100 Categories of Evidence Against Noah’s Flood

100 Categories of Evidence Against Noah’s Flood

1. Angular unconformities – Angular unconformities are where sediments are laid down in layers, then tilted and eroded, then new sediments are deposited on top. How does a global flood simultaneously deposit, tilt, and erode in the same exact place?

2. Radiometric dating – All common forms of radiometric dating, including C14, K-Ar, Ar-Ar, Rb-Sr, Th-Pb, U-Pb, and fission track. The dates derived from these diverse methods, when properly interpreted rather than intentionally misapplied, show that all but the very most recent deposits in the geologic column is vastly older than any postulated flood.

3. Fossil Sorting – The sorting of fossils in the geologic record is consistent with evolution and geology across all formations worldwide. There are basically no fossils of dinosaurs found with modern mammals, even when such dinosaurs could fly. There are no flowering plants in the Cambrian, no grasses, no mammals, and no birds. The overall sorting does not show any evidence consistent with a flood or settling in water.

4. Varves – How does one create 20 million annual layers, each layer which would have taken at least a month to settle due to hydrodynamics as is observed in the Green River Formation? How does one explain seasonal of pollen grains found in the layers?

5. Sedimentation rates – Why would there be Precambrian rocks below ones feet in the Canadian Shield area, yet the entire geologic column in the Williston Basin in North Dakota? Why would a global flood scour down to the Precambrian in one place yet at the same time deposit tens of thousands of feet of sediment in another when it is exactly the same process? Giant post-pyramid ice ages are not an explanation as there is no written record or other evidence of increased historical glaciation to the extent needed to scour the Canadian Shield down in the last 4500 years, not to mention such Precambrian rocks elsewhere on Earth like South Africa.

6. Lava layers with ancient soils between flows – How could lava forms which only exist with a land surface interface create interbedded deposits with paleosoils?

7. Ice sheets – Ice caps can't reform in the time allotted since any global flood of 4500 years ago.

8. Ice core data with correlated known volcanic events – Ice cores can be dated back by multiple methods nearly a million years, yet show no evidence of a global flood.

9. Ocean core data – Ocean cores would show unsorted piles of terrestrial life and different distributions in grain sizes than observed. They would also show little difference in thickness between the mid Atlantic ridge and near subduction zones, which is not what is observed.

10. Paleomagnetism – Because the Earth's magnetic field has reversed polarity and has wandered over the globe in the past, certain igneous rocks show such preferred magnetic orientations when sufficiently cooled. By mapping these directions and reversals, which correlate with radioisotope dating and stratigraphy, it is easily shown that the vast majority of seafloor sediments, along with most volcanic rock, are way too old to have been deposited by any flood. In fact such measurements are one of the great evidences for plate tectonics, which alone invalidate a global flood.

11. Volcanism – According to 'flood geology' every igneous rock layer that overlays sedimentary rock would have to be less than 4500 years old. Yet, historical records indicate this tremendous amount of simultaneous volcanic activity could not have occurred in recent times because someone would have noticed, becoming extinct and all when the atmosphere becomes unbreathable. Such a position directly contradicts the existence of the Deccan Traps which are up to 2 km thick and 500,000 square km in extent, yet supposedly erupted in India despite any historic evidence, after such a flood.

12. Ore deposit formation rates – Most ore deposits require a longer period of time to separate their constituent elements and then cool to create an economically viable source of minerals.

13. Evaporites – The existence of evaporate deposits thousands of feet thick are incompatible with any global flood as they are formed through evaporation rather than through the addition of fresh water.

14. Carbonates – The huge amount of CO2 in the atmosphere prior to being locked into carbonate rock would have made the planet resemble Venus. There would have been no life to drown.

15. Microfossil deposits - Thick deposits of microfossils in limestone, diatomaceous chert, and chalk that could not settle to such a degree of thickness in the time allotted for any global flood.

16. Thick deposits of sand - Sand is the result of weathering and working of formally solid formations, requiring long long times to form and accumulate.

17. Aeolian sand deposits – Wind deposited sandstone is found above and below water deposited limestone. One example is the Cococino formation which is both overlain and overlies limestone.

18. Overthrust formations – the time and pressure required to cause overthrust formations is far greater than can occur in any post-flood historic time.

19. Formation of geologic features such as mountains and valleys – How did something like the Himalaya Mountains form without anyone noticing all those earthquakes? How were valleys cut between such mountains in less than 4500 years?

20. Heat of formation – I can't explain this topic any better than has already been done.
From http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html
quote:
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• If the geologic record was deposited in a year, then the events it records must also have occurred within a year. Some of these events release significant amounts of heat.
• Magma. The geologic record includes roughly 8 x 10E24 grams of lava flows and igneous intrusions. Assuming (conservatively) a specific heat of 0.15, this magma would release 5.4 x 10E27 joules while cooling 1100 degrees C. In addition, the heat of crystallization as the magma solidifies would release a great deal more heat.
• Limestone formation. There are roughly 5 x 10E23 grams of limestone in the earth's sediments [Poldervaart, 1955], and the formation of calcite releases about 11,290 joules/gram [Weast, 1974, p. D63]. If only 10% of the limestone were formed during the Flood, the 5.6 x 10E26 joules of heat released would be enough to boil the flood waters.
• Meteorite impacts. Erosion and crustal movements have erased an unknown number of impact craters on earth, but Creationists Whitcomb and DeYoung suggest that cratering to the extent seen on the Moon and Mercury occurred on earth during the year of Noah's Flood. The heat from just one of the largest lunar impacts released an estimated 3 x 10E26 joules; the same sized object falling to earth would release even more energy. [Fezer, pp. 45-46]
• Other. Other possibly significant heat sources are radioactive decay (some Creationists claim that radioactive decay rates were much higher during the Flood to account for consistently old radiometric dates); biological decay (think of the heat released in compost piles); and compression of sediments.
5.6 x 1026 joules is enough to heat the oceans to boiling. 3.7 x 10E27 joules will vaporize them completely. Since steam and air have a lower heat capacity than water, the steam released will quickly raise the temperature of the atmosphere over 1000 C. At these temperatures, much of the atmosphere would boil off the Earth.
Aside from losing its atmosphere, Earth can only get rid of heat by radiating it to space, and it can't radiate significantly more heat than it gets from the sun unless it is a great deal hotter than it is now. (It is very nearly at thermal equilibrium now.) If there weren't many millions of years to radiate the heat from the above processes, the earth would still be unlivably hot.
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21. River meanders – River meanders incised in rock can only be caused by gradual uplift, not through a year's worth of soft sediment deposition.

22. Large and extensive river potholes – As this is one of Iceage's, I will defer the explanation to him, although I wouldn't mind his input on others he brought up as well.

23. Glacial weathering – glacial deposits and weathering such as U-shaped valleys require longer than 4500 years to form.

24. Independent dating correlations – See Correlations Correlations Correlations (Message 1 of Thread Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1 in Forum Proposed New Topics) enjoy!

25. Batholith formation – Why isn't the Sierra Nevada granitic batholith still hot as it would have taken several million years to cool?

26. Differential weathering – How could the Sierra Nevada and the Appalachians show such different weathering if each are the exact same age of only 4500 years old?

27. Banded iron formations and red beds – Banded iron formations can't form in the presence of significant oxygen. Yet they were supposedly deposited in a flood which supposedly allowed animals to breathe both before and after.

28. Water in confined aquifers – The chemistry of water may be measured as to its constituents, as any municipal water authority already knows. Under flood conditions, the water chemistry in a confined aquifer would have changed as lower elevation aquifers would contain more salt than higher aquifers as the flood waters diluted the salt content in the recharge zone. Not only is this behavior not shown by any known confined aquifer, but the age of such water according to the laws of physics is vastly older than any flood may have deposited.

29. Worldwide iridium layer – Although any worldwide flood evidence is lacking, there is a worldwide iridium layer at the K-T boundary where it exists. How could this iridium layer have been deposited among all those swirling waters in a flood?

30. Deformed structures in metamorphosed sediments – There are areas in metamorphic rock where pebbles and even fossils have been stretched and deformed in processes that would have taken several times any 4500 years since a global flood.

31. Compression of all fossil life into too short a time period – If all species represented by fossils, coal, and petroleum from throughout the geologic record lived simultaneously, they would have been standing on each other, an ecological impossibility.

32. Differential mineralization of fossils – Remains of buried humans in historic times show minimal mineralization. This increases overall with extinct mammals, then extinct dinosaurs, then extinct trilobites and ammonites.

33. Surface features buried throughout geologic column – Examples include: rain drops, river channels, wind-blown dunes, beaches, glacial deposits, burrows, in-place trees, soils, desiccation cracks, footprints.

34. Pollen sorting – Why is pollen sorted according to evolutionary principles instead of hydrodynamic principles in the geologic record?

35. Inconsistent worldwide geologic formations – Any flood would have left a single layer of similar sediment worldwide, not the tremendous amount and variety of layers that exist in each of the thousands of boreholes and outcrops in geology.

36. Existence of soil after flood – Soil is a delicate mixture of organic and inorganic materials. How could any soil exist after an environment that was supposedly turbulent enough to destroy all the earth's crust?

37. Tectonic spreading rates – Observed tectonic spreading rates indicate that there is no evidence of any disturbance due to any global flood 4500 years ago.

38. Tar pits – If all petroleum was caused by some global flood, how can there be tar pits filled with land fossils that have not become coal or oil?

39. Caverns – Caverns carved from dolomite such as exist in West Texas can't form in as little as 4500 years.

40. Oklo and other natural reactors – Such natural reactors could not have been formed a mere 4500 years ago unless the laws of physics involving radioactive decay are violated.

41. Multiple glaciations – There are at least four major separate evidences of glaciations in the geologic record separated by eons. How could all four occur during a flood while supposedly underwater?

42. Meteoric impacts – For the evidence of meteoric impacts to be buried under sediments indicate that such impacts all occurred in the span of one year. Such a bombardment would allow for no life due to a lack of sun.

43. Hydrocarbon formation – The amount of hydrocarbon deposits in the ground from organic causes represent a greater biomass than is possible to have formed within 4500 years.

44. Conglomerates within conglomerates within conglomerates within conglomerates – Conglomerates are made up of diverse weathered rock that is eroded then recemented. In order to have a 4th level conglomerate there needs to be four episodes of weathering and recementation of rocks which are often impossible to form and erode in 4500 years such as when some within the conglomerate matrix are igneous or metamorphic rock.

45. Change in physical properties of rock correlated with age and fossil content – The older the sedimentary rock under current scientific models, in most cases the greater its compaction. How would near-simultaneous deposition explain this observation?

46. Delicate structures preserved in supposed turbulence – Delicate structures such as insect wings and feathers are preserved in rock. How could a turbulence that supposedly weathers miles of consolidated rock simultaneously preserve delicate structures?

47. Coprolites – Coprolites, which are fossilized turds, are preserved throughout the fossil record. How does a flood have animals constantly crapping in the midst of a flood after they are exterminated?

48. Meteoric dust accumulation – Both ice cores and evaporates indicate meteoric dust accumulates at a roughly steady rate over time. How can this dust remain constant under contracted meteoric bombardment?

49. Desert varnish – Desert varnish is created by microorganisms in arid conditions over a period of hundreds of years. How could such varnish be created throughout the geologic record in flood conditions?

50. Multiple layers of fossil forests – How can a single flood explain multiple fossil forest layers such as can be seen at Joggins, Nova Scotia or Yellowstone?

51. Detailed layering – How could a global flood create thousands of layers seen in several geologic formations, each of which requires a different depositional environment?

52. Lack of any geologic evidence for a global flood – While there are dozens of categories representing millions of data points of evidence against Noah's Flood, I know of no single piece of geologic evidence in favor of Noah's Flood.

Bioscience – I have little familiarity with this subject so I am sure that the number and quality of categories here could be improved and even increased by those with more expertise. Sorry about appropriating some dual categories under geoscience, perhaps a new dual meta-category would be appropriate.

53. Observed genetic diversity – The genetic diversity in all animals indicate that there was no genetic bottleneck.

54. Non-viable size of genetic population – A parent population of one or even seven pairs of animals is not genetically viable. Such inbreeding quickly causes fatal mutations.

55. Food requirements of animals – Some animals such as Koalas require very specific diets. How could these dietary requirements been provided, and who could keep up with such variable requirements on a ship?

56. Mobility considerations – How did sloths or other slow-moving animals get to any ark and how did they migrate from any ark without a trace in the time allotted?

57. Symbiotic relationships – Several species have a sole source of nutrition. How did these creatures exist during or after a global flood?

58. Parasites – Parasites require hosts in order to survive. Were all creatures on any ark hosts and how did they survive such parasitism?

59. Diseases – Diseases that exist today require hosts to survive. How did all the infected animals survive simultaneously being hosts to every disease currently around?

60. Social Insects – one pair of ants, bees or termites do not constitute a viable unit for survival.

61. Short-lived life forms – Mayflies only live a few days. How could they reproduce in a barge in a non-riparian environment?

62. Life forms older than flood – The oldest bristlecone pines are 5700 years old, they can't survive underwater for any appreciable amount of time.

63. Vegetation – Neither most vegetation nor their seeds can survive under salt water. Nor can such vegetation root and thrive in salt encrusted 'soil' (which also largely didn't exist immediately after any flood).

64. Food requirements subsequent to a flood - If a flood wiped out all but a pair of animals and plants, there would be insufficient food for any survivors.

65. Aquatic life - There are fresh water fish, salt water fish, and brackish fish, how could all survive in the same environment?

66. Tree ring data – Rings on currently living trees that indicate they are older than 4500 years do not indicate that they were drowned and died at the time of any proposed global flood.

67. Coral clocks – Annual coral growth is correlated to the number of days per year in the deep past. Such clocks indicate a slowing of Earth's rotation consistent with physics and not a 4500 year maximum age of coral reefs.

68. Population growth subsequent to any flood – The population growth of humans necessary to produce pyramids, great walls, and great empires is insufficient to have a bottleneck of under a dozen individuals 4500 years ago. The population growth of prey species would be insufficient to support a 90-10 prey-predator ratio immediately after any devastating flood.

69. Coccolithophores – How could these creatures that bloom, oversaturate their environment and then die off have created so many and such thick deposits in the geologic record in so little time during a turbulent flood? (credit to Lithodid-Man)

70. Interdependent ecosystems – How were interdependent ecosystems where life requires a complex web of relationships preserved during and after a global flood?

71. Food pyramid – how could the predation relationship be preserved with only a pair of creatures at the bottom of the chain?

72. Difference between clean/unclean genome – Why do the seven pairs of clean animals not show any greater genetic diversity than the single pairs of unclean animals?

73. Aquatic fossils – Why are fossils from shallow marine environments far more common than all others if there was more land than water prior to any global flood?

74. Lack of any biologic evidence for a global flood – While there are dozens of categories representing millions of data points of evidence against Noah's Flood, I know of no single piece of biologic evidence in favor of Noah's Flood.

Engineering – Have some familiarity, but once again, it was a long time ago that it was a part of formal instruction.

75. Loading the ark – Animals and plants would have to enter the Ark in pairs within the space of a few seconds apart.

76. Amount of space – The amount of space provided by the Ark would not come near to enough to hold all species, genus, or even families observed today.

77. Construction – The construction of an object the supposed size of the ark using the tools available at the time is far greater than the size of the construction crew within the time allotted.

78. Materials – The Ark was supposedly constructed of 'gopherwood' which shows no evidence of having ever existed. Also, wood as a sole construction material would not be able to withstand the stresses on any ship and would likely capsize at the first opportunity.

79. Ventilation – Animals require air to survive. A single window would provide insufficient ventilation for the body heat and fresh air produced by wall-to-wall biomass.

80. Leakage – A wooden ship of this size would flex due to stress to such a degree that no tar type sealant would work to prevent leakage and eventual sinking within a few days.

81. Waste removal – The crew of the Ark would be insufficient to clear the ship of body waste. The stinking hulk would probably kill all life aboard before a few months had past.

82. Humidity – Many animals and plants, particularly those adapted to deserts, would quickly die in an environment of 100% humidity.

83. Food storage – How could Noah preserve food in 100% humidity among all those microorganisms, mold, and disease causing agents without modern refrigeration for nearly a year?

Addendum - Problems with 'kinds' – Many of the above objections are limited through the introduction of the undefined concept of 'kinds.' The 'kinds' argument fails however because to create the present diversity of life, biologic forms would have to undergo superhyperfragalisticmicromacro evolution, an absurd concept with no evidence and completely void of common sense such as demanding that housecats give birth to lions. It also supposedly is designed to show that evolution does not occur because of greater past evolution, a clear logical contradiction of unbelievable magnitude.
Archeology – Open to suggestions, no training here.

84. Ancient nature of most civilizations – Most civilizations have precursors that indicate a clear evolution of culture and technology through time without any bottleneck. The time allotted for such cultural development is most likely insufficient under any Noah Flood scenario.

85. Oetzi – Oetzi provides an example of a 'pre-flood' mummified individual dated and correlated by multiple methods. Where is the water damage?

86. No human activity in deeper layers – There are no indications of human activity, or even humans, in any geologic layers prior to the Pleistocene.

Linguistics - Open to suggestions, no training here.

87. Language variation – Because languages diverge by a set amount over time, and these have been reasoned to have diverged considerably prior to Noah's Flood, linguistics represents another element of evidence against Noah's Flood.

History – Please suggest and supplement my haphazard studies.

88. Egyptian history – Why did the Egyptians not mention a flood during their monument building period?

89. Sargon and the Akkadian Empire – How could Sargon conquer Sumeria and create the Akkadian Empire either underwater or immediately after a global flood with no troops?

90. Mohenjo Daro – Why does this 'pre-flood' city show no evidence of a global flood?

91. Chinese civilization – Why were the Chinese building canals during a flood?

92. Differential technology level between cultures – If all cultures started at the same level of technological skill 4500 years ago how could most cultures have advanced or deteriorated so quickly relative to each other?

93. Independent primary food sources between cultures – As cited in the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond different cultures depended upon different food sources. For example the Aztecs had corn, the Incas had potatoes, the Egyptians had wheat, and the Chinese had rice. If these cultures and their foodstuffs were all in contact 4500 years ago, why did they not show a greater diversity in food sources such as we have today?

94. Inconsistency of flood myths – The prevalence of flood myths among diverse cultures is often cited as evidence for Noah's Flood. However, the vast difference in the details of nearly each culture's flood myth actually provides evidence against a single global event.

Biblical Scripture – I'm sure many could add here as they are much better versed in the Bible. (False gods in lowercase)

95. Use of parables in the Bible – If Jesus explicitly taught in parables why do some believe that can't ever be applied to the OT as well? Are they better informed about god's intentions than Jesus?

96. Why use a flood? – Instead of wiping out all animals and children along with 'his' creation, why didn't god just punish the unrighteous?

97. Why punish those who use their god-created minds - Why would a just god reward those who hate science and show it by attacking it via the literal interpretation of Noah's story and punish those who use science to save lives?

Miscellaneous Categories

98. No plausible mechanism to explain where water came from – Overhead 'vapor canopies' and underground 'fountains' violate the most basic principles of physics. There is no explanation of where the water came from.

99. No plausible mechanism to explain where water went – No remotely valid or rational explanation has been propounded to explain where such flood waters retreated to.

100. Dubious motives of many who seek to conflate religion and science – Many of the well-known originators and staunch defenders of the war against science are proven liars and even convicted criminals, usually for using religion to line their pockets. Why should any thinking and/or moral person accept their rants as gospel?

Sunday, November 11, 2007