Evolutionist duplicity, disingenuousness, evasion as usual.

Evolutionists are so often maddeningly duplicitous. The "debate" is laughable enough without such sleazy stuff. Here's our friend Dr A pretending the perfectly apt term "polystrate" has something wrong with it just because creationists invented it:

Another poster says: The only sites that seem to mention polystrate fossils are creationist sites.

Dr. A says: That's 'cos polystrate is a word creationists made up, not a term in real geology.

Well, it's obviously an accurate term for an object that penetrates vertically through two or more rock layers, so geologists would do well to adopt it, and if they weren't such hidebound stuffy evolutionists they probably would.

And another evolutionist has this to say about that:

I also think that they are the only people who claim that "geologists say that these sediments were deposited over millions of years".

I am a geologist and I don't.

Uh huh, but how disingenuous of you. Two peas in a pod you and Dr. A there.

Anyway.

Any normal person happening upon the many illustrations of the rock strata all neatly labelled ACCORDING TO WHAT GEOLOGISTS CALL TIME PERIODS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS -- dramatic case in point any diagram of the strata in the Grand Canyon -- ought to be treated with RESPECT for drawing the NATURAL INFERENCE that deposition must have occurred over those millions of years. Not to give that much basic respect is just a sign of the evolutionists lack of commitment to science and interest only in falsely calling creationists stupid.

HOWEVER, IF in the case of the polystrate trees you have SOME GOOD REASON to see the strata there laid down rapidly, THEN NOBODY AS YET HAS GIVEN THAT GOOD REASON BUT SIMPLY RESORTS TO NAMECALLING AND RANK-PULLING. Blech. AND, besides giving your reasons IN THAT PARTICULAR CASE for determining rapid deposition AND DISTINGUISHING THAT PARTICULAR case from other cases where the deposition is perhaps considered to be much slower, YOU ALSO MUST EXPLAIN how it is that two or more layers of rock, including a layer of coal, NORMALLY IDENTIFIED AS AGES OF MILLIONS OF YEARS, in this particular case are not to be so designated. BECAUSE: Even if the lower layer deposited rapidly, if it represents millions of years then the layer above it didn't BEGIN to deposit for those millions of years and that means the GEOLOGIC COLUMN ALL SO NEATLY LAID OUT IN TERMS OF SUCH MILLIONS OF YEARS PER SLAB OF ROCK IS BOGUS.

Oh but I don't expect an explanation from you. You like to posture and ridicule rather than make cogent points about such things, especially something that ought to be treated on the face of it as a SCIENTIFIC point for creationism.

============
Next day: So some explanations are now being offered but first it's interesting to see that Pressie, the second evolutionist quoted above, really doesn't understand the creationist argument at all. I wonder how many evolutionists that's true of, because for all their arrogant sound of certainty they act as if they haven't a clue:

Sorry to interfere, but I’ve never understood creationist “arguments” on the so-called “polystrate” fossils. Maybe Just Being Real could enlighten me on this.

Just Being Real writes:

Each layer is usually said to be several million years old.

If the dating methods indicate that a “layer” is millions of years old, then that “layer” is millions of years old.

Just Being Real writes:

But this conclusion falls apart by the hundreds of polystrate fossils (like vertically fossilized trees) which pierce through the various layers. (Sometimes several layers)

This is the piece of creationist “argument” I really don’t understand. Why couldn’t a “layer” be deposited in a few days or weeks or years and is millions of years old now? Please Just Being Real, explain it to me.

He really DOESN'T get it. Amazing.

There is more than one layer, EACH separately designated by current Geology an era of time, EACH separately dated to some millions of years, the higher layer defined to be that many millions of years more recent than the lower. Any object that penetrates through BOTH layers, supposedly laid down so many millions of years apart from each other, would not have survived the wait for the upper layer to get laid down.

Pressie continues:

Just being real, I looked at your source here. Your source claims, in the second paragraph:

AIG writes:

Some geologists have claimed that even if all the vegetation on earth was suddenly converted to coal this would make a coal deposit only 1-3% of the known coal reserves on earth.

I see that there’s no reference to these “some geologists”. Do you have any reference, or is this a straw man being set up?

AIG writes:

Hence at least 33 Noah’s Floods are needed, staggered in time, to generate our known coal beds. Therefore a single Noah’s Flood cannot be the cause of coal formation.

I doubt that any scientist would even look into Noah’s flood, as there’s absolutely no empirical, objective evidence for it. The only people who would do this, would be Christian-creationists who abandoned the scientific method, but pretend to do science by using sciency-sounding terms.

Oh, and by the way, I see that your source didn’t even discuss the geology of coal deposits in any form in his religious article. He didn’t even mention the word “layers” (I might be mistaken, could you direct me to the word “layer” in that article?).

The word “layer” is a very bad layman’s term for some strata, anyway. How do you get to the words “strata layers” from that article? How does coal relate to "most" strata layers? In my country we have hundreds of thousands of strata, just in the coal-bearing sequences, with only very thin zones of coal-bearing strata dispersed amongs them.

Oh dear, these scientists can be so stuffy about their jargon. A layer IS a stratum. The one is English, the other is Latin.

The point, Dear Pressie, is in the AGES assigned to the strata. In many cases only one kind of rock is designated as a particular time period, in others there may be many layers within a time period. There can be many thin layers of coal interspersed between many kinds of sedimentary rock all designated as one time period. You fail to indicate what time period has been assigned to the strata in question in your country. The thickness or thinness of the layer is not important to the point being made. The question is whether there is a line of demarcation that separates one age or time period from another, and if an organic object is found to have penetrated through both "time periods" or more than two, it casts serious doubt on the very system of dating itself. That is, the polystrate fossils show that these are NOT time periods at all, but sedimentary layers all deposited within a brief period of one another. And they ARE rightly called layers, all of them. They are all found to have been laid down horizontally originally, sedimentary layers and coal layers both.

And now in the next post here comes RAZD to try to clear up Pressie's problem:

Hi Pressie

Sorry to interfere, but I’ve never understood creationist “arguments” on the so-called “polystrate” fossils. Maybe Just Being Real could enlighten me on this.

Message 189: I also think that they are the only people who claim that "geologists say that these sediments were deposited over millions of years".
I am a geologist and I don't.

Nice to see another geologist on the forum.

In essence what they are doing is (a) finding fossils that extend through several layers of deposition, and (b) claiming that each layer was formed "over millions of years" thus creating an apparent paradox for the preservation of the fossil.

Excuse me, but creationists are not "claiming" anything that has not first been stated by establishment Geology. If we understand FROM GEOLOGY that a particular layer or sequence of layers is designated by a particular time period name (say "Mississippian") and identified as having persisted for such and such millions of years, and identified as well by its specific fossil contents, which are said to have lived in that particular "era" or time period, which is what Geology says about the strata everywhere you look, we draw the LOGICAL CONCLUSION that any fossil found out of its particular time period calls in question the whole scheme of attributing time periods to the rocks at all. This is one of those phenomena that OUGHT to falsify the whole scheme, but evolutionists can always make up SOMETHING to rationalize it away.

The problem is that (b) hasn't been shown to apply to the cases that involve (a), AND there are other explanations for preserved fossils extending through many layers of sediment.

Right. When you find something that doesn't fit the scheme, simply declare that something to be an exception to the rule. But since ALL the other discussions of the strata assign time periods to them, paste the Geologic Timetable over them, it is rank duplicity to pretend that those that most clearly call the whole system into question are *really* outside that system.

You owe an explanation for this phenomenon and you are not giving one. In fact you owe EVIDENCE that anything of this sort occurred.

A fossil specimen can be buried by soft materials\sediments during the fossilization process, and this softer material can subsequently be eroded away before the next layer of sediment is deposited -- creationists often ignore (or are ignorant of) erosion as part of the process.

No, the fact is that there is not one SHRED OF EVIDENCE for the periods of erosion claimed by mainstream geology. ALL the strata, including all the coal bearing strata, sit flat one on top of another everywhere you look at strata, there is absolutely NOTHING between the strata to indicate erosion beyond the minuscule disturbance caused by runoff between the layers. In fact I find it so absurd that geologists make such a claim in the face of the glaring evidence against it you needn't ask me again why I don't "respect" science -- look no further.

There are preserved trees in Michigan that are covered by sand dunes and periodically uncovered and recovered. They are still standing upright.

What is your evidence for this? The pictures at the link prove nothing about anything.

http://michpics.wordpress.com/...-forest-sleeping-bear-point Several layers of sediment have and can continue to form around these trees, and if buried by subsequent processes, this can lead to the formation of polystrate fossils in these cases.

SUCH a handy little just-so story. Again, where is your evidence? Aren't you scientists supposed to be enamored of evidence? According to yourselves anyway. In reality you are really enamored of your own imagination.

Alternatively, a fossil specimen can be deposited on the bottom of an anaerobic pond or streambed and become mummified before it is fossilized, this then keeps the specimen intact as various layers of fine sediment are deposited in several layers around it. The fossils of fish in the green river varves show the characteristics of fossilized mummies with subsequent sedimentary deposits around them.See http://www2.asa3.org/archive/asa/199801/0011.html for and ex-YEC article on the Green River varves.

We aren't talking about evolutionist fantasies about the Green River here. Give some evidence for your claim that the polystrate trees were first fossilized in a depth of sediment that covered them completely and then eroded away before the next layer got deposited.

But there is no end to the scenarios you can imagine to rationalize your belief in evolution. It's all one huge edifice of fantasy without a shred of evidence. Utterly amazing.

But I DO note that RAZD uses the word "layer" Pressie, so get off your high horse in criticizing creationists for it.