Creation Tectonics

November 28, 2005 5:12 PM

Computer Modeling of the large-scale tectonics associated with the Genesis flood...
posted by notsnot (29 comments total)

I read the entire paper. I'm no scientist, so a lot of the specifics were above my head, but I got the overall gist of what they're saying. I interpret it as "If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit".
posted by davelog at 5:20 PM on November 28, 2005

Excellent. This will go nicely with my dynamic model of Rumplestiltskin spinning straw into gold. Took me years to get that algorithm right!

"Any comprehensive model for earth history consistent with the data from the Scriptures must account for the massive tectonic changes associated with the Genesis Flood."

I think they just blinded me with pseudo-science.
posted by milquetoast at 5:21 PM on November 28, 2005

So much earnest effort, so much delusion.
posted by wilful at 5:21 PM on November 28, 2005

Refutation. And this one. And another.

This is like 11 years old...
posted by mr_roboto at 5:22 PM on November 28, 2005

You're kidding right? You're not seriously posting a link to an organization whose financials are done by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, right?
posted by VulcanMike at 5:23 PM on November 28, 2005

Duuude...I'm not trying to further the ideas in the paper...I thought it was funny in a "holy shit, how can you be so delusional and still use complete sentences?" sort of way.
posted by notsnot at 5:25 PM on November 28, 2005

Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from other Institute for Creation Research studies such as, "Thermodynamic Transference in the Burning Bush," "Acoustic Variance in the Rib-Bones in the Whale that Swallowed Jonah," and "Walls of Clay: Decibel Levels, Sound Waves, and the City of Jericho."
posted by billysumday at 5:28 PM on November 28, 2005

The earth's mantle in the numerical model is treated as an irrotational, infinite Prandtl number, anelastic Newtonian fluid within a spherical shell with isothermal, undeformable, traction-free boundaries.

I've been saying this for years. Did they listen?

Damned dirty apes!
posted by cedar at 5:34 PM on November 28, 2005

I like the tags.
posted by meehawl at 5:37 PM on November 28, 2005

You're kidding right? You're not seriously posting a link to an organization whose financials are done by the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, right?

Er.

There are two directions one can take this. One, it's obvious from that connection that this is a religious organization and is certainly trying to advance this 'data' for religious rather than scientific reasons.

ECFA does have a good reputation, though, of keeping its members on the straight and narrow. I remember a number of controversies back in the 80's and 90's evangalical world when Christian organizations were kicked out and told to shape up after they couldn't account for how certain donated funds were being distributed. Nothing illegal, just not up to the organization's standards.

So, yes, if you were implying #1, I'd give you a thumbs up. #2, though, I'd say hold off unless the ECFA has turned shill while I wasn't watching.
posted by verb at 5:39 PM on November 28, 2005

Uh, how in the hell is the math supposed to work? Wouldn't reasonable numbers for the densities, viscosities and so on immediately reveal that it takes millions of years for plates to move around much, rather than, like, 6000? Weird.
posted by snoktruix at 5:43 PM on November 28, 2005

It's a weird thing to read. All the individual parts make sense in isolation but when they're put together it turns pathological. They seem perfectly happy to use the bits of science that agree with their conclusions but no others.
It reads like the spoofs of low data/high speculation papers on plate tectonics we used to write when I was an undergraduate.
I wonder if the authors realised that their paper could easily be used to support the theories of Graham Hancock?
posted by thatwhichfalls at 5:49 PM on November 28, 2005

mr_roboto - thanks for the links. As an nonliteral old earth Christian, I run into pseudo-science from my brothers in the faith constantly (not so much from my sisters, would you believe), and it's a constant trial to make known that we are about faith, salvation, grace, and love -- not Great Flood Subduction Zones, Vapor Canopies, and lunar dust accumulation.
posted by brownpau at 5:53 PM on November 28, 2005 [1 favorite]

To update:
a) Now I see the tags -- gotcha. Thank you notsnot.
2) verb, I'm sure the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability is a reputable organization -- my emphasis was intended to be on the "Evangelical" part. They're not, for example, being overseen by the NSF.
posted by VulcanMike at 6:12 PM on November 28, 2005

Taken from P&T's Bullshit!: The flood is likely based on a flood that took place ~125 mi. SE of present-day Bagdad around 2900 BC. Zeathsudra (sp?) was a king who commandeered a barge and offered a sacrifice at a hilltop temple as thanks for surviving. (Ep. 6 of the 2nd season)

Taken from MC Hawking: "Noah and his ark / Adam and his Eve / Straight-up fairy stories / even children don't believe."

Why is the Bible not acceptible as allegory? Get over it, people!
posted by Eideteker at 6:15 PM on November 28, 2005

As a PS, why are we discussing this? Is it being taken seriously by anyone in the scientific community or the mainstream media? If so, please give additional sources. I hate it when MeFi becomes "point at the creationists and laugh" theater. Fish in a barrel, as my earlier comment indicates.
posted by Eideteker at 6:17 PM on November 28, 2005

brought to you by the Institute of Creation Research.

Would it be a miracle if they published a paper concluding the physical phenomenon as it is described in the Bible was impossible, and it was best to view the stories a metaphors to shepherd Man's spiritual growth and not to be taken literally.

Put that one if your bedside pray tonight.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 6:52 PM on November 28, 2005

This is awesome! I mean, it's so good! It's all real continuum mechanics, up until "treatment of the runaway instability". At that point he starts explaining why he doesn't have enough computer power to do the simulation properly, then claims he can fake it:

"One choice for reducing the steepness of the spatial gradients and thereby achieving the required numerical stability is to retain the desired value of Newtonian viscosity but to scale the thermal conductivity and the radiogenic heat production rate to values larger than those estimated for the real earth."

As it says in mr_roboto's links, this is kind of crazy; he basically makes the diffusion of heat in the mantle 10,000 times faster than measured values and increases the rate of heat produced by radioactive decay in the earth by 10,000 as well. Really. He says it right in there, without irony. Wild.

It's amazing what you can do to a computer simulation by putting the wrong numbers in. Once I forgot to convert atmospheric humidity into kg per kg, and the surface temperature of my ocean model shot up to 1000 Kelvin.
posted by freedryk at 7:16 PM on November 28, 2005

You're just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It's science.
posted by bardic at 7:33 PM on November 28, 2005

I wasn't prepared to believe, it, but when he came up with
dT/dt=-v. (T u) - (g - 1)T v.u + [v. k v T) + t : v u + H]/rrcv, well, what could I say? I'm convinced.
posted by QuietDesperation at 8:08 PM on November 28, 2005

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!





hahahahahahahaa!


*whew*

Thanks for the belly laugh.
posted by Doohickie at 8:29 PM on November 28, 2005

That first refutation link has a great line:

"#1 Baumgarder's theory still does not work without miracles, as Baumgardner himself admitted (Baumgardner 1990a, 1990b)..."

posted by SweetJesus at 8:53 PM on November 28, 2005

I don't care what you all say, Goddamnit, this world is all too perfect...it was designed by something or someone that was very, very smart...smarter than scientists, intelligent in fact...and it is based on faith, I mean science, yeah that's the ticket!
posted by philmas at 9:16 PM on November 28, 2005

If the folks promoting such Creationist beliefs are crazy, well.....

Y'all are crazier still.

You're laughing while losing.
posted by troutfishing at 9:16 PM on November 28, 2005

This kind of stuff gives "pseudo science" a bad name.
posted by Dareos at 9:50 PM on November 28, 2005

"Any comprehensive model for earth history consistent with the data from the Scriptures..."

Problem is, there's no data in the Scriptures.
posted by you just lost the game at 7:19 AM on November 29, 2005

I see this paper as an excellent refutation of the Creationist position that the Earth is ~6000 years old. I mean, its a classic reductio ad absurdum isn't it?

Assume that the Earth is only 6000 years --> get model that only works by throwing in radically screwy parameters and a miracle or two (like the fudge in using "analog Newtonian viscosity"). ---> Earth cannot be 6000 years old, QED.

(And that's without addressing the geochronological evidence. I mean, this is weird: he's ok with continental drift and other features of modern plate tectonics and accepts those as constraints, but throws out radiogenic dating, varved sediments, ice cap stratigraphy, magnetic reversal stratigraphy, etc. )
posted by bumpkin at 8:14 AM on November 29, 2005

(Another old-earth Christian here.) If you want a good laugh, read Whitcomb & Morris's The Genesis Flood, a 1979 book on flood geology.

Actually, there aren't many young-earth Christians--it's just that the young-earthers are particularly strident. Most educated Christians accept the idea that the universe began about 15 billion years ago.
posted by neuron at 10:53 AM on November 29, 2005

That's what immediately grabbed my attention, yjltg. Stopped reading after that.
posted by sharpener at 2:35 PM on November 29, 2005