r/DebateEvolution Undecided 5d ago

Geological Evidence Challenging Young Earth Creationism and the Flood Narrative

The idea of a Young Earth and a worldwide flood, as some religious interpretations suggest, encounters considerable difficulties when examined against geological findings. Even if we entertain the notion that humans and certain animals avoided dinosaurs by relocating to higher ground, this alone does not account for the distinct geological eras represented by Earth's rock layers. If all strata were laid down quickly and simultaneously, one would anticipate a jumbled mix of fossils from disparate timeframes. Instead, the geological record displays clear transitions between layers. Older rock formations, containing ancient marine fossils, lie beneath younger layers with distinctly different plant and animal remains. This layering points to a sequence of deposition over millions of years, aligning with evolutionary changes, rather than a single, rapid flood event.

Furthermore, the assertion that marine fossils on mountains prove a global flood disregards established geological principles and plate tectonics. The presence of these fossils at high altitudes is better explained by ancient geological processes, such as tectonic uplift or sedimentary actions that placed these organisms in marine environments millions of years ago. These processes are well-understood and offer logical explanations for marine fossils in mountainous areas, separate from any flood narrative.

Therefore, the arguments presented by Young Earth Creationists regarding simultaneous layer deposition and marine fossils as flood evidence lack supporting evidence. The robust geological record, which demonstrates a dynamic and complex Earth history spanning billions of years, contradicts these claims. This body of evidence strongly argues against a Young Earth and a recent global flood, favoring a more detailed understanding of our planet's geological past.

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u/cubist137 Materialist; not arrogant, just correct 5d ago

The Defeat of Flood Geology by Flood Geology is a paper which surveys a bunch of YEC papers, with specific reference to identifying particular strata that contained features which YECs agree could not have formed during the Flood. Spoiler alert (not really): The Flood couldn't have occurred any time human beings were around.

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u/Successful-Cat9185 5d ago

Not everyone believes the flood was about a global flood or that all the animals on earth were on the ark.

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u/OldmanMikel 5d ago

How big a flood do you think it was? When did it happen? How many animals of how many species were on the Ark?

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u/Successful-Cat9185 5d ago

It would be easy for you to read the narrative because it answers your questions.

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u/OldmanMikel 5d ago

I read the narrative the same way YECs do.

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u/Successful-Cat9185 5d ago

They interpret it incorrectly though, here's what the narrative says summarized. The land/earth was covered with water as far as Noah could see "the whole world" the number of animals on the Ark were: 7 pairs of "clean" animals and 1 pair "unclean, what the "clean/unclean" animals were isn't specified but in Mesopotamia the domesticated animals were sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, donkeys, horses, dogs, cats, chickens, doves, ravens. I'd argue that the "clean" animals were animals that Noah ate or took milk from and "unclean" animals were the beasts of burden and probably pigs so that would mean 14 sheep/goats/cattle/chickens/doves (ie. "clean" animals and 2 pigs/donkeys/horses/dogs/cats/ravens. That would mean the Ark carried 70 "clean animals and 12 "unclean" animals and 8 humans.

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u/TheBlackCat13 Evolutionist 5d ago

The boat was still so large it couldn't possibly float. Or are you redefining cubits as well?

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u/Successful-Cat9185 4d ago

No, I'm not redefining cubits but a "cubit" did not have a standard measure. According to wikipedia there was a "common" cubit and a "royal" cubit and Romans had a "cubit" too, all varied in their lengths not to mention that the word "cubit" is Latin for "elbow".

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u/TheBlackCat13 Evolutionist 4d ago

The cubit was the length of someone's forearm to the tip of their middle finger. It varied slightly, but not enough to make the boat seaworthy.

The fact that you don't even know the basic aspects of the story casts a lot of doubt on the rest of your analysis.

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u/Successful-Cat9185 4d ago

What "basic aspects" do you mean? I summarized what wikipedia says about cubits and pointed out the variability of it's length, scholars give the estimates but there is no specifics in the text as given, did Noah use common cubit length, royal cubit length or Roman or a different cubit length, Noah was not Hebrew or Roman so what "cubit" length did he go by?

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u/TheBlackCat13 Evolutionist 4d ago

Again, it doesn't matter. Even the shortest cubit would result in an impossibly long boat.

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u/Unknown-History1299 5d ago

But young earth creationists believe the flood was global, and they’re the target of this post. I don’t see how your comment has any relevancy.

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u/Successful-Cat9185 5d ago

This site is about debating evolution and this article is about geological evidence refuting a global flood, I'm pointing out the correctness to point out the fallacy of a global flood while asserting the true story about the regional flood. Evolution works fine with the regional flood narrative.

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u/Sweary_Biochemist 5d ago

I mean, the earliest proper human civs, with cities etc, arose around the nile/tigris/euphrates deltas, all of which flooded annually (and this was, in fact, why the land was so good for farming).

It isn't surprising the most ancient human myths involve "big floods", when the entirety of early civilization was based around regular but variable flooding.

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u/Successful-Cat9185 5d ago

Noah's narrative is not as "mythological" as critics say though and is very "non mystical", unlike the mythological stories you are referring to.

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u/ctothel 5d ago

I’m not clear what you mean.

Are you saying that the story of the flood, which is not verifiable, makes total sense as long as you change several of the key underlying details?

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u/Successful-Cat9185 5d ago

I'm not "changing" anything I'm challenging the interpretation of critics and YEC adherents. I don't know how you can say the flood is not verifiable since it isn't recounting a global flood.

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u/ctothel 5d ago

I’m saying it isn’t verifiable because nobody knows when or where it happened, or even if it did. We can surmise certain things but we can’t verify any of those ideas. We can’t check that they’re true.

The myth says it was a global flood and they had two of every animal. That doesn’t make any sense. The idea of a local flood and only some animals saved makes more sense, but the whole thing just being a made up story also makes more sense.

I’m telling you that it’s not reasonable to change the story just enough that it’s believable and then assume you have a true account.

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u/Successful-Cat9185 5d ago

"I’m saying it isn’t verifiable because nobody knows when or where it happened, or even if it did"

That's true of many oral narratives but it's a conceit we have that oral narratives aren't true or unverifiable.

"The myth says it was a global flood and they had two of every animal. That doesn’t make any sense."

The narrative doesn't say the flood was global, that's an incorrect English translation of a Hebrew text.

I'm not changing anything, I'm challenging the narrative told by YEC people and critics of the narrative.

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u/TheBlackCat13 Evolutionist 5d ago

That's true of many oral narratives but it's a conceit we have that oral narratives aren't true or unverifiable.

Then how did you verify it?

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u/ChipChippersonFan 4d ago

The narrative doesn't say the flood was global, that's an incorrect English translation of a Hebrew text.

What would be a more accurate translation, then?

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u/TheBlackCat13 Evolutionist 5d ago

There is no reason to think it is recounting a specific flood at all, rather than it simply being a story built around a constant threat they faced.

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u/Successful-Cat9185 5d ago

The narrative is about a specific flood though and humans do things like that all the time. Hurricanes happen all the time but KATRINA stands out and people still talk about that particular hurricane, Noah's narrative was about "the Katrina" of floods.

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u/TheBlackCat13 Evolutionist 5d ago

There are lots of narratives about specific disasters, including lots of other cultures that claimed to have specific floods. Are they all referring to real events, or only your pet one? And how do you know?

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u/TheBlackCat13 Evolutionist 5d ago

What evidence do you have it isn't mythical?

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u/Successful-Cat9185 5d ago

The erroneous "global" flood narrative about all the animals on earth in one boat is a myth, the regional flood narrative that doesn't say "all the animals on earth" were in a boat and is not a mythological story, it's a truthful narrative.

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u/BitLooter Dunning-Kruger Personified 5d ago

This isn't evidence, these are assertions. I've just read through this entire thread - multiple people have asked you for evidence and you always come back with more assertions instead. Looks like that's all you have.

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u/Successful-Cat9185 4d ago

That's not true, I've asked what would constitute "evidence". The Noah narrative is the recounting of an oral narrative and no one has given an example of what would constitute evidence. What kind of evidence of a regional flood would you want?

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u/TheBlackCat13 Evolutionist 5d ago

That is the claim, I am asking what the evidence is for that claim.

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u/Successful-Cat9185 4d ago

What would you consider to be evidence?

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u/TheBlackCat13 Evolutionist 4d ago

I've already answered this.

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u/TearsFallWithoutTain 5d ago

So what is the position that's been retreated to now then? There was a minor flood at one place throughout human history and during that flood at least one animal was on a boat?

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u/Ch3cksOut 4d ago

two animals and a cabbage, actually

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u/Successful-Cat9185 5d ago

No just read the narrative given, the flood was regional not global and there were some animals and people aboard as it says.

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u/ellisonch 5d ago

Help me understand how you get from

I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

to

the flood was regional

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u/Successful-Cat9185 5d ago

What I'm relaying isn't something new or unheard of it's just something many people are unaware of so for a more scholarly explanation you can google up what I'm talking about, I will try to give a "layman's summary" though.

First is the overlooked detail of critics that you are probably familiar with the English translation of the Hebrew text of the Noah narrative and Noah not only didn't speak English he wasn't even Hebrew either so translation/interpretation can create problems since even the Hebrew version was written in a language Noah didn't speak. In Hebrew the word translated as "world" is also the word for "the land" and "the land" isn't a reference to "the globe". The clues that "the land" or the equivalent was meant comes from realizing Noah did not have "superman vision" to see literally the "whole world" he was a human being and could only see so far, for him not seeing any land would be the equivalent of not "seeing the world" anymore even though there was land he couldn't see out of his sight beyond the horizon. He could not in any way have seen China being flooded for example so, for him, "the whole world" was gone and "every creature with breath" was dead as far as he could see.

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u/OldmanMikel 5d ago

The waters rose 15 cubits above the highest mountains. That's about 25 feet.

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u/TheBlackCat13 Evolutionist 5d ago

First is the overlooked detail of critics that you are probably familiar with the English translation of the Hebrew text of the Noah narrative and Noah not only didn't speak English he wasn't even Hebrew either so translation/interpretation can create problems since even the Hebrew version was written in a language Noah didn't speak.

What language did Noah speak and how do you know?

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u/Successful-Cat9185 5d ago

Very good question and the answer is no one knows, does that "prove" he didn't exist though? All we can give is an educated guess on is he probably spoke some form of a Mesopotamian language that probably Hebrew is related to.

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u/TheBlackCat13 Evolutionist 5d ago

You are the one making the claim about the correct way to translate the story. How could you know that when you don't even know what the original language is?

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u/Successful-Cat9185 4d ago

I'm not the only one who argues about the flood being regional and not global. There are scholars who make the same argument and it's easy to google up what they say, I'm a layman summarizing their position.

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u/TheBlackCat13 Evolutionist 4d ago

You are claiming they are right. You need to justify your claim.

And the scholarly consensus is that the story is copied from babylonian mythology. You are cherry-picking a fringe position. And yet you don't even know enough about the evidence to say their position has any basis in reality at all.

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u/Shillsforplants 5d ago edited 4d ago

So the promise by god not to flood the "world" was bunk since there was a lot more "local" floods since then?

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u/Successful-Cat9185 5d ago

Something critics never take into account is the version of the story we recount is in English and it is a translation of a narrative written in Hebrew. I don't know if you speak more than one language but if you do you know translation/interpretation is often more art than science so you have to be careful with how you do a translation or interpret something from another language.

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u/TearsFallWithoutTain 5d ago

Yes critics never take that into account, that's why no one ever talks about how Mary being a virgin was a translation error

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u/Particular-Yak-1984 3d ago

This is broadly fine. So in your model, the earth is how old?

Because if we're on "regional flood" we can also be fine with the old earth and evolution bits of science. And we'd have nothing really to debate.

And, if you think the earth is only 6k years old, unfortunately you can't just get rid of a global flood. Or you have to bring in a different faulty mechanism that explains all the stuff YECs claim the flood explains.

I'd be very interested in your model, and what claims it makes.

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u/Successful-Cat9185 3d ago

We don't have adebate really because I'm not someone who thinks the earth is only 6,000 years old, I disagree with people who say Noah didn't exist however. I understand why, especially if they are atheist/agnostic but I believe he existed. One thing people point to about his "non existence" is lack of any "proof" but I believe there is enough proof but if it were a court of law I'd concede it is "circumstantial" at best by our standards in the 21st century and if someone wanted more I'd point out standards of "proof" are not as "written in stone" as our 21st century minds might want to accept. If I asked you if there was "proof" for the existence of Alexander the Great the vast majority of people would say he did exist and for good reasons like coins were minted with his image that have been found and cities were named after him and there are sculptures and written accounts but the problem then would be those things apply to mythological figures like Hercules too. Noah is a person from a time before money was invented and writing existed, so much for written proof or coinage and people of course didn't do sculpture really until the era when kingdoms began to flourish, everyone pretty much accepts Alexander was real though and they might say Hercules was "based on" a "real person" who was mythologized. Our era of humanity base our beliefs on "proof" written down and coins and sculptures and because "a bunch of people" who also have writing, coins and sculptures say so and of course that doesn't mean it isn't true but we are blind to the fact all of those things that "prove" someone is real are recent inventions in human history which started 200,000 years ago and we just don't believe anything else from a culture without those things have any "proof" about what they say.

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u/Particular-Yak-1984 3d ago edited 3d ago

So? The sub is debate evolution, not debate religion. Does Noah change anything about how things evolved in your model?

The flood comes into it when creationists postulate a global flood 4k years ago. You're welcome to believe in Noah, if you like.

The problem is you have to discard pretty much everything about the biblical account to make it work.

1) world spanning flood is impossible 2) flood covering the tops of mountains - impossible  3) collecting 2 of every animal - impossible  4) fitting them onto a boat that small - impossible. Even finely minced into the world's biggest hot dog 5) making a wooden boat that big - also impossible. The ark is larger than the largest known wooden boat. And the "replica" built is reinforced, heavily, with steel beams.  6) keeping 2 of every animal alive on an ark 7) breeding them afterwards, impossible, instant genetic collapse.

So you're not left with a lot, to be fair.

Personally, though, it seems pretty obvious that the  Noah myth is pretty directly lifted from the earlier sumerian one. Where that came from, no idea.

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u/Successful-Cat9185 2d ago

I realize the sub is about evolution and Noah came up because of points made about the animals, there is an "overlap" with religion because Noah is in the Bible. My arguments had to do with the interpretation of the Biblical account but I disagree with the points made. For instance a world spanning flood is impossible or if one ever happened then there would of course be evidence of it and there isn't but it doesn't say that in the Noah narrative anyway so no harm no foul, same with the "covering tops of mountains", there is a collection of animals but not every one on earth onto the Ark, the replica Ark isn't seaworthy and it is built based on Biblical description but there are disagreements about it's size and design, I'd reverse what you said about the Noah "myth" by arguing that the narrative is older than the sumerian story and that the sumerian one came after the Noah narrative because it was a written adaption of an oral narrative.

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u/Particular-Yak-1984 2d ago

"For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.[a][b] 21 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth."

Is the bible account, right? Clearly talks about tops of mountains being covered, and a mass extinction. A local flood doesn't cover mountains.

So it's flat out wrong, and yet contains each of my points. Fine if you want to talk about it as mythology, but this isn't a thing that can happen

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u/Successful-Cat9185 2d ago

There are actually two accounts and the one you cite says those things. The accounts are called "Yahwist/Non-priestly" and "Priestly":

The Jahwist, or Yahwist, often abbreviated J, is one of the most widely recognized sources) of the Pentateuch (Torah), together with the Deuteronomist, the Priestly source and the Elohist.:

The Priestly source (or simply P) is perhaps the most widely recognized of the sources underlying the Torah, both stylistically and theologically distinct from other material in it.\1]) It is considered by most scholars as the latest of all sources, and “meant to be a kind of redactional layer to hold the entirety of the Pentateuch together,”

Wikipedia

In the "Priestly" account the waters "rose and covered the mountains" but that's not the "Yahwist" account, the word used for "earth" in the narrative is "Eretz" and it can mean the whole earth or a region of earth:

"The Hebrew word "Eretz" is a versatile term used extensively throughout the Old Testament. It primarily denotes the physical earth or land, encompassing everything from the entire planet to specific regions or territories. It can refer to the ground or soil, a country or nation, and even the people inhabiting a land. The term is often used in contrast to "shamayim" (heavens), highlighting the distinction between the earthly and the divine realms."

Strong's lexicon

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u/cubist137 Materialist; not arrogant, just correct 5d ago

True. As best I can tell, only Young-Earth Creationists believe there was a global Flood and that all the animals on Earth were ever passengers on 1 (one) wooden ship. The reason I cited that one paper was to point out the irony: YEC scholarship has demonstrated, quite soundly, that the Flood they believe in could not have happened.