Continued Correspondence with Palm, Baraminology and introducing Carter, adding Carbon 14 and Lake Suigetsu

With David Palm, Mainly on Flood, Ark, Ararat · Continued Correspondence with Palm, Baraminology and introducing Carter, adding Carbon 14 and Lake Suigetsu

19 jan 2019 à 17:04

Me to David Palm

[link to previous post]
With David Palm, Mainly on Flood, Ark, Ararat
https://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2019/01/with-david-palm-mainly-on-flood-ark.html

mar 18:33

Tu 5.II.2019

David Palm to me

So sorry about the delay in getting back to you, Hans-Georg. I'm still not at all seeing how the hyper-evolution off the ark works. For one thing, the entire surface of the earth would have been decimated, hardly the best place for animals then to thrive. What did the carnivores eat if not the non-carnivores that just came off the boat and that could put an end to those lines of animals pretty fast. We know that severe bottlenecks in populations cause lots of problems, so we would predict a lack of genetic diversity and unhealthy populations, not the tremendous explosion of speciation you are positing.

Here's a good article on this:

Naturalis Historia : Ken Ham’s Darwinism: On The Origin of Species by Means of Hyper-Evolution Following Noah’s Flood
July 17, 2018 by Natural Historian
https://thenaturalhistorian.com/2018/07/17/ken-hams-darwinism-on-the-origin-of-species-by-means-of-hyper-evolution-following-noahs-flood-2/

"There are many problems with the content and conclusions of AiG article, Reimagining Ark Kinds, including: 1) the lack of any Biblical record or documentation by any other non-biblical historical records of such radical biological change, 2) the irony of how AiG is using reconstructions of ancient organisms based on the evidence of historical science—a science they usually denigrate—to justify their belief that organisms have evolved into many new species, 3) the irony of a complete lack of any reference to transition fossils for the thousands of new species that YECs say have formed from each Biblical kind, and 4) the fact they openly admit that hundreds of thousands of fossils exist that are not the product of global flood deposits but rather were fossilized after speciating following their departure from the ark. The latter is a an admission that fossilization can readily occur in a non-global-flood context."

This article by the same guy is interesting, in that he points out that the Bible records many species that are identical to our modern ones, thus shortening even further how much time this hyper-evolution/speciation has to occur. And yet we don't observe it now and nobody seems to have observed it in the past:

Naturalis Historia : Ken Ham’s Biblical Evolution? I Have a Book That Says Otherwise
February 5, 2016 by Natural Historian
https://thenaturalhistorian.com/2016/02/05/ken-hams-biblical-evolution-i-have-a-book-that-says-otherwise/

Me to David Palm

"So sorry about the delay in getting back to you, Hans-Georg. I'm still not at all seeing how the hyper-evolution off the ark works."

For hedgehogs and moonrats, one of them needs to have a major mutation about spines/"hairs". Within each, there needs to be isolation so as to produce different species. No hype on that evolution.

"For one thing, the entire surface of the earth would have been decimated, hardly the best place for animals then to thrive."

God would have provided survival needs.

"What did the carnivores eat if not the non-carnivores that just came off the boat"

Ask Gollum, so to speak ... fissssssssssssh

"and that could put an end to those lines of animals pretty fast."

If fish had been scarce, [which was] hardly the case.

"We know that severe bottlenecks in populations cause lots of problems,"

If random events of disaster, you forget God brough the animals on the ark.

"so we would predict a lack of genetic diversity and unhealthy populations, not the tremendous explosion of speciation you are positing."

We are not talking a tremendous explosion of new information. We are talking of downgrading mutations striking differently and thereby causing reproductive isolation.

"Here's a good article on this:"

Will see ...

Naturalis Historia : Ken Ham’s Darwinism: On The Origin of Species by Means of Hyper-Evolution Following Noah’s Flood
July 17, 2018 by Natural Historian
https://thenaturalhistorian.com/2018/07/17/ken-hams-darwinism-on-the-origin-of-species-by-means-of-hyper-evolution-following-noahs-flood-2/

Citing [it] myself: "During that time at least 95% (probably 99% or more) of all species of land mammals and birds that have lived are proposed to have evolved from just a few common ancestors—the “ark kinds”—preserved on the Ark."

With hedgehogs and moonrats, there was arguably one couple and then 25 species from that. 1/25 = 4%, 96 % of the species being added to those of the original number.

He cites earlier articles, one of which considers Terror Birds an added kind and so on, as if Terror Birds couldn't have been same kind as emus, cassowaries, kiwis, elephant birds, ostriches.

"There are many problems with the content and conclusions of AiG article, Reimagining Ark Kinds, including:
1) the lack of any Biblical record or documentation by any other non-biblical historical records of such radical biological change,"

The change from one hedgehog couple to 25 hedgehog and moonrat species is not very radical.

"2) the irony of how AiG is using reconstructions of ancient organisms based on the evidence of historical science—a science they usually denigrate—to justify their belief that organisms have evolved into many new species,
3) the irony of a complete lack of any reference to transition fossils for the thousands of new species that YECs say have formed from each Biblical kind,"

Ironic, perhaps, but there is a clear difference between hedgehogs descending from Deinogalerix and hedgehogs with moles having a common ancestor with dogs, cats, seals and hoofed animals (evolutionary superorder "Laurasiatheria (hedgehogs, shrews, moles, whales, bats, dogs, cats, seals, and hoofed mammals)")

"and 4) the fact they openly admit that hundreds of thousands of fossils exist that are not the product of global flood deposits but rather were fossilized after speciating following their departure from the ark. The latter is a an admission that fossilization can readily occur in a non-global-flood context."

I may actually differ on how much I accept of "geologic column" from them. If it is carbon dated post 40 000 BP, yes, it is post-Flood, but some of them are so naive about "geologic column" they ask "where in the geologic column is the limit between pre-Flood, in-Flood and post-Flood deposits?"

"This article by the same guy is interesting, in that he points out that the Bible records many species that are identical to our modern ones, thus shortening even further how much time this hyper-evolution/speciation has to occur. And yet we don't observe it now and nobody seems to have observed it in the past:"

Naturalis Historia : Ken Ham’s Biblical Evolution? I Have a Book That Says Otherwise
February 5, 2016 by Natural Historian
https://thenaturalhistorian.com/2016/02/05/ken-hams-biblical-evolution-i-have-a-book-that-says-otherwise/

I'd probably divide felids from pantherids and foxes from dogs. But I'd agree on elephant kind.

Obviously, an evolution which goes from a common ancestor to coyotes and poodles is slower than visible change. Therefore, barring special interest by breeders, is unlikely to get recorded.

David Palm to me

Imo you're not seriously grappling with this problem. Basically you're just invoking miracles and unobserved mechanisms to fill in why the model doesn't fit and can't explain what we observe.

Me to David Palm

I am not, YOU are invoking a "diversity" which is not qualitatively there between the different species.

There is numeric "diversity" if you like, not a qualitatively radical one.

And, that is what we observe.

Cats and lynx are both felids, there are known crossbreeds.

Tigers and lions are both pantherids, and ligers exist.

David Palm to me

Do you know of any professional geneticist who would agree that a single pair (or even seven pairs) of animals have enough genetic diversity to be the original parents of all those disperate species, and that those species can all arise in the span of just a thousand years or so?

Me to David Palm

Do you know a single evolutionary geneticist who does not believe that all animals of all kinds have arisen from an ancestry with even less diversity, the first eucariotes being basically yeast cells?

Now, between yeast, pine trees and wolves, the diversity really is too much for me.

Between pine and spruce or wolf and coyote it isn't.

NONE of this depends on ancestral population being very diverse.

And there is something called the founder effect.

Suppose the first hedgehogs and the first moonrats just got isolated from each other, one of them having a mutation making the spines either much softer or much harder and pointier.

The smaller the populations are in which this happens, the quicker they will become diversified from each other if isolated from each other.

David Palm to me

Why don't we observe this happening now?

Me to David Palm

Going from Coyote to wolf takes time.

But we do observe cross breeds.

Here is how I feel about the appeal to accredited expertise only:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on Expertise
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2019/02/on-expertise.html

And I do know at least one geneticist who is baraminologist, his name is Robert Carter, he's on CMI:

https://www.facebook.com/robert.carter.904

Thanks for reminding me, we differ on what the possibilities are for Neanderthals being pre-Flood, and he just put the article from CMI (from Candlemass day, Australian timezone) on his wall, meaning I can respond with my own article, also from Candlemass day (Paris tz).

jeu 12:16

Th 7.II.2019

Me to David Palm

by the way, things came up on Jimmy Akin's podcst, here are my answers to same questions:

New blog on the kid : Rivalling Jimmy Akin, as Scholastic
https://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2019/02/rivalling-jimmy-akin-as-scholastic.html

jeu 16:50

Th 7.II.2019

David Palm to me

Hans-Georg, since you frequently reference carbon dating, I thought this might interest you.

https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2018/PSCF6-18Davidson.pdf

Me to David Palm

Probably I would be interested, but:

"Ce programme est bloqué par une stratégie de groupe. Pour plus d'informations, contactez votre administrateur système."

In other words, unless you like to quote salient parts, I must wait until I am in a cyber or in another library.

David Palm to me

Try this link: www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Nr53Carbon.pdf

Me to David Palm

That is also a pdf which will also be blocked.



[Right now the "stratégie de groupe" is changed, pdfs are working again.]

David Palm to me

Ah, okay.

Me to David Palm

This is a university library.

Probably, some students are writing essays and some of their professors are too lazy to look for what they could have plagiarized by internet search, so seek to eliminate even possibility for such plagiarism ... or sth ...

David Palm to me

How about through Messenger?

Me to David Palm

How do you mean?

I clicked on links, they started downloading and are now two downloads that cannot be opened.

Trust your own judgement in doing a fairly decent resumé of the arguments?

David Palm to me

It's an overlay of tree-ring data (for the first part of the curve), varve data from Lake Suigetsu, and C14 dating, showing excellent correlation out to 50K years.

Me to David Palm

"excellent correlation" is clearly overdone.

The "excellent correlation" leaves out that there are diverse bottlenecks with very little overlapping material.

And I did take a look at one material that was there, back a few years ago.

Not actual rings, but diagrams of how samples supposedly overlap.

The correlation of two or three different "ringed" tree objects was to my non-specialist view hazy. The lake as such depends on varves being ONLY:

* mud * flowers from cherry trees

and coming ONLY in the order it dropped down.

However, if lake was NOT always that peaceful, there can definitely have been occasions in which mud and flowers can have been mixed and then sorted in a layered way, meaning the lower and earlier layers are very far from annual.

Tas Walker also looked on them and they are "suspiciously narrow". [Can't find that reference, right now]

I was wondering whether the links were including some real challenge, like the one I was taking on here:

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : Other Check on Carbon Buildup
http://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2017/11/other-check-on-carbon-buildup.html

You see, fastest buildup in my scheme (which has made "gradual carbon buildup since the flood" less popular among protestants, since favouring on my view LXX over Masoretic chronology) would be around 10 or 11 times faster than now.

If there were simply equivalence between medium cosmic radiation at any place on earth and the quantity of C14 produced (twice more carbon in such and such time = twice as much radiation), that's clearly a safe level.

11 * 0.34 milliSievert per years is 3.74 milliSivert per year on medium height and locality.

Add that during the time before Younger Dryas, men could live lower down (less radiation!) and therefore medium inhabited height was lower than now. And if Equatorial regions were uninhabitable, there are not all that many human inhabited places dating by carbon from Upper Palaeolithic in that region.

B U T I came across info stating that this equivalence does not hold.

So, suppose it were a square, you'd have 121 times more radiation and 41.14 milliSievert per year is not healthy. In Japan they say 20 milliSievert per year is about the limit.

Hence, I checked. And, as you saw, got no answer.

(Btw, I cited medium level of milliSievert per year from cosmos as 0.34, that was from memory, now I see I have cited it as 0.39 ...)

Here we have it, should have been 0.39:

Cosmic
0.39 World average
0.3–1.0 Typical range
0.31 Princeton
0.26 Wa State
0.30 Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan

David Palm to me

Well, have a look at the whole article when you can get access. I think you'll see that many of your questions are addressed.

Me to David Palm

I do not think they are, as you have presented it, it is written by one who ignored my facts.

David Palm to me

Well, have a look and see.

Me to David Palm

I may and may not, but you remind me of Protestants who recommend GotQuestions, then a lutheran attacking Apostolic succession as inverifiable and then another thing and another thing.

You see, I was not asking and will not ask how the now standard defense of uniformitarian calibration goes, I already know and dismiss it as worthless.

David Palm to me

OK

Me to David Palm

If you are interested and there are no "stratégies de groupe" against blogspot.com adresses, here is one post where I adress this:

Creation vs. Evolution : Hasn't Carbon 14 been Confirmatively Calibrated for Ages Beyond Biblical Chronology? By Tree Rings?
https://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2016/12/hasnt-carbon-14-been-confirmatively.html

jeu 20:49

Th 7.II.2019

Me to David Palm

First paper, authors have a bias:

https://biologos.org/author/gregg-davidson
BioLogos
https://biologos.org/author/ken-wolgemuth
BioLogos AND Petroleum consultant
Qualifications : neither is expert per se at Carbon 14 and neither at the relevant fields of botanics for dendrochronology.

Gregg Davidson is Professor and Chair of Geology and Geological Engineering at the University of Mississippi. His books on science and Christian faith include The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth (associate editor and contributing author), When Faith and Science Collide, and entries in Zondervan’s Dictionary of Christianity and Science.

Ken Wolgemuth is an ASA Fellow, adjunct professor of Geosciences at the University of Tulsa, and founder of Solid Rock Lectures. He has a 40-year career in the petroleum industry, and is a contributing author to The Grand Canyon, Monument to an Ancient Earth and to Zondervan’s Dictionary of Christianity and Science.

"Finding even older wood that overlapped in time with the dead trees extends the count back farther still. In principle, this record could be extended as far back in time as there were trees on Earth. However, there is a practical limitation, as it becomes increasingly difficult at a given location to find very old wood that reliably overlaps to yield an unbroken sequence far back in time. A gap in the record may be due, for example, to climatic changes in the past when trees did not readily grow in that area, or a time interval when most of the fallen trees fully decomposed."

Very candid admission, I would agree that tree rings in Arizona for recent pre-Columbian times are definitely reliable. Also used as a definitely reliable calibrational confirmation of C14.

"At present, the oldest reliable cross-dated count goes back about 14,000 years, based on living and fossil trees from Central Europe."

The problem is, there are bottlenecks of very few overlapping pieces of wood and these not very clear matches.

This they do not mention.

"The primary requirements for determining age are (1) a constant radioactive decay rate, (2) knowledge of the original carbon-14 content, and (3) quantification of any old carbon that may have been incorporated into the specimen. The last requirement applies mostly to marine samples, in which oceandwelling organisms, even today, extract carbon from seawater that has been “pre-aged” by long isolation from the atmosphere.4 Terrestrial samples, such as tree rings and lake sediments, are less susceptible to this complicating factor, limiting the primary requirements to the first two."

Agreed. Except for men and bears who cold live much on fish.

Someone seemed to have diagnosed pre-Columbian coastdwellers on Pyrenean Peninsula with syphilis - ah it wasn't the Azteks' fault, after all! - and then it turned out they could be post-Columbian ones, having eaten much shellfish.

"But recall how carbon-14 is formed. Variations in cosmic-ray flux, caused by a variety of factors such as solar flares and changes in Earth’s magnetic field, result in variable carbon-14 production. To turn a measured carbon-14 value into an age, independent methods are employed to first provide realistic assessments of past atmospheric production rates. This is an important note, for young-earth writers routinely make the false assertion that conventional geologists naively assume a constant historical production rate."

What they according to us DO assume is, carbon 14 has fluctuated around 100 pmC.

Minor fluctuations are not the same thing as a major different rate before Flood, leading to fairly low pmC at Flood, and a major different rate just after Flood up to, perhaps past Exodus, leading to a major buildup from around 1 - 2 pmC to sth like constantly around 100 pmC.

"If any of the conventional assumptions is not correct, it should become readily apparent as measured values trend outside this window. Moreover, specific young-earth claims should result in predictable departures from conventional expectations that would lend support to their model."

These guys have tested their model, not my competing one.

Their claim of "predictable departures" is moot, that would depend on what exact young earth model they were predicting them from.

And involving tree rings or varves is moot, since these are in cases (not too rare ones, once you get back in time) of doubt cross-checked by carbon dates, so it is circular proof.

Remains only whether the carbon dates as such would cause "predictable departures" from results.

No, they would not. Not within carbon, since my model is there to account from them, and not involving the "known ages" of such and such tree rings or varves, since that is "proven" with a circle from the carbon dating they pretend to be giving proof for.

"Multiple tree rings per year, postulated by Flood geologists, should yield values that fall above the window (rings are younger and higher in carbon-14 than conventionally expected)."

There is in fact no one tree for which I'd need this assumption. Some other would, depending on assumptions all trees living after flood were planted after flood, which is moot, and also on assumption Flood was in 2200 or 2400 BC or thereabouts, but if it was in 2957 BC? Or even less recently according to Syncellus.

"On the other hand, if atmospheric carbon-14 was much lower in the past, the data should plot well below the window. And any errors in cross-dating the tree rings, due to false-positive matches in ring patterns, should be readily apparent by data that abruptly shifts upward (wood younger than the match suggested) or downward (wood older than the match suggested)."

Very optimistic estimate, which I don't share.

"Just the raw tree-ring count and the measured carbon-14 content."

Except the raw tree ring count even beyond just 2000 years back has some presumptions of carbon 14 involved to even start matching where they do.

Matches are sometimes so loose, they can be arranged to where it would fit best with carbon 14.

"Either God saw fit that 14,000 tree rings equals 14,000 years, or God manipulated unrelated and independent processes (tree rings per year, atmospheric carbon-14 production, and radioactive decay rates) in a precise manner over a much more abbreviated time frame such that they are indistinguishable from the expectations of conventional geology."

Or a third, the two guys are promoting a fake news, bc they are not the right expertise to have a close look at tree rings, and they are overtrusting about one unbroken series of 14 000 tree rings.

"A closely related charge is that the tree-ring and varve studies were performed for the purpose of improving a radiocarbon calibration curve; therefore, our claim of not making use of calibration curves is somehow employing circular reasoning and our conclusions invalidated.21 This charge boils down to the nonsensical assertion that one cannot use data for more than one purpose. The cited researchers used their measured carbon-14 to refine a calibration curve. We made use of their measured data for a completely different purpose. Circular reasoning was left in the unemployment line."

Testing for matches in some vicinity of radiocarbon age (or Libby age, or uncalibrated carbon date, in BP) is sufficient for circularity to actually occur.

If they had looked further away in uncalibrated carbon time, they might have found better or as good matches, and therefore at least possibility of a radically different calibration.

"Near-zero carbon-14 content in older samples is accommodated by the hypothesis that atmospheric carbon-14 content at the time of the flood was only about 0.5 pMC and rose rapidly in the years following the flood."

He's referencing another model for carbon rise than mine. And others also have I have seen on CMI.

It can be noted that the transition unvarved - varved occurs at 40 pmC - corresponds to 7600 YA or 5600 BC (calibrated or roughly).

This would suggest there was a disruption heavier at some time after Babel, at Black Sea Flood, than during the Flood. Over Earth as a whole, such a result would be nonsense, but over a small lake, it would be possible.

"If multiple sediment couplets formed in pulses in the early post-flood years, deposits that formed in rapid succession should have nearly the same carbon-14 content."

If varves were subsequently multiplied, and then the most varves are from a very narrow part, according to Tas Walker's criticism.

I'm frankly too tired to look into this, it is half past nine.

dim 18:12

Su 10.II.2019

Me to David Palm

Now it is about 6pm, I am less tired.

Here is the thing.

When I do tables about carbon rise, I am very open about the calculations I make, not as in giving each and every one every time, but if challenged I'd happily respond on an article where I'd left sth out.

With comments enabled on a blog, no technical problem. Confer what happens with a pdf.

One of the guys said, with a rise in carbon levels, there would be a widely other pattern of carbon matching the varves.

In fact, I am not sure exactly what kind of carbon rise he envisages, but I don't think it is actually mine.

My carbon rise is in fact fairly steep, but it is not totally abrupt. Whether for matching of tree rings or for varves, things would so to speak pull the matchings apart elastically. For varves, that means more chance of very thin varves actually getting separately noticed, for instance, and I admit, I have no complete solution on this one, but it is also not so incomplete as to be doubtful.

Here is the CMI take on Suigetsu:

CMI : National Geographic plays the dating game
by John Woodmorappe | This article is from
Journal of Creation (formerly TJ) 16(1):48–50, April 2002
https://creation.com/national-geographic-plays-the-dating-game

With David Palm, Mainly on Flood, Ark, Ararat

With David Palm, Mainly on Flood, Ark, Ararat · Continued Correspondence with Palm, Baraminology and introducing Carter, adding Carbon 14 and Lake Suigetsu

9 jan 2019 à 10:49

Me to David Palm

Hi, David ... someone took on the Flood and I answered:

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Hemant Mehta took on the Flood ...
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2019/01/hemant-mehta-took-on-flood.html

11 jan 2019 à 18:52

David Palm to me

Hi Hans-Georg, thanks for sharing your posting. I've read a few reviews of Jan Peczkis's (aka "John Woodmorappe") "feasibility study" and I thought the rebuttals were cogent. Ultimately I agree with Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX (author, The Realist Guide to Religion and Science) that a global flood presents insuperable difficulties given what we know of the world and thus, per the direction of Sts. Augustine and Thomas, as made magisterial by Leo XIII and Pius XII, we should seek a different understanding of the biblical text. Perhaps something along these lines?

[reopening to check title inhibited]
http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Carol%201.pdf

12 jan 2019 à 11:14

Me to David Palm

"Ultimately I agree with Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX (author, The Realist Guide to Religion and Science) that a global flood presents insuperable difficulties given what we know of the world"

Sts Ausgustine, Thomas Aquinas, Steno (founder of geology) did not agree.

"and thus, per the direction of Sts. Augustine and Thomas, as made magisterial by Leo XIII and Pius XII, we should seek a different understanding of the biblical text."

Would you mind telling me what is "magisterial" since these popes as per what documents?

Esp. pertaining to a world wide flood?

"Perhaps something along these lines?"

Will have a look perhaps ...

sam (12.I.2019) 14:19

Me to David Palm

Here is my review on Carol, it is cut up in pieces to accomodate messaging:

"The scientific disciplines of geology, geography, archaeology, biology, and physics can also accurately be applied to the events of ancient times."

• 1) insofar as they have anything to say, since past events usually depend on history, not on them.
• 2) and obviously, under the Bible.

"One of the basic tenants of many biblical literalists (creation scientists) is that Noah's Flood was a universal phenomenon - that is, flood waters covered the entire planet Earth up to at least the height of Mount Ararat, which is ~17,000 feet (5000 m) in elevation."

Ararat can have risen, both at end of Flood and since Flood.

Indeed a rising of mountains and lowering of deep sea oceanic basins would be the ideal explanation of how Earth gave dry land after the Flood (adding an ice age which lowered the overall sea level for a crucial period of time).

"Corollary to this view is the position held by flood geologists that most of the Earth's sedimentary rocks and fossils were deposited during the deluge of Noah as described in Genesis 6-8."

Correct.

"To explain this universal flood, flood geologists usually invoke the canopy theory, which hypothesizes that water was held in an immense atmospheric canopy and subterranean deep between the time of Creation and Noah's Flood."

For waters of the deep, agreed. For flood gates of heaven, no, since I rather believe Oxygen was higher and Hydrogen of space lower down, and this opening of the Flood gates was a mixture and explosion of Brown's gas.

"Along with this catastrophic hydrologic activity, there was a major geologic change in the crust of the Earth: modern mountain ranges rose, sea bottoms split open, and continents drifted apart and canyons were cut with amazing speed."

The processes here described started to happen, but went on after the Flood, as per disposal of water (and as per Atlantic now isolating Old World from Americas, while Americas had to be populated human and animal wise from OW after Flood - though this could also involve a sinking of Atlantis at about the time of Babel).

"All animals and plants died and became encased in flood sediments, and then these fossil-bearing sediments became compacted into sedimentary rock."

Basically correct. However, very many of them were first crushed to no longer recognisable.

"Biblical context also makes it clear that "earth" does not necessarily mean the whole Earth. For example, the face of the ground, as used in Gen. 7:23 and Gen. 8:8 in place of earth, does not imply the planet Earth. "Land" is a better translation than "earth" for the Hebrew eretz because it extends to the "face of the ground" we can see around us; that is, what is within our horizon.10 It also can refer to a specific stretch of land in a local geographic or political sense. For example, when Zech. 5:6 says "all the earth," it is literally talking about Palestine, a tract of land or country, not the whole planet Earth. Similarly, in Mesopotamia, the concept of "the land" (kalam in Sumerian) seems to have included the entire alluvial plain.11 This is most likely the correct interpretation of the term "the earth," which is used over and over again in Gen. 6-8: the entire alluvial plain of Mesopotamia was inundated with water. The clincher to the word "earth" meaning ground or land (and not the planet Earth) is Gen. 1:10: God called the dry land earth (eretz). If God defined "earth" as "dry land," then so should we.12"

If all dry land was inundated, so were the seas.

As to Mesopotamian alluvial plain, it does not include Ararat.

"For example, Acts 2:5 states: "And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven." Does this passage mean every nation under the whole sky of the planet Earth or only the nations that Luke, the writer of Acts, knew about? Certainly it did not include North America, South America, or Australia, which were unknown in the first century AD"

If Jews from both Trier and India were present (arguable), that would imply both Trier and India were inundated during the Flood.

I don't think that is compatible with Americas or Australia not being inundated.

Unless of course both of these rose out of the seas only after the Flood.

"An excellent example of how a universal "Bible-speak" is used in Genesis to describe a non-universal, regional event is Gen. 41:46: "And the famine was over all the face of the earth." This is the exact same language as used in Gen. 6:7, 7:3, 7:4, 8:9 and elsewhere when describing the Genesis Flood. "All (kowl) the face of the earth" has the same meaning as the "face of the whole (also kowl) earth." So was Moses claiming that the whole planet Earth (North America, Australia, etc.) was experiencing famine? No, the universality of this verse applied only to the lands of the Near East (Egypt, Palestine, Mesopotamia), and perhaps even the Mediterranean area; i.e., the whole known world at that time."

Very well, suppose Mediterranean, Egypt, Palestine and Mesopotamia and also Syria and Elam were experiencing hunger, then all of them were inundated. Now, again, this is not physically compatible with a non-inundation of South Africa (where fossils at Karoo speak loudly of the Flood). Or Americas and Australia, of course.

"The "earth" was the land (ground) as Noah knew (tilled) it and saw it "under heaven" that is, the land under the sky in the visible horizon,13 "and all flesh" were those people and animals who had died or were perishing around the ark in the land of Mesopotamia."

There are several things wrong here.

• 1) Noah's geographic knowledge extended well beyond his tilling and the visible horizon
• 2) While a flooding of lower Mesopotamia (essentially Babylonia) might be compatible with a local or regional Flood, one of all Mesopotamia would not be so (Zagros mountains in Turkey are involved in Assyrian Mesopotamia).
• 3) Carol is trying to talk circles around the text and traditional understanding of the Bible, while blandly saying NOTHING about the common understanding of geology except a blank capitulation a few paragraphs earlier to what she terms "the principles and findings of modern geology" without even attempting to raise a little question.

"Woolley aptly described the situation this way: "It was not a universal deluge; it was a vast flood in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates which drowned the whole of the habitable land" for the people who lived there that was all the world (italics mine)."

Woolley is not a Church Father.

"A universal deluge and specifically the canopy theory is also based on Gen. 2:5-6:"

Parts of what she calls the canopy theory (the ones that she is calling it after) is from a certain reading of these verses, which I do not share and also from a reading fo "waters above the heavens" which I do not share either. To my mind, they are modern aberrations.

The universality (true global sense) of the deluge is not so based and this reading is only meant as a scientific help to this universality and one which I very obviously think dispensable.

"Another verse in the Genesis account that is key to whether the Noachian Flood should be interpreted as being universal or local is Gen. 7:20: "Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered." Flood geologists take this passage to mean that the floodwater rose at least fifteen cubits above Mount Ararat, their presumed landing place for the ark. But there are difficulties with this interpretation."

Here we come to an interesting question.

The context of the verses have mountains covered with fifteen cubits of water. It is also the normal translation. That Hebrew allows a fifteen cubits in total upward and mountains only being hills lower than fifteen cubits is already out of court by the height of the Ark. It's thirty cubits high, which Carold forgets.

"One difficulty involves the translation of the Hebrew word har for "mountain" in Gen. 7:20 of the King James Version. This word can also be translated as "a range of hills" or "hill country," implying with Gen. 7:19 that it was "all the high hills" (also har) that were covered rather than high mountains. To make matters more complicated, the Sumerians considered their temples (ziggurats) to be "mountains," calling them "É. kur," which in Sumerian means "house of the mountain" or "mountain house."20"

Sumerian only exists after Babel, 101 to 529 years after the Flood. So, Sumerian puns on ziggurats are out of court.

Carol mentions King James, which is not authorised, but we have:

τὰ ὄρη τὰ ὑψηλά.- hardly hills
montes - we can check Rome's topography for difference between collis and mons
the mountains - not hills (DR, not KJ)

"So, to which of these scenarios was the biblical writer referring in Gen. 7:20? Were the flood waters fifteen cubits above the highest mountains of planet Earth; were they fifteen cubits above the "hill country" of Mesopotamia (located in the northern, Assyrian part); were they fifteen cubits above the tops of ziggurat temple mounds ("mountains") in southern Mesopotamia, thus dooming all the people who ran to the high temples for safety; or were they only fifteen cubits above the Mesopotamian alluvial plain? Or, as suggested by Ramm, does the "fifteen cubits upward" refer to the draft (draught) of the ark; i.e., how deep its 30 cubit depth (Gen. 6:15) was submerged in the water when the ark was loaded?22"

Church Fathers certainly rule out it being only alluvial plain, or only hills in it or only even Assyria.

We do not have any indication Noah was even in Mesopotamia (or what is now so) prior to the Flood.

However, the draft of the Ark is a good point. How could Noah KNOW he was 15 cubits over the highest mountain and therefore 15 cubits or more over other very high mountains?

• 1) He built the Ark on the highest pre-Flood mountain
• 2) He knew the water was 15 cubits over it when the Ark took off.

"Another difficulty with Gen. 7:20 is: How did Noah measure the depth of the flood at fifteen cubits?"

By the draft of the Ark, as just mentioned.

"Upon a tempestuous global ocean, where mountains were supposedly rising and continents were rapidly moving apart, how could Noah have taken a pole measurement on top of a mountain like Ararat? The biblical account (Gen. 7:14) seems to suggest that the waters increased continuously until the ark was gently lifted up above the earth (land),"

• 1) A global ocean may be tempestuous, but God would have tempered the storm where Noah was and the Ark was specifically built for it
• 2) Waters rising gently with the Ark is uncontroversial therefore, even on a true universal flood view
• 3) Noah knowing the draft would imply he knew when water was 15 cubits above the mountain where he was and his knowing geography as in pre-Flood world would imply he knew what mountain was the highest.

And one more, Carol is trying to make this a gentle interruption in Mesopotamian culture, when Apostle Peter says that the world that was was destroyed.

Is she "a Jewish shill" alias (less conspiracy centred) someone who looks across to the synagogue's readings without consulting either NT or CF?

"No geologic evidence whatsoever exists for a universal flood, flood geology, or the canopy theory."

Except, canopy theory is irrelevant, and also nothing a geologist could have or lack evidence for, since outside his domain, and for flood geology, plenty of evidence does exist. When it comes to geologic evidence, suddenly she is not problematising anything at all, just accepting what is presented as a Fundie - whose Bible is not the Bible.

"Modern geologists, hydrologists, paleontologists, and geophysicists know exactly how the different types of sedimentary rock form, how fossils form and what they represent, and how fast the continents are moving apart (their rates can be measured by satellite). They also know how flood deposits form and the geomorphic consequences of flooding.24"

She's taking all of this on blind faith.

"Flood Geology. In addition to a lack of any real geological evidence for flood geology, there are also no biblical verses that support this hypothesis. The whole construct of flood geology is based on the original assumption that the Noachian Flood was universal and covered the whole Earth."

A Jew would perhaps limit the relevant Biblical verses to Genesis. We have NT too.

2 Peter 3:[5] For this they are wilfully ignorant of, that the heavens were before, and the earth out of water, and through water, consisting by the word of God.[6] Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.

One of the reasons for a canopy theory is heavens that were before perishing. Was there a water canopy that perished? Has the "solar system" changed? Did God take advantage of the Flood to rearrange the Universe (even introducing globe earth then, as suggested by Akallabêth, if we take a hint from fiction)?

It does NOT mean that Mesopotamian alluvial plain perished momentarily before reemerging.

"Since the Flood was supposedly worldwide, then there must be evidence in the geologic record left by it."

Sure, and with 2 Peter 3, skip "supposedly".

"Since the only massive sediments on Earth are those tied up in sedimentary rocks, and because these rocks often contain fossils, this must be the "all flesh" (Gen. 7:21) record left by Noah's Flood."

Fairly correct, also the position of Nicolas Steno, founder of modern geology and also more or less martyred by ill reception as a bishop in North Germany and Denmark (some have asked for his beatification).

"And since sedimentary rock can be found on some of the highest peaks in the world (including Everest, the highest), then these mountains must have formed during and after the Flood."

Well, yes, the sediments forming during the Flood and their piling up into mountains after it.

"The "leaps of logic" build one on top of another until finally, as the result of this cataclysmic event, almost all of the geomorphic and tectonic features present on the planet Earth (e.g., canyons, caves, mountains, continents) are attributed by flood geologists to the Noachian Flood."

Well, it was the largest cataclysm.

"Does the Bible actually say anything about mountains rising during the Flood?"

This is an appeal to Sola Scriptura.

We cannot go "x is not in the Bible, without x the normal exegesis of y is impossible, therefore we must ditch the normal exegesis of y" but we must rather go, "the patristic exegesis of y is indispensable, so, if it cannot stand without x, x is indirectly proven by the Bible".

"No, but it does say that mountains and hills were in place before the Flood (Gen. 7:19, 8:4)."

Indeed it says so, but it doesn't say they were the same height as those afterwards (nor that they weren't).

"Does the Bible say anything about sedimentary rock, fossils, or drifting continents? Not one word."

I think I saw something in Psalms or Job, though .... here:

"Thou by thy strength didst make the sea firm: thou didst crush the heads of the dragons in the waters."
[Psalms 73:13]

• 1) sediments formed during the Flood are describable as "sea" and as "made firm".
• 2) some dino fossils, fairly many, are found without head.

"All of these things are read into the Bible from a centuries-past interpretation of it."

Supposing it were true, ignoring Bible outside Genesis, flood geologists would not be reading this into the actual text, but take this as corollaries of the text with later discovered evidence.

"Most important from a literalist perspective, it can be shown from the Bible (Gen. 2:10-14; Gen. 6:14) that the four rivers of Eden flowed over, and cut into, sedimentary rock strata;"

God can have well created rocks of same type as later sediment. This doesn't mean the four rivers were cutting through sediments with fossils with them.

More importantly, four rivers obviously were assembling waters from between water divides. The sediments forming above them would have left many divides and therefore approximate place of much of four river beds in place. The fact that in the pre-Flood world they were coming from a single river and now they are not shows there was a major geological disaster between these times.

"that the bitumen (pitch) used by Noah to caulk the ark was derived from hydrocarbon-rich sedimentary rock"

Pitch can also be derived from burning wood, it is then called tar.

"The Bible itself never claims that all of the sedimentary rock on Earth formed at the time of the Noachian Flood: only flood geologists make this claim."

The Bible itself never claims that the Flood was local to Mesopotamian plain, only Carol et al. make this claim. Again, this is an appeal to Sola Scriptura. Divorcing text from both patristic exegesis and from logical corollaries.

"Vapor Canopy. Why is a vapor canopy invoked by many biblical literalists (creation scientists) as the proper interpretation of Gen. 2:5-6? Because some kind of extra water source is needed to make the Noachian Flood universal (the original assumption). There simply is not enough water in Earth's atmosphere today to supply more than about 40 feet of water to the ground worldwide,26 nor is there any evidence of vast reservoirs of subterranean water (past or present) that could have supplied this water."

• 1) If Seas are lots deeper, we sea the water from the Flood in the seas.
• 2) Think I saw some recent news on subterranean water.
• 3) Does not take into account my idea Oxygen atmosphere reached much higher and Hydrogen over heavens much lower than now, so Brown's gas could have formed when God so wanted it.

"in order for Mount Ararat (17,000 feet high) to have been covered by the Flood."

Unless Ararat rose higher during Flood after its being covered and then rose higher after that. Some of it is volcanic formed under water.

"Also, how could the wind (Gen. 8:1) have evaporated water 3-6 miles deep in less than a year (Gen. 8:13)?"

How did the wind divide the Red Sea? A normal wind couldn't - a miraculous one could.

"Before this, both Islamic and Christian tradition held that the landing place of the ark was on Jabel Judi, a mountain located about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of the Tigris River near Cizre, Turkey (Fig. 1)."

Interesting ... that could leave all of Ararat a post-Flood mountain.

Cizre is 377 m above the sea. Count higher mountains than that as part of the post-Flood rearrangement of tectonics and you can see how the dry land before the flowing down of the waters from new topography needed a miraculous wind.

Cizre is also nearly due east from Sanliurfa and therefore Göbekli Tepe ... where I think Babel was.

"A universal model for the Noachian Flood hinges on Mount Ararat being the landing place of the ark, because if the ark had landed on this mountain, it would imply that the water level would have had to have been at an elevation of at least 17,000 feet;"

This is simply a strawman, CMI and AiG do not claim Ararat was as high and also have 2 Peter 3.

"Furthermore, it is not clear if in Noah's time (~2900 BC) the Mount Ararat region was even part of what was later to be called Urartu.40"

The relevant time is actually between Noah's Flood 2957 BC and Moses' lifetime (with Exodus in 1510). Noah could have used one name for the landing place and Moses another one, more comprehensible in his day.

"As shown on the geologic map of Turkey,55 the Ararat construct (including the two strato-volcanoes Great Ararat and Little Ararat) cuts across Devonian, Permo-Carboniferous, Cretaceous, Eocene, and Miocene sedimentary rock. The volcanoes have erupted along a southwest-northeast trending lineament, which became established at the beginning of the Miocene (~20 million years ago)."

She is just taking on faith that layers labelled as Devonian, Permian, Eocene or Miocene represent millions of years. She does not even begin to deal with the alternative theory that where fossils "representative" of these labels are actually found:

• either we deal with sea biotopes, where several can be on top of each other (trilobites under elasmosaur in Bonaparte Basin, several layers of marine invertebrates in Grand Canyon)
• or we deal with land biotopes where you have not anywhere on earth (does she even know this palaeontological fact?) two superposed levels (possibly excepting when one is clearly post-Flood, like Younger Dryas).

"The claim of flood geologists is that all (or almost all) of the sedimentary rock on Earth formed at the time of Noah's Flood, and this includes the sedimentary rock of the Ararat region. But Mount Ararat itself cuts across sedimentary rock, and so must be younger than this rock."

Fair enough when it comes to identifying Mt Ararat as the landing place, less so when it comes to deunking Flood geology as a whole.

That one line of logic (involving height of Ararat) does not lead to a global Flood but to an impasse does not mean no other line of logic leads to a global Flood.

"The flood-geology scenario that is implied, according to the actual stratigraphic relationships present in the Mount Ararat region, is thus: (1) sediments (and dead animals) were deposited out of the flood waters; (2) then these sediments were compacted into fossil-rich sedimentary rock; (3) next volcanic lava erupted, intruding into and flowing over this sedimentary rock; (4) then the entire huge volcanic Ararat construct cooled; so that (5) finally, Noah's ark could land on Mount Ararat all in the space of one year's time!"

Let's check if it is even all that impossible. Correcting some detail.

• 1) animals lived there and Flood waters brought about lots of mud making them into fossils within sediments
• 2) solid rock at this stage is not necessary, thick mud is enough
• 3) eruption flowing over thick mud (and drying out some)
• 4) Flood waters cooled the lava very quickly (both depth and streams running freely all over earth would contribute)
• 5) Ark landed where it was still somewhat warm (also, some of the drying out from the lava heat could visibly have shown as a drying out from wind).

"Not only does this scenario propose a series of physical impossibilities, furthermore the Bible claims none of this!"

To the second, 1) Flood geology does not rest on identification of landing place, 2) Carol appeals to Sola Scriptura, to the first, the "physical impossibilities" are not such.

"that is, on mountains that existed in the already-known (to the Sumerians of Noah's time) land of "Urartu," or what is now the area of southeastern Turkey (Fig. 1)."

Sumerian is a nation which only exists after Babel and on a LXX reading of when Peleg was born, this can definitely have been well after Noah died.

That said, Moses is the final redactor of the text (barring an ongoing redaction of linguistic updates by priests descended from his brother, which as to purely linguistic detail is possible, as with how vowels are represented), so we would want to know what "mountains of Ararat" meant up to the time of Moses. From Ezra to any later text up to LXX, we can depend on Pharisees not changing any wording, but Ezra's time is after Mt Ararat is already within Urartu.

Next, we have a reference to Mount Judi - unlike Cizre itself, it has an elevation of 2,089 m (6,854 ft) - at the highest point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Judi

And lo, "1 or 2 km higher than now" is one of the Flood year water figures Jonathan Sarfati is presenting ... it is not compatible with a purely local or regional flood.

"Jabel Judi (Cudi Dag) is a mountain range partly composed of the Cudi Limestone of Jurassic-Cretaceous age that rises above the Cizre Plain. This plain at about 500 m elevation is surrounded by low hills in the north, gently sloping ridges in the south, hilly land in the west, the Jabel Judi mountains in the east, and alluvial valleys that become shallow southward away from the foothills.60 All of the streams within the plain are tributaries to the Tigris River."

At "about 500 m" she misses the highest point. As to "of Jurassic-Cretaceous age" that usually would mean from the Flood.

"Vineyards. The wine grape of antiquity, Vitis vinifera, is what is referred to in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible.61 Vitis vinifera has been cultivated for thousands of years, probably originating as a wild plant in the Transcaucus area, then being domesticated in the area between the Black and Caspian Seas, eastern Turkey, and the Zagros range, sometime before 4000 BC.62 It is certain that viti- culture was practiced and wine was made in (northern) Mesopotamia sometime before 3000 BC and exported to Egypt.63 Therefore, it is unlikely that Noah (~2900 BC) was the first person to ever drink wine and become drunk (Gen. 9:20-21), as is the view held by some Christians."

She has a problem in accepting the uniformitarian carbon dates as well calibrated. Carbon date 4000 BC is post-Flood, post-Babel, perhaps from Abraham's childhood or a little earlier.

She simply has no clue that Young Earth Creationists (me among us) have this idea of a carbon 14 level rising fairly abruptly after Flood to present levels.

Her table of Archaeological Periods in Mesopotamia is giving carbon years which we do not consider as real years.

[From]		[To]		[Name]
~5500		3800 BC		Ubaid
~3800		3100 BC		Uruk
~3100		2900 BC		Jemdet Nasr
~2900		2750 BC		Early Dynastic I
~2750		2600 BC		Early Dynastic II
~2600		2350 BC		Early Dynastic III
~2350		2150 BC		Dynasty of Akkad
~2150		2000 BC		3rd Dynasty of Ur
~2000		1600 BC		Old Babylonian

Genesis 14, due to a reference to Asason Tamar and more probably to its chalcolithic than to its neolithic clinches Abraham about 80 years around a carbon date around the limit Uruk and Jemdet Nasr.

If 1935 BC is carbon dated as 3100 BC, we had 1165 extra years, or an original carbon content of 86.855 pmc.

Even 5500 BC in carbon dates is after Peleg's birth, and putting Peleg in 2556 BC and end of Babel in carbon dated 8500 BC, we have a carbon date lag (or instant carbon age) of 6056 years, meaning 48.067 pmc.

So, in "5500 BC" the carbon level was between 48.067 and 86.855 pmc, let's just call it the middle (while this is dumb, it illustrates). At 67.461 pmc you have 3250 extra years meaning it was 2250 BC - between births of Peleg and Abraham.

So, there is no archaeological argument for Noah not being first person to be drunk. Indeed, Calvin uses such an case for accusing Noah of falling into the sin of drunkenness and Haydock duly censor him. Again, argument from Matt. 24:38 can be off, if the words used by Our Lord are euphemisms for cannibalism, vampyrism and gay marriage.

Normal eating and drinking of alcohol and heterosexual marriages open to life are hardly a sign of the last times.

However, geographic argument is acceptable.

"That the pigeon was already at least partially domesticated in Mesopotamia by Noah's time comes from al'Ubaid, where a row of sitting pigeons is pictured on the limestone frieze of a temple façade dating from ca 3000 BC."

That temple, as said, is more likely to be from Abraham's time than from Noah's.

Carol deploys a great ingenuity about the Bible text while showing a total naiveté about uniformitarian "science" (including its dating methods).

Discussion of Judi Dagh's advantages (p. 179) is acceptable in points 1 to 3, as far as I can tell, but here we go to points 4 and 5:

"The Cizre area was already known to the Sumerians by Jemdet Nasr time (Table 1), as many Uruk-age trading colonies and routes had been well established in this region by or before 3100 BC.85 It is possible that Noah, as the "king" of Shuruppak,86 would have known about the mountains of Urartu, and that he may even have headed toward this high ground to escape the flooding of the Mesopotamian lowlands."

• 1) Jemdet Nasr is too late for Flood.
• 2) While Noah may be reflected in later Sumerian legends, we cannot identify his real historic person straightoff with a Sumerian one.

"If the ark did land in the Cizre area, then it means that the Flood stayed within the (northern) boundary of the Mesopotamian hydrologic basin. This in turn implies a local flood because if the flood was universal, why would the ark not have floated to somewhere outside the boundaries of Mesopotamia some place like Europe or Asia?"

• 1) This presupposes that Noah started off from Mesopotamia. It cannot be established bc he is described as a Sumerian king in later Sumerian sources, anymore than he can be described as a non-human giant just bc Norse myth calls him Bergelmer and pretends the Flood came from the blood of his grandpa Ymer. It also cannot be established from any Biblical datum.
• 2) Also, Mesopotamia is within Asia, and
• 3) highest point of Mount Judi is too high for a purely regional Flood.

"It is now estimated that the number of animal species on Earth falls somewhere between 1.5-6 million,89 and if "all flesh" also includes extinct animals and insects, this is multiplied into many more millions."

Carol has not (had nt in 2002) heard of Baraminology? 16 species of hedgehog or 25 species of hedgehogs and moonrats can easily have descended from one couple on the Ark, as is also the case with ostriches, emus, elephant birds and kiwis, not forgetting moa birds.

And so on.

"How did animals migrate to the Old World from the New World and from places like Australia? Or, how did they get from Mount Ararat to places like Australia without crossing oceans and without leaving descendants in the Old World?"

Right after the Flood there was an ice age and sea levels were lots lower, sea Sahul Sunda for where and when animals came to Australia. This is btw how evolutionists account for it too, except they take Sahul Sunda as having been way earlier.

"How did the ark carry food for all of these animals for one year's duration (Gen. 6:21)?"

Fish did not need to be stored on the Ark ... it can have included a fish pond even if the text doesn't say.

C. 6 - 8000 kinds and two of most of them leaves plenty of room on the ark.

"How did only eight people - Noah, his wife, three sons, and three daughter-in-laws (Gen. 7:13) - care for at least two of all of the animal species on Earth?"

Animal kinds. Obviously, all hedgehogs were two back then, not 32. Or 50. Farming rationalisations may give clues.

Plus some animals can have hibernated.

"How did large animals like the dinosaurs fit on the ark, if "all flesh" included extinct animals as well as nonextinct ones?"

A newly hatched dinosaur doesn't weigh a ton. Noah had no reason to take fully adult ones.

"How could marine life have survived the Flood?"

Some marine life didn't, that is why we have so much chalk and so much marine fossils/

"Would it not have been crushed by tremendous water pressure"

As if it couldn't swim closer to top?

"and dilution of ocean water with fresh water?"

As we know oceans were salty prior to flood?

"How did all of the various kinds of animals descend the steep side of Mount Ararat, which is even difficult for humans to climb in modern times?"

Judi Dagh will do, and Mount Ararat would have risen since that day.

"Universal flood advocates counter these concerns by heaping up miracles."

Not quite, no.

"God miraculously caused the animals to migrate to (and from) the Middle East. Or, angels picked up all of the animals and carried them to the ark."

That kind of is implied by the actual text:

7:[9] Two and two went in to Noe into the ark, male and female, as the Lord had commanded Noe.

At least suggested.

"God miraculously caused the animals on the ark to hibernate for a whole year, thus limiting their need for food and care."

With a certain rolling period, hibernation may have come as automatic as with winter. For some of the animals.

"Only taxonomic families (not individual species) were taken on the ark, and present-day species have somehow descended from these families within the last 5,000 years or so."

That is not a miracle. It is called genetics, it is called mutations, it is called genetic drift, it is called reproductive isolation and it is called natural selection.

"No miracles regarding the animals are mentioned, and if the Bible is to be taken at face value, it must be assumed that Noah went out and gathered the animals himself. This factor alone limits the geographic region of the Flood to Mesopotamia, because it is hardly conceivable (nor logistically possible) to envision Noah collecting animals from places like New Zealand, Australia, North America, or South America."

Carol is thinking of archaeological Mesopotamia carbon dated 3000 BC. I disagree on first sentence, due to 7:9, "the animals went in" and Noah admitting them on the Ark and assigning them places would be sufficient obedience to God's command, but also, we have no way of knowing Noah started off in Mesopotamia AND the "3000 BC" carbon date of that region would be Abraham's time, not Noah's.

For NZ we don't have any clear evidence of pre-Flood zoology except dinosaurs.

"All told, the animals taken into the ark may have numbered in the hundreds, but probably did not exceed a few thousand."

Woodmorappe agrees on "not exceed a few thousand". Or at least, not exceed 15 000. All individuals counted.

"even a boat typical of ca 3000 BC"

Seriously? Carol means the type which were current in times carbon dated to then, right?

No, I don't think so. Ark as described in the Bible (which she is now forgetting to take at face value, despite her initial pro forma proclamation of the principle) was more like a tanker.

"There is also no archaeological evidence for a universal flood. No flood deposits correlative with those in Mesopotamia have been found in Egypt, Syria, or Palestine, let alone in other parts of the world more distant from the Middle East."

What Carol takes as "Flood deposit" of Mesopotamia is a post-Flood one.

The post-Flood (that is excluding Neanderthals) archaeology of these places begins after the Flood.

"That the Flood did not extend even to the land of Israel is alluded to in Ezek. 22:24: "a land [Israel] nor rained upon in the day of indignation [day of God's judgment by the Flood].""

Oh, that would be why some Rabbis believed Holy Land was spared the Flood. I think this exegesis of Hezechiel is wrong and it was the withholding of rain which was God's indignation (for instance on Achab).

"The Bible is not the only place where Noah's Flood is recorded. The story of the great deluge has also been found on cuneiform tablets collected from archaeological sites in Babylonia, Assyria, and lands surrounding Mesopotamia, the earliest of these being a Sumerian inscription found at Nippur and belonging to the close of the third millennium BC."

C. 2100 BC? As that is a carbon date, it is probably closer to Moses than to Noah, and it is after JOseph, if he is recalled as Imhotep, since that would imply the carbon date for his pharao's sarcophagus was 2600 BC or even somewhat older.

"While these nonbiblical texts have a definite mythological component to them, they still have a historical base that attests to an unusual environmental catastrophe that happened in the land of Mesopotamia at about the beginning of the third millennium."

• 1) "mythological" is a buzz word
• 2) they have a false theology to them - the maker of man sidestepping the king of gods to save man
• 3) historical value is true
• 4) but not limited to Mesopotamia.

In other words, while they also witness to the global Flood (as does the Altai Flood legend), they are less accurate history than the Bible.

BUT interpreting them as referring to Mesopotamia alone (or accepting that if that is part of their text) is making for even less accurate history in the modern researcher.

"There is both epigraphical and archaeological grounds for believing that Ziusudra (the Sumerian name for Noah) was a real prehistoric ruler of a well-known city, the site of which (Shuruppak, or the modern-day mound of Fara) has been archaeologically identified."

Here Carol prefers Sumeria or Babylon over Israel and the Church.

"Flood legends from around the world exist simply because flooding has occurred in most parts of the Earth at one time or another. All of these flood stories - except for those from within and surrounding Mesopotamia - are essentially different from the biblical narrative and have only a few indeterminate elements in common with it."

False. Altai Flood legend is from a region not very Flooded and definitely refers to a global Flood. A legend from new world about Sipapuni may reflect a memory of the existence aboard the Ark (where there certainly were ants, giving food to birds).

Greek legend combines elements from 3 Biblical events : Flood, Abraham and Sarah being barren, Lot and his daughters finding a world which the daughters believed they had to repeople, Sodom's sin involving (though in fact not limited to) inhospitality.

I nearly missed, Carol refers to Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis part 2, 4.

I just found out he was a Jew yesterday and commented on him. While I value Pearlman, I think he's wrong on detail, but Cassuto is not even from the haredim.

"I've read a few reviews of Jan Peczkis's (aka "John Woodmorappe") "feasibility study" and I thought the rebuttals were cogent."

Palm, when your source is listening to Cassuto and ignoring 2 Peter 3, it is not very interesting if John Woodmorappe's real name is Peczki, since at least he would be one of the Hebrew converts to Christianity, which is more than can be said for Cassuto. Wait, was the implication that he was an apostate Catholic?

Well, with the post-Vatican II chaos, I am if not mollified, at least not quite surprised.

sam (12.I.2019) 16:58

Me to David Palm

"Far from being a fundamentalist, John Woodmorappe had not been raised to believe in scriptural inerrancy in any way."

John Woodmorappe
https://answersingenesis.org/bios/john-woodmorappe/

If he had been raised a Catholic p r o p e r l y ...

While it is possible that God made miraculous provisions for the daily care of these animals, it is not necessary—or required by Scripture—to appeal to miracles.

I actually just read up on Carol ... Carol A. Hill is Presbyterian. This means, she has no qualms on flouting Church Fathers and also she has like a Dunning Kruger (as have Protestants in general) about her level in Scriptural knowledge.

lun (14.I.2019) 17:19

Me to Davd Palm

As you seem to have had a fabulous Sunday meal, you may be in a mood to continue ...

Were you thinking of maths such as this one:

The Math of the Great Flood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5svTzxVa-xQ

Bc, I actually changed the premisses slightly and corrected the maths, here:

Maths of Flood - Correcting Premisses
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2019/01/maths-of-flood-correcting-premisses.html

mar (15.I.2019) 18:43

David Palm to me

It sounds like you're arguing that all of the diversity that we observe now rapidly evolved from just a relative handful of "kinds" in just the past few thousand years, in spite of a gigantic genetic bottleneck? If this is overcome by reference to miracles, what is the point of calculations and other naturalistic arguments regarding dimensions, logistics, etc. of the ark? If we were to find that there are too many animals to fit on the ark, or too few people and hours in the day to care for them, why not simply invoke miracles to explain this as well?

With regard to the Fathers, Fr. Robinson has recently translated a passage from the biblical scholar Fr. Fulcran Vigoroux, first secretary of the PBC under St. Pius X (The Fathers' Understanding of Genesis 1
https://therealistguide.com/blog/f/the-fathers-understanding-of-genesis-1) The principle argument is that the Fathers had no problem incorporating information gleaned from scientific inquiry into their exegesis of Scripture, nor should we. Sts. Augustine and Thomas are quite explict in laying out these principles and these principles have been made magisterial by Leo XIII and Pius XII. So, the argument goes, Fr. Robinson and I and other do follow the Fathers in their principles, even if not in each of their conclusions.

God bless, David

mar (15.I.2019) 23:28

David Palm to me

Ah, here is the paragraph from Fr. Vigouroux I was looking for. I think this admirably captures our different approaches:

"The key issue in this present question is not the details, since the Fathers did not agree on them amongst themselves; the key question is the principles that they followed and which were common to all of them. These principles are that it is necessary to make use of reason, of science, in its certain facts, in order to interpret the Mosaic cosmogony … This principle of our masters in the faith is likewise our own. If we do not agree with them in the details, it is not because the principle has changed. It is rather because science has progressed. We are doing what they would have done in our place. They accepted what the scientists of their time taught; we accept what the scientists of our day teach."

mer (16.I.2019) 11:07

Me to David Palm

"It sounds like you're arguing that all of the diversity that we observe now rapidly evolved from just a relative handful of "kinds" in just the past few thousand years, in spite of a gigantic genetic bottleneck?"

With 25 species of hedgehogs and moonrats, this is not very difficult to trace to a hedghog kind.

And there are other families where we would very much not want to call the diverse species different kinds.

"If this is overcome by reference to miracles,"

I don't think 25 species of hedgehogs and moonrats are all that diverse from each other. They have different genetic "copy-mistakes" which stop them (unless it's mostly geography) from reproducing with each other.

I don't think you understand what "species" means in zoology.

Sure, there are kinds where the known species are fewer, like moose and elks might seem to be 2 species and cariboo maybe a third ... I'll look it up.

The family is Cervidae. It happens it also has 25 extant species.

Reeves's muntjac, Tufted deer, Fallow deer, Persian fallow deer, Rusa, Sambar, Red deer, Thorold's deer, Sika deer, Eld's deer, Père David's deer, Barasingha, Indian hog deer, Caribou, American red brocket, White-tailed deer, Mule deer, Marsh deer, Gray brocket, Southern pudu, Taruca, Roe deer, Water deer, and, counted as one species, apparently, Moose and Eurasian elk.

I don't think it takes a miracle for all of these 25 to descend from one pair of deer on the ark, or for that matter, since they are pure, seven pairs or seven individuals (or six of them, if the seventh was sacrificed after the Flood).

The problem with diversity after a bottleneck is, how quickly does speciation happen. Are Great Danes and Cihuahuas still "same species" or are they part of a band species, which can only interbreed indirectly, via other dog breeds?

Given Biblical chronology and given fewness of families, with many very closely related species per family ... wait, I said 25 on enumerating the end bits of the 2006 study in wiki ...

"The subfamily Capreolinae consists of 9 genera and 36 species, while Cervinae comprises 10 genera and 55 species"

Deer - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deer

... I'd say someone has been misjudging how fast populations diverging geographically diverge into different species.

"If we were to find that there are too many animals to fit on the ark, or too few people and hours in the day to care for them,"

I don't think there were.

"The principle argument is that the Fathers had no problem incorporating information gleaned from scientific inquiry into their exegesis of Scripture, nor should we."

The problem here is, Fulcran missed that this was limited by what they considered compatible with ... what Scripture actually verbatim says.

For instance, St Augustine is NOT willing to accomodate the Biblical scenario of one Adam and one Eve to admit parallel humanities called "antipodes" (whether he said or wrote this in Milan or in Tunisia, there is in fact no land at antipodal coordinates, and if there are between Isidor's Sevilla and New Zealand, St Isidor did not voice this particular objection).

But the point is, there was a definite limit on what he could accept : he was not scientifically prepared to think some continent had been peopled from here by people who then did not know how to come back (he was no sailor and did not know about Equatorial currents), and he did not stand for accepting any parallel creation of humanity some other place than in Eden.

"Sts. Augustine and Thomas are quite explict in laying out these principles and these principles have been made magisterial by Leo XIII and Pius XII."

Would you mind quoting the precise words of the doctors instead of the resumé by Fr. Vigoroux?

"So, the argument goes, Fr. Robinson and I and other do follow the Fathers in their principles, even if not in each of their conclusions."

The last sentence is ambiguous. "Each of their conclusions" = a/b
a= each conclusion by each father?
b= each conclusion shared by all fathers?

If there is a "conclusion" shared by all fathers, it is obligatory.

And universal Flood is among these.

"They accepted what the scientists of their time taught; we accept what the scientists of our day teach"

THIS is where Fr. Vigoroux misrepresents the fathers. They had no class of people they could refer to as "scientists", the ones dealing with scientific matters being classed then as "philosophers" and they most definitely did NOT accept all that the philosophers taught, as is evident from Plato accepting reincarnation, and so, "us" accepting all that "scientists" teach is definitely NOT an agreement in principle with the Fathers.

Wonder how many years in Purgatory Fr Vigoroux got for that paragraph or if he was even saved ....

Now, if you don't mind, instead of citing Fr. Vigroux, who was a bad Patristician, at least on this account, would you mind citing the exact words of St. Augustine or St. Thomas? Or those by which Leo XIII or Pius XII "made the principle magisterial"?

If the words are not the same, the principle is perhaps not the same as the one Vigoroux voiced, unhappily.

Wait ... 1882 is the year in which Vigoroux wrote the words? You are aware that he wasn't called to Rome until 1903? 19 years in which two developments are possible:

• Vigoroux became more conservative than he had been in 1882
  OR
  
• Vigoroux wrote so much on other matters that it was forgotten what he had written in 1882.

"Well, even if these venerable writers had been unanimous in their scientific explanation of the origin of the world, we would in no way be obliged to conform ourselves to their opinions, because science is not a deposit that has been preserved by tradition, as revealed truth is. In matters of faith, we must believe quod semper, quod ubique. In matters of science, we must accept the certain progress that the accumulation of the observations of experimenters have brought us in the train of the centuries. We are no more bound by the scientific ideas of the Fathers than the scientists of today are bound by the ideas of the scientists of the past. We can reject those ideas, without lacking in respect to their authors, with the same liberty that today’s astronomers have rejected the system of Ptolemy."

The problems are two.

• 1) how long the days are is not a scientific question, but a historic one, and long epochs would change Biblical history, so "unanimous in their scientific explanation" is a red herring in terminology, he's introducing weasel words.
• 2) while "system of Ptolemy" can be changed without disrespect to the Bible, Geocentrism and updated system of Riccioli can't as easily.

jeu (17.I.2019) 17:12

Me to David Palm

I suppose you might have been praying for me getting into debate with a "real scientist" and one not sympathetic to the faith.

Here is what perhaps resulted from such a prayer, if I guessed right:

Dialogues on Maths of the Flood
https://assortedretorts.blogspot.com/2019/01/scott-e-you-are-presuming-mt-everest.html

I think I already sent you part one of series ...

today (19.I.2019) 17:04

I sent David Palm the link to this post.

I also think David Palm is behind in the verbatim citation of four texts, at least, since concerning four different authors, Sts Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, Pope Leo XIII, Pius XII.

Perhaps the principle of Father Fulcran Vigoroux is not in them, after all? I challenged David Palm twice.

W. Sungenis/Palm on Anfossi-Settele and Bruno, part III of V

Proemium : With Sungenis on Settele-Anfossi Affair · W. Sungenis/Palm on Anfossi-Settele and Bruno : part I of V · part II of V · part III of V · part IV of V · part V of V

I

Me to Sungenis and Palm

14/04/15 à 18h40

Re: Reading but not bed time

" I said that the 1616 decrees’ reference to “local motion” refers to motion between the sun and the earth. THAT was the only issue. It cannot refer to the stars since the stars are not local."

Dead wrong.

Local motion does not mean "motion on a local" (as opposed to universal) "scale". It means a motion that is local as opposed to one that is substantial or quantitative or qualitative.

Men have two, in the end three, substantial motions: begetting, dying, in the end resurrecting. Stars had a substantial motion on day four, when they were being created. They now have each day a local motion of more than a circle around earth, of unknown radius.

Hans Georg Lundahl

II

Me to Palm, cc Sungenis

14/04/15 à 18h46

Re: Reading but not bed time

You have a point, that FIRST condemned proposition is not strictly identical to the then usual position that sun was as one star strictly immobile in ONE centre (among many) of an infinite universe.

BUT Anfossi had a point that if the condemnation of 1633 was infallible, there was a reason for it which would certainly not allow for that either.

As to "I hope you", I frankly detest that kind of tone.

I am not a tabula rasa which you and Sungenis can compete about filling, I was decideldly Geocentric before hearing of him./HGL

III

Sungenis to me and Palm

15/04/15 à 03h50

Re: Reading but not bed time

In a message dated 4/14/2015 5:46:15 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, hgl@voila.fr writes:

[actually it is the quotes from Palm which he takes through my mail, will give rest as dialogue between Palm and Sungenis]

Palm

Hello Hans,

I hope you will factor another important point into your consideration of this issue. Sungenis insists that Fr. Olivieri lied to Pius VII and made elliptical orbits the sole ground of his case. Sungenis errs and I have pointed this out to him many times, but he continues to repeat the same error.

R. Sungenis:

Somehow David thinks that merely when he asserts something, it is automatically true. Pompous.

Palm

Please see the discussion at the following locations:

> http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/the-new-geocentrists-come-unraveled#Olivieri

> http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/pay-no-attention-to-the-geocentrist/#Epicycles

> http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/pay-no-attention-to-the-geocentrist/#Olivieri

[links clickable in previous]

R. Sungenis:

These arguments have already been answered.

Palm

As I summarized, "Bob’s contention that Fr. Olivieri makes “elliptical orbits” the “crux of the matter” is unsupported and false.

R. Sungenis:

Really? Is that why Fantoli, Finocchiaro and McMullin agree with me?

Palm

Elliptical orbits was one of many things to which Fr. Olivieri pointed to demonstrate that the views of modern astronomers were not the same as those of Copernicus and hence not the same as what was addressed in the 1633 decree.

R. Sungenis:

So what?! David keeps bringing up contingencies that are a posteriori and don't amount to a hill of beans. What was addressed in 1616 and 1633 was whether the earth went around the sun (as Copernicus, Galileo, Foscarini, Zuniga and Kepler claimed) or the sun went around the earth (as the Fathers, the medievals, Bellarmine claimed). Period, end of story. Your attempt to wiggle out of this by some fabrication of "views of modern astronomers" is as deceptive as Olivieri who created it.

The fact that the Church had already put Kepler's ellipses on the Index meant that Olivieri had no business using them as a "new view of astronomers," and its curious why you never answer this aspect of the issue.

Palm

Based on a false and sloppy analysis, Bob has repeatedly and unjustly accused this Catholic priest of lying and subterfuge."

R. Sungenis:

Imagine that. Palm dreams up something that the 1616 and 1633 Church never even discussed as a reason for rejecting Galileo, but he has the gall to call me "sloppy" for insisting that we don't put words in their mouth. Amazing.

Palm

It remains a fact that, read strictly, the 1616 and 1633 decrees address only a strict heliocentrism with an immobile sun at the center of the universe.

R. Sungenis:

Bullfeathers. It addressed whether the sun went around the Earth or vice versa. That you would try to change this to accommodate heliocentrism is beyond the pale. Go read the documents of 1616 and 1633, and the context of the discussions around those documents. The only issue was what went around what. There is not one word about "different views of heliocentrism that might be allowable depending on whether one had in view the universe or the solar system." That is a pure fabrication.

Palm

Whether other cosmological views fall under those decrees is for the Church, not Sungenis, to decide. The Church has ruled against him.

> God bless,

> David

R. Sungenis:

No, the Church only approved an imprimatur, and it was often the case that imprimaturs that they were issued under false pretenses were then removed. Further, the Church said that the ruling for the imprimatur was contingent upon whether there would be future knowledge that might change its status. Since there is no proof for heliocentrism, we know that status. And, of course, the Church has never rescinded the rulings of 1616 and 1633, and imprimaturs don't qualify.

You're hanging by a thread, David.

IV

Sungenis to me and Palm

15/04/15 à 03h53

Re: Reading but not bed time

Dead wrong? Then tell us where the Church of 1616 and 1633 discussed your expanded definition as a criterion to judge the Galileo case. The only "local motion" they discussed was whether the sun went around the Earth or the Earth went around the sun. If you know of any other kinds of "local motion" discussion, I'd like to see them.

V

Me to Sungenis, cc Palm

15/04/15 à 10h07

Answering I of 2 by Sungenis

Were Kepler's ELLIPSES put on Index or just his:

a) Heliocentrism

b) "natural-non-living-causism"?

Riccioli considers ellipses possible, but Kepler pretty unique (after Epicurus, who considered the layers of a Geocentric roughly Ptolemaic universe as physical outcomes of densities) in considering the cause of celestial local motions in being sth natural and non-living, unconscious.

HGL

W. Sungenis/Palm on Anfossi-Settele and Bruno, part II of V

Proemium : With Sungenis on Settele-Anfossi Affair · W. Sungenis/Palm on Anfossi-Settele and Bruno : part I of V · part II of V · part III of V · part IV of V · part V of V

I

Me to David Palm, cc Sungenis

11/04/15 à 19h49

Re: Reading but not bed time

@ David: If I misunderstood anything, it was I attributed an entry of the Acta to people "at the Papal Court":

I'm afraid your (and Sungenis's) interpretation of the Acta entry, as reproduced by Mayaud, is impossible. In that entry it is unambiguously Fr. Anfossi, (the Reverendum Dominum Patrem Sacri Palatii Apostolici Magistrum, later just Patre Magistro = Master of the Sacred Palace) who is described as causing “great scandal and disgrace of the Holy See [magno scanalo Santaeque Sedis dedecore]”. He’s described as being a “stiff-necked and deceptive man [hic durae cervicis homo falsissimique]” and “very tenacious in his false judgment [sui judicii in omnibus tenacissimus]”. And he’s said constantly [non cessabat] to resort to “nonsense” [nugiis] in support of his opposition to the Roman Congregations and to “sensible men” [tam Congregationes quam sensatos viros] (see N. Mayaud, La condamnation des livres coperniciens et sa révocation à la lumière de documents inédits des Congrégations de l’Index et de l’Inquisition, p. 240).

Only thing I had forgotten here is that this was from Acta. I thought it was from Papal Court and this would have meant that Olivieri was very far from being alone in "strongarming" a possibly weakened Pope.

I was very well aware that you thought Sungenis had gotten wrong who was described as stiffnecked etc, and I thought I had made it clear I agreed with you. But I had forgotten it was in the Acta.

Does this mean the Pope himself had subscribed these words?

Or was it a decision from some Congregation? Of course, authorised by Pope, but not subscribed?

I do not have access either to the Acta, nor to the book by Mayaud. So, I cannot check myself.

@Robert: I am asking you too, for same reason.

However, I put you in CC because David did not want a "trialogue".

@Both: I hope you are BOTH fine with my plan of adding these mails to this post:

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Sungenis on Settele-Anfossi Affair
http://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2015/04/with-sungenis-on-settele-anfossi-affair.html

If so, title might change to "With Sungenis and Palm on Settele-Anfossi Affair"

Hans Georg Lundahl

PS : I have also not claimed or even seen Sungenis claim in this word choice of "strong arming" that Olivieri outright lied beyond claiming that the elliptic orbits of the modern system made this non-identical to the condemned propositions, which, as said, Napoleon had taken away momentarily. In doing so, he spoke a non-truth. Conspiracy? I did not see Sungenis say that word. Lying? Speaking a non-truth can be considered as lying and Olivieri had no more access than Pius VII had, so he was probably guessing and speaking his guess with more confidence than he should have. Which is a kind of lying.

PPS : David, if you feel this correspondence misrepresents you, feel free to publish whatever correction you like, and I'll link to it. But for my part, I correspond on matters like these in order to publish.

II

Sungenis to me and David Palm

13/04/15 à 21h00

Re: Reading but not bed time

[consistently formulated as dialogue]

Palm:

I'm afraid your (and Sungenis's) interpretation of the Acta entry, as reproduced by Mayaud, is impossible. In that entry it is unambiguously Fr. Anfossi, (the Reverendum Dominum Patrem Sacri Palatii Apostolici Magistrum, later just Patre Magistro = Master of the Sacred Palace) who is described as causing “great scandal and disgrace of the Holy See [magno scanalo Santaeque Sedis dedecore]”. He’s described as being a “stiff-necked and deceptive man [hic durae cervicis homo falsissimique]” and “very tenacious in his false judgment [sui judicii in omnibus tenacissimus]”. And he’s said constantly [non cessabat] to resort to “nonsense” [nugiis] in support of his opposition to the Roman Congregations and to “sensible men” [tam Congregationes quam sensatos viros] (see N. Mayaud, La condamnation des livres coperniciens et sa révocation à la lumière de documents inédits des Congrégations de l’Index et de l’Inquisition, p. 240).

R. Sungenis:

I never made any such claim about Anfossi. As far as I can tell, he was the only one upholding the tradition, and Olivieri and Grandi deceived everyone else to their side. This sentence from Mayaud is clear, and it refers to Anfossi: “Consequently the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office has given permission to print this booklet and the same was always obstinately refused by the same Master with the great scandal and dishonor of the Holy See.”

Hans:

However, I put you in CC because David did not want a "trialogue".

R. Sungenis:

Well, if you remember the last time we had such a discussion with David, he entered it accusing me of a contradiction regarding Joshua 10 in his citation from GWW Vol. 3 in which I said the universe could be going around a fixed Earth. When David’s ploy was foiled when we mentioned to him that the moon, stars and sun all revolve around the Earth at different speeds, David high-tailed it out of the discussion, but, of course, without an apology to me that he had falsely accused me of a contradiction.

Hans:

PS : I have also not claimed or even seen Sungenis claim in this word choice of "strong arming" that Olivieri outright lied beyond claiming that the elliptic orbits of the modern system made this non-identical to the condemned propositions, which, as said, Napoleon had taken away momentarily. In doing so, he spoke a non-truth. Conspiracy? I did not see Sungenis say that word. Lying? Speaking a non-truth can be considered as lying and Olivieri had no more access than Pius VII had, so he was probably guessing and speaking his guess with more confidence than he should have. Which is a kind of lying.

R. Sungenis:

Call it what you like. The fact is, and it will never change, Olivieri either claimed that the 1616-1633 Church condemned Galileo’s model only because Galileo did not include elliptical orbits and that he had no explanation for the Earth’s atmosphere being sucked away by Earth’s movement; or, Olivieri claimed that it didn’t matter what the 1616-1633 Church decided since they were in the dark concerning elliptical orbits and gravity holding down the atmosphere. This was a total fabrication by Olivieri, and I am not the first one to point this out. McMullin, Fantoli and Finocchiaro all say the same. Hence, the whole maneuver around Anfossi and the swaying of Pius VII was based on a total fabrication from Olivieri, and it was all motivated by his unproven belief that heliocentrism had been proven correct.

Palm:

Sungenis's contention that Fr. Olivieri was "strong arming" the Pope is yet another of his conspiracy theories, but remains an unsupported assertion, made up out of whole cloth and based on nothing more than his imagination and wishful thinking.

R. Sungenis:

This, of course, has become Mr. Palm’s modus operandi, namely, to insult his opponent with exaggerated claims of delusion (e.g., conspiracy theories, whole cloth, imagination, wishful thinking) before he begins to answer the facts. He will take the slightest off-color word of his opponent (“strong arm”) and use it to erect a boogeyman of his own choosing so that he can make an exaggerated claim. He’s disgusting.

The fact remains that, according to Lateran V, the Master of the Sacred Palace had the sole right to issue or decline imprimaturs. So Olivieri, being a devoted heliocentrist, simply went around Anfossi, not to mention Lateran Council V. Mayaud informs us that Olivieri knew Pius VII weak in character and physically sick, and that Pius didn’t want to fight, but Olivieri pursued him anyway (and avoided subsequent popes that he knew he couldn’t maneuver).

When he pursued Pius VII, he made up a story about elliptical orbits being the key to resolve the controversy, yet Kepler’s book about elliptical orbits, the Epitome, had already been put on the Index as early as 1619-1620, and remained on the Index through 1835!

So how in the world was Olivieri able to convince everyone that Galileo’s missing elliptical orbits meant that we could now accept heliocentric models with elliptical orbits??!! No, no “strong-arming” there, right David?

Palm:

He has never offered a shred of evidence in its support and what is gratuitously asserted may be gratuitously denied.

R. Sungenis:

As far as I’m concerned, David Palm is just a modern Maurizio Olivieri. Both are motivated by the same thing – they think they have scientific proof of heliocentrism, and both are willing to distort the historical record to force their beliefs down everyone’s throat. Olivieri distorted it by making up a story about the need for elliptical orbits and gravity-held air, and Palm makes up a story about “strict interpretation” and single-handedly applies it to the 1616-1633 Church, without the slightest official citation to back up such an application; on top of the fact that his whole theory about “strict interpretation” is misapplied to 1616-1633 because he misunderstand what was said in 1616-1633. See below and see my rebuttal to his claims at http://debunkingdavidpalm.blogspot.com/2014/10/ddp-3-canard-of-strict-canonical.html

Palm:

Sungenis constantly insists that it's important that the full records of the Holy Office were held by Napoleon. But he never says just what information the Holy Office would have found in those records that supposedly would have influenced the proceedings.

R. Sungenis:

This just shows how irrational Mr. Palm can become. The very fact that we don’t know what the records contain is the very reason a judge presiding over such an important case could not allow a trial to proceed! There were 7000 documents in those records. Who in their right mind would try to decide a case knowing that 7000 documents were missing? What Pope in his right mind would allow his underling (Olivieri) to make up a story about elliptical orbits and gravity holding air as the basis for the 1616-1633 decision without having the very records from 1616-1633 to verify his claim?

Palm:

Speaking of the opening of the full archives of the Galileo case, Prof. Francesco Beretta states, “This opening, officially celebrated in 1998, . . . failed to bring to light any sensational new knowledge” (“The Documents of Galileo’s Trial,” in Galileo and the Church, p. 193.) They certainly had the 1633 decree itself before them and according to the new geocentrists this by itself should have been sufficient. Thus Sungenis’s insinuation may be set aside as an empty diversion.

R. Sungenis:

We already knew what Olivieri had done, so it wouldn’t be “any sensational new knowledge.” It was old news. Olivieri succeeded in convincing everyone that elliptical orbits and gravity holding air were the clinching arguments to allow the Church to accept heliocentrism as a thesis. But at least we have McMullin, Fantoli and Finocchiaro to thank for pointing out the deception Olivieri perpetrated on the Church. All three were prompted to do so in reaction to the bogus claims that Cardinal Poupard had put in the 1992 papal speech on Galileo.

Palm:

As for his contention that Fr. Olivieri lied to the Pope, let us remember two things. First, it was not only the Pope to whom Olivieri presented the matter but to all the cardinal-prefects of the Holy Office. And the Commissary General had this to say about those discussions with the cardinal-prefects: "the Most Rev. Father Master of the Sacred Palace [Fr. Anfossi] was not present at the two said meetings of the consultants (I do not know for what reasons). As a result, he was not aware of the proposal or of the discussion; and this was certainly unfortunate for him. For he would have heard the difficulties which some advanced at first, the solutions which others gave, and the ideas which everyone presented, until at the second meeting everyone shared an admirable consensus . . . No less uniform were the feelings of the Most Eminent Lord Cardinals; thus the decision had all the signs of having been dictated by the Holy Spirit" (Finnochiaro, Retrying Galileo, 204-5).

R. Sungenis:

What a joke. Here we have Olivieri telling us that, after he convinces everyone of his fabrications about elliptical orbits and the atmosphere, that these are “dictated by the Holy Spirit.” This is nothing but a power-play of sanctimonious words to give the appearance of divine sanction. McMullin, Fantoli and Finocchiaro have already exposed this charade for what it is.

Palm:

So there was no conspiracy, no subterfuge, no wrongdoing as Sungenis claims. Rather, all was done openly and in good order. The Holy Office had theological consultants prepare expert testimony. There was back and forth discussion, with ample opportunity for both sides to present their cases.

R. Sugnenis:

Apparently, David Palm thinks that just because there was an orderly discussion about Olivieri’s fabrications, that makes everything acceptable. How naïve. Everyone prior to this meeting believed the Earth didn’t move because the Fathers and Scripture taught so. But now that everyone can agree that the Fathers, Scripture Bellarmine, Paul V and Urban VIII were mistaken, we can all pat ourselves on the back because we came to agreement. How nice. Where was the Holy Spirit for all those who preceded Olivieri’s consensus?

[On my own view, if I may interrupt Sungenis' answer, Anfossi was the only guy who previous to or after this meeting still believed Geocentrism in the Vatican. Everyone else was seeking an excuse to get away from it, Olivieri provided it and was hero of the day.]

Palm:

The cardinal-prefects of the Holy Office officially sided with those who advocated the narrow interpretation of the 1633 decree and a broad allowance of views not covered by the 1633 decree to be held within the Catholic Church.

R. Sungenis:

No one brought up a “narrow interpretation of the 1633 decree” nor a “broad allowance of views not covered by the 1633 decree.” Both of these are imported presuppositions of David Palm that are misapplied to the 1616 and 1633 decrees. The matter is very simple: The 1616 and 1633 decrees forbid anyone to say that the Earth revolved around the sun. But Olivieri needed to change that, and so he made everyone believe that as long as they put the Earth in an elliptical orbit around the sun, and that a moving Earth would not sweep away the atmosphere, everyone could then either reinterpret the 1616-1633 decrees as allowing a moving Earth or conclude that the 1616-1633 clerics didn’t know what they were doing.

Palm:

And Pope Pius VII was willing at every step to approve. This ended with a general, positive permission bearing the Pope’s signature.

R. Sungenis:

There is no record of the Pope’s signature. And we already saw the background of his “willingness.” It was prompted by a man, Olivieri, who believed that heliocentrism had been proven when it had not. Olivieri tried to make everyone look foolish who didn’t accept his heliocentrism, especially Anfossi.

Palm:

And second, the fact is that the Commissary General, Fr. Olivieri, acted fully in line with the Church’s perennial rules of canonical interpretation, which mandate that the 1633 decree against Galileo must be interpreted strictly, as narrowly as possible and as affecting as few people as possible.

R. Sungenis:

For the sake of argument, let’s just say the 1616-1633 decrees were to be “narrowly interpreted.” The problem here is that Mr. Palm reads into the narrow interpretation what he wants to see. First, the decrees do not leave room for elliptical orbits, which is proven by the fact that Kepler was also put on the Index. Second, when the Church of 1616 said the condemned view believes the sun is in the center and not moving it was referring to the relative motion between the sun and the Earth, not the relative motion between the sun and the rest of the universe that Mr. Palm claims.

How do we know this? Two reasons: 1) the decree does not mention the rest of the universe or anything beyond the two bodies, the sun and the Earth, and 2) when the 1616 qualifiers worded their condemnation the first said: “The sun is the center of the world and completely devoid of local motion.” Notice the words “local motion.” This refers “strictly” to the relative motion between the sun and the Earth, for that is what “local” means. It is not talking about Mr. Palm’s idea that the sun moves with respect to the universe or any other such thing.

Palm:

This may not be convincing to Sungenis, who has a private dogma to uphold, but it convinced the cardinal-prefects of the Holy Office and ultimately Pope Pius VII, which obviously matters a great deal more.

R. Sungenis:

“Private dogma”? The only one with a private dogma is David Palm, since he claims that he has private scientific proof that the Earth moves. Where is it, David? If you have it, let’s debate it in an open, public and moderated debate. If you’re not willing to debate it, then please refrain. My “dogma” comes from the Fathers and medievals, the Tridentine catechism, and not one but two popes who approved the condemnation of heliocentrism and spread their decree all over Europe. Your “dogma” comes from someone who made up a story about elliptical orbits and convinced the Emperor that he was still wearing clothes. Some legacy.

Palm:

So you see, Hans, I do not argue that Pius VII's decree went against the 1633 decree. Rather, he ruled in line with the Church's perennial canonical tradition that a canonical penalty must be interpreted strictly. And the 1633 decree unambiguously references a strict heliocentrism, with an immobile sun at center of the universe and a mobile earth -- a view which nobody will ever hold again.

R. Sungenis:

Yes, we see how Mr. Palm throws in the word “universe” in order to satisfy his desire for “strict heliocentrism,” but this is merely his own scientific imposition. The 1633 decree said nothing about the “universe” but only about the “local” matter between the sun and the earth, since the only issue at hand was whether the sun went around the earth or the earth went around the sun. Anything else is Mr. Palm’s and Mr. Olivieri’s inventions.

Palm:

So at most the 1633 decree is an ecclesiastical dead letter. But whether other cosmological views fell under that decree was an open question. And that question was answered authoritatively and definitively by Pius VII in the negative. It is a decision that his successors have clearly followed.

R. Sungenis:

“Ecclesiastical dead letter”? Another one of Mr. Palm’s specious titles that he dreams up himself. As for imprimaturs, they can be rescinded as quickly as they are given. We already saw that in the case of Galileo who was issued an imprimatur in 1632 and it was taken away in 1633.

III

Me to Sungenis and Palm

14/04/15 à 12h18

Re: Reading but not bed time

I am sorry to have to say Sungenis takes my mail initiative to go on about in the same public speakers' tone as outside this correspondence.

This is about his tone, now for content, after I skimmed through a few things:

The one important fault of Dr Sungenis :

R. Sungenis: "For the sake of argument, let’s just say the 1616-1633 decrees were to be “narrowly interpreted.” The problem here is that Mr. Palm reads into the narrow interpretation what he wants to see. First, the decrees do not leave room for elliptical orbits, which is proven by the fact that Kepler was also put on the Index. Second, when the Church of 1616 said the condemned view believes the sun is in the center and not moving it was referring to the relative motion between the sun and the Earth, not the relative motion between the sun and the rest of the universe that Mr. Palm claims.

"How do we know this? Two reasons: 1) the decree does not mention the rest of the universe or anything beyond the two bodies, the sun and the Earth, and 2) when the 1616 qualifiers worded their condemnation the first said: “The sun is the center of the world and completely devoid of local motion.” Notice the words “local motion.” This refers “strictly” to the relative motion between the sun and the Earth, for that is what “local” means. It is not talking about Mr. Palm’s idea that the sun moves with respect to the universe or any other such thing."

Local motion means motion from one locus to another. Not “motion within a local viewpoint”, though that might be included too.

“center of the world” = centre of the entire universe.

Sungenis is simply wrong on scholastic terminology here.

Less important:

“So how in the world was Olivieri able to convince everyone that Galileo’s missing elliptical orbits meant that we could now accept heliocentric models with elliptical orbits??!! No, no ‘strong-arming’ there, right David?"

One man singlehandedly (or for that matter two of them) strong arming the Pope and everyone else is ludicrous.

There are two possibilities :

• either this is what everyone except Anfossi, including the Pope, wanted to believe, because Paley’s watchmaker analogy about God and creation had made implications of Geocentrism inacceptable to everyone except Anfossi;
  
  
• OR, Pope Pius VII was per se willing to give Anfossi a real chance to condemn the book, but he was weakened and EVERYONE at the Papal court was together strong arming the Pope without realising it. This possibility is the reason why my last email to mainly Sungenis was about whether Pope was sick and weak or not.

Palm is in his turn giving evidence an intrigue may have been going on, with or without involvement of Pope Pius VII, but certainly against Anfossi:

“As for his contention that Fr. Olivieri lied to the Pope, let us remember two things. First, it was not only the Pope to whom Olivieri presented the matter but to all the cardinal-prefects of the Holy Office. And the Commissary General had this to say about those discussions with the cardinal-prefects: "the Most Rev. Father Master of the Sacred Palace [Fr. Anfossi] was not present at the two said meetings of the consultants (I do not know for what reasons). As a result, he was not aware of the proposal or of the discussion; and this was certainly unfortunate for him. For he would have heard the difficulties which some advanced at first, the solutions which others gave, and the ideas which everyone presented, until at the second meeting everyone shared an admirable consensus . . . No less uniform were the feelings of the Most Eminent Lord Cardinals; thus the decision had all the signs of having been dictated by the Holy Spirit" (Finnochiaro, Retrying Galileo, 204-5).”

Fact is, Anfossi can have been very easily kept away from those meetings. Or he can have had a reasonable notion things were going to go exactly one way, and that the wrong one, in same meeting.

The real difficulty was NOT discussed in these meetings, and the real key person was NOT present in them.

Olivieri stating untruthful things and being dishonest does not become less credible because everyone wished to be deceived.

It does NOT become less credible because the position of Anfossi was not defended by Anfossi present in person. It looks very much as if he was kept away or kept himself away from an intrigue, and his position was defended by someone not really believing it and who therefore was not defending it to the uttermost. I e, he was replaced by a strawman version of his case.

Thank you very much Palm for having written this, I suppose Sungenis is not misquoting you.

Hans Georg Lundahl

IV

David Palm to me

14/04/15 à 15h23

Re: Reading but not bed time

Hello Hans,

I hope you will factor another important point into your consideration of this issue. Sungenis insists that Fr. Olivieri lied to Pius VII and made elliptical orbits the sole ground of his case. Sungenis errs and I have pointed this out to him many times, but he continues to repeat the same error.

Please see the discussion at the following locations:

[All on Geocentrism Debunked]

The New Geocentrists Come Unraveled : a linea “the only reason Settele got his imprimatur was because a lie was being circulated by the Commissioner, Olivieri that the Church of the 1600s denied heliocentrism because it didn’t have elliptical orbits.”
http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/the-new-geocentrists-come-unraveled#Olivieri

Pay No Attention to the Geocentrist Behind the Curtain : a linea Does Bob Really Know the Science? Elliptical Orbits Versus Epicycles
http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/pay-no-attention-to-the-geocentrist/#Epicycles

Pay No Attention to the Geocentrist Behind the Curtain : a linea Has Bob Accurately Represented Fr. Olivieri, the Commissary General of the Inquisition?
http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/pay-no-attention-to-the-geocentrist/#Olivieri

As I summarized, "Bob’s contention that Fr. Olivieri makes “elliptical orbits” the “crux of the matter” is unsupported and false. Elliptical orbits was one of many things to which Fr. Olivieri pointed to demonstrate that the views of modern astronomers were not the same as those of Copernicus and hence not the same as what was addressed in the 1633 decree. Based on a false and sloppy analysis, Bob has repeatedly and unjustly accused this Catholic priest of lying and subterfuge."

It remains a fact that, read strictly, the 1616 and 1633 decrees address only a strict heliocentrism with an immobile sun at the center of the universe. Whether other cosmological views fall under those decrees is for the Church, not Sungenis, to decide. The Church has ruled against him.

God bless,

David

V

Sungenis to me and Palm

14/04/15 à 17h30

Re: Reading but not bed time

R. Sungenis: I didn’t say “center of the world” did not refer to the universe. I said that the 1616 decrees’ reference to “local motion” refers to motion between the sun and the earth. THAT was the only issue. It cannot refer to the stars since the stars are not local. The clerics already understood that the universe rotated around the Earth, and that the sun followed the universe in that rotation (except for a 1 degree lag per day). If the sun rotates around the Earth with the universe then obviously it can’t be the “center of the world and completely devoid of local motion.” Anything else read into this decree is simply an imposition from some wished-for universe.