1. TEN MYTHS OF SCIENCE: REEXAMINING WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW... W. McComas 1996 This article addresses and attempts to refute several of the most widespread and enduring misconceptions held by students regarding the enterprise of science. The ten myths discussed include the common notions that theories become laws, that hypotheses are best characterized as educated guesses, and that there is a commonly-applied scientific method. In addition, the article includes discussion of other incorrect ideas such as the view that evidence leads to sure knowledge, that science and its methods provide absolute proof, and that science is not a creative endeavor. Finally, the myths that scientists are objective, that experiments are the sole route to scientific knowledge and that scientific conclusions are continually reviewed conclude this presentation. The paper ends with a plea that instruction in and opportunities to experience the nature of science are vital in preservice and inservice teacher education programs to help unseat the myths of science. Myths are typically defined as traditional views, fables, legends or stories. As such, myths can be entertaining and even educational since they help people make sense of the world. In fact, the explanatory role of myths most likely accounts for their development, spread and persistence. However, when fact and fiction blur, myths lose their entertainment value and serve only to block full understanding. Such is the case with the myths of science. Scholar Joseph Campbell (1968) has proposed that the similarity among many folk myths worldwide is due to a subconscious link between all peoples, but no such link can explain the myths of science. Misconceptions about science are most likely due to the lack of philosophy of science content in teacher education programs, the failure of such programs to provide and require authentic science experiences for preservice teachers and the generally shallow treatment of the nature of science in the precollege textbooks to which teachers might turn for guidance. As Steven Jay Gould points out in The Case of the Creeping Fox Terrier Clone (1988), science textbook writers are among the most egregious purveyors of myth and inaccuracy. The fox terrier mentioned in the title refers to the classic comparison used to express the size of the dawn horse, the tiny precursor to the modem horse. This comparison is unfortunate for two reasons. Not only was this horse ancestor much bigger than a fox terrier, but the fox terrier breed of dog is virtually unknown to American students. The major criticism leveled by Gould is that once this comparison took hold, no one bothered to check its validity or utility. Through time, one author after another simply repeated the inept comparison and continued a tradition that has made many science texts virtual clones of each other on this and countless other points. In an attempt to provide a more realistic view of science and point out issues o.

1. 1. TEN MYTHS OF SCIENCE: REEXAMINING WHAT WE
THINK WE KNOW...
W. McComas 1996
This article addresses and attempts to refute several of the most
widespread and enduring misconceptions held by students
regarding the enterprise of science. The ten myths discussed
include the common notions that theories become laws, that
hypotheses are best characterized as educated guesses, and that
there is a commonly-applied scientific method. In addition, the
article includes discussion of other incorrect ideas such as the
view that evidence leads to sure knowledge, that science and its
methods provide absolute proof, and that science is not a
creative endeavor. Finally, the myths that scientists are
objective, that experiments are the sole route to scientific
knowledge and that scientific conclusions are continually
reviewed conclude this presentation. The paper ends with a plea
that instruction in and opportunities to experience the nature of
science are vital in preservice and inservice teacher education
programs to help unseat the myths of science.
Myths are typically defined as traditional views, fables, legends
or stories. As such, myths can be entertaining and even
educational since they help people make sense of the world. In
fact, the explanatory role of myths most likely accounts for
their development, spread and persistence. However, when fact
and fiction blur, myths lose their entertainment value and serve
only to block full understanding. Such is the case with the
myths of science.
Scholar Joseph Campbell (1968) has proposed that the similarity
among many folk myths worldwide is due to a subconscious link
between all peoples, but no such link can explain the myths of
science. Misconceptions about science are most likely due to
the lack of philosophy of science content in teacher education
programs, the failure of such programs to provide and require

2. authentic science experiences for preservice teachers and the
generally shallow treatment of the nature of science in the
precollege textbooks to which teachers might turn for guidance.
As Steven Jay Gould points out in The Case of the Creeping Fox
Terrier Clone (1988), science textbook writers are among the
most egregious purveyors of myth and inaccuracy. The fox
terrier mentioned in the title refers to the classic comparison
used to express the size of the dawn horse, the tiny precursor to
the modem horse. This comparison is unfortunate for two
reasons. Not only was this horse ancestor much bigger than a
fox terrier, but the fox terrier breed of dog is virtually unknown
to American students. The major criticism leveled by Gould is
that once this comparison took hold, no one bothered to check
its validity or utility. Through time, one author after another
simply repeated the inept comparison and continued a tradition
that has made many science texts virtual clones of each other on
this and countless other points.
In an attempt to provide a more realistic view of science and
point out issues on which science teachers should focus, this
article presents and discusses 10 widely-held, yet incorrect
ideas about the nature of science. There is no implication that
all students, or most teachers for that matter, hold all of these
views to be true, nor is the list meant to be the definitive
catolog. Cole (1986) and Rothman (1992) have suggested
additional misconceptions worthy of consideration. However,
years of science teaching and the review of countless texts has
substantiated the validity of the inventory presented here.
Myth 1: Hypotheses Become Theories Which Become Laws
This myth deals with the general belief that with increased
evidence there is a developmental sequence through which

3. scientific ideas pass on their way to final acceptance. Many
believe that scientific ideas pass through the hypothesis and
theory stages and finally mature as laws. A former U.S.
president showed his misunderstanding of science by saying that
he was not troubled by the idea of evolution because it was "just
a theory." The president's misstatement is the essence of this
myth; that an idea is not worthy of consideration until
"lawness" has been bestowed upon it.
The problem created by the false hierarchical nature inherent in
this myth is that theories and laws are very different kinds of
knowledge. Of course there is a relationship between laws and
theories, but one simply does not become the other--no matter
how much empirical evidence is amassed. Laws are
generalizations, principles or patterns in nature and theories are
the explanations of those generalizations (Rhodes & Schaible,
1989; Homer & Rubba, 1979; Campbell, 1953).
For instance, Newton described the relationship of mass and
distance to gravitational attraction between objects with such
precision that we can use the law of gravity to plan spaceflights.
During the Apollo 8 mission, astronaut Bill Anders responded to
the question of who was flying the spacecraft by saying, "I
think that Issac Newton is doing most of the driving fight now."
(Chaikin, 1994, p. 127). His response was understood by all to
mean that the capsule was simply following the basic laws of
physics described by Isaac Newton years centuries earlier.
The more thorny, and many would say more interesting, issue
with respect to gravity is the explanation for why the law
operates as it does. At this point, there is no well. accepted
theory of gravity. Some physicists suggest that gravity waves
are the correct explanation for the law of gravity, but with clear
confirmation and consensus lacking, most feel that the theory of
gravity still eludes science. Interestingly, Newton addressed the
distinction between law and theory with respect to gravity.

4. Although he had discovered the law of gravity, he refrained
from speculating publically about its cause. In Principial,
Newton states" . . . I have not been able to discover the cause of
those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no
hypothesis . . ." " . . . it is enough that gravity does really exist,
and act according to the laws which we have explained . . ."
(Newton, 1720/1946, p. 547).
Myth 2: A Hypothesis is an Educated Guess
The definition of the term hypothesis has taken on an almost
mantra- like life of its own in science classes. If a hypothesis is
always an educated guess as students typically assert, the
question remains, "an educated guess about what?" The best
answer for this question must be, that without a clear view of
the context in which the term is used, it is impossible to tell.
The term hypothesis has at least three definitions, and for that
reason, should be abandoned, or at least used with caution. For
instance, when Newton said that he framed no hypothesis as to
the cause of gravity he was saying that he had no speculation
about an explanation of why the law of gravity operates as it
does. In this case, Newton used the term hypothesis to represent
an immature theory.
As a solution to the hypothesis problem, Sonleitner (1989)
suggested that tentative or trial laws be called generalizing
hypotheses with provisional theories referred to as explanatory
hypotheses. Another approach would be to abandon the word
hypothesis altogether in favor of terms such as speculative law
or speculative theory. With evidence, generalizing hypotheses
may become laws and speculative theories become theories, but
under no circumstances do theories become laws. Finally, when
students are asked to propose a hypothesis during a laboratory

5. experience, the term now means a prediction. As for those
hypotheses that are really forecasts, perhaps they should simply
be called what they are, predictions.
Myth 3: A General and Universal Scientific Method Exists
The notion that a common series of steps is followed by all
research scientists must be among the most pervasive myths of
science given the appearance of such a list in the introductory
chapters of many precollege science texts. This myth has been
part of the folklore of school science ever since its proposal by
statistician Karl Pearson (1937). The steps listed for the
scientific method vary from text to text but usually include, a)
define the problem, b) gather background information, c) form a
hypothesis, d) make observations, e) test the hypothesis, and f)
draw conclusions. Some texts conclude their list of the steps of
the scientific method by listing communication of results as the
final ingredient.
One of the reasons for the widespread belief in a general
scientific method may be the way in which results are presented
for publication in research journals. The standardized style
makes it appear that scientists follow a standard research plan.
Medawar (1990) reacted to the common style exhibited by
research papers by calling the scientific paper a fraud since the
final journal report rarely outlines the actual way in which the
problem was investigated.
Philosophers of science who have studied scientists at work
have shown that no research method is applied universally
(Carey, 1994; Gibbs & Lawson, 1992; Chalmers, 1990;
Gjertsen, 1989). The notion of a single scientific method is so
pervasive it seems certain that many students must be
disappointed when they discover that scientists do not have a

6. framed copy of the steps of the scientific method posted high
above each laboratory workbench.
Close inspection will reveal that scientists approach and solve
problems with imagination, creativity, prior knowledge and
perseverance. These, of course, are the same methods used by
all problem-solvers. The lesson to be learned is that science is
no different from other human endeavors when puzzles are
investigated. Fortunately, this is one myth that may eventually
be displaced since many newer texts are abandoning or
augmenting the list in favor of discussions of methods of
science.
Myth 4: Evidence Accumulated Carefully Will Result in Sure
Knowledge
All investigators, including scientists, collect and interpret
empirical evidence through the process called induction. This is
a technique by which individual pieces of evidence are collected
and examined until a law is discovered or a theory is invented.
Useful as this technique is, even a preponderance of evidence
does not guarantee the production of valid knowledge because
of what is called the problem of induction.
Induction was first formalized by Frances Bacon in the 17th
century. In his book, Novum Organum (1620/ 1952), Bacon
advised that facts be assimilated without bias to reach a
conclusion. The method of induction he suggested is the
principal way in which humans traditionally have produced
generalizations that permit predictions. What then is the
problem with induction?
It is both impossible to make all observations pertaining to a
given situation and illogical to secure all relevant facts for all

7. time, past, present and future. However, only by making all
relevant observations throughout all time, could one say that a
final valid conclusion had been made. This is the problem of
induction. On a personal level, this problem is of little
consequence, but in science the problem is significant.
Scientists formulate laws and theories that are supposed to hold
true in all places and for all time but the problem of induction
makes such a guarantee impossible.
The proposal of a new law begins through induction as facts are
heaped upon other relevant facts. Deduction is useful in
checking the validity of a law. For example, if we postulate that
all swans are white, we can evaluate the law by predicting that
the next swan found will also be white. If it is, the law is
supported, but not proved as will be seen in the discussion of
another science myth. Locating even a single black swan will
cause the law to be called into question.
The nature of induction itself is another interesting aspect
associated with this myth. If we set aside the problem of
induction momentarily, there is still the issue of how scientists
make the final leap from the mass of evidence to the conclusion.
In an idealized view of induction, the accumulated evidence
will simply result in the production of a new law or theory in a
procedural or mechanical fashion. In reality, there is no such
method. The issue is far more complex -- and interesting --than
that. The final creative leap from evidence to scientific
knowledge is the focus of another myth of science.
Myth 5: Science and its Methods Provide Absolute Proof
The general success of the scientific endeavor suggests that its
products must be valid. However, a hallmark of scientific
knowledge is that it is subject to revision when new information

8. is presented. Tentativeness is one of the points that
differentiates science from other forms of knowledge.
Accumulated evidence can provide support, validation and
substantiation for a law or theory, but will never prove those
laws and theories to be true. This idea has been addressed by
Homer and Rubba (1978) and Lopnshinsky (1993).
The problem of induction argues against proof in science, but
there is another element of this myth worth exploring. In
actuality, the only truly conclusive knowledge produced by
science results when a notion is falsified. What this means is
that no matter what scientific idea is considered, once evidence
begins to accumulate, at least we know that the notion is untrue.
Consider the example of the white swans discussed earlier. One
could search the world and see only white swans, and arrive at
the generalization that "all swans are white. " However, the
discovery of one black swan has the potential to overturn, or at
least result in modifications of, this proposed law of nature.
However, whether scientists routinely try to falsify their notions
and how much contrary evidence it takes for a scientist's mind
to change are issues worth exploring.
Myth 6: Science Is Procedural More Than Creative
We accept that no single guaranteed method of science can
account for the success of science, but realize that induction,
the collection and interpretation of individual facts providing
the raw materials for laws and theories, is at the foundation of
most scientific endeavors. This awareness brings with it a
paradox. If induction itself is not a guaranteed method for
arriving at conclusions, how do scientists develop useful laws
and theories?
Induction makes use of individual facts that are collected,

9. analyzed and examined. Some observers may perceive a pattern
in these data and propose a law in response, but there is no
logical or procedural method by which the pattern is suggested.
With a theory, the issue is much the same. Only the creativity of
the individual scientist permits the discovery of laws and the
invention of theories. If there truly was a single scientific
method, two individuals with the same expertise could review
the same facts and reach identical conclusions. There is no
guarantee of this because the range and nature of creativity is a
personal attribute.
Unfortunately, many common science teaching orientations and
methods serve to work against the creative element in science.
The majority of laboratory exercises, for instance, are
verification activities. The teacher discusses what will happen
in the laboratory, the manual provides step-by-step directions,
and the student is expected to arrive at a particular answer. Not
only is this approach the antithesis of the way in which science
actually operates, but such a portrayal must seem dry, clinical
and uninteresting to many students. In her book, They're Not
Dumb, They're Different (1990) Shiela Tobias argues that many
capable and clever students reject science as a career because
they are not given an opportunity to see it as an exciting and
creative pursuit. The moral in Tobias' thesis is that science
itself may be impoverished when students who feel a need for a
creative outlet eliminate it as a potential career because of the
way it is taught.
Myth 7: Science and its Methods Can Answer All Questions.
Philosophers of science have found it useful to refer to the work
of Karl Popper (1968) and his principle of falsifiability to
provide an operational definition of science. Popper believed
that only those ideas that are potentially falsifiable are
scientific ideas.

10. For instance, the law of gravity states that more massive objects
exert a stronger gravitational attraction than do objects with
less mass when distance is held constant. This is a scientific law
because it could be falsified if newly-discovered objects operate
differently with respect to gravitational attraction. In contrast,
the core idea among creationists is that species were placed on
earth fully-formed by some supernatural entity. Obviously,
there is no scientific method by which such a belief could be
shown to be false. Since this special creation view is impossible
to falsify, it is not science at all and the term creation science is
an oxymoron. Creation science is a religious belief and as such,
does not require that it be falsifiable. Hundreds of years ago
thoughtful theologians and scientists carved out their spheres of
influence and have since coexisted with little acrimony. Today,
only those who fail to understand the distinction between
science and religion confuse the rules, roles, and limitations of
these two important world views.
It should now be clear that some questions simply must not be
asked of scientists. During a recent creation science trial for
instance, Nobel laureates were asked to sign a statement about
the nature of science to provide some guidance to the court.
These famous scientists responded resoundingly to support such
a statement; after all they were experts in the realm of science
(Klayman, Slocombe, Lehman, & Kaufman, 1986). Later, those
interested in citing expert opinion in the abortion debate asked
scientists to issue a statement regarding their feelings on this
issue. Wisely, few participated. Science cannot answer the
moral and ethical questions engendered by the matter of
abortion. Of course, scientists as individuals have personal
opinions about many issues, but as a group, they must remain
silent if those issues are outside the realm of scientific inquiry.
Science simply cannot address moral, ethical, aesthetic, social
and metaphysical questions.
Myth 8. Scientists are Particularly Objective

11. Scientists are no different in their level of objectivity than are
other professionals. They are careful in the analysis of evidence
and in the procedures applied to arrive at conclusions. With this
admission, it may seem that this myth is valid, but contributions
from both the philosophy of science and psychology reveal that
there are at least three major reasons that make complete
objectivity impossible.
Many philosophers of science support Popper's (1963) view that
science can advance only through a string of what he called
conjectures and refutations. In other words, scientists should
propose laws and theories as conjectures and then actively work
to disprove or refute those ideas. Popper suggests that the
absence of contrary evidence, demonstrated through an active
program of refutation, will provide the best support available. It
may seem like a strange way of thinking about verification, but
the absence of disproof is considered support. There is one
major problem with the idea of conjecture and refutation.
Popper seems to have proposed it as a recommendation for
scientists, not as a description of what scientists do. From a
philosophical perspective the idea is sound, but there are no
indications that scientists actively practice programs to search
for disconfirming evidence.
Another aspect of the inability of scientists to be objective is
found in theory-laden observation, a psychological notion
(Hodson, 1986). Scientists, like all observers, hold a myriad of
preconceptions and biases about the way the world operates.
These notions, held in the subconscious, affect everyone's
ability to make observations. It is impossible to collect and
interpret facts without any bias. There have been countless
cases in the history of science in which scientists have failed to
include particular observations in their final analyses of
phenomena. This occurs, not because of fraud or deceit, but
because of the prior knowledge possessed by the individual.

12. Certain facts either were not seen at all or were deemed
unimportant based on the scientists's prior knowledge. In earlier
discussions of induction, we postulated that two individuals
reviewing the same data would not be expected to reach the
same conclusions. Not only does individual creativity play a
role, but the issue of personal theory-laden observation further
complicates the situation.
This lesson has clear implications for science teaching.
Teachers typically provide learning experiences for students
without considering their prior knowledge. In the laboratory, for
instance, students are asked to perform activities, make
observations and then form conclusions. There is an expectation
that the conclusions formed will be both self-evident and
uniform. In other words, teachers anticipate that the data will
lead all pupils to the same conclusion. This could only happen
if each student had the same exact prior conceptions and made
and evaluated observations using identical schemes. This does
not happen in science nor does it occur in the science
classroom.
Related to the issue of theory-based observations is the
allegiance to the paradigm. Thomas Kuhn (1970), in his ground-
breaking analysis of the history of science, shows that scientists
work within a research tradition called a paradigm. This
research tradition, shared by those working in a given
discipline, provides clues to the questions worth investigating,
dictates what evidence is admissible and prescribes the tests and
techniques that are reasonable. Although the paradigm provides
direction to the research it may also stifle or limit investigation.
Anything that confines the research endeavor necessarily limits
objectivity. While there is no conscious desire on the part of
scientists to limit discussion, it is likely that some new ideas in
science are rejected because of the paradigm issue. When
research reports are submitted for publication they are reviewed
by other members of the discipline. Ideas from outside the

13. paradigm are liable to be eliminated from consideration as
crackpot or poor science and thus do not appear in print.
Examples of scientific ideas that were originally rejected
because they fell outside the accepted paradigm include the sun-
centered solar system, warm-bloodedness in dinosaurs, the
germ-theory of disease, and continental drift. When first
proposed early in this century by Alfred Wegener, the idea of
moving continents, for example, was vigorously rejected.
Scientists were not ready to embrace a notion so contrary to the
traditional teachings of their discipline. Continental drift was
finally accepted in the 1960s with the proposal of a mechanism
or theory to explain how continental plates move (Hallam, 1975
and Menard, 1986). This fundamental change in the earth
sciences, called a revolution by Kuhn, might have occurred
decades earlier had it not been for the strength of the paradigm.
It would be unwise to conclude a discussion of scientific
paradigms on a negative note. Although the examples provided
do show the contrary aspects associated with paradigm-fixity,
Kuhn would argue that the blinders created by allegiance to the
paradigm help keep scientists on track. His review of the history
of science demonstrates that paradigms are responsible for far
more successes in science than delays.
Myth 9: Experiments are the Principle Route to Scientific
Knowledge
Throughout their school science careers, students are
encouraged to associate science with experimentation. Virtually
all hands-on experiences that students have in science class is
called experiments even if it would be more accurate to refer to
these exercises as technical procedures, explorations or
activities. True experiments involve carefully orchestrated
procedures along with control and test groups usually with the
goal of establishing a cause and effect relationship. Of course,

14. true experimentation is a useful tool in science, but is not the
sole route to knowledge.
Many note-worthy scientists have used non-experimental
techniques to advance knowledge. In fact, in a number of
science disciplines, true experimentation is not possible because
of the inability to control variables. Many fundamental
discoveries in astronomy are based on extensive observations
rather than experiments. Copernicus and Kepler changed our
view of the solar system using observational evidence derived
from lengthy and detailed observations frequently contributed
by other scientists, but neither performed experiments.
Charles Darwin punctuated his career with an investigatory
regime more similar to qualitative techniques used in the social
sciences than the experimental techniques commonly associated
with the natural sciences. For his most revolutionary
discoveries, Darwin recorded his extensive observations in
notebooks annotated by speculations and thoughts about those
observations. Although Darwin supported the inductive method
proposed by Bacon, he was aware that observation without
speculation or prior understanding was both ineffective and
impossible. The techniques advanced by Darwin have been
widely used by scientists Goodall and Nossey in their primate
studies. Scientific knowledge is gained in a variety of ways
including observation, analysis, speculation, library
investigation and experimentation.
Myth 10: All Work in Science is Reviewed to Keep the Process
Honest.
Frequently, the final step in the traditional scientific method is
that researchers communicate their results so that others may
learn from and evaluate their research. When completing
laboratory reports, students are frequently told to present their
methods section so clearly that others could repeat the activity.

15. The conclusion that students will likely draw from this request
is that professional scientists are also constantly reviewing each
other's experiments to check up on each other. Unfortunately,
while such a check and balance system would be useful, the
number of findings from one scientist checked by others is
vanishingly small In reality, most scientists are simply too busy
and research funds too limited for this type of review.
The result of the lack of oversight has recently put science itself
under suspicion. With the pressures of academic tenure,
personal competition and funding, it is not surprising that
instances of outright scientific fraud do occur. However, even
without fraud, the enormous amount of original scientific
research published, and the pressure to produce new information
rather than reproduce others' work dramatically increases the
chance that errors will go unnoticed.
An interesting corollary to this myth is that scientists rarely
report valid, but negative results. While this is understandable
given the space limitations in scientific journals, the failure to
report what did not work is a problem. Only when those
working in a particular scientific discipline have access to all of
the information regarding a phenomenon -- both positive and
negative -- can the discipline progress.
Conclusions
If, in fact, students and many of their teachers hold these myths
to be true, we have strong support for a renewed focus on
science itself rather than just its facts and principles in science
teaching and science teacher education. This is one of the
central messages in both of the new science education projects.
Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS, 1993) and the
National Science Education Standards (National Research
Council, 1994) project both strongly suggest that school science
must give students an opportunity to experience science
authentically, free of the legends, misconceptions and

16. idealizations inherent in the myths about the nature of the
scientific enterprise. There must be increased opportunity for
both preservice and inservice teachers to learn about and apply
the real rules of the game of science accompanied by careful
review of textbooks to remove the "creeping fox terriers" that
have helped provide an inaccurate view of the nature of science.
Only by clearing away the mist of half-truths and revealing
science in its full light, with knowledge of both its strengths
and limitations, will learners become enamored of the true
pageant of science and be able fairly to judge its processes and
products.
2. Contrast between Science and Religion
Characteristics of Science
1) Scientific inquiry primarily utilizes inductive reasoning, as a
method for describing and defining order in the universe.
Conclusions (i.e. hypotheses, theories, laws) are based
on facts (i.e., verifiable observations) and are therefore testable.
2) Objectivity. Science typically progresses as an exploration to
discover truth: preconceptions should not govern final
conclusions.
3) Scientific inquiry is primarily skeptical. Scientifically
derived conclusions are by nature subject to change as new facts
and observations either validate or disprove them. Scientifically
derived conclusions are verifiable and testable.
4) Falsifiability. The validity of scientific conclusions is
questionable if the facts on which they are based are false or
questionable.
5) Positivism. Scientific conclusions are based on rigorous
inquiry. Science assumes answers to all questions are attainable
through diligent research and exploration.

17. 6) The inductive nature of science allows multiple
conclusions with the same set of facts. The most probable
conclusion is the one that best explains the facts.
7) Occam's Razor (developed by the English philosopher,
William of Ockham, died ~1349 AD) is a guiding principle for
formulating scientific conclusions. Occam's razor basically
states that the most logical conclusion is the simplest, and that
assumptions used to explain something should not be multiplied
unnecessarily.
8) Principles of uniformitarianism and actualism govern the
scientific process, which ensure testability and verification.
Characteristics of Religion
1) Religion primarily involves deductive reasoning. Conclusions
are preconceived and based on faith, and are therefore beyond
proof.
2) Doctrinal inferences are primarily based on preconceived
conclusions. Axiomatic.
3) Basic doctrines are unalterable, and the essence of religion.
Faith is not testable, except with axioms.
4) Religion is not falsifiable, or God would cease to be God.
5) The knowledge of God is accepted by faith, and there is little
need for external inquiry. Religion requires acceptance of tenets
as they are revealed by God, which makes inquiry of secondary
importance.
6) Religion typically relies on a singular interpretation of the
axioms on which it is based. Each religion ultimately believes
that its interpretation of the nature of God is correct.
7) Complex arguments are typically used to defend doctrinal
statements. Religion requires that facts and assumptions that do
not support its axioms or conclusions either are cast aside, or
bent to fit the "truth".
8) Religious fundamentalism and literalism often require
supernatural explanation which is neither testable nor
verifiable.

18. 3. On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the
Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of
Selection by CHARLES DARWIN,
Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S., & F.G.S., and ALFRED WALLACE, Esq.
Communicated by SIR CHARLES LYELL, F.R.S., F.L.S. AND
J.D. HOOKER, Esq., M.D, V.P.R.S., F.L.S., &c. [Read July 1st,
1858.] London, June 30th, 1858. MY DEAR SIR,--The
accompanying papers, which we have the honour of
communicating to the Linnean Society, and which all relate to
the same subject, viz., the Laws which affect the Production of
Varieties, Races, and Species, contain the results of the
investigations of two indefatigable naturalists, Mr. Charles
Darwin and Mr. Alfred Wallace. These gentlemen having,
independently and unknown to one another, conceived the same
very ingenious theory to account for r the appearance and
perpetuation of varieties and of specific forms on our planet,
may both fairly claim the merit of being original thinkers in this
important line of inquiry; but neither of them having published
his views, though Mr. Darwin has for many years past been
repeatedly urged by us to do so, and both authors having now
unreservedly placed their papers in our hands, we think it would
best promote the interest of science that a selection from them
should be laid before the Linnean Society. Taken in the order of
their dates, they consist of :-- 1. Extracts from a MS. work on
Species* by Mr. Darwin, which was sketched in 1839, and
copied in 1844, which the copy was read by Dr. Hooker, and its
contents afterwards communicated to Sir Charles Lyell. The
first Part is devoted to “The Variation of Organic Beings under
Domestication and in their Natural State;” and the second
chapter of the part, from which we propose to read to the
Society the extracts referred to, is headed, “ On the Variation of
Organic Beings in a state of Nature; on the Natural Means of
Selection; on the Comparison of Domestic Races and true
Species.” 2. An abstract of a private letter addressed to

19. Professor Asa Gray, of Boston, U.S.., in October 1857, by Mr.
Darwin, in which he repeats his views, and which shows that
these remained unaltered from 1839 to 18957. 3. An essay by
Mr. Wallace, entitled “ On the Tendency of Varieties to depart
indefinitely from the Original Type.” This was written at
Ternate in February 1858, for the perusal of his friend and
correspondent Mr. Darwin, and sent to him with the expressed
wish that it should be forwarded to Sir Charles Lyell, if Mr.
Darwin thought it sufficiently novel and interesting. So highly
did Mr. Darwin appreciate the value of the views therein set
forth, that he proposed, in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, to obtain
Mr. Wallace’s consent to allow the Essay to be published as
soon as possible. Of this step we highly approved, provided Mr.
Darwin did not withhold from the public, as he was strongly
inclined to do (in favour of Mr. Wallace), the memoir which he
had himself written on the same subject, and which, as before
stated, one of us had perused in 1844, and the contents of which
we had both of us been privy to for many years. On representing
this to Mr. Darwin, he gave us permission to make what use we
thought proper of his memoir, &c.; and in adopting our present
course, of presenting it to the Linnean Society, we have
explained to him that we are not solely considering the relative
claims to priority of himself and his friend, but the interest of
science generally; for we feel it to be desirable that views
founded on a wide deduction from facts, and matured by years
of reflection, should constitute at once a goal from which others
may start, and that, while the scientific world is waiting for the
appearance of Mr. Darwin’s complete work, some of the leading
results of his labours, as well as those of his able
correspondent, should together be laid before the public.
4. Deep Time
Section:
Field Journal
When Philip Johansson joined an Earthwatch-supported

20. dinosaur dig led by Dr. Marilyn Wegweiser (Georgia College
and State University), he expected to be astounded. He would be
one of the first living beings to lay eyes on a creature since it
was buried 67 million years ago. What he didn't expect was a
journey into his own personal reality of time.
Elk Basin, Wyoming — It was a champagne moment at This
Side of Hell, as the quarry had become known. There was no
champagne available in this quiet stretch of Wyoming high
desert, but the effect was just as giddying. Two team members
had just helped “Doc” Wegweiser remove a chunk of rock to
reveal the full length of a perfectly preserved scapula as long as
my arm, and discovered yet another brick-red bone lying
beneath it. The elegantly curved scapula was one of the most
beautiful things I had ever seen, dead or alive, and we all
gathered around to ogle and coo.
The quarry was on a ridge-top within Elk Basin, a craggy
depression on the Montana border inhabited by piñon jays, rock
wrens, golden eagles, feral cows, coyotes, and the restless
ghosts of dinosaurs. Doc calls Elk Basin a “doubly plunging
anticline,” which is a fancy way of saying a giant, rising
wrinkle in the Earth's crust. The crest of the wrinkle has eroded
away, revealing layer after layer of sedimentary rocks that
“plunge” at a steep angle toward the edge of the basin, five
kilometers wide and twelve kilometers long. The ridges and
valleys within Elk Basin represent the whole of the Mesozoic
Era, the age of dinosaurs, with the deepest, oldest layers toward
the basin's middle.
It occurred to me, standing over that scapula on a windswept
ridge, that the basin was like a human soul laid bare. Each layer
of rock was like a life-altering event, with the oldest, most
fundamental experiences at the center encrusted with layer upon
layer of newer refinements. Each flake of sandstone was like a
moment, embedded in the past and embracing the future.
Humans are unique in being the only creatures in nature who
spend a significant amount of time ignoring the present. While
rock wrens and coyotes live each moment as if their lives

21. depend on it, which their lives so often do, we preoccupy
ourselves with past regrets and future stratagems. Humans
compartmentalize time, prioritize their days, denying
themselves the depth of each moment. It takes unwavering
attention to experience every moment as unique, yet inseparably
nested in the past and in the future like the tilting layers of Elk
Basin.
Each layer in the basin held a story, a memory. The dinosaur we
were excavating was a large hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur,
that apparently was over-whelmed in a flood of sediment near
the edge of a Cretaceous sea. The shifting sands in the flood
came from the erosion of newly formed mountains that were
pushing above the horizon to the west, to become the present
Beartooth Range. Two of the hadrosaur's ribs showed evidence
of a violent attack, perhaps from a giant therapod like
Tyrannosaurus. Footprints near the fossil bones suggest that a
two-footed scavenger, on the scale of a Deinonychus, was
perhaps the last being to set eyes on the carcass before we did,
67 million years later.
Other layers held different memories, but each was an integral
part of the basin, of the whole story. In an earlier layer known
as the Meteetse Formation, crumbling bone fossils and charred
petrified wood evoked spewing volcanoes and forest fires that
raged for centuries. In this formation, Doc had found charred
bones that suggest that dinosaurs died in such fires. Near the
top of the Meteetse, we observed hundreds of footprints from a
large hadrosaur, perhaps like the owner of that exquisite scapula
on the next ridge. The track ways told many stories and
revealed behavioral traits: One ancient reptile put down a
forepaw for balance much as a kangaroo would today.
At another site, Doc showed us fossil ammonites, cone-shelled
mollusks related to the present-day chambered nautilus, which
represented a period when the land here was under the ocean.
And near the edge of Elk Basin, we observed the border
between the Cretaceous and the Tertiary, known as the KT
boundary, indicating the end of the dinosaurs' reign and the

22. ascendancy of mammals on the Earth. That story, its drastic
environmental changes and fatal implications for dinosaurs, is
one that is still waiting to be told. The missing clue could be
right here, in the pages of Elk Basin.
That evening at the quarry, storm clouds rolled in from the
Beartooths, and a rainbow arched over the limber pines dotting
the ridge top. A flock of nighthawks fluttered above us, their
white-blazed wings flickering in the fading sunlight. From the
next ridge a coyote called, breaking the desert silence, and then
another from even closer. It was a moment that I cherished, as
precious as a rare find, embedded in the past and embracing the
future. I plan to have many more.
PHOTOS (COLOR): The unearthed rib bone of a hadrosaur
(bottom left) shows evidence of an injury incurred 67 million
years ago, one of the many stories told in the layers of Elk
Basin. Team member Deborah Gentry (center) whisks away
layers of sandstone to reveal more ribs for preservation.
5.Creationist Geologic Time Scale: an attack strategy for the
sciences.
Should the scientific community continue to fight rear-guard
skirmishes with creationists, or insist that "young-earthers"
defend their model in toto?
Donald U. Wise, Professor Emeritus, University of
Massachusetts at Amherst, and Research Associate at Franklin
and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA. email: [email protected]
This article is an expanded version of an original manuscript
that was published in American Scientist, March/April, 1998,
vol. 86, n. 2, p. 160-173.
Introduction
This manuscript proposes a new approach for science's battle
against the rising influence in America of pseudo-science and
the Creationist movement. The framework of Creationist Bible-
based earth history, focusing on Genesis and the Noachian
flood, can be assembled into a single geologic time scale
(Figure 1, enlarged by addition of many geologic facts, difficult
for Creationists to explain. (Figure 1 is an abbreviated version

23. of the time scale outlined in the following paragraph which was
redrawn and published by the American Scientist.) Some of the
items are so absurd that all but the most dedicated
fundamentalists will see the overall picture as scientific
nonsense, even bordering on humor, a most rare commodity in
Creationist literature. Science, rather than using its traditional
defensive approach of item-by-item rebuttal of Creationist
attacks, needs to take the offensive by challenging Creationists
to defend their "scientific" view of earth history as represented
by this time scale. (Note that the numbered items in this Time
Scale are further expanded in subsequent numbered sections
which are keyed to these same numbers.)
A Creation "Science" Geologic Time Scale
(1) 4000 B.C. Creation Week: (laws of science suspended)
Day 1 - Space, light & dark, earth materials.
Day 2 - Waters above and waters below.
Day 3 - Earth's crust and plants.
Day 4 - Sun, moon, and stars in place.
Day 5 - Atmosphere + animals of the waters.
Day 6 - Land animals + Adam & Eve.
Day 7 - Day of rest.
1,500 years. Pre-Flood "Geology." Laws of science invalid.
(2) Adam and Eve, talking snakes, etc.
(3) World's waters are in great Venus-like atmosphere or in
ground
water. No rain, no ocean basins.
(4) Radiometric dating invalid; speed of light changed.
(5) Humans, dinosaurs, mammals, the "works," all live together
in
peace. Both lions and Tyranosaurus Rex are vegetarians in
Eden before
the "fall."
(6) Human life spans up to 900 years.
(7) Battle of Satan and angels produces craters on moon.
Flood Year: Flood "Geology" - ONE (?) year of normal (?)

24. "science"
Rain - 40 days
(8) Big animals run to mountain tops. Not a single dumb human
caught
in all the early flood sediments. All dinosaurs washed off only
in
middle flood-time.
(9) Coral reefs (Guadalupe Mountains of Texas) grow to
thicknesses of
half a mile during single year.
(10) Vast coal beds accumulate one on top of another, each as
original
swamp deposits on order of 100 feet thick, all in one year.
(11) Mile-thick salt formations in Utah form by evaporation (!)
of
seawater during (!) the flood.
Flood - about 250 days.
(12) Most of the world's sedimentary rocks dumped on
continents to
average thickness of one mile, almost entirely during the flood
year.
(13) Most continental drift occurs. Flood waters drain into the
newly
formed ocean basins. Atlantic opens at average rate of 1/2 mile
per
hour.
(14) Most deep sea sediments (average about 1,500 feet thick)
collect
on the newly opened ocean floors.
(15) Hawaiian volcano built 30,000 feet high on new sea floor.
(Cools
enough for birds and plants from Ark to colonize soon after end
of
flood year.

25. Final Retreat - ? 100 days ?
(16)Volcano of Mount Ararat built 7,000 feet high underwater
and cools
in time for grounding of the Ark.
(17) Successive Yellowstone ash beds bury 10 to 27 forests one
on top
of another, all grown during single year.
(18) Grand Canyon cut by receding flood waters. Flood
sediments
de-water and harden in one year to rock strong enough to stand
as
steep, mile-high cliffs.
Post-Flood Geology - 4,500 years of normal (?) science to
Present
(19)From Ark, Noah (?) directs streams of distinctive animal
and plant
communities to migrate to Africa, Australia, South America,
etc.
(Ferry service ?) (Some creationists use post-flood continental
drift at rates up to one mile per hour !)
(20)Sun stands still for Israelite battle. Earth stops rotating and
then starts again due to near-miss by Venus out of its orbit ?
(Velikovsky)
(21)Only one ice age as post-flood atmosphere cools.
Geologists' abundant evidence of many great ice advances
separated by sub-tropical vegetation and development of thick
soil zones
between some advances are wrong.
(22)Late-flood granite masses, formed at 1,000 degrees (F.),
cool to
present low temperatures at rates in violation of all laws of
thermal
physics. Fit to radiometric dates is mere coincidence.
(23)Extreme rates of continental drift typical of flood (1/2 mile

26. per
hour) suddenly slow to present-day laser-measured rates of
inches per
year. Accord of present rates with radiometric dates is mere
chance.
(24)Coral reefs (Bikini, Eniwetok) grow 1/2 to 1 mile thick in
first
1,000 years (rate of one foot per month) then slow to present
measured
rates of inches per century.
Figure 1. (GIF, 168K)
Figure 1. Unlike the 4.5-billion-year-old geologic time scale
that has been developed through a century and a half of
scientific research, creationism's geologic time scale
compresses the history of the universe into about 6,000 years,
requiring that radiometric dating be discredited and that many
of the steps in the formation of the earth were so accelerated
that millions of years of geologic change were accomplished in
a few days or weeks. The entire fossil record of the earth is
explained as having been deposited during the year of the
Noachian flood 4,500 years ago.
Creationism has its philosophical roots in the Darwinian debates
of the last century, but its welding into a potent political
movement has been largely a phenomenon of the last half of the
20th century (Numbers, 1993). In recent years Creationism has
grown into a force capable of challenging orthodox science in
the arena of public opinion (Schmidt, 1996). After federal
courts struck down attempts to force teaching of creation
"science" in the public schools, Creationists have taken a new
approach. They have begun pushing laws requiring that any
teaching of evolution in the public schools be balanced against
or accompanied by teaching of the "evidence against evolution."
In effect, this "evidence" consists mostly of Creationism's
religion-based pseudo-science. Such laws, if enacted, would
have chilling effects on science teaching and textbook content

27. and would lend governmental support to one particular religious
interpretation.
The real battles (Schmidt 1996) between traditional science and
Creationism are likely to be fought on a state by state, school
board by school board basis in a form that will require active,
grass-roots participation by large numbers of American
scientists. Unfortunately, most of us are essentially unarmed for
such battles. While Creationists regard this as a holy war
worthy of their almost undivided attention, most scientists have
given it short shrift, either by ignoring it or by laughing at such
pretensions of "science." As a result, most scientists remain so
unfamiliar with the claims, methods, and arguments of
Creationists that they are unprepared for participation in any
public confrontation. A notable exception was the late Robert
Dietz of Arizona State University who used both science and
humor of the cartoons of John Holden (Dietz and Holden, 1987)
to actively debate the local Creationists. Excellent descriptions
of methods used by Creationists to win such debates, at least in
the public mind, are given by Thwattes and Awbrey (1993),
Fezer (1993), and Arthur (1996). To develop any level of
preparation for such arguments and methods, one requires
copious time as well as access to the diffuse mass of "gray"
publications, religious tracts, and other in-house Creationist
publications. For those without the time or access to such
resources, this article is intended as a "crash-course"
introduction to Creationist history, ideas, and methods as well
as some factual tools to oppose Creationist claims and a few of
the best cartoons to inject a bit of humor into any discussion
(Figure 2).
Figure 2 (GIF, 72K)
Figure 2. Creationists offer a cartooned view of science that is
often hard to address in public debate. Creationism, itself,
meanwhile, has tempted a few cartoonists to take up their pens.
John Holden, a paleontologist by training (and co-author with

28. R. S. Dietz of a cartoon commentary, Creation/Evolution
Satiricon), has pondered the implications of Henry Morris'
explanation of lunar craters as the result of cosmic battles
between Satan's angels and those of the Archangel Michael.
Some Creationist History
Numbers (1993) gives a massively documented history of the
Creationist movement from which much of the following is
excerpted. In the 1930s a group of mostly Seventh Day
Adventists founded the Deluge Geological Society (DGS) while
in the 1940s a second group, mostly Baptists associated with
Wheaton College, founded the American Scientific Affiliation
(ASA). The ASA focused on the interplay of Christianity and
science whereas the DGS sought to bring interpretations of the
geological record into accord with a strict Biblical
interpretation.
The ASA and DGS merged briefly in the 1940s but ultimately
split largely after a talk given by a young ASA member, J.
Lawrence Kulp. Kulp studied C14 dating methods with Urey at
Chicago and then set up the second C14 lab in the country at
Columbia University. On the basis of emerging C14 results,
Kulp told the combined group in 1949 that there was no
escaping an interpretation of great antiquity for the human race.
The result was a permanent rift. In the 1950s Ph.D. hydrologist
and fundamentalist, Henry M. Morris, and broadly educated
seminarian and Bible teacher, John C. Whitcomb, Jr., joined
forces. They updated many of the ideas of George McCready
Price's New Geology (1923) to produce The Genesis Flood
(Whitcomb and Morris, 1961). Morris believed the ASA "was
too permeated with evolution ever to be reclaimed." He and
eight like-minded individuals, including Ph.D. biologist Duane
Gish, met in 1961 with the purpose of founding a new group
based on the philosophy and ideas of the book. Out of this
nucleus came the Creation Research Society (CRS) in 1963 and
the scientific creationist movement.

29. Largely under the influence of Morris and Gish, the CRS has
grown into a national and international network of organizations
with links to the parent Institute for Creation Research (ICR).
The ICR in the San Diego area now operates as a degree
granting organization, accredited by California's State
Department of Education, offering M.S. degrees in biology,
geology, astro/geophysics, and science education. California
removed its accreditation in 1990 but had to restore it two years
later under orders of a federal judge (Numbers, 1993). The
Institute publishes many books and articles and sponsors its
own Bible oriented "research" studies and symposia. Currently
it is reputed to operate on an annual budget of 3 million dollars
(Scott, 1996).
The New Crop of Creationist Geologists
One of the greatest anomalies in the history of scientific
creationism and flood geology has been the near non-presence
of well educated geologists (Numbers, 1993). Even most of the
promising young evangelicals who undertook advanced work in
geology emerged with badly shaken faith in strict Creationism.
J. Lawrence Kulp was mentioned above. F. Donald Eckelmann,
a Wheaton alumnus, ultimately became chair of Brown
University's geology department and Christian evolutionist.
Davis Young, the son of an eminent Old Testament scholar,
studied geology at Princeton and moved on to M.S. work at
Penn State, still a believer in the Morris version of the Genesis
flood. During his Ph.D. work with Eckelmann at Brown, Young
became more and more disenchanted with Creationist ideas,
subsequently writing a book (1977) charging flood geologists
with teaching "bad geological science." The same scenario
ensued for Nicholas Rupke, a Dutch student of P. H. Kunen,
who submitted a manuscript on cataclysmal sedimentation for
publication by the CRS. At CRS urging Rupke came to
Princeton in 1968 and completed a Ph.D. in 1972 under F. B.
Van Houten and A. G. Fisher. He finished by accepting organic

30. evolution and forsaking the faith of his family, going on to
Oxford and a career in the history of science. Harold James, Jr.,
and Edward Lugenbeal attended the Seventh Day Adventist
Theological Seminary before being recruited to do graduate
work at major institutions at the expense of the Adventist
Geological Research Institute. James, after earning his doctorate
in geology at Princeton, was found to have been "so
indoctrinated" as to require dismissal by the GRI. Lugenbeal
studied prehistoric archeology at Wisconsin before resigning
from GRI citing "the emotionally and ethically debilitating
attempt to bolster our peoples' faith by telling them a series of
partial truths about science" (Numbers, 1993).
A very few young evangelicals did manage to survive graduate
education in geology with their Biblical fundamentalist faith
intact. Three of the most prominent are Stephen Austin, John
Morris, and Kurt Wise (no relation).
Steven Austin earned a B.S. in geology form the University of
Washington and an M.S. from San Jose State with a thesis
critical of uniformitarianism. Morris and the CRS paid Austin's
tuition and living expenses while he earned a Ph.D. in coal
geology from Penn State in 1979 (Numbers, 1993). During his
Penn State time he also wrote creationist articles under the
pseudonym of Stuart Nevins. Currently he is chair of the ICR's
Department of Geology and a major contributor to their in-
house publications and articles on geology. His Grand Canyon:
Monument to Catastrophe, (Austin, 1994) is a slick, full-color
volume designed both as a guide for Austin's fundamentalist
field trips into the Canyon (Figure 3) and as a potential text for
fundamentalist college-level geology courses. In these
publications his scientific philosophy is never in doubt: "The
real battle in regard to understanding the Grand Canyon is
founded not just upon Creation and Noah's Flood versus
evolution, but upon Christianity versus humanism." (Austin,
1994)

31. Figure 3 (GIF, 268K)
Figure 3. Grand Canyon geology --- the sweeping history of
earth told in rock that has inspired generation of geologists ---
has recently been rewritten by creationists. In the alternative
view the canyon was not formed by layers of sedimentation atop
ancient metamorphic rock deposited over millions of years,
followed by volcanic flows into the canyon and the downcutting
action of the powerful Colorado River. Some 500 million years
of the canyon's history are explained in this view (labels at left)
as taking place during the Noachian flood year, a feat that
would require massive layers of wet sediments to be deposited
and harden at astounding rates over the course of weeks, leaving
them solid enough to be incised into mile-high cliffs by
receding floodwaters. (Creationist ages, left, after Austin 1994,
with basic geology after Coney 1975.)
John Morris, Henry's son, earned a Ph.D. in geological
engineering from the University of Oklahoma and taught there
for several years. In 1984 he moved to the ICR where he is now
Administrative Vice President. He has led several expeditions in
search of Noah's ark and has worked on the supposed
coexistence of human and dinosaur tracks in the Paluxy River
bed of Texas. His book, The Young Earth (J. Morris, 1994), has
an initial 35 pages which might just as well be the lesson book
for a fundamentalist Sunday school. This is followed by about
75 pages of a mixture of geologic interpretation and Biblical
themes. The final 70 pages are view-graph masters designed to
"be shared with your church or Bible study groups." His
overriding values seem clear. "The data of geology, in our view,
should be interpreted in light of the Scripture, rather than
distorting Scripture to accommodate current geological
philosophy." (Morris and Morris, 1989)
Kurt Wise was raised in a fundamentalist Baptist family in rural
Illinois and accepted flood geology as a teenager while

32. attending a conference for Christian youth run by Bob Jones
University. He graduated from University of Chicago with
honors in geophysical sciences before going on to Harvard and
his Ph.D. with Stephen J. Gould. He has been the focus of a
number of articles in the popular press (Campbell and
Scroggins, 1995, and Hitt, 1996) and currently teaches at the
fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan College in Tennessee
near the site of the Scopes trial. He minces no words about his
scientific philosophy and agenda. "I intend to replace the
evolutionary tree with the creationist orchard, separately
created, separately planted by God." (Hitt, 1996)
Creationist Geologic Thought at Present
Until recently "Creation Science," as presented by the likes of
Henry Morris and Duane Gish, was such a hodge-podge of
geologic ideas, floating loosely in time and space, that it was
nearly impossible to obtain an overall picture of how their
Bible-based model might fit into the fabric of generally
accepted geologic and paleontologic observations. This has
changed or at least been modernized with the rising influence in
ICR circles of the likes of Austin, Morris, and Wise. All three
are familiar with some of the geologic literature but are highly
selective about which portions they decide to use. They also
tend to lean more heavily on ICR in-house publications than on
refereed papers in the general literature.
The current thinking of the young creationist geologists is
perhaps best shown in a paper co-authored by six of them,
including Austin, Morris, and Wise (Austin et al., 1994). Their
"tentative" model of "Catastrophic Plate Tectonics: A Global
Flood Model of Earth History" starts about 6,000 years ago with
a pre-flood earth differentiated into core, mantle, and a crust
with horizontal segregation into granitic continents and basaltic
ocean basins. "If this differentiation had occurred by any
natural means, the gravitational energy released ... would
produce enough heat to melt the earth's crust and vaporize the

33. earth's oceans. ...it most certainly occurred before the creation
of organisms (at the latest Day 3 of the creation week.)" The
authors note that "even though such differentiation could have
been performed by God without the 'natural' release of
gravitational potential energy" the differentiation process
provides a natural driving mechanism for the proposed next
stages of rapid motion, the Noachian flood. This was initiated
as slabs of oceanic floor broke loose and subducted along the
edges of continents. Deformation of the mantle by these slabs
raised the temperature and lowered its viscosity into a runaway
convection system which overturned the whole mantle.
Upwelling mantle plumes created the mid-oceanic ridges, drove
plate tectonics at rates of "meters per second," and discharged
magmatic steam into the atmosphere to cause the flood. Tidal
waves washed the continents and piled marine sediments into
great mountain systems along the edges. In a few hundred years
after the flood, residual heat from the cooling ocean floor
warmed the oceans and climate into a system characterized by
efficient atmospheric transport of moisture to the poles to create
glaciation and ice caps.
The thermal problems of this model are mind boggling. At the
start, gravitative energy released by earth's differentiation into
core and mantle would raise average temperature of the entire
globe by 2,500 degrees (Birch, 1965). To this must be added the
frictional heating of the runaway subduction plus the massive
heat of condensation of a collapsing vapor canopy. Then brand
new basaltic ocean floors at minimum temperatures of 1,100
degrees C. had to form over 2/3 of the earth's surface,
presumably beneath non-boiling flood waters. Finally this
massive thermal pulse dissipated in a few thousand years by
unstated processes to leave most of the earth's surface devoid of
hot springs or abnormal heat flow. The authors apologize that
their "model is still in the formative stages and thus is
incomplete." From a thermal viewpoint "incomplete" seems like
gross exaggeration. An incandescent earth with an asbestos ark

34. floating on a sea of molten lava would be more appropriate!
The Creationist Geologic Time Scale
Austin's (1994) book in particular and to some extent Morris
and Morris (1989) and J. Morris (1994) are not to be taken
lightly. Before entering into confrontations with Creationists
any scientist, even one with extensive geologic training, would
be well advised to read these publications very carefully to see
where and how the record is cleverly distorted or how obscure
literature citations or in-house Creationist studies are expanded
into general principles concerning a global flood. In reading
such literature, a traditional geologist has difficulty keeping the
time scale in order. Time and again, I found myself confusing
pre- and post-flood events or mixing creation week events with
flood events. One version (Froede, 1995) has a rudimentary
scale with major eras being Creation Week, Antediluvian Ages,
Flood Event, Ice Age, and Present. Another by Walker (1994)
splits geologic time into eras and stages, based largely on
numbers of days during creation week and the flood event. In
order to minimize my confusion and get the overall Biblical
chronological sequence in order, I found it necessary to go
through conflicting ideas in many Creationist papers before
being able to build my own version of their geologic column.
Once this framework of Creationist geologic time was in place,
many of their speculations could be added to other valid
geologic observations which they generally ignore to produce
Figure 1. Not included are items from even the lunatic fringe of
Creationism such as the flat earth based on the Biblical
description of its having "corners" (Flirpa, 1987) or a
geocentric solar system harking back to pre-Copernican days
(Schadewald, 1985) or Henry Morris' hollow earth. After a
creation seminar on October 24, 1986, Morris was asked about
the bottomless pit of Revelations 9:1-11. His answer was
"Whenever Hades or Sheol is referred to in the Bible, it's
always down in the earth, the depths of the earth. So right there
in the center of the earth, apparently there's a great opening that

35. we can't really deal with in terms of our seismic instruments or
other instrumentation. But apparently it is there. You can take
the Bible to mean what it says." (Creation/Evolution newsletter,
1986)
Creationists will undoubtedly challenge or try to confuse
arguments concerning individual items on Figure 1. The
detailed discussion that follows attempts to arm the scientific
community with some real data and references and to warn of
typical Creationist attacks on particular points. For additional
geologic discussion, a scientist would be well advised to read
Heaton's A young Grand Canyon ?, Weber's (1980) paper on
"fatal flaws in flood geology" or Young's (1977, 1982) books
which seem to have upset the Creationists enough to make them
attempt to answer his points one by one (Morris and Morris,
1989) or Gish's (1993) book of rebuttals.
Creation Week (1)
The Biblical sequence of events of creation week is well known
and discussed at length by H. Morris (1993) among a host of
others. Some Creationists even highlight the discrepancy
between the Genesis sequence of events and the traditional
"evolutionary order of appearance." J. Morris (1994) gives the
following comparisons which to his mind support the Biblical
sequence but which a scientist might find an ideal place to
begin application of logic.
. Biblical Order Evolutionary Order
Earth before sun and stars Sun and stars before Earth
First life forms are plants First life forms are marine
organisms
Fruit trees before fish Fish before fruit trees
Fish before insects Insects before fish
Land vegetation before sun Sun before land plants

36. Birds before land reptiles Reptiles before birds
Man as the cause of death Death precedes man
The precise date of creation in years varies among Creationists.
A good discussion of the origins of this date, starting with the
Bishop of Ussher (1650), is given by Brice (1982). H. M.
Morris (1993) suggests that creation took place about 6,000
years ago and that elapsed time from creation to the flood was
1,656 years. By subtraction, this means that the flood took place
about 2350 B.C., a time somewhat after the start of recorded
Egyptian and Summerian history. J. D. Morris (1994) notes that
some uncertainties exist between the length of the Biblical time
and the historical record but "I suspect it is the secular
chronology which needs revision."
Garden of Eden (2)
The well known Genesis story is expanded at length by H. M.
Morris (1993). Walker (1994) describes a 1700 year span as the
"Lost-World Era" starting with the apple incident and expulsion
from Eden and ending with the Flood about 2300 B.C. He
suggests this name because "not much of geologic significance
would have occurred in the time available." This "not much"
would include almost all events in the rich record of
Precambrian geology.
Canopy Theory (3)
Most creationist models for the source of the flood waters stem
from the writings of Isaac Newton Vail who proposed (1874)
and successively refined into the "annular theory" (Vail, 1912) a
model in which the early earth had a series of Saturn-like
aqueous rings, the progressive collapse of which caused
successive cataclysms to bury and create fossils. Collapse of the
last remnant ring caused the Noachian flood. Subsequently,
most writings propose only one great canopy which collapses to
create the flood (Dillow, 1981). Vardiman (1986a), head of the
ICR physics department, calculates that the base of the canopy
was about 7 km above the earth's surface with an ambient

37. surface temperature of about 30 degrees C.. Additional unlikely
details of this pre-flood atmosphere are calculated by Jorgensen
(1990). Other Creationists writings such as the Austin et al.
(1994) model avoid some of this problem by having much of the
future flood water stored within the earth to burst forth as the
"fountains of the deep" described in the Bible (Figure 4).
Figure 4 (GIF, 150K)
Figure 4. Catastrophic phenomena must be postulated to explain
the occurrence of a flood powerful enough to drown all but a
few creatures and to massively rearrange the surface of the
earth. Creationists have suggested that before the Noachian
flood the earth had a Venusian atmosphere dominated by a huge
canopy of water vapor that collapsed and inundated the earth to
create the flood with the help of "fountains of the deep"
activated by the subduction of crustal plates. At the center of
the earth in one creationist view, as yet undetected by
seismology, is Hell.
Radiometric dating (4)
Creationists argue that radiometric dates are invalid on a
number of grounds, despite the massive and detailed
explanation of all the dating methods by Dalrymple (1991).
They argue that if the speed of light is changing, then all other
fundamental constants could have changed, including rates
radioactive decay. Some of these arguments are based on
supposed changes in the speed of light using uncertainties in
such measurements as of about 20 years ago. More recent
refinements in the measurements have laid this idea to rest for
all but the most committed (see discussion by Schadewald,
1984, and Lippard, 1989, 1990).
Related creationist arguments note (correctly) that light from
the most distant galaxies has red shifts up to the equivalent of
four times the speed of light. Hence, they argue that the
universe appears to be expanding at a rate in excess of the speed

38. light in violation of Einstein's equations and that these values
for the speed of light must have changed with time. Thus, a very
young universe is possible (Curtis, 1995). The whole argument
is based on a false premise, that these red shifts are Doppler
effects. In reality, the red shifts have little to do with Doppler-
like instantaneous speeds of celestial objects. Instead, they
represent a kind of tape measure of the wavelengths of light
stretching from those distant galaxies to the earth. When these
wavelengths started, they were of normal lengths. In the
intervening eons, the cosmos has expanded along the line of
travel by as much as four times, stretching the wavelengths
embedded in it. Thus, the Creationist argument is a complete
misreading of the physics: the red shift has nothing to do with
instantaneous Doppler effects and Einsteinian equations but
instead is a measure of long term expansion of the cosmos and
everything within it.
Another creationist argument claiming unreliability of
radiometric dating is that of Gentry (1992), who observed tiny
spheres or halos of radiation damage around minerals embedded
in Precambrian micas. An excellent summary of Gentry, both as
a person and a "scientist," is by Gardner (1989). Gentry argues
that these halos had to be formed in primordial granites by
some, now extinct, very short-lived, radioactive element during
the first few minutes between neucleosynthesis and Earth
formation. Because this contradicts geologic dating of
Precambrian events, he argues all those dates must be wrong.
His argument with its confused geology and the real geologic
facts refuting it are put forth by Wakefield (1988) and
Wakefield and Wilkerson (1990), who show that Gentry's
samples came from dikes that cut Precambrian sedimentary
rocks. Hence, his samples must be younger than those
sedimentary events: there is no way the geologic setting allows
them to be of primordial origin. In contrast, the best radiometric
dates yield a primordial age of the earth and solar system by
defining sequential events of accretion and early differentiation

39. in meteorites ranging from 4.58 to 4.50 Ga (Allegre et al.,
1995).
Creationists commonly cite the helium problem as evidence for
a young atmosphere, contradicting the radiometric dates
(Vardiman 1986b, 1990, and J. Morris, 1994). It is well known
that the rate of production of helium from the earth's crust and
mantle exceeds by a factor of 2 to 5 the Jeans rate of strictly
thermal escape from the upper atmosphere (Kellogg and
Wasserburg, 1990; Harper and Jacobsen, 1996). If these were
the only factors in the earth's helium balance, the atmosphere
might have a maximum age of only 2 ma. (J. Morris, 1994).
However, Shizgal and Arkos (1996) provide a number of non-
thermal processes capable of accounting for steady-state
atmospheric compositions of earth, Venus, and Mars. These
include exothermic exchanges of He+ and N2+ to boost He to
escape velocity as well as the polar wind sweeping He+ outward
along high-latitude open magnetic field lines. The helium
problem is still under active scientific investigation, but it has
gone far beyond the classic thermal escape models still cited by
the Creationists.
Another frequently cited argument for the "unreliability" of
radiometric dates is Austin's (1994) dating of the Uinkaret lava
flows of the Grand Canyon region. It is generally recognized
that some of these flows were so young that they cascaded over
the Canyon edges and dammed huge lakes within it. Austin cites
a number of different analyses of these lavas which can be used
to calculate a wide range of radiometric model ages, some older
than the earth itself. He concludes (p. 129) by asking: "Has any
Grand Canyon rock ever been successfully dated?" The counter
argument might be: "Why is your sundial not as accurate as my
quartz crystal watch?" There are many methods of deriving
radiometric dates, some are widely recognized as being far more
accurate than others. For the most part, Austin used a ham-
handed approach by dating whole rocks rather than individual

40. minerals or parts of individual mineral grains. He then culled
other dates from the literature for comparison to complain about
the wide spread of all the results: a straw-man approach. In
reality, there are quite precise dates on these Uinkaret
volcanics, using some of the best K-Ar methods (Wenrich et al.,
1995). These show a regional pattern of younger and younger
dates moving eastward with time to reach the youngest of the
Grand Canyon volcanos only 10,000 years ago, in good accord
with the geomorphic data.
Creationist claims about radiometric dates coupled with the
supposed unreliability of the fossil record fail to point out the
rarity of locations where rocks with well controlled fossil dates
are closely associated with proper mineral material for the most
precise of radiometric dates. There are at most a few hundred of
these well dated localities on which the entire dating system of
the geologic column is based. Where such conditions exist, the
same fossil horizons yield precise dates of the same fossil
horizons even then the locations are continents apart. For
instance, Bowring et al. (1993) use the finest uranium-lead
methods to date zircons associated with the base of the
Cambrian in Siberia at 543.9 (+/- 0.2) million years while in
southern Africa, Grotzinger et al. (1995) find a number of ash
beds spanning the same fossil range yielding dates from 545 to
539 (+/- 1) million years. In the Rocky Mountain region, about
20 Cretaceous ash beds are interlayered with well known fossil-
bearing sequences recognized both here and in Europe.
Precision dating of these ash beds by Obradovich (1993)
confirms the same 1, 2, 3 .. sequence as do the fossils and field
relationships for individual beds differing by only 0.5 to 1
million years.
In the face of such precision and reproducibility, it is difficult
to argue that radiometric methods and the associated
stratigraphy, when used with care on the best of geologic
locations, have no reliability and that the fossil record is a

41. rather haphazard jumble of life forms mashed together as the
flotsam and jetsam of a single great flood.
Humans and Dinosaurs Coexisting (5)
Creationists (Gish, 1992, and Ham, 1993) use Biblical
statements of the absence of death in Eden prior to the apple
incident to conclude that all animals, including dinosaurs, were
vegetarians at that time. Thus, they would claim that God
created Tyranosaurus Rex to eat leaves with those teeth and
peacefully share Eden with lions, humans, and the like.
The "evidence" most commonly cited for coexistence of pre-
flood humans and dinosaurs is the exposure of footprints near
Glen Rose in central Texas in the bed of the Paluxy River. In
that these beds are interpreted as Noachian flood deposits, the
tracks must have been made by the evil people of those days as
well as the dinosaurs just before both groups were engulfed by
the waters. Why the tracks are those of walking rather than
running individuals is not explained.
To my knowledge, the best scientifically based discussion of
these tracks is by G. J. Kuban (1986) who reports visiting the
site in the company of a number of Creationists, including ICR's
John Morris. Kuban's extensive documentation of the tracks
includes stain markings of obviously non-human, three clawed
toes as integral parts of the "man-tracks." He notes later
correspondence with John Morris of ICR, including Morris'
subsequent agreement that all the Taylor Site tracks (the best of
the sites) were probably dinosaurian. In a following article of
the same issue, J. Morris (1986) makes a half-hearted retraction.
Kuban's religious neutrality is shown in an after statement to his
1986 paper: "I am a Christian and believe in a Creator, but
prefer not to be labeled a 'Creationist' or an 'Evolutionist,' since
I do not fully identify with all the tenets that are often assumed
to typify each camp. However, on some issues that I have

42. studied in depth, such as the Paluxy controversy (Kuban also
has published a 250 page monograph on the subject), I have
formed definite conclusions. Although my findings are not
favorable to the "man track" claims, the objective of my
research has not been to attack Creationism, but to carefully
investigate and document what actually exists on the Paluxy
sites alleged to contain human footprints." Kuban notes that:
"When the full evidence is brought to light, it is evident that all
the Taylor Site tracks are dinosaurian."
Films for Christ Association, which made and distributed the
film "Footprints in Stone" about these tracks, reviewed Kuban's
evidence and showed its basic honesty by immediately
withdrawing the film from distribution and giving a clear
retraction (1986).
Despite all this evidence, even from within Creationist circles,
the Paluxy footprints are certain to be raised again and again
before scientifically unsophisticated audiences. For instance,
Helfinstine and Roth (1994) have published a 109 page booklet
on these tracks and artifacts. H&R are at best amateur
geologists (R cites his credentials as four extension course in
geology; H cites none at all), and at worst they have the bias of
being past presidents of the Twin-Cities Creation Science
Association. They continue the claim of human footprints as
well as the existence of a "human finger" of ante-deluvian man
with photos looking remarkably like a geologic concretion.
They also illustrate a "pre-flood" hammer embedded in iron
oxide in a setting looking like a typical bog iron deposit, a
process which is still going on today and could easily surround
a 19th century hammer. Interestingly, their list of
acknowledgments does not include ICR's John Morris who
wrote a book on the tracks nor Glen Kuban with his thorough
scientific studies on the site.
Human Life Spans of 900 Years (6)

43. H. Morris (1993) noting Noah's list of the various human
generations and their times of death (Genesis 5 and 6),
concludes that "one of the most remarkable aspects of Noah's
record is the great longevity of the antediluvian patriarchs. The
average life span of those recorded - except for Enoch - was 913
years." Tables showing all the ages and calculations were
published by Lightfoot in 1647 and are reproduced by Brice
(1982). Vardiman (1986a) proposes that shielding from cosmic
radiation by the pre-flood atmospheric water canopy was the
cause for human longevity. According to the Vardiman model,
Dillow's (1981) graph showing a nearly linear decrease in life
span in the twelve generations following Noah at 950 years to
Jacob at 147 years, was the result of progressively increasing
radiation exposure once the atmospheric canopy had cleared to
produce the flood.
Lunar Craters (7)
Lunar craters are interpreted by Morris (1978) as the result of a
cosmic battle between Satan's angels and those of the Archangel
Michael (Figure 2). NASA has not yet accepted this model. In
addition Creationists allege that lack of thick dust on the moon
and it its craters indicates a young earth. This argument
continues to be made despite a recent Creationist technical
paper (Snelling and Rush, 1993) which reviews the subject and
concludes:
"It thus appears that the amount of meteoritic dust and meteorite
debris in the lunar regolith and surface dust layer, even taking
into account the postulated early intense bombardment, does not
contradict the evolutionists' multi-billion year time scale (while
not proving it). Unfortunately, counter responses by creationists
have so far failed because of spurious arguments or faulty
calculations. Thus, until new evidence is forthcoming,
creationists should not continue to use the dust on the moon as
evidence against an old age for the moon and solar system.

44. Fossil Stratigraphic Sequence (8)
The geologic record is clear in showing more and more complex
life forms at progressively higher levels. Creationists argue that
this represents more and more complex animals running to the
mountain tops to be washed off and buried last (Figure 5), a
mechanism proposed early in this century by George McCready
Price in many papers and in his textbook, the New Geology
(1923). Excellent summaries of Price and his ideas are given by
Gardner (1986) and Numbers (1982). This mammals-to-the-
mountain tops model is still in vogue in Creationist circles
although some more recent variations have included rising
waters engulfing first the shoreline plant and animal
communities and then the upland flora and fauna. The argument
somehow neglects to discuss why the burial sequence for fish,
marine reptiles, and marine mammals followed the same pattern
of increasing complexity when these groups should not have
been so severely affected by rising waters. In addition, looking
at the distribution of intelligence in today's humans, a pre-flood
human race without a single individual dumb enough to be
trapped on some isolated mountain top in early stages of the
rising flood waters would seem to be a miracle in its own right.
Figure 5 (GIF, 108K)
Figure 5. "Creation science" explains the fossil record and
deposits of petroleum, natural gas, and coal as products of the
flood year. Larger land animals, it is argued, ran to the
mountaintops (upper insert), explaining why they appear in
upper fossil strata; meanwhile massive mats of vegetation
formed (lower insert), later to become coal beds. The volcano
that is now Mount Ararat rose rapidly (bottom right) beneath
the deluge and just as rapidly cooled to provide a place for
Noah's ark to later be grounded. According to this view, human
beings and dinosaurs co-existed before the flood. At lower left,
water spews from one of the Biblical "fountains of the deep."
Above all, the creationist arguments implies that the fossil

45. record is a somewhat haphazard jumble of odds and ends
dumped by the flood and represents only a general sequence of
simple to complex life. They commonly argue that the geologic
rock record and its fossil sequence is a vast conspiracy among
pointy-headed academics who warp and misinterpret the
evidence in an attempt to defend cherish beliefs about a
science's particular version of the nature of the earth. Another
group beside the scientific community has vested interests in
the problem. Oil companies spend billions of dollars every year
based on the belief that the earth contains a highly ordered and
very predictable fossil record. Each year they test and refine the
details of this fossil sequence to locate ancient reefs, trace the
shorelines of long vanished oceans, and unravel the complex
time relationships of ancient mountain systems. These fossil
data control the drilling of thousands of multi-million dollar
wells, guiding the drill bits to precise geologic targets at depths
up to 8 km. One might expand the Creationist charges about
pointy-headed academics to ask who is likely to be more
reliable about hard facts concerning the nature of the earth: (1)
a group of religious advocates most of whom have almost no
direct knowledge of the earth but wish to push their particular
theology about the Bible or (2) numerous hard-headed
petroleum businessmen who have been drilling that earth on a
day-to-day basis for over a century and every day pour millions
more of their own dollars into ventures based on that experience
with the fossils and the geologic record?
Coral Reefs and Limestone Deposits Grown During the "Flood"
(9)
The thick limestone and dolomite formations which cover large
portions of the interior of North America to depths on the order
of a km or more, pose especially difficult problems for the
"young earthers." In that these huge deposits are composed
dominantly of former calcareous muds and fossil debris from
lime secreting organisms, their production during a single
"flood year" would seem to require almost Herculean activity on

46. the part of those organisms. For instance, in the Grand Canyon
region the Redwall and Kaibab limestone formations are each
about 150 m thick. If spread uniformly through the entire "flood
year," these two units would require organisms to have
produced carbonate mud at rates of about 80 cm per day!
Recently the "young earthers" have avoided this excessive
growth rate during the "flood year" by a new twist (Austin et
al., 1994). For about 1,500 years between Eden and the "flood,"
extremely abundant carbonates were produced by the vibrant
biologic activity in the postulated extremely high carbon
dioxide pressure of those times. Thick carbonate muds collected
in those early ocean basins only to be hurled onto the continents
by violent runaway subduction during the flood as plates moved
at speeds 1 to 10 km per hour, depending on the model.
Conceivably this process might yield the volume of carbonate
sediments on the continents but hardly the delicate and orderly
succession of fossiliferous limestone and other formations of
the continental interior, the Grand Canyon, and elsewhere.
Coral reefs as opposed to regular limestone deposits pose an
even more difficult problem because even an unsophisticated
public has some idea of typical growth rates of corals. One
"young earth" approach is by omission. Austin (1994) notes
(correctly) that no great coral reefs occur in the Grand Canyon
and, hence, pose no problems there. He fails to mention that the
Permian Kaibab limestone of the Canyon has well known and
generally equivalent units in the Permian Basin of West Texas
(Frenzel et al., 1988). These include the famous Capitan Reef,
reaching a maximum thickness of 610 meters (King, 1948) with
well exposed forereef and backreef facies, all developed on the
edges of the deepwater Permian Basin. Similar integrated reefs
and adjacent basin systems can be found for the Silurian of the
mid-continent region (Fisher et al., 1988) and the petroleum
rich reefs of the Devonian of Alberta (Johnson and McMillan,
1993).

47. Elsewhere, Morris and Morris (1989) argue correctly but
somewhat disingenuously that "coral" reefs of the past are
probably not reefs at all. They cite S. E. Nevins (pseudonym of
S. Austin, 1975) that one of the greatest of these, El Capitan
and the Permian "reef complex" of West Texas, comprises
mostly transported fossil-bearing lime muds. However, they
state that this complex had a "real topographic expression
...that... controlled the distribution and character of sediments
and organisms in the region." To most geologists this is the
definition of a reef whether it is 100 % coral or not. No matter
what one calls them, these are organic deposits which grew in
place and were buried in their own debris. In the case of the
Capitan Reef, the "flood" model would require an absolute
minimum vertical growth rate for the mass of 1.6 meters per day
or 7 cm per hour, a rate 80,000 times the maximum ever
observed for a modern reef surface (Chave et al.,1972)!
Coal Deposits (10)
Coal beds represent compaction of organic materials to 5 to 10
percent of their original thickness. Hence, a typical coal bed
might represent an original vegetational debris accumulation of
20 - 30 meters. Austin did his doctoral dissertation (1979) on a
single coal bed in Kentucky. He argues that relationships in that
bed suggest formation from a mat of floating vegetation, one of
the half dozen or so methods of collecting organic layers to
produce coal. Subsequently, with Ph.D. safely in hand, he added
the interpretation that this floating mat was rafted in a part of
Noah's flood accumulation (Figure 5). The implication is that
all coal beds formed in this way. For some small coal beds, such
mat accumulations are quite reasonable. For others, like the
Pittsburgh and Kittaning coals of Pennsylvania and West
Virginia, the total area of the original swamp had to be on the
order of 20,000 square kilometers with systematic and
continuous upward transition from underlying sands and lake
beds into the swamp deposit (Wise et al., 1991, and references

48. therein). There is no obvious regional discontinuity to represent
the base of any floating mat nor can one imagine a 20,000
square kilometer floating mat avoiding breakup into smaller
fragments in the tumultuous seas of the Creationists' flood.
Again, the Creationists approach to this Kentucky coal is a case
of taking one local example and extrapolating it to the entire
geologic record (Major, 1990).
Thick Salt Beds (11)
Thick salt beds formed by evaporation of sea water are a
common feature of geologic columns in many parts of the
world. The "young earth geologists" interpret almost all classic
stratigraphic units as deposits produced during the flood year:
hence, they must also account for interbedded salt formations as
part of those events (Figure 6). Some of the more extensive salt
formations with the U.S. are in the Jurassic of the Gulf Coast
(Worrall and Snelson, 1989), the Silurian of the New York to
Chicago region (Alling and Briggs, 1961; Smosna and Patchen,
1978), and the Permian of the Paradox Basin of Utah (Baars and
Stevenson, 1982). In the center of the Paradox Basin these salts
reach a depositional thickness of 1.5 km (Rocky Mountain
Association of Geologists Atlas, 1972) with at least 29 separate
cycles of salt deposition (Hite, 1960). To deposit just these beds
in a single year would require the salt to form at an average rate
of 4 meters per day (17 cm per hour or 2.8 mm per minute) -
and this by evaporation during a world-wide flood event!
Figure 6 (GIF, 150K)
Figure 6. Flood geology must explain a massive geologic record
as a single year's events. The maximum known thicknesses of
sedimentary rocks of a given age are plotted at top to derive
their maximum rate of deposition during geologic periods,
according to radiometric dating (graph adapted from Hudson,
1964). In the chart are listed some selected features in each
geologic time segment that creationist models require to have
been formed within part of the year of the Noachian flood, most

49. in a few weeks. Standard geologic interpretations require any
single one of them to occupy more than the total 6,000 years of
earth history allowed by creationists.
For such deposits Creationists use an ostrich approach. The
chemical balance of salt in the ocean is discussed by Austin and
Humphreys (1991) and J. D. Morris (1994) with brief
paragraphs on each of 11 ways that salt can be added and 7
ways it can be removed. The fourth of these removal methods is
by halite (salt) deposition which occurs "as a result of river
water evaporation, not sea water. This happens infrequently in
trapped pools, but such deposits redissolve easily. This output
is trivial. The volume of salt water evaporated in trapped
lagoons and not redissolved is not significant." Numerical
values for each of these input and output rates are given by
Morris but with no units quoted to yield an absolute maximum
age of 62 ma. for the oceans. He suggests that the real age is
much, much less.
Nowhere is mention given of the enormous halite deposits of the
geologic record nor of their generally accepted origin by
continuous evaporation of sea water flowing into semi-restricted
basins. Morris, in an earlier publication (Morris and Morris,
1989), argues that ancient "pure" salt deposits are not even
evaporites because they are so unlike the "dirty" salt deposits
forming today. He cites the Russian Sozansky (1973) that great
salt deposits are derived from volcanic rocks as products of
degassification of the earth's interior brought up by juvenile
waters moving along faults. The deceptive statement quoted
above about evaporation in trapped lagoons is at best only
partly true and even that is obtained by tightly restricting the
definition of lagoon. It is difficult to believe that while almost
every elementary geology student learns about these great
deposits of marine salts, a Ph.D. in geology (Austin) and
another in geophysics (Morris) somehow managed to gain their
advanced degrees while remaining innocent of any knowledge

50. of such marine evaporative processes and geologic formations.
Sedimentary Cover of Continents (12)
Typical continents have a "granitic" basement with a cover of
relatively flat lying Cambrian and younger sedimentary rocks
with thicknesses on the order of a km (Sloss, 1988). Austin
(1994) interprets all the traditional Cambrian (540 ma.) through
Cretaceous (65 ma.) sedimentary rocks as part of the flood
deposits. He labels the early Cenozoic (60 ma.) rocks of the
Bryce Canyon area as "post-flood." I am uncertain of the dates
he would place on the post-Cretaceous Cenozoic coastal plain
and continental shelf deposits, some of which reach thicknesses
of 12 km off the Mississippi Delta, but suspect that he would
include most of these as "flood-year" deposits or, alternatively,
as pre-flood marine deposits washed onto the continents during
the flood. The flat lying and relatively undisturbed nature of
these deposits argues strongly against such dumping models of
pre-flood sediments.
Continental Drift (13)
H. Morris (1993) wants to open the ocean basins during later
parts of the flood as a means of draining the waters from the
continents. (For an alternate Creationist model see note #19,
below.) In effect, the Morris model represents a form of
continental drift and plate tectonics. If this opening occurred
during the last half of the flood year with the east coast of the
U.S. moving away from Africa by a total of 5,500 km, this
would represent an opening rate of the Atlantic of 30 km per
day or more than one km per hour.
A Creationist mechanism proposed by Baumgardner (1990)
suggests that sudden subduction of the ocean floor caused steam
and global rain for 40 days. Frictional heating of the downgoing
slabs reduced the viscosity of the earth's mantle by a "factor of
a billion" (from viscosity of rock to that of Jello). The result
was a runaway convection system with the plates moving at

51. high speed across the earth's surface. The fact that Baumgardner
can write a finite element program to show convection motion
proves nothing except that some form of mathematics can be
applied to almost any set of assumptions, an excellent example
of "garbage in, garbage out."
Deep Sea Sediments (14)
The "standard" oceanic columns have about 800 meters of deep
sea sediments covering 6.45 km of oceanic crust (Worzel,
1974). Present day rates of accumulation of these sediments on
the deep ocean floors for muds, calcareous ooze, siliceous ooze,
and red clay of the North Pacific are respectively 0.2, .02, .005,
and .001 mm/yr (Berger, 1974). Assuming a deposition rate of
.01 mm/yr, the 800 m average accumulation would require 80
ma., a quite reasonable geologic value for average age of the
ocean basins.
The "young earth" models would require all this accumulation
to take place late in the flood year or during the subsequent
4,500 years, a rate averaging about 20 cm/yr or about 20,000
times that of the present. Above all, the sedimentology of very
fine grained oozes and muds on the deep sea floor demands
extremely slow sedimentation rates rather than the catastrophic
dumping indicated by the flood model.
Hawaiian volcanos (15)
The largest of the Hawaiian islands is a complex of five
volcanos built on the sea floor across deep sea sediments which
presumably were deposited after the ocean basins opened during
middle or later parts of the flood (H. Morris, 1993). Counting
its underwater portion, this 30,000 foot high volcanic pile had
to grow, cool, and somehow get populated with organisms
rapidly migrating from Mt. Ararat, all in the last 4,500 years.
Mt. Ararat (16)
Mt. Ararat is also a volcanic peak reaching 5.2 km built on top

52. of deformed sedimentary rocks. In the chronology of "flood
geology" this geometry requires Ararat's top of 2 km of volcanic
growth to have occurred entirely under water across deformed
flood sediments very late in the flood year. Surprisingly the
Bible does not report any associated ash or volcanic activity of
this major submarine eruption just beneath the ark. Then, to be
available for the ark's landing, the volcano had to cool
completely in a matter of months, somewhat in violation of the
laws of thermal physics and observations of underwater lava
flows of Hawaii. Finally, a tree grew at a truly remarkable rate
in only a few weeks on the fresh volcanic soil in order for the
dove to bring a branch back to Noah.
Claims of the discovery of Noah's ark in the Mt. Ararat region
are reviewed by one of the few persons recently allowed into
the Ararat region (Collins and Fasold, 1996). The "ark" claimed
to be found by some is shown to be nothing more than a
resistant bed in a doubly plunging synclinal fold. Technical
discussion of some of the ark design problems are given by
Shneour (1986).
Yellowstone Forests (17)
In the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone the fossil remains of
somewhere between 10 and 27 successive forests are piled one
on top of another separated by river and ash deposits (Dorf,
1964). Dorf counts tree rings on the petrified wood and
concludes that at the time of their burial the oldest trees
averaged about 200 years in age, a difficult fact for
Creationists' interpretation of this stack of forests as the
deposits of a single year. In early papers Fritz (1984 and
references to older papers therein) argues that these forest
layers are the result of log jams in successive mud flows from a
volcanic flank and, hence, could have been formed in a single
short-lived volcanic event. This single mud flow model was and
is widely cited by Creationists as an explanation for the
successive Yellowstone fossil forest layers, something like a