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Well, I had posted some guidelines that I was going to follow during my review of Tom DeRosa’s “Evidence for Creation”, but I have not been able to follow them.  The problem is that, as it appears to me anyway, DeRosa is making comments about science that he doesn’t understand.  His approach appears to be to explain why the science is unreliable and cannot be proven.  Therefore, simply open the one true Word of God, and go from there.  To be honest, I am not enjoying this review.  I feel like I am watching my brother in Christ just shut himself off from all rational reason, and yet that is exactly what he thinks all Evolutionists (from Darwinian to Theistic) have done.

I would be enjoying myself at this point if he were addressing the science and showing flaws in the actual logic, or calling the scientific community to action, or something like that.  However, he seems instead to be setting the stage for Creation Science, which does not have proof beyond the Bible and intellectual exercises for why nature appears to be lying to us.  In my opinion, such a result is a misinterpretation of both nature and the Bible.  My only consolation in all this is that the man clearly loves God and loves his neighbor, realizes he is a sinner (as am I), and believes in Jesus as his Lord and savior.

I will now continue with the review, though my responses may get rather terse from now on.  We’ll see. I am up to Chapter 3.

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How the earth (and other planets) began is still an open question in evolutionary circles. Evolutionists tend to agree that the earth was formed about 4.6 billion years ago, starting from a very hot, gaseous state and eventually cooling down.

I agree with the Evolutionists on this point.

Creationists maintain that the earth began with the Creator, who miraculously formed the crust of the earth on the third day by separating the land from the water, as is stated in Genesis [1:9 -10]

I agree with the Creationists that God created the earth’s crust, but that isn’t what Day 3 says.  On Day 3, God created dry land.  Before Day 3, there was submerged land and wet land.

Read Natural Selection as Evidence of Divine Will for an explanation of how a natural force and God can be simultaneously responsible for the same result.

The critics fail to recognize that the Word of God is the “logos”, the “intelligence” of the universe.

Incorrect.  Atheists fail to recognize it.  Old Earth Creationists do recognize it.

Genesis 1:9-10 above demonstrates this.  It emphasizes the separation of the land from the sea, which could also be understood as the separation of a solid landmass from a liquid water medium.

Read Genesis 1:9 to 10 - Creation of Dry Land for an explanation of how science confirms the literal wording of the scriptures.

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Okay, I just read the next section and… wow.  I’m the good kind of speechless.  DeRosa just went on to explain the manner in which he thinks the oceans were created on Day 3.  In fact, the process is a pretty accurate description of how I believe the oceans formed 4.4 billion years ago.  However, he completely ignores Genesis 1:2.  Recall the waters that the Holy Spirit was hovering over on Day 1?  Well, it is their formation that DeRosa has described… and it is really close to how scientists say it happened.  Here are some excerpts from DeRosa’s description:

Rock comes from the earth’s magma, which is a molten fluid inside the earth.  Magma is composed of various metals and oxygen compounds.  Along with these compounds is locked-up water vapor under tremendous pressure and heat.  For magma to become rock, it must cool by coming to the surface.  The heat of the magma causes rock above it to melt, allowing the magma closer to the surface.  The magma cools before breaking the top layer and forms a crystalline hard rock.  Granite is a great example of this rock formation.

Zircon, too!  As I quote in Effect of Zircon Discovery on other Early-Earth Theories.

DeRosa continues further down:

It is important to note that locked-up water vapor had an important role in making crystalline rock.  The minerals that were formed went through a complicated process, combining and recombining, to form a stable chemical structure.  As the minerals cooled, the separation of water from solid continued, until different kinds of minerals mixed, forming the rocks we observe today.  It is obvious in the formation of a basic rock type that here is separation of water and solid.  This is an observed scientific fact.

So DeRosa gets the science right up until this point.  So far, my only disagreement is that I think the process formed the waters mentioned in Day 1, and he thinks it happened on Day 3.  That’s fine.  But then he has to go and mess it up for me:

Is this the result of random elemental collisions, which over millions of years formed the rocks we see today?

Yes!

Or is this evidence of the workmanship of an intelligent designer?

Yes!

Did God purposely leave us a model of rock formation in the magma and lava of the earth that would lead to His Word?

Yes!

Is the principle of separation of solid from water, or “land” from the “seas,” a more intelligent alternative than what we are being taught today?

It’s the same thing!!  This is exasperating, you know?  The process DeRosa described is popularly called “out-gassing”, and scientists believe it happened.  However, it did not happen on Day 3, but even before there was light on Day 1.  My proof?  Let us look at the scriptures DeRosa is attempting to explain.  Genesis 1:9-10:

Then God said, ”Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.  And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas.  And God saw that it was good. 

Notice where the waters are?  They are under the heavens, not inside the earth.  And Day 1 proves that when it says the Holy Spirit was hovering over the deep.  Therefore, Day 3, in my opinion, is the advent of plate tectonics, when land first thrust out of the seas.  What would happen to the water?  Read Day 3 again.  It describes the process perfectly.  The waters under the heavens gathered together in the seas.  As they rushed off the previously saturated land, there was left behind what we call today “dry land.”

What Do the Rocks Tell Us About the Flood?

I like how this section is starting out.  DeRosa is describing several kinds of rock: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.  I will admit that I know less about the subject of rocks than I know about the Laws of Physics, such as Thermodynamics, though I do remember some of what I learned in high school.  That should make me less hyper-critical as I read, and more open to being persuaded to DeRosa’s views.  I know this sounds weird, but I am trying to be objective; knowing less about the topic ahead of time might help me do that.  Okay.  DeRosa sets up the discussion as follows:

A set of basic questions arises when one considers the process required to form these three kinds of rock.  The answers offered by the evolutionary model leave gaping holes in the search for intelligent conclusions.  The catastrophic worldwide Flood model offers a more rational, coherent framework for answers to these basic questions.

DeRosa has my interest.

1. How do the sedimentary rocks get hard?

DeRosa appears to accurately represent mainstream science here, but then simply dismisses it, because sedimentary rock requires water to form, yet it’s all over the world, even where there is no water.  The sedimentary rock is proof that it was once under water however, and suggesting that this water was once a river or lake seems to fantastic to him.  A global flood makes a lot more sense.

What I’m missing however is, first of all, an argument.   Why does it not make sense for mountain regions all over the world to have been underneath rivers, lakes, and streams?  Am I that brainwashed that I cannot see it?  He would probably say so.  But here’s the thing.  Mainstream science doesn’t actually say that the rivers, lakes, and streams built the high mountains.  They say that such built the crust that makes up the high mountains; at the time however, the crust was probably at or below sea level.  Then, plate tectonics (i.e., earthquakes) thrusts one continental plate upward, as the opposing continental plate is thrust beneath it.  As one moves over the other, you get mountains.  There is an entire science to this: Geology, and apparently I recall now that I took a class in it in college.  I am laughing now, because we kind of glossed over the actual formation of the rocks themselves, but plate tectonics was a big deal.  We even looked at seismic pictures of the earth’s crust, augmented by drilling and other studies to show how the Rocky mountains themselves are forming along the San Andreas fault, as one plate plunges underneath another.  I found it pretty dramatic at the time.  DeRosa does not even hint at this kind of knowledge.

Evolutionists resolve this dilemma by waving the magic wand of “time”.  They insist that the sediments are washed into rivers, lakes, and oceans, and then fall to the bottom and pile up in layers.  After many years, these sediments harden into layers, with those on the bottom hardening first.  The problem with this theory is that there are beds of sedimentary rock everywhere on top of the earth’s crust.  Most of the large mountain chains are made of sedimentary rocks.  How did all those sediments collect and become cemented together to make towering mountains?  The logical answer is a worldwide Flood.

I am caught wondering whether DeRosa really doesn’t know about Plate Tectonics, or if he simply dismisses it.  Had I had known, I would have saved my Christian brother DeRosa a seat in Geology class 20 years ago.

2. Is there an alternative to time as the mechanism of rock formation?

Yes! Rock formation can be explained by means of two processes, compaction and cementation, both of which could have occurred within one year after the waters of the Flood began to subside.

DeRosa explains the process that would happen after the floods rains have ended, but before the water has evaporated.  Basically, all of the sediment in the now-calmer waters would settle down to the bottom, where they experience increasing pressure from newer layers and the waters above.  As more and more layers settle, the layers below would be “pancaked” by the layers above, a process called compaction.  As the sand grains are compacted even closer, the water within them gets pushed out.  Afterwards, the warm water and minerals produced by the Flood act as a glue to harden the rock into layers, referred to as “pancakes”.  Finally, just as cement doesn’t take long to dry, this process need not take long either.  He closes this with the following:

The worldwide Flood model provides the massive amount of water and sediment that would be needed to build the thick “pancake” layering for the mountains present today.  It makes for a more intelligent alternative.

This theory leaves several questions unanswered for me.  Mind you, I’m a laymen about sedimentation, but I think I’m being reasonable in asking.  First of all, I have trouble understanding how all that water could have been squeezed out of the layers.  After all, that water has got to go somewhere.  Starting with something more intuitive, I think squeezing out air pockets would make sense to me.  The air would move up between the rocks, then continue up through the water to the surface where it’s released into the atmosphere.  But water being released into the water?  Maybe if it were steam then it would rise anyway, but if squeezing is required then it implies that it is liquid; if it were steam though, then the surrounding rocks would have be hot enough to make the steam.  Taking it another step, given the pressure of the layers and water above, the rocks would have to be hotter than boiling, because extreme pressure raises a liquid’s boiling temperature.  In fact, for this to work, that would have to be the case, because if the water within the layers was still liquid and had a similar temperature to the waters above the layers, then the pressure it exerts up would equal the pressure being exerted down, and so it would probably not go anywhere, leaving the rocks saturated.  Therefore, he must have either left out the rocks’ hotter temperatures from his description, or the theory is not thought through.

The next question is how the water helped make cement if it was squeezed out of the layers first.  Perhaps only most of the water was squeezed out?  Why only most?  If the rocks were hot enough to make steam, the water would be gone; if it isn’t hot, the rocks would not be compact.  In either case, how did the remaining water dry?

Then finally, when you look at a mountain, you usually see that the sedimentary layers are slanted, sometimes ending abruptly at another series of identical layers that are no longer lined up with the first.  When did that happen?  I could imagine a Creationist arguing for mountainous upheaval during the rains, or at least before the waters calmed, but after?  That doesn’t make sense, but it’s the logical extension of DeRosa’s argument.

In light of these questions, this theory makes no sense to me. 

Earlier in the chapter, DeRosa asks, “Did God purposely leave us a model of rock formation in the magma and lava of the earth that would lead us to His Word?”  Well, yes.  It tells us how outgassing created the deep the Holy Spirit hover in Day 1.  Similarly, it would seem to me that lakes and rivers were left by God to serve as a model for how sedimentary layers are created (i.e., over time), and that earthquakes are allowed by God to serve as a model of how plate tectonics build mountains from layers of sediment.  Therefore, I would be looking in God’s word for where these events took place.  In fact, I have and have been documenting it as I go along in my blog’s ‘Creation Week’ Category.

3. What supplied the massive pressure and heat needed to make metamorphic rocks?

I am unsure what heat he is talking about, because he doesn’t describe the role of heat in his theory.  Regardless, DeRosa’s answer: the flood.

4. Why are fossils found in abundance on every continent?

Fossils are traces of plant and animal life that existed in the past and are found only in sedimentary rocks.

Not true.  Some are found in ice.  Others are found in tar pits.  Others are found in magmatic rock, having been caught in a volcanic eruption.

Fossils number in the trillions and suggest a swift, catastrophic event that buried them before any decay or decomposition occurred.

Then why did so many species leave only a few samples behind?

Fish bones and scales do not harden … they scatter.  Yet there are fossilized casting that show bone, and even scale, as if somebody took a picture and embedded it in the rocks.  Fish fossils, for example, are common in the Green River Shales in Wyoming.  One would have to conclude that these fossils, as observed today, had to be the result of a catastrophic even that would cause rapid burial.  The fossil evidence points to a worldwide Flood.

If one would “have to conclude” that, then why don’t the vast majority of scientific Christians who love God’s word conclude that?

The Geologic Column and Inherent Problems

No dispute with the his description of the Geologic Column.  He drew no conclusions here, just described it.

Going in Circles

The Geological Column theorizes that the complexity of fossils in the ground will increase as one ascends the column toward the earth’s surface.  Thus, the placement of a fossil in the Geological Column determines the age of the fossil.

DeRosa then proceeds to describe how index fossils are used to date each layer in the column, because the rocks themselves cannot be dated radiometrically.  Therefore, the index fossils are used to date the layers, and that date is used to date other fossils within the layer.  DeRosa calls that “circular reasoning”:

But how was the age of individual index fossils in the Geological Column determined? They were determined on the presupposition that evolution is true.  The rock age was determined by evolution.  Yet evolutionists lean on the Geological Column to affirm evolution.  This is circular reasoning and poses something of a problem. “If we date the rocks by the fossils, how can we then turn around and talk about the pattern of the evolutionary change through time in the fossil record?  A circular argument arises: Interpret the fossil record in the terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory.  Well, it would, wouldn’t it?”

Did you follow that? Let me show you the steps more clearly:

1. Assuming evolution, date the fossils (probably used radiometric dating to start)
2. Use the dates to date the rocks
3. Use the rocks to date more fossils
4. Use the fossil sequence in the rocks to prove evolution

If you haven’t noticed, this is the scientific method.  Here is the sequence again:

1. Assuming evolution, date the fossils (suggest a theory — evolution is true)
2. Use the dates to date the rocks (apply the theory)
3. Use the rocks to date more fossils (test the theory — the fossils should appear to have evolved)
4. Use the fossil sequence in the rocks to prove evolution (confirm the theory)

One of the things that DeRosa constantly harps on in his book is that evolution cannot be tested.  But then you show him a test, and he says, “Oh, you’re reasoning’s circular.”  No, it’s not.  In actuality, it is the computed dates of the index fossils that suggest evolution.  When you look at the strata matching them, Evolution would be falsified if the fossils found within the same strata did not follow the same evolutionary pattern.  Notice DeRosa does not argue that the process falsified the data.  He just won’t accept that it verifies the data.  It is the most unscientific approach that one could have, and it is extremely common.  (For another example of this, read Common Scientific Misunderstandings of Young Earth Creationists.  Scroll down to number 6.)  Then, as if to prove to me that he really does not care about the science, he continues (on the very next line) with this:

Nowhere in the earth is this complete column observable.

Not true. For a list of 32 places in the world (and counting) where the complete column can be observed read Glenn Morton’s The Geologic Column and Its Implications to the Flood.  Scroll down, it’s toward the bottom of the article.

DeRosa later quotes John Woodmorappe:

Since only a small percentage of the earth’s surface obeys even a significant portion of the geological column, it becomes an overall exercise of gargantuan special pleading and imagination for the evolutionary-uniformitarian paradigm to maintain that there ever were geological periods.  The claim of their having taken place to form a continuum of rock/life/time of ten biochronologic “onion skin” (geological column) over the earth is therefore a fantastic and imaginative contrivance.

In Can Froede and Reed kill the Geologic Column?, Glenn Morton describes exactly how the oil industry relies on the existence of the geological column to predict the qualities of the oil they are drilling for.  In part, Morton states:

Secondly, doing away with the geologic column does not take into account the physical properties of the rocks. Seismic data ONLY measures the velocity and density of a rock. It doesn’t know what fossils are found in the rocks. However, we can tie oil wells with their occurrences of various fossils by following the same reflection character on the seismic data. When we run physical logs in a well we collect information on the density and velocity of sound in the rocks. We then use this to create a synthetic seismogram which we can tie, wiggle for wiggle, to our seismic data. In this way we know that the peak or trough on the seismic data is caused a sand or shale of interest. Then we can follow the reflections away from the well, tie the reflection into other wells and predict (very successfully) the paleontology in any well we are about to drill.

If this isn’t verification of the scientific method, that what is?

More Geological Challenges

1. Surface Features - For some reason, DeRosa thinks that because footprints prove a stratum dried quickly in one part of the world, therefore the layers weren’t laid over long periods of time.  His misunderstanding is that a given layer takes a long time to form.  It is more accurate to say that successive layers form quickly, but are separated by many years.  To not know this hows lack of study in the area.

2. Bioturbation - Because there has always been life to disturb the top most layer of sediment, and because all sediment has been at one time the top-most layer, therefore all sediment should have been disturbed, and thus we should find no fossils within it.  Therefore, this points at a catastrophe.  Problem: Evolution is filled with catostrophes.  How could he not know that?  Again, this shows lack of study.  Also see response to #1.

3. Lack of Soil Layer - Why are there no fossilized soil layers?  Uhh, there are.  They are called paleosols.  You can read about them here and here.

4. Soft Sediment Deformation - Why are some sedimentary layers bent? Well, because layers do in fact form more quickly than DeRosa thinks evolutionists believe, his explanation is actually what happened… minus the Flood.

5. Polystrate Fossils - DeRosa believes that because there are fossilized trees cutting through multiple strata, that it cannot be explained satisfactorily by geologists.  The problem it seems (if I am understanding the issue correctly) is that once a tree dies and the layer around it fossilizes, the tree itself should rot.  It shouldn’t stick around long enough for the next layer of sedimentation or the next.  Here is an excerpt from Glenn Morton’s site, where he was involved in a dialog about this:

     “A second important geological objection related to certain polystrate fossils, which were often found in an upright position, and cutting through two or more strata of rock. One of the most famous polystrate fossils of the early 19th century was this tree found in a quarry in Scotland in 1830, which can be seen passing through many strata of rock. Two theories to explain such fossils were proposed and debated by leading geologists well into the 1840s, namely, either 1) that the trees had been gradually buried where they grew, or 2) that the trees had been uprooted, transported and deposited by flood waters, which rapidly buried them in sediments. Since a dead tree would rot and disintegrate over hundreds or thousands of years, the Scriptural geologists, along with some old-earth geologists, believed that these trees had been transported and buried catastrophically. “ 

The fallacy of the polystrate fossil argument (which you, a non-geologist) feel is solid consists in the FACT that under proper conditions wood won’t rot. Waterlogged wood simply doesn’t rot! This is what you all absolutely miss or ignore. The Mary Rose was a British war ship which sank in 1545. It was rediscovered and raised again.(impossible if the wood had rotted over the 3 centuries) http://www.maryrose.org/index.html.

In other words, there are conditions under which a dead tree would in fact stick around long enough to be fossilized through several layers of sedimentation.

Fossils and Evolution

Given the claim that it is the record of hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary change, it should show examples of the devleopment of each species at every stage of the evolutionary process.  In fact, it does not.  It is an embarrassment.  Over the decades, palentologists have admitted that the fossil record is woefully incomplete.

I have no idea where DeRosa gets this idea that every stage of every species should be represented in the fossil record.  Scratch that.  I do know. As I have reviewed this chapter, it has become increasngly clear that DeRosa honestly believes that strata deposition and fossilization is a continuos process.  It would explain many of his misunderstandings.  Well, he’s wrong.  Strata deposition and fossilization are actually rare, and tend to occur during major events and catastrophies. Some places provide really good conditions for more frequent fossilization, without need for a catastrophy of course, but I am not expert enough to tell you where those are.  However, I have read enough evolutionary literature to know that I could find them if I researched it.

Millions upon millions of fossils have been collected to date, but there is no evidence of transition fossils, that is, fossils of organisms in an intermediate stage of development between steps on the evolutionary ladder.

I believe this is explained by the same misunderstanding.  What fossilizes is what fossilizes; you get what you get.  Another common response is that everything is a transitional form.  But that aside, there are in fact transitional forms.  You can read about one example here: From Fish to Amphibian.  A more detailed discussion of transitional forms in general, accompanied by many examples can be found here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html.

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Well, I didn’t remain terse, but nor do I feel as frustrated as I did reviewing Chapter 2.  Again, I want to stress my belief in DeRosa’s sincerity.  His arguments are the standard Creationist arguments, and so on some level I commend him for representing his position accurately. However, it is quite apparent that his own understanding of evolution and geology has more gaps in it than the fossil record.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 4th, 2008 at 2:06 am and is filed under The Science, Creationism, Evolution, Creation Theories, The Flood, Book Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.