World Wide Flood Of Noah

[Loran Blood]

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society.[1] It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation[2] and critical analysis[3] to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social activity. For many sociologists, the goal is to apply findings directly to the pursuit of social welfare, while others seek purely academic or intellectual knowledge. Subject matter ranges from the micro level of the individual agency and interaction to the macro level of systems and groups social structures.[4]

Sociology is both topically and methodologically a very broad discipline. Its traditional focuses have included social stratification, social class, social mobility, religion, secularisation, law, deviance. As all spheres of human activity are sculpted by social structure and individual agency, sociology has gradually expanded its focus to further subjects, such as health, medical, military and penal institutions, the Internet, and even the role of social activity in the development of scientific knowledge.

Yes, but the problem remains that the methods and intellectual tools of the natural and physical sciences (quantification, primarily) simply cannot be used in the study of human beings and human society in the manner they can be used to study the behavior of heated gas in a beaker. The idea that human beings and human culture and its cultural artifacts were essentially predictable, mechanistic phenomena that could be studied, providing enough knowledge of the phenomena could be discovered and understood, fundamentally in the same manner as the behavior of other animals and the phenomena of the non-living world could be studied, was the core, central fallacy of Comte's thought, as well as his predecessors (Fourier, for one major contributor) and later followers (the late B.F. Skinner primary among them).

The term social "science" is a term carrying with it a great deal of philosophical weight stemming from its origins in rationalistic, positivist thought some two centuries ago. Implicit in the term is the idea that the human being is nothing more than a biological mechanism subject to the same kinds of laws governing the behavior of termites or a house cat, only far more complex. Nevertheless, in this paradigm, with enough knowledge and enough technology of social control, humans and their social interactions can be seen as essentially understandable physical phenomena who's behavior and fundamental nature is, for all intents, little different than the other phenomena of the natural world in which empirical observation of known, repeatable behavior allows the formulation of general laws and principles upon which the control of such phenomena is grounded.

The imprimatur of "science" has been far and away overused in the last century or so, and it continues to be used as a shield against criticism by academic disciplines and other philosophies who's theories and speculative beliefs are vulnerable to severe criticism as "philosophy" or 'humanities" but which, wrapped in the folds of "science," can stride forth with an air of certainty and unassailability to its claims it could never support as simply an academic discipline that studies the dynamics of society.

True, sociology can and does use some aspects of the scientific method in some aspects of its research, but it is not a "science' in the way biology, geology, astrophysics, or oceanography are sciences (in the true sense of that word), and it cannot make the kinds of claims about human society that science can make about, say, plate tectonics, because it simply does not have the intellectual tools to do so. Sociology is extremely rich in theory, freewheeling speculation, and, over the last few decades, ideology, precisely because of its character as a fundamentally non-empirical, theoretical discipline operating outside the area of empirical quantification of repeatable phenomena (things that are "acted upon.").

Edited August 22, 2011 by Loran Blood

[altersteve]

True, sociology can and does use some aspects of the scientific method in some aspects of its research, but it is not a "science' in the way biology, geology, astrophysics, or oceanography are sciences (in the true sense of that word), and it cannot make the kinds of claims about human society that science can make about, say, plate tectonics, because it simply does not have the intellectual tools to do so.

It is a different type of science. It is studied differently, but that does not mean that it cannot be considered science. The study of anything, technically speaking, can be considered a science.

[Franktalk]

I have posted some detail about soil erosion in the United States. I will try to explain why the soil erosion picture does not match the ancient sediments picture that geology wishes us to believe. If indeed the erosion calculations are correct then we have to compare the time scales between erosion and other forms of dating rocks. Now it is obvious that we currently have a continent in which we stand on, it has not eroded to the sea. So to have a continent yet also have erosion there must be a mechanism that somehow recycles the eroded sediments back to the continent. We should be able to find a flow of sediments in some kind of cycle. On the west coast we have the sea floor diving under the continent. If the sediments from the continent were being carried by that plate under the continent then that might explain how the continent is still here. We also have uplift of the land. But this uplift is limited because you eventually run out of continental material. The rocks under the continents are heavier. Now if the continents are ancient then the drainage systems are ancient as well. That means we should see ancient sediments in line with our expectations as seen by our sediment flow rates.

http://www.portpublishing.com/Computer%20Based/retaildetailgmsea.htm

Here is a map showing the sea floor around the Gulf of Mexico. It does not appear that the Mississippi delta has made it to the edge of the continental shelf. So we might think that the whole State of Louisiana might be part of the delta. But we find instead that the sediments in Louisiana are ancient and the river sediments are flowing over these ancient sediments (according to geologist).

Here is some detail about the sediments in Louisiana.

http://www.micropress.org/stratigraphy/pdfs/Stratigraphy_2.1.31.pdf

If you look at figure 9 of the linked page you see that the State is made up of ancient sediments. The same is true of the rest of the States in the drainage system (according to geologist).

http://www.utahgeology.com/stratcolumns.php?URLVariable=strat_1

http://geology.utah.gov/emp/leadville/pdf/lls_del1-4.pdf

And for a good picture of the changes due to uplift check this out.

http://www.geo.arizona.edu/geo5xx/geo527/Rockies/def.html

If you checked out the last link I hope you saw the ages they had for the rock formations. Some going back 700 million years and older. The problem is if erosion washes everything to the sea in 20 million years how can this old rock still be there?

Getting back to the Mississippi delta. I have looked up the volume of the delta and determined that it took 4000 years for the current delta to form. We must ask our self where are the ancient sediments? According to geologist much of the country is ancient and has not moved for hundreds of millions of years. So something is wrong. Now with erosion we see the sediments, we measure the sediments. These are not a projection back in time. These are real world numbers based on direct observation. And our calculations of sediment buildup are based on an assumption that it still rained in the past and soils still eroded. I accept these assumptions as reasonable. But we have a problem with the age of the rocks as determined by other methods. How can rocks be on a continent older than the recycle time for the entire continent? And where are the systems to recycle sediments back to the continents? On the west coast the sediments are not flowing back under at a rate to replenish the continent. So something is very wrong. So you must decide if erosion is a more reliable method of dating or atomic decay is more reliable. And if you choose atomic decay then you must explain how erosion works in those ages. You can't just wave away these processes like others have done for decades. This elephant in the corner is not going away.

Let us just for a moment say that the dates determined by erosion are correct. If a flood happened 5000 years ago then erosion would leave around 5000 years worth of sediments. If you really want to verify this then check out the age of the Amazon River or the Yellow River. But you must do the work of finding the sediment rates and the volumes of the deltas.

[thesometimesaint]

Loran Blood:

Incorrect. You are simply projecting your own bias on a established science. I have given you the dictionary definition of sociology. Go argue with it.

[thesometimesaint]

Franktalk:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea2.html#proof21

Young-earth "proof" #21: Given the rate of sediment transport into the ocean by the world's rivers, the ocean basins should have a much thicker layer of sediment than they actually have. Only a small amount of sediment is on the ocean floor, indicating a few thousand years of accumulation. This embarrassing fact explains why the continental drift theory is vitally important to those who worship evolution. (The present influx of sediment into the oceans is 27.5 x 109 tons per year; the present mass of sediment in the oceans is 820 x 1015 tons. That yields 30 million years.)

21. This is the other half of Nevins' argument (see point #15). Dr. Hovind has botched it further by asserting that only a few thousand year's worth of sediment is on the ocean floor! In the case of the Atlantic Ocean, the sediment varies in thickness. The thinnest sediment is near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where new sea floor is currently being generated. That is to say, sediment thickness there is zero. The thickest sediment hugs the continental margins, which certainly have more than a few thousand years of accumulation. Try around 150 million year's worth! Funny, that the measured rate of sea floor spreading, when extrapolated backwards in time, gives the same age for the Atlantic sea floor as does radiometric dating. Funny, how the sediment gets thicker and thicker as one moves away from the sea floor spreading zone! That is, the farther we get from the Mid-Atlantic ridge the thicker the sediment tends to get; that thickness correlates with increased age of the sea floor as determined by radiometric dating as well as the known rate at which the Atlantic is widening. (Funny, how Dr. Hovind always comes up with "a few thousand years" no matter what we are looking at!)

What are the odds of such a triple "coincidence" occurring? It boggles the mind! It's easy to see why scientists "bet" on an old-earth. And what about those magnetic stripes on the Atlantic sea floor? If that ocean floor is indeed spreading, then the thickness of those stripes and their distance from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge preserve a chronological record of magnetic field reversals. When those distances and widths are divided by the sea floor spreading rate, do we get a match with the magnetic reversal chronology based on the radiometric dating of continental rocks? Yes, we do!

Here is another interesting but little known fact. Mathematical calculations done by Dan McKenzie in 1967 indicated that an ocean floor, spreading at a few inches per year from a rift which adds new material, would cool and contract. It would sink deeper into the mantle as it contracted. "The process is so undeviating that there is a striking relationship between the age of the sea floor and the depth of water covering it." (Miller, 1983, p.122)

John Sclater and his students at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California, put McKenzie's theory to the test in 1971. They gathered up every scrap of data on the age and depth of the Pacific sea floor. McKenzie's theory was confirmed! The increasing depths of the older portions of the Pacific floor were a result of thermal contraction. Plate tectonics even explains the basic facts about the depth of the Pacific!

That's bad news for those creationists who believe that the earth's plates did some dancing after Noah's flood. In the few thousand years that creationists have to play around with, there is not enough time for a growing ocean plate to cool down. That means the plate would not sink as a result of greater density due to cooling and contraction, meaning that the Western Pacific would not be any deeper than the Eastern Pacific. Isn't that amazing! Instant-drift creationists have another problem. (Actually they have bushels of problems, but we don't have yards of space.) Like Silly Putty (remember that?) the earth's mantle will flow like a liquid if enough time is allowed, but it will act like a solid if you try to rush things. A stick of old-fashioned Silly Putty will, if left to own sweet time, melt into a puddle -- and even into the sofa! However, if you try to bend that stick quickly it will snap in two as though it were a piece of glass! For similar reasons, there is absolutely no way to greatly speed up the drift of continents or the spreading of ocean floors. It would be like driving through solid rock! Dr. Hovind's bizarre suggestion that plate tectonics is an evolutionist's means for escaping an embarrassing dilemma doesn't merit any comment, since there is no dilemma. Strange, that the theory of continental drift was fiercely opposed by most "evolutionary" geologists at first! Stranger still, how some discoveries in the late sixties brought them all around! It looks like a case of follow-the-evidence rather than a conspiracy! We might note, in passing, that plate tectonics became an observed fact in 1985! The Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) technique, in combination with laser ranging techniques, have successfully measured the movement of the earth's plates relative to one another (Strahler, 1987, p.212). Since 1979, such measurements have continually been taken by NASA's Crustal Dynamics Project, which has removed any doubt that the continents are indeed "drifting." (Note: the continents don't "drift" by any efforts of their own, they just hitch a ride on the earth's mantle material as it moves away from oceanic ridges.)

Edited August 22, 2011 by thesometimesaint

[mfbukowski]

While I have a difficult time believing in a global flood, the abandonment of a worldwide flood raises more questions.

Such as:

How the heck did the Old Testament patriarchs get from Missouri to the middle east?

On this view, they could have walked if you want to be literal about it all. Remember Peleg and the division of the earth was after Noah, by perhaps a hundred years if you believe that chronology

In a hundred years, people can travel quite a ways!

People might be surprised to have me comment on this point this way- but the reality is that though I don't take the Bible literally, for most purposes I have no problem in seeing it as an internally consistent world view which has no better or worse claim to being literally true than any other such world view.

[mfbukowski]

And yet the idea of movement of people is exactly how the Jews interpreted it long before the idea of continental drift came on the scene.

I cannot imagine that anyone would ever have conceived of such a thing as continental drift before there were detailed maps of the Americas and how they "fit" into Africa and Europe. Obviously, Genesis was around long before such maps were possible- so it is pretty clear to me that the "original" intention of the author could have not been anything but an ethnographic comment.

[Franktalk]

On this view, they could have walked if you want to be literal about it all. Remember Peleg and the division of the earth was after Noah, by perhaps a hundred years if you believe that chronology

In a hundred years, people can travel quite a ways!

People might be surprised to have me comment on this point this way- but the reality is that though I don't take the Bible literally, for most purposes I have no problem in seeing it as an internally consistent world view which has no better or worse claim to being literally true than any other such world view.

In the time line that I hold to the flood happened in 3554 BC. The time of Peleg was around the same time as Job around 2800 BC. So there was about 700 years before the split. Plenty of time. I use population expansion that matches the population rise of the Jews while they were in Eqypt. If I remember right they doubled every 19 years. So 8^36.84 is a huge number. Way more than the actual number. But with massive tidal waves and earthquakes I guess it kept the population in check. Who knows how it all worked.

[cinepro]

For the record, to this day when LDS college students take college-level institute and religion classes, this is what they learn in the manual:

(4-22) Genesis 10:25 . Was the Earth Divided in the Days of Peleg?

“The dividing of the earth was not an act of division by the inhabitants of the earth by tribes and peoples, but a breaking asunder of the continents, thus dividing the land surface and creating the Eastern Hemisphere and Western Hemisphere. By looking at a wall map of the world, you will discover how the land surface along the northern and southern coast of the American Hemisphere and Europe and Africa has the appearance of having been together at one time. Of course, there have been many changes on the earth’s surface since the beginning. We are informed by revelation that the time will come when this condition will be changed and that the land surface of the earth will come back again as it was in the beginning and all be in one place. This is definitely stated in the Doctrine and Covenants. [ D&C 133:18–20 is then cited.]” (Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 5:73–74.)

[thesometimesaint]

cinepro:

"President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: “If . . . the earth is to be restored as it was in the beginning, then all the land surface will again be in one place as it was before the days of Peleg, when this great division was accomplished. Europe, Africa, and the islands of the sea including Australia, New Zealand, and other places in the Pacific must be brought back and joined together as they were in the beginning.” ( Answers to Gospel Questions, 5:74.)

In an introduction to a book on continental drift , a scientist writes:

“Formerly, most scientists regarded the earth as rigid and the continents as fixed, but now the surface of the earth is seen as slowly deformable and the continents as ‘rafts’ floating on a ‘sea’ of denser rock. The continents have repeatedly collided and joined, repeatedly broken and separated in different patterns, and, very likely, they have grown larger in the process.

“This scientific revolution, as others before it, was long in the making, but it was not until the late 1960s that it began to succeed. At a meeting of the world’s geophysicists in August of 1971, it was made clear that the notion of continental drift, which had been heresy only a few years before, had become the orthodoxy of the great majority.” ( Continents Adrift, preface.)

Though the time of this division of the land is placed much earlier by scientists than by the biblical chronology, the idea of one land mass is widely accepted. This revelation in Doctrine and Covenants 133 declares that sometime in the future that geographical unity will be restored".

Was Joseph Fielding Snmith speaking as a prophet when he said that man would never be in space or land on the moon? Further according to plate tectonics theory the continents WILL once again be one massive continent, but that will occur many millions of years in the future.

[LeSellers]

according to plate tectonics theory the continents WILL once again be one massive continent, but that will occur many millions of years in the future.

... unless an outside force intervenes.

Lehi

[KevinG]

... unless an outside force intervenes.

Lehi

First Guam tips over...

...then the whole mess goes higgledy piggledy!

[thesometimesaint]

Lehi:

I have no problem with God doing pretty much anything he really wants.

However as I see the dividing of lands during the times of Peleg as religio-political one and not literal one at all. I'll stick with plate tectonics as we currantly understand.

Edited August 22, 2011 by thesometimesaint

[mfbukowski]

For the record, to this day when LDS college students take college-level institute and religion classes, this is what they learn in the manual:

All bow down!

We all know that manuals are eternal and unchanging and infallible.

The Cinepro has cited the Infallible Manual!

All bow down and worship!

[thesometimesaint]

cinepro:

"For the record, to this day when LDS college students take college-level institute and religion classes, this is what they learn in the manual".

For the record when those self same college students at BYU take a course in geology they get taught the standard science of Plate Tectonics.

[LeSellers]

First Guam tips over...

...then the whole mess goes higgledy piggledy!

I really did not mean the USmerican military. We (speaking as a retiree) really are very massive, you know.

Lehi

[Franktalk]

Franktalk:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea2.html#proof21

Young-earth "proof" #21: Given the rate of sediment transport into the ocean by the world's rivers, the ocean basins should have a much thicker layer of sediment than they actually have. .........

I look up data from sites that everyone can trust. Like universities or the Government. Where independent checks and a review process is normal. Then I gather raw data from these sources and do the hard work of analysis. Trying very careful not to overstep what is reasonable. So when I post about continents you respond with talking about the sea floor. And instead of doing any personal work at all you cut and paste lame junk. If you could see yourself through the eyes of others you would stop doing this.

[LeSellers]

I look up data from sites that everyone can trust. Like universities or the Government.

Please, STOP!!!

[Franktalk]

Please, STOP!!!

Yeah I know. It sure did sound like a joke. I don't trust either kind of site to provide truth. But I do suppose that sometimes the data they gather is in some cases accurate. So I take the raw data and not the theories and use it to do independent checks.

Ya gotta believe in something.

[cinepro]

All bow down!

We all know that manuals are eternal and unchanging and infallible.

The Cinepro has cited the Infallible Manual!

All bow down and worship!

Obviously, a latter day prophet quoted in a CES manual published by the Church that is used to instruct college-level religion courses at Church schools and institutes all over the world, explaining something in the scriptures, doesn't mean everything.

But it probably does mean something.

Unless you disagree with it, of course. In which case it means nothing.

Edited August 23, 2011 by cinepro

[Franktalk]

Obviously, a latter day prophet quoted in a CES manual published by the Church that is used to instruct college-level religion courses at Church schools and institutes all over the world, explaining something in the scriptures, doesn't mean everything.

But it probably does mean something.

Unless you disagree with it, of course. In which case it means nothing.

I can not imagine what it would be like to be a modern day prophet. To live your life under a microscope. I guess it could be worse, one could be killed on the steps of the Temple.

[cinepro]

I can not imagine what it would be like to be a modern day prophet. To live your life under a microscope. I guess it could be worse, one could be killed on the steps of the Temple.

I'm not sure having one of your published teachings on a scriptural issue being quoted in a lesson manual on that same topic qualifies as "living under a microscope".

But some LDS devotion can tend towards microism.

Edited August 23, 2011 by cinepro

[thesometimesaint]

Franktalk:

In the 4 and 1/2 Billions of years of this old earth much of what we now consider dry land was at one point or another just another sea floor.

Please show exactly what recognized schools/universities, in their geology departments, teach something other than standard Plate Tectonics(Continental Drift) theory.

Speaking of which. Do you even know what a scientific theory is?

[thesometimesaint]

cinepro:

I went to a Church school specifically BYU in Utah. I was taught standard Plate Tectonic Theory in my geology classes. TTBOMK they still teach it to this day.

[keith_brian]

I am so glad that JS did not follow your advice. He did an independent study and went to the source of all knowledge for answers. Also I read in scripture that many will go towards the wrong gate. Is it possible that the many you refer to are the same people?

Is it our purpose in life to seek other men's opinions? I will seek my own path and hopefully the Spirit will guide me along the way. How many times must I say that a show of hands means nothing to me. The only show of hands that I wish to see is where Jesus shows the wounds in His hands on His return.

That's great. I am glad that you are willing to follow your own path in life.

However, scientific inquiry is different. Personal opinions don't matter, only facts and evidence. So, no it's not okay to do your own amateurish experiments to try and overthrown thousands of scientific articles published in journals. It makes you look ... ignorant.