referenced) transcript. It seeks to portray a stark 'either or' battle within geology between uniformitarian 'dogma' and overlooked catastrophism in understanding Earth's history - clearly, if they can convince viewers that short-lived catastrophic events explain the UK's geology they can make a case that Earth is much younger than generally believed. The Bible, specifically Genesis, is mentioned but the viewer is NOT told that the makers and presenters (Paul Garner, John Whitmore, Andrew Snelling) all think - by faith - that the planet is just 6,000 years' old. The film does seek to cram in rather a lot of information - both real science and what I suspect is pseudo-science. It is scenic, and the accompanying music is quite stirring. The viewer is invited near the end of the film to contact info@truthinscience.org.uk afterwards - though the materials don't elaborate on the aims of Truth in Science.

I will show below in a separate post, later this evening, some DIRECT quotes from the film - together with a few thoughts which occurred to me while watching it. I don't profess to be a geologist so these are quite brief.

[jon_12091]

It seeks to portray a stark 'either or' battle within geology between uniformitarian 'dogma' and overlooked catastrophism in understanding Earth's history - clearly.

Lie number one then since that battle was fought quite awhile ago and the dust is as settled as it ever gets in academic circles.

The Bible, specifically Genesis, is mentioned but the viewer is NOT told that the makers and presenters (Paul Garner, John Whitmore, Andrew Snelling) all think - by faith - that the planet is just 6,000 years' old.

Interesting, I'm slightly surprised they mentioned the Bible at all, but not at all surprised to find out that they failed utterly to mention that the presenters all subscribe to unscientific and highly fringe beliefs in the world of geology and some barely deserved the name.

[Moon Fire]

*twitches*

I've aquired this need to see it for myself and shred it a little

*twitches some more*

[a_haworthroberts]

After seeing the horizontal over vertical layers at Siccar Point, and hearing about Hutton and Lyell, we are told by the narrator "catastrophism ... was considered out of bounds". But then "many rock layers pointed to processes more rapid and violent than those going on at the present day". (Ah yes, we don't get tsunamis and explosive eruptions of Mount St Helens these days.) And "within the last 40 years, belief in large-scale geological catastrophies, one regarded as heresy, has become fashionable again - even mainstream".

Derek Ager's work on catastrophism is referenced, and his views on the Sutton Stone (near Swansea) - which we are told contains pebbles "'floating' within a mass of finer sediment" - are mentioned. "Ager concluded that it must have been deposited by an enormous wave of water carrying mud and pebbles... the Sutton Stone had been formed in a single, sudden event".

Paul Garner and the narrator then discuss granite. "Geologists have usually assumed that this process of granite formation must have taken immense periods of time." "But then came a revolution ... in the 1990s geologists began to call into question almost every aspect of the story". They cite THIS paper, whose Abstract does not refer to 'less than 10,000 years': http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 669a0.html

But cue one Andrew Snelling. With reference to molten granite magma he mentions the 'space problem' and says "they're talking about six, ten, twenty years at most for some of these bodies to accumulate". Paul Garner mentions a mineral found in granites and adds "epidote is only stable at very high pressures" and "the only way that we could find epidote crystals in granites at the surface today is if they were transported upwards in the magma very, very quickly".

Snelling refers to 'convective cooling' of granite magma; references are provided to back up the claim that swirling water and steam allow efficient cooling which need not require millions of years. On the face of it, this may well be correct. But it hardly overturns all slow uniformitarian processes thought to have formed many rocks around the world.

Huge past volcanic eruptions known as flood basalts are then mentioned - which created the lava flows found in Northern Ireland, western Scotland and Greenland. The narrator claims "they all formed at about the same time" (he doesn't say 'during Noah's Flood'). He does then mention "the catastrophic flooding associated with the rapid melting of the ice sheets at the end of the ice age".

And then: "many individual rock layers were formed quickly - but quite often the next layer seems to have been added quickly too". Mam Tor, Derbyshire, is offered as an example of this claim. Mention is made of fast-flowing turbidity currents and sediment in the Atlantic (turbidites) that resulted from the Grand Banks earthquake of 1929. Garner states "these sandstones at Mam Tor are turbidites" (the transcript cites a 1960 paper in the Journal of Sedimentary Petrology). Referring to the mudstones at Mam Tor he says "there are fossil shells but if there were animals that were living here for any length of time then they ought to have burrowed into the mud...".

Cue the narrator again. "Convincing evidence for long ages of geological time is difficult to find". Really?

He seeks to dismiss radiometric dating methods: "many lava flows formed during recent volcanic eruptions give very old dates by radioactive methods - revealing problems with the standard assumptions". Which those idiot uniformitarian scientists ignore, presumably. Of carbon-14 found in old fossil samples he argues that some claim "that the carbon-14 must be due to contamination ... however, the technicians in dating laboratories meticulously clean such samples with hot strong acids and other treatments to remove contamination" (the word used is 'remove' not 'prevent').

We are informed that the oceans are not salty enough and appear to contain too little sediment for their presumed age, even with the recycling caused by tectonics.

Apparently supported by a science paper dating from 1964, we are then informed "geologists estimate that a continent like North America is being eroded by water and wind at a rate of about 60 millimetres every 1,000 years". The next but one sentence (not accompanied by any reference) reads: "the erosion rate seems very slow, but it suggests that North America could have been worn down to sea level in only 10 million years". I can't say exactly how, but I suspect that someone is trying to pull a 'fast one' here (pun unintended).

And then: "it is reasonable to ask how mountain ranges believed to be hundreds of millions of years old could have survived to the present-day". (According to Wikipedia, the - ancient - Appalachians 'first' formed around 480 million years' ago; the Gamburtsevs in Antarctica are thought to have been formed 'twice'.) Is this pseudo-science, or merely misdirection involving known facts?

It is claimed that vast coal seams can be formed rapidly by water transport. Fragile shell fossils are often found broken, suggesting that the sediments within which they were found were "most probably formed catastrophically" (no supporting reference is provided).

More questions are posed - regarding the formation of chalk. "The ancient chalk is very pure... If it was laid down slowly over millions of years, it's hard to see how mud or sand could have been prevented from being washed in and mixed with it". But then we are told of "layers of volcanic ash" within chalk in East Sussex.

Back to Siccar Point. We are informed that Hutton 'missed' greywackes (which are resistant to erosion) below the - smooth - unconformity at Siccar Point. These are said to be turbidites. And the viewer is shown what is claimed to be rapidly laid down breccias - containing angular rock fragments of varying sizes that haven't been 'sorted' and 'graded'.

Paul Garner then suggests that the 'dogma' of uniformitarianism may have triumphed for almost 200 years "in spite of the evidence and not because of it".

Narrator's conclusion.
Catastrophism is "the dominant force that has shaped our geological history".
"Catastrophism is alive and well on planet Earth - and the evidence is rock solid!".

[Dr_GS_Hurd]

*twitches*

I've aquired this need to see it for myself and shred it a little

*twitches some more*

A large whisky will calm the nerves.

[a_haworthroberts]

Someone sent me a private email about this thread. But due to unexplained password problems I CAN'T read it.

[Moon Fire]

After seeing the horizontal over vertical layers at Siccar Point, and hearing about Hutton and Lyell, we are told by the narrator "catastrophism ... was considered out of bounds". But then "many rock layers pointed to processes more rapid and violent than those going on at the present day". (Ah yes, we don't get tsunamis and explosive eruptions of Mount St Helens these days.) And "within the last 40 years, belief in large-scale geological catastrophies, one regarded as heresy, has become fashionable again - even mainstream".

Derek Ager's work on catastrophism is referenced, and his views on the Sutton Stone (near Swansea) - which we are told contains pebbles "'floating' within a mass of finer sediment" - are mentioned. "Ager concluded that it must have been deposited by an enormous wave of water carrying mud and pebbles... the Sutton Stone had been formed in a single, sudden event".

Idiots.....

Paul Garner and the narrator then discuss granite. "Geologists have usually assumed that this process of granite formation must have taken immense periods of time." "But then came a revolution ... in the 1990s geologists began to call into question almost every aspect of the story". They cite THIS paper, whose Abstract does not refer to 'less than 10,000 years': http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 669a0.html

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Did i not call something like this with the pegmatite cooling? I will poke a couple of people and see if i can get that paper, i want to read it now and work out how f'ing stupid the creos are being with their mistreatment of the work, also there might be some more recent stuff on it as 1990 is not over 20 years ago!

But cue one Andrew Snelling. With reference to molten granite magma he mentions the 'space problem' and says "they're talking about six, ten, twenty years at most for some of these bodies to accumulate". Paul Garner mentions a mineral found in granites and adds "epidote is only stable at very high pressures" and "the only way that we could find epidote crystals in granites at the surface today is if they were transported upwards in the magma very, very quickly".

*grinds her teeth*

Idiot boy forgot the fact that the granite can form at depth......and then have the top of the mountain eroded off of it to expose the granite......not that his time scale allows that........

Snelling refers to 'convective cooling' of granite magma; references are provided to back up the claim that swirling water and steam allow efficient cooling which need not require millions of years. On the face of it, this may well be correct. But it hardly overturns all slow uniformitarian processes thought to have formed many rocks around the world.

I'd like to insert some cooling magma somewhere.........

Huge past volcanic eruptions known as flood basalts are then mentioned - which created the lava flows found in Northern Ireland, western Scotland and Greenland. The narrator claims "they all formed at about the same time" (he doesn't say 'during Noah's Flood'). He does then mention "the catastrophic flooding associated with the rapid melting of the ice sheets at the end of the ice age".

I'm assuming we're refering to something that might be associated with the opening of the atlantic ocean. This is pure guess work that i'm doing tbh but it's the most likely candidate for flood basalts in those areas. And conecting it to the ice age is.just.so.very.wrong.

And then: "many individual rock layers were formed quickly - but quite often the next layer seems to have been added quickly too". Mam Tor, Derbyshire, is offered as an example of this claim. Mention is made of fast-flowing turbidity currents and sediment in the Atlantic (turbidites) that resulted from the Grand Banks earthquake of 1929. Garner states "these sandstones at Mam Tor are turbidites" (the transcript cites a 1960 paper in the Journal of Sedimentary Petrology). Referring to the mudstones at Mam Tor he says "there are fossil shells but if there were animals that were living here for any length of time then they ought to have burrowed into the mud...".

*cringes*

Cue the narrator again. "Convincing evidence for long ages of geological time is difficult to find". Really?

He seeks to dismiss radiometric dating methods: "many lava flows formed during recent volcanic eruptions give very old dates by radioactive methods - revealing problems with the standard assumptions". Which those idiot uniformitarian scientists ignore, presumably. Of carbon-14 found in old fossil samples he argues that some claim "that the carbon-14 must be due to contamination ... however, the technicians in dating laboratories meticulously clean such samples with hot strong acids and other treatments to remove contamination" (the word used is 'remove' not 'prevent').

He is an ignorant cretin.....radiometric dating is solid. I've had an urge recently to go into why this is so, it's all down to the geochemistry and how the elements behave in the melt. Not that what passes for their brains would understand the underlying science.

We are informed that the oceans are not salty enough and appear to contain too little sediment for their presumed age, even with the recycling caused by tectonics.

Apparently supported by a science paper dating from 1964, we are then informed "geologists estimate that a continent like North America is being eroded by water and wind at a rate of about 60 millimetres every 1,000 years". The next but one sentence (not accompanied by any reference) reads: "the erosion rate seems very slow, but it suggests that North America could have been worn down to sea level in only 10 million years". I can't say exactly how, but I suspect that someone is trying to pull a 'fast one' here (pun unintended).

And then: "it is reasonable to ask how mountain ranges believed to be hundreds of millions of years old could have survived to the present-day". (According to Wikipedia, the - ancient - Appalachians 'first' formed around 480 million years' ago; the Gamburtsevs in Antarctica are thought to have been formed 'twice'.) Is this pseudo-science, or merely misdirection involving known facts?

It is claimed that vast coal seams can be formed rapidly by water transport. Fragile shell fossils are often found broken, suggesting that the sediments within which they were found were "most probably formed catastrophically" (no supporting reference is provided).

More questions are posed - regarding the formation of chalk. "The ancient chalk is very pure... If it was laid down slowly over millions of years, it's hard to see how mud or sand could have been prevented from being washed in and mixed with it". But then we are told of "layers of volcanic ash" within chalk in East Sussex.

Back to Siccar Point. We are informed that Hutton 'missed' greywackes (which are resistant to erosion) below the - smooth - unconformity at Siccar Point. These are said to be turbidites. And the viewer is shown what is claimed to be rapidly laid down breccias - containing angular rock fragments of varying sizes that haven't been 'sorted' and 'graded'.

Paul Garner then suggests that the 'dogma' of uniformitarianism may have triumphed for almost 200 years "in spite of the evidence and not because of it".

Narrator's conclusion.
Catastrophism is "the dominant force that has shaped our geological history".
"Catastrophism is alive and well on planet Earth - and the evidence is rock solid!".

Right.....that's it........i'm going to beat myself about the face with a geological hammer.......

[Moon Fire]

*twitches*

I've aquired this need to see it for myself and shred it a little

*twitches some more*

A large whisky will calm the nerves.

Don't waste the whiskey, i can't stand the stuff!

[Moon Fire]

Someone sent me a private email about this thread. But due to unexplained password problems I CAN'T read it.

That was me!

[a_haworthroberts]

Someone sent me a private email about this thread. But due to unexplained password problems I CAN'T read it.

That was me!

Yes, I could see who sent it OK.

It wouldn't accept my usual password. I asked for what I assumed was an email to reset my password - but just got a message with an activation link. But having clicked on it, then NEITHER my intended new NOR my old password would work. At this hour of the day I can't be bovvered to do any more...

And I thought that God loved technology.

[Dr_GS_Hurd]

The first sentence of the Nature article on granite reads, "The Earth's granite crust harbours continental landmasses that have remained stable and above mean sea level for more than a billion years(1)."

Brilliant.

[Moon Fire]

The first sentence of the Nature article on granite reads, "The Earth's granite crust harbours continental landmasses that have remained stable and above mean sea level for more than a billion years(1)."

Brilliant.

I've just got it myself......i really want to watch this set in stone twoddle......

[Brian Jordan]

It wouldn't accept my usual password. I asked for what I assumed was an email to reset my password - but just got a message with an activation link. But having clicked on it, then NEITHER my intended new NOR my old password would work. At this hour of the day I can't be bovvered to do any more...

And I thought that God loved technology.

Are you still having problems Ashley? Were you trying to log in to read the PM from the email notification? It shouldn't cause extra problems, but you never know. If you're logged in to post, as you are, you should have no problem reading PMs without further ado.
Let me know if you're still having difficulty.

[Steve660]

Snelling refers to 'convective cooling' of granite magma; references are provided to back up the claim that swirling water and steam allow efficient cooling which need not require millions of years. On the face of it, this may well be correct.

No it is not correct! I debunked it in an article (one of a series) for Earth Science Ireland. Go to: http://www.habitas.org.uk/es2k/ Click on "Magazine" (left hand side), select "Earth Science Ireland Issue 8", scroll to page 35, enjoy. (Two other articles in this series are in issues 6 & 9).

Back to Siccar Point. We are informed that Hutton 'missed' greywackes (which are resistant to erosion) below the - smooth - unconformity at Siccar Point. These are said to be turbidites. And the viewer is shown what is claimed to be rapidly laid down breccias - containing angular rock fragments of varying sizes that haven't been 'sorted' and 'graded'.

My article on Siccar Point, in the June 2011 Australian Skeptic (right under Tasman Walker's nose ) will go on-line this summer. The unconformity is NOT smooth. Creationists use a photo of one part of the exposure which, from a distance, looks smooth, but not close up. Other parts of the exposure show a highly irregular contact. At the junction itself is a breccia, which probably was laid down rapidly by floods in a desert wadi-type environment. I'll bet they glossed over the patches of calcrete - a weathering product typical of arid environments. The underlying rocks are alternating turbidites and shales with a cumulative thickness well into the kilometres. Even at the faster observed rates of deposition, they would take months to pile up. And then there's the fossils they contain, including tracks on the tops of the beds indicating that deposition was not constant. I could go on and on pointing to the problems of their scenario. It's just nuts.

[a_haworthroberts]

I've now managed to read the PM (eventually, with my decrepit computer - hence haven't checked how to reply privately).

I wouldn't immediately describe the DVD as horrendous.

But as I see it, it could be a source of deception or at least confusion for many students who watch (particularly if from fundamentalist or evangelical Christian backgrounds). Because - on the back of cited mainstream peer-reviewed findings that catastrophism has been too often overlooked in explaining some formations, the film wrongly seeks to portray rapid catastrophism as the explanation for all or virtually all UK geology.

I hope someone with a better background in geology than I - and who is able to post a fair-minded and balanced review - will also view the film and comment (I'm about to view today's comments).