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The creationist believe that there might of been a canopy of water over the earth...

Okey-dokey. You now have a hypothesis. Now... what are some things you would do to test it? Boring standard geology expects oil to form where (a) lots of plant matter gets buried, and (b) a hard layer of rock forms over it to trap the oil as it develops. Given known climate in the past (e.g. knowing where continents have drifted) we can make some predictions about the most likely spots to find such conditions. Ancient shallow deltas and such are among the best spots.

But if 'Flood geology' is right and the environment was better for vegetation all over, then that would imply that there'd be large deposits of buried vegetation in places where 'standard' geology wouldn't predict them. And thus large, unexpected deposits of oil. Go ahead, put your money into testing this hypothesis. If you're as sure as you claim, you'll have more money to give to the poor!

Also please explain what makes Flood geology good or bad about drilling?

Ask a petroleum geologist and (former) young-Earth creationist.

Basically, you're trying to use science to disprove an unscientific opinion. That's not an appropriate tool in this particular argument.

Well, first off, it's not intended to convert the diehard. It's not intended to convert anyone by itself, even. It's intended to provoke thought and investigation. A little searching might turn up something like this.

Second, it's not even a scientific argument. Rather, I'm pointing out a discrepancy between stated beliefs and behavior in practice.

Evolution is a fact as well as a theory. The evidence for evolution as a fact is almost as overwhelming as the evidence for the Keplerian model of the solar system. Thus, like the Keplerian model, evolution is a fact.

Your other points are similarly misinformed. No one is preventing anyone from investigating the possibility that evolution is incorrect. The problem is that the people in question have no interest in doing science. They want to teach their theology to public school students. There would be no issue if they tried to do research and tried to get it peer reviewed. Leapfrogging that process to bring material into public schools just isn't ok.

As to the claim that we will see the demise of evolution soon, see http://home.entouch.net/dmd/moreandmore.html This claim has been made for over a hundred years. (The link in question is primarily about Young Earth Creationism and so includes quotes claiming the soon to occur demise of geology as well but even without those quotes the point stands).

The hypothesis you refer to as the "space seed" is generally called panspermia. However, it isn't relevant. Evolution makes no claims about where life came from. That's for abiogenesis. Evolution explains the diversification of life once it got here, whether by abiogenesis or panspermia or aliens or God or Cthulhu.

Your comment about Darwin is also wrong and misleading to boot. First of all, science does not function like a religion, so what someone a 150 years ago would have thought isn't terribly relevant. Second of all, in so far as you make the claim that the evidence we have would convince Darwin that he was incorrect, you are simply wrong. Darwin did discuss ideas that would falsify evolution. We've had a 150 years of evolution, and none of those problems have arose.

I thought they mostly used seismology

But young-Earth geologists who actually look at seismological data don't stay young-Earth geologists. As Henri Poincaré said, "Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house".

Seriously, if you really believe that conventional geology is... er... catastrophically wrong, and that you have a better theory, then that means a major investment opportunity for you and your fellow-travelers. Yet, I have run across very few creationists that are actually willing to put their money where there mouth is. Why is that?

the point is that if the sciences won't grant degrees to creationists, it's rather odd to turn around and talk about creationists' lack of scientific achievement in the field

But I'm not asking about a lack of scientific achievement. I'm asking about a lack of economic and business achievement. You don't need an advanced degree to do well in business. Bill Gates is a college dropout, for example. However, it seems like only con men actually try to apply creationism to a useful purpose.

Why does geology predict rather well where to find oil? Because it begins with observed facts.

But - and this is critical - it doesn't end there. Oil exploration is not just a matter of, "Gee, we found oil and the rocks looked kinda like this, let's look up in our records where other rock that looks like that can be found." You need to fit those facts into a framework. If oil forms primarily from reefs that have been buried under the right kind of sediment, and maintained under the right sort of temperatures and pressures, and then collected in other kinds of rock formations, then to find oil, you need to be able to identify where such conditions have obtained in the past.

You need to know where the oceans were, and how deep they were, and from that where their coasts were, and which of those coasts have been buried. You need to be able to figure out what areas have had the right kind of elevated temperatures for the right length of time, and where reservoirs could form, and which of those would have been geologically stable for long periods of time. All of this connects to other fields - chemistry and physics for dating, modeling, and assaying, paleontology and biology for dating and modeling again, then toss in seismology and so forth. It's not exactly a coincidence that creationists who enter the oil business either leave the field or stop being creationists.

I assert that there are no "facts" about the origin or age of the universe, because you must choose your epistemological presuppositions first.

We do have an epistemological difference, but it's not the one you're proposing. It's much more fundamental. You believe in the 'supernatural' - something forever unknowable by humans, even in principle. However, that's a troublesome concept.

How can we, in practice, distinguish between something 'currently unknown but comprehensible' and something 'forever unknowable'? (We could also add other categories like 'knowable in principle but impractical to discover' and 'knowable and practical but, just by bad luck, will never have the explanation stumbled upon'.) From a practical perspective, the only way to tell which category something falls into is to try to understand it; if you succeed, then it was knowable. The problem is, if you fail, you can't conclude that it's unknowable. It might be... but it also might be the case that you just didn't happen to figure out something knowable, and you or someone else might have better luck on a subsequent attempt.

If you decide that something is fundamentally incomprehensible, you will stop trying to understand it. Richard Feynman once joked that "You don't understand Quantum Mechanics, you just get used to it," but he never stopped trying to advance understanding of QM, despite how counterintuitive it is. And it's worth noting that QM is not quite as incomprehensible as it's popularly portrayed - if it were, the computer you're reading this on could never have been designed and built.

Accepting that there are things that we don't know is not the same as accepting that there are things that we cannot, even in principle, know. As discussed above, the notion of 'the unknowable' adds nothing from a pr

The young earth theory isn't even classic Christianity, having become popular in the US in the 18th century. The church fathers had a variety of theories, and literally counting the years was a 17th century invention. Augustine noted that time as we know it is itself part of this creation, and therefore the 6 days in Genesis 1 could not refer to time in this universe. He speculated that the 6 days were a 6 day "seminar" where the new creation was was presented and explained to the angels.

A quick google search on "evolution phyla OR phylum" revealed this interesting link: http://home.entouch.net/dmd/cambevol.htm According to that article, they have found evidence for the evolution of new phyla. Care to explain how that article is wrong?

So how do you explain it ? Zoophilia :) ?

With such hotly-debated scientific questions, I believe it is prudent not to jump to quick-and-easy conclusions.

In fact, way too many Diatoms to fit into a young earth. I just did a little research and diatoms are tiny single-celled animal that lives in salt and fresh water. When diatoms die and collect on the ocean or lake floor they buried deeper and deeper and deeper over many centuries. After being buried they are compressed into what is known as diatomite or diatomaceous earth. If the diatomite is squeezed and heated it forms chert and even more squeezing and heating you get Opals.

There are huge deposits of diatomite. For example the Monterey formation of southern California. This single deposit of compressed dead diatoms and other fossils are large enough to cover the earth to a depth of a several inches!

But there are other deposits and this guy claims that there "are enough dead diatoms to cover the earth uniformly to a depth of 21 meters, or 70 feet!"

Taking into account that these diatoms had a certain life span you can only come up with long long long periods of time to accomodate their deposition.

And if you study fossilization, I believe that you would find that the catastrophic answer makes more sense (I am not a Geologist or Palentologist, however.)

It shows that you're not. Read Glenn Morton's story.
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/gstory.htm

Dogmatic defense is when lies are kept as truthful because the people holding the beliefs are too afraid to face the consequences.

What if the flood itself changed the typical ratios of C14 to C12 and N14?

Then we would see it when we were calibrating C14 charts; we would see vast changes in C14 ratios around 4,000 years ago in tree rings and lake varves.

How do we look at tree rings? You have a really old tree, say 4000 years old. You measure the C-14 level in the middle of the tree, on the outside of the tree, and so on; you know how old a given part of the tree is by counting rings. You then see how much C-14 you have for a given known age.

At this point, you know how much C-14 the world had 4000 (or whatever the age of the tree is) years ago. You then take a tree that died a few thousand years ago and do the same thing; you can determine how old the tree really is because this tree died when the first tree was alive; just measure the C14 on the outside of the tree.

You can go well past 10,000 years in the past with C-14 dating this way. In fact, a process similiar to this is how we came up with C-14 calibration charts.

Not good enough for you? Ok, we can look at lake varves:

http://home.entouch.net/dmd/age.htm

Carbon dating of organic materials gives us the same calibration as the tree ring game I gave you above.

So, assuming that C-14 does decay a certain amount, and assuming that C-14 levels are constant, we compare the results of that assumption with the assumption that trees grow one ring a year, and the assumption that certain lakes deposit one varve a year. All of the assumptions have been independently made, are reasonable assumptions, and support each other. And they all agree that we can date the earth to be at least 10,000 years old. And we don't find any evidence of a global flood 4,000 years ago.

(Yes, this is a repost from somewhere else in the thread)

No such set of assumptions have to be made.

You can calibrate on tree rings, for example. You have a really old tree, say 4000 years old. You measure the C-14 level in the middle of the tree, on the outside of the tree, and so on; you know how old a given part of the tree is by counting rings. You then see how much C-14 you have for a given known age.

At this point, you know how much C-14 the world had 4000 (or whatever the age of the tree is) years ago. You then take a tree that died a few thousand years ago and do the same thing; you can determine how old the tree really is because this tree died when the first tree was alive.

You can go well past 10,000 years in the past with C-14 dating this way. In fact, a process similiar to this is how we came up with C-14 calibration charts.

Not good enough for you? Ok, we can look at lake varves:

http://home.entouch.net/dmd/age.htm

Carbon dating of organic materials gives us the same calibration as the tree ring game I gave you above.

So, assuming that C-14 does decay a certain amount, and assuming that C-14 levels are constant, we compare the results of that assumption with the assumption that trees grow one ring a year, and the assumption that certain lakes deposit one varve a year. All of the assumptions have been independently made, are reasonable assumptions, and support each other. And they all agree that we can date the earth to be at least 10,000 years old.

I could say the same thing about Fahrenheit 9/11... yeah, sure some of it is quacky, some of it is brutally relevant. Trying to generalize it to dismiss it will leave you bent over like an ostrich.

As far as the Oil Supplies Dwindling vs Nuke Plants Corrupt... what do you want? Nuke plants in our cars? You're talking about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie Time, baby! Apples and Oranges. And even if they weren't, asserting that Nuke plants are run corruptly doesn't contradict that Oil production has peaked. More close to the center of the target is that news reporters are supposed to report fact, and the facts regarding Saudi Oil are scarce. The actual capacity/production numbers ghawar oil field are very intentionally the closest guarded secrets in the Middle East. There's no external auditing, HA! Anyway, it's very interesting.

Here
Here
HereSeveral of the links were blocked at work for some reason but I had been to them previous and was familiar with the content.

Note that I selected both pro and anti creation sites do demonstrate that modern fossilization is not particularly controversial.

That's nothing more than some creationism "science".
Check this and this or some real hardcore science instead. If you want more, just google for "sun radius annual shrinkage" or smth like that. Talk.Origins is also a good source of information.