There is the forgotten book Shattering the Myths of Darwinism written by a non-creationist agnostic Richard Milton. Milton expressed his skepticism of mainstream claims of the old-age of the fossil record. His work further motivated me toward the idea that there could an empirically driven critique of the accepted ages of the fossils.
This is a short bio of Milton:
Richard Milton is a science journalist and design engineer based in London. He is a member of Mensa, the international high-IQ society, and writes a column for Mensa Magazine. He has been a member of the Geologists’ Association for twenty years, and did extensive geological research for this book. He has been featured on the BBC, NBC, and other television networks.
Like the agnostic Denton, Milton seems to draw much admiration from creationists.
The fact Milton was an agnostic suggested to me that considerations of facts and following the evidence wherever it leads might lead one to a different conclusion than the accepted mainstream view of fossil ages. One does not have to begin with the premise of YEC to conclude that the claims of the old ages of fossils have serious empirical difficulties.
But what about radiometric dating? That serious issue will be covered in another post, but suffice to say, on evidential grounds alone, it seems there are serious unresolved conflicts. If physics and chemistry are invoked to defend the old ages of fossils, physics and chemistry can also be invoked to falsify it. Neither side, creationist or evolutionist, has a conflict-free model of history. But that is not to say that one side might not prevail on empirical grounds eventually in the light of future scientific discoveries.
My aim then is not to argue that the accepted mainstream model of the history of life is definitely wrong, but rather it can’t be definitely right given what we already know. Skepticism is in order, and thankfully it doesn’t stop there, skepticism might lead to novel, innovative research to settle the conflicts.
We have the conceptual notion of a geological “column”. The idea is that if you dig a hole, you are essentially traversing down a conceptual column that provides a recorded history of life. Conceptually this is depicted in the following image:
In such a column, older fossils are buried beneath younger fossils. Even supposing this is a reasonable interpretation, it does not immediately affix the ages of the fossils. One fossil may be older than another, but it doesn’t immediately tell us that the oldest fossils are 500 million years old! So for the sake of argument, let us assume that on average deeper means older, what can we say about the oldest layer based on empirical considerations?
When I asked a geologist common sense questions about the process of fossilization, he threw a fit. I asked “how are fossils fossilized?” I pointed out if you leave a dead organism out in the open it decomposes or is eaten by scavengers. So really good fossilization can’t happen by ordinary processes but rather by catastrophic process such as rapid burial, and often a burial that involves water. He threw a fit at the suggestion but reluctantly conceded that to get really good fossils, one needs water and rapid burial. He didn’t like where the discussion seemed to be headed. 🙂
Here are the boring considerations. Suppose we have intact geological column which can be found in one location such that you get to dig and find fossils in the order prescribed by the diagram above (and there are some who argue there is no such place on Earth, only in the conceptual imaginations of paleontologists). Suppose we give a generous height to this column of 200 miles spanning a history of 500 million years, what would be the average rate of deposition (accumulation of sediments on top of each other). I calculated that it would be .667 millimeters a year.
The geologist then fumed at my figure of a 200-mile deep geological column and argued it could be less than that. Of course, he didn’t realize he actually strengthened my argument. So I said, “fine, 14 miles, since that’s the farthest man has ever drilled into the Earth, that yields a deposition rate of .046 millimeters a year,” which is about half the thickness of a sheet of paper. That would mean a dinosaur that is lying 5 meters high will take about 100,000 years to bury, and thus it becomes very doubtful that it will fossilize because it is exposed to scavengers and decomposition and other environmental effects.
From Darwin-loving pages of Wiki we read:
Fossilization processes proceed differently according to tissue type and external conditions.
Permineralization is a process of fossilization that occurs when an organism is buried. The empty spaces within an organism (spaces filled with liquid or gas during life) become filled with mineral-rich groundwater. Minerals precipitate from the groundwater, occupying the empty spaces. This process can occur in very small spaces, such as within the cell wall of a plant cell. Small scale permineralization can produce very detailed fossils. For permineralization to occur, the organism must become covered by sediment soon after death or soon after the initial decay process. The degree to which the remains are decayed when covered determines the later details of the fossil. Some fossils consist only of skeletal remains or teeth; other fossils contain traces of skin, feathers or even soft tissues.
What? The organism needs to buried with sediments and water quickly. Of note, many layers of the geological “column” indicated mass extinction events, such that it could also be interpreted to be rapid simultaneous burial over large geographical regions by water and sediments, if not rapid simultaneous burial over the entire globe! But whatever the details, the fact remains that large sections of the geological column that contain fossils, could not, even in principle be assembled over millions of years. At best we have one catastrophe that creates a bed of fossils followed by a long era of stasis (no activity) and then followed another catastrophe, etc.
The geologist fumed, and said something to the effect, “You’re analysis is silly. Deposition doesn’t happen at steady rates like you imply.” Of course he was fuming so badly, he didn’t realize he was making my point, namely most of the fossil rich geological column didn’t take hundreds of millions of years to form. 🙂 Steady deposition could not have created the fossil record even in principle and even as Darwin and Lyell supposed. At best we have layers created by catastrophes, and then long periods of stasis in between. The bottom line is, the formation of most of the fossil layers of “column” could not have taken place over millions of years even in principle. We have to imagine the long periods of stasis are actually represented, because the fossil layers themselves must have formed in a few years if not a few minutes!
For the Darwinian story to hold, one has to fortuitously interleave highly fotuitous catastrophes followed by long eras of stasis and do this for each of the layers.
Recording of geological history via a process of slow, steady change is represented by a school of thought known as uniformitarianism (founded by Lyell). In contrast, recording of geological history by a process of catastrophes is known as catastrophism. The recording process for the fossil layers based on the considerations above, is then mostly the product of catastrophes. This catastrophist school of thought was highly anti-Darwinian:
Lyell encapsulated his philosophy in a doctrine later called “uniformitarianism”—a complex set of beliefs centered on the catechism that “the present is the key to the past.”….Lyell viewed this principle as a methodological reform to eliminate fanciful (and quasi-theological) “catastrophic” causes and to render the full magnitude of past change by the slow and steady accumulation of ordinary small changes (deposition and erosion grain by grain) extended over vast times.
And yet, from two different standpoints (theoretical and empirical), Lyell’s credo makes little sense, and its status as dogma can only reflect our social and psychological preferences. First, what is the probability that our tiny slice of observable time should include the full range of potential processes that might alter the earth? What about big, but perfectly natural, events that occur so infrequently that we have only a remote chance of observing even one occurrence in historical time? Second, how can Lyellian gradualism account for the fundamental fact of paleontology–extensive, and appparently rapid, faunal turnovers (“mass extinctions”) occurring several times in the history of life? (Traditional explanations over at least a few million years and attributing them to over intensification of ordinary causes–changes in temperature and sea level, for example–but the arguments have always seemed forced.)
…
Yet, until recently, extinction received much less attention than its obvious prominence warranted. In an overly Darwinian world of adaptation, gradual change, and improvement, extinction seemed, well, so negative–the ultimate failure, the flip side of evolution’s “real” work, something to be acknowledge but not intensely discussed in polite company.This odd neglect has been reversed in the last decade…the primary architect of this shift is my brilliant colleague David M. Raup….Dave Raup is the best of the best.
Stephen J. Gould
Bad Genes or Bad Luck by David Raup
Amen brother Gould!
But that is not the end of problems, only the beginning. We have the paradoxical situation where the fossil record accumulates, but then this must happen against the contrary forces of erosion. Thus, the fossil record must:
1. fortuitously form one fossil layer via a fortuitous catastrophe
2. have that layer separated from the layer above it by a long era of stasis (no activity)
3. then another fortuitous catastrophe creates the next layer
4. etc.
All this must happen while miraculously avoiding the problem of erosion. This leads to a mechanical contradiction. Is this contradiction resolved? No, just obfuscated away and swept under the rug and defended by ridicule of those who would dare to ask common sense questions.
Ariel Roth of Geoscience Research points out that reasonable estimates of erosion rates of 6 centimeters/1000 year would wipe out not only the geological “column” but even the continents above sea level in short order.
By noting the rates at which the surfaces of the continents are eroded and carried away by rivers to the oceans (see section 2 for specific values), one can calculate the length of time required to remove a given thickness of the continents. Judson and Ritter (1964) have estimated that for the United States the rate of erosion averages 6.1 cm/1000 years. At this rate of denudation the continents, which average 623 m above sea level, would be eroded to sea level in a mere 10.2 Ma [million years]
….
It has been suggested that mountains still exist because they are constantly being renewed by uplift from below. However, this process of uplift could not go through even one complete cycle of erosion and uplift without eradicating the layers of the geologic column found in them. Present erosion rates would tend to rapidly eradicate evidence of older sediments; yet these sediments are still very well-represented, both in mountains and elsewhere.
….
There is little question that there is some difficulty in reconciling present erosion rates with standard geochronology.
On top of that, why aren’t the oceans saturated solutions of salt and minerals? If rain has been pouring on land and pumping salt and other minerals into the oceans, why aren’t they saturated? That complication may be resolvable, but one does not get the feeling the questions are even welcome, much less attempts at resolution.
When I’ve asked geologists, PandasThumbsters about these difficulties, I get just get rude rebuffs. I think to myself, “if not for my sake, won’t they want to answer these questions for the sake of curious aspiring Darwinists?”. Maybe they won’t answer these questions because they have none.
NOTES:
1. The title contains the word: “Cocktail” to emphasize the speculative, informal nature of this essay. I elaborate more about the relevance of such topics to ID in The relevance of YEC to ID
2. here is the link to Ariel Roth’s paper:
http://www.grisda.org/origins/13064.htm
and a long excerpt
By noting the rates at which the surfaces of the continents are eroded and carried away by rivers to the oceans (see section 2 for specific values), one can calculate the length of time required to remove a given thickness of the continents. Judson and Ritter (1964) have estimated that for the United States the rate of erosion averages 6.1 cm/1000 years. At this rate of denudation the continents, which average 623 m above sea level, would be eroded to sea level in a mere 10.2 Ma. In other words, at this rate the present continents would be eroded over 340 times in the 3500 Ma assumed for the age of the continents. The observation by the famous geologist Powell that “mountains cannot long remain mountains” certainly seems appropriate. The estimate of 10 Ma given above has been a well-accepted figure (Schumm 1963) and has subsequently been referred to in a number of publications including Dott and Batten (1971, p. 136) and Garrels and Mackenzie (1971, pp. 114-115). Earlier, Dole and Stabler (1909) gave figures indicating that it would take about twice as long. Judson (1968), while correcting for human activity, suggests 34 Ma for complete erosion of the continents. None of these figures does much to alleviate the discrepancy which is especially significant when one considers mountain ranges such as the Caledonides of western Europe and the Appalachians of North America which are assumed to be several hundred Ma old. Why are these ranges here today if they are so old?
Rates of erosion are greater in high mountains and lower in regions of less relief (Ahnert 1970, Bloom 1971, Ruxton and McDougall 1967, and Schumm 1963). Ruxton and McDougall (1967) report erosion rates of 8 cm/1000 years near sea level and 52 cm/1000 years at an altitude of 975 m in the Hydrographers Range in Papua. Rates of 92 cm/1000 years are reported for the Guatemala-Mexico Border Mountains (Corbel 1959), 100 cm/1000 years for the Himalayas (Menard 1961), and in the Mt. Rainier region of Washington Mills (1976) documents erosion rates of up to 800 cm/1000 years. Probably the highest recorded regional rate is 1900 cm/1000 years from a volcano in New Guinea (Ollier and Brown 1971).
It has been suggested that mountains still exist because they are constantly being renewed by uplift from below. However, this process of uplift could not go through even one complete cycle of erosion and uplift without eradicating the layers of the geologic column found in them. Present erosion rates would tend to rapidly eradicate evidence of older sediments; yet these sediments are still very well-represented, both in mountains and elsewhere.
Other attempts to reconcile average present erosion rates to geologic time include suggestions that man’s activities, especially agricultural practices, have increased the rate of erosion, making present rates uncharacteristically rapid. Such an explanation seems inadequate to account for a several hundred-fold discrepancy. Gilluly et al. (1968, p. 79) propose that farming may have increased average erosion rates by a factor of less than 2, while Judson (1968) suggests about 2½ times. Others have suggested that the climate of the past may have been more dry or the relief flatter, resulting in slower erosion rates. We now have some interior basins such as central Australia where there is no drainage and no removal of sediment, but these are exceptions. The lush vegetation evident in significant sections of the fossil record suggests at least some wetter conditions in the past. Characteristically, current erosion rates in hot, dry lowlands with gradients 0.001 or less, are not sufficiently slower. Corbel (1959) indicates rates of 1.2 cm/1000 years for the hot dry plains of the Mediterranean region and New Mexico. The lowest rates found in a study of 20 river basins (Ahnert 1970) was 1.6 cm/1000 years for basins in Texas and England. These slower rates do not solve a discrepancy of several hundred-fold, and one would have to postulate different past conditions for a major area of the earth during a significant proportion of earth history to provide a resolution to the problem.
A different context can serve to emphasize the question of rates of erosion. If it is assumed that 2.5 km of continents have been eroded in the past (our present continents average about one fourth that thickness above sea level) and if it is assumed that erosion proceeds at the rate of 3 cm/1000 years (half of the presently observed rate to correct for the effects of modern agricultural pursuits), then it would take about 83 Ma to erode a 2.5 km thickness of continental crust. In other words, at present rates of erosion, continents 2.5 km thick could have been eroded 42 times during the assumed 3500 Ma age for the continents, or continents 106 km thick would have been eroded once. There is little question that there is some difficulty in reconciling present erosion rates with standard geochronology.