The Great Flood
We were talking about population in my Algebra 3 / Trig. Class and my teacher went into how he doesn?t really trust carbon 14 dating and that he thinks that the great flood could have happened around only 5000 B.C. Is he crazy or is there possibly any truth to this? My biology teacher laughed and said he is completely wrong. Does anyone have any sites or knowledge about this on comparisons?
My math teacher?s main points were saying that a the world was a crust around water that acted as a cushion from the center of the earth so there were no earthquakes or volcanoes?that type of stuff. He said a meteor or something hit and broke the crust, and then the water under enormous pressure was shot as high as the atmosphere out at the polls and that is why there are mammoths frozen so perfectly, as the super cooled water came down, it froze instantly and all that stuff. He also said how the Grand Canyon wasn?t millions of years of the Colorado carving it, but just days of massive amounts of water/mud. He sighted Mt. St. Helens as an example saying that the same thing happened there only on like 1/40th of the scale or something. He also said ?they? (this freaked me out, conspiracy theory sounding an all) don?t want us to know about the other theories and that is why you won?t hear about them. He said that a professor at a college in Arizona was fired because of teaching this sort of thing.
He also said carbon 14 doesn?t work right, and one of his examples was that rock layers are dated older at the top then at the bottom. He went into the fact that carbon 14 found in coal shouldn?t be there if it?s as old as they say and that you can?t use that dating method because it isn?t necessarily a good measure due to the fact that it is a measure of how much carbon 14 is lost in our conditions not the conditions of ancient times.
My biology teacher laughed and said how they disagree on those things and that the older dated rocks are sometimes caused by mountainous regions falling over and so it looks inverted when you date it.
So what do you think, I am young and impressionable, so I?d like to read up on it, as I?m sure we will talk about it tomorrow. My math teacher was pretty convincing but it is probably just because I don?t know enough?just like if someone doesn?t have explanations, it is easy to make it look like we didn?t land on the moon (not to open up another can of worms).
He said more that I could go into but only will if I need to. So I may have made him sound crazier then I should have or less crazier then he really is.
My math teacher?s main points were saying that a the world was a crust around water that acted as a cushion from the center of the earth so there were no earthquakes or volcanoes?that type of stuff. He said a meteor or something hit and broke the crust, and then the water under enormous pressure was shot as high as the atmosphere out at the polls and that is why there are mammoths frozen so perfectly, as the super cooled water came down, it froze instantly and all that stuff. He also said how the Grand Canyon wasn?t millions of years of the Colorado carving it, but just days of massive amounts of water/mud. He sighted Mt. St. Helens as an example saying that the same thing happened there only on like 1/40th of the scale or something. He also said ?they? (this freaked me out, conspiracy theory sounding an all) don?t want us to know about the other theories and that is why you won?t hear about them. He said that a professor at a college in Arizona was fired because of teaching this sort of thing.
He also said carbon 14 doesn?t work right, and one of his examples was that rock layers are dated older at the top then at the bottom. He went into the fact that carbon 14 found in coal shouldn?t be there if it?s as old as they say and that you can?t use that dating method because it isn?t necessarily a good measure due to the fact that it is a measure of how much carbon 14 is lost in our conditions not the conditions of ancient times.
My biology teacher laughed and said how they disagree on those things and that the older dated rocks are sometimes caused by mountainous regions falling over and so it looks inverted when you date it.
So what do you think, I am young and impressionable, so I?d like to read up on it, as I?m sure we will talk about it tomorrow. My math teacher was pretty convincing but it is probably just because I don?t know enough?just like if someone doesn?t have explanations, it is easy to make it look like we didn?t land on the moon (not to open up another can of worms).
He said more that I could go into but only will if I need to. So I may have made him sound crazier then I should have or less crazier then he really is.
Comments
The flood stories are actually rather enlightening because the provide some insight to the relationship that people had with there surroundings. The Mesopotamians (in the Gilgamesh story), are clearly influenced by the unpredictability of the flood, and thus feel that their gods are playing with them, whereas Noah forms a bond with God after the flood, showing a much more pacified association with there surroundings. Just thought I'd share. Carry on with the Creationist bashing.
Now that I have taken advantage of an opportunity to crack on religion, I must say that many myths are based in fact, and it is true there are a lot of flood stories. That doesn't necessarily mean that some sort of flood happened, all the flood stories may have just originated with the same lie. But it's still possible.
Originally posted by agent302
While I know nothing of the dates, it is quite likely that a large flood did in fact happen in Biblical times. The reason for my belief here is that the flood story shows up in a number of Ancient Near East texts. It's in the Old Testament, but it's also in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which leads one to think that some sort of catastrophic flood did happen.
Maybe it was the flooding of the black sea. Who knows?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea
Originally posted by Anders
Wonder how the atmosphere is in the teachers lounge...
Warning of the Surgeon general : smoking carpet is bad for mental health
Originally posted by giant
Maybe it was the flooding of the black sea. Who knows?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea
Yeah. But it also could be that the Noah story was based on the Gilgamesh story. Either way, it's interesting to speculate.
asterex: I don't understand the premise. Your teacher said the flood "only happened around 5000 BC?" Is there some prevailing theory that it happened before then? Is there even a prevailing theory that it happened at all? It sure does sound like he's trying to push some kind of creationist theory - the carbon 14 stuff, the "Grand Canyon wasn't created in millions of years" stuff, the "they don't want us to know the truth" stuff and "a professor in Arizona was fired" stuff. Ask him the name of the professor who was fired. I give 100:1 odds that never happened.
agent302: if anyone deserves bashing, it's creationists.
Originally posted by BRussell
agent302: if anyone deserves bashing, it's creationists.
I know. I was endorsing Creationist bashing, not being sarcastic.
Originally posted by BRussell
Yeah. But it also could be that the Noah story was based on the Gilgamesh story. Either way, it's interesting to speculate.
asterex: I don't understand the premise. Your teacher said the flood "only happened around 5000 BC?" Is there some prevailing theory that it happened before then? Is there even a prevailing theory that it happened at all? It sure does sound like he's trying to push some kind of creationist theory - the carbon 14 stuff, the "Grand Canyon wasn't created in millions of years" stuff, the "they don't want us to know the truth" stuff and "a professor in Arizona was fired" stuff. Ask him the name of the professor who was fired. I give 100:1 odds that never happened.
And if it *did*, I applaud it just as I would a professor teaching Scientology as a reasonable alternative history.
No wonder our educational system sucks - we're placing our children in the hands of imbeciles incapable of a minimum of rational or critical thinking.
I understand him believing all this stuff though, he is a hard core christian.
Originally posted by Kickaha
And if it *did*, I applaud it just as I would a professor teaching Scientology as a reasonable alternative history.
No wonder our educational system sucks - we're placing our children in the hands of imbeciles incapable of a minimum of rational or critical thinking.
Really? I wouldn't go that far. I think you're currently in academia, right? You can't - and shouldn't - fire people for loony ideas. High School is different, but not in universities.
There are other dating methods available now which are more popular (i think) inclusive of methods measuring the level of argon in samples which is related to the isotope decay of potassium... this gives you a measure of the last time a rock changed chemical composition (ie a process that would release the stored argon) and cannot be used for fossils...
On the note of floods. There could have been a flood, but I believe the black sea flood thing has been shown to not be possible...
Originally posted by ast3r3x
Well it was just a side topic going off of how the population growth formula didn't take into account tragedies like that stuff. You know how high school is, it's always fun to get the teacher off topic.
I understand him believing all this stuff though, he is a hard core christian.
I guess you are fortunate he is not your science teacher.
Originally posted by BRussell
Really? I wouldn't go that far. I think you're currently in academia, right? You can't - and shouldn't - fire people for loony ideas. High School is different, but not in universities.
True. High school is about imparting facts and (one would *hope*) critical thinking skills to students so that they have a toolset with which to simply get through life.
University is about expanding horizons and looking at possible alternatives.
*HOWEVER* (oh, you knew one was coming
(And this is coming from the guy that thinks that cold fusion still has some potential unexplained processes that could turn out to be interesting.)
Originally posted by Kickaha
(And this is coming from the guy that thinks that cold fusion still has some potential unexplained processes that could turn out to be interesting.)
Oh and he said he figured out cold fusion as well
I just wanted to make sure he was crazy and it wasn't one of those "columbus found america" type things. I figured it wasn't, but I'd make sure with the enlightened few on these boards
Wait... Columbus found America??? Why, was it lost?
Oh, and ask your teacher how he plans to use Carbon-14 testing on inorganic rocks.
So, er, yes: making science fit to a preconceived world-view derived from a very special sacred text in operation vis-a-vis your maths teacher.
Originally posted by HOM
I have to point out that anyone that has taken Rocks for Jocks (Geology 101) knows that older rocks can be on top of younger rocks for many different reasons. One of the most common is called folding, it's when the pressures force rocks into cool looking shapes.
Oh, and ask your teacher how he plans to use Carbon-14 testing on inorganic rocks.
Yeah my biology teacher talked about folding after he stopped laughing