A Classic: 60,000 Year Varve Record Refutes YEC Interpretations

Dr. Swamidass already posted this link deep within another thread but some readers may have missed it. @Joel_Duff does such a great job with so many important topics and his 2016 article on varves is yet another must-read.

When I was learning-my-way-out of “creation science”, I kept running into massive evidence which Young Earth Creationist authors either ignored or casually dismissed with little more than a sneer. Reading this article brought back memories of my frustrations:

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Sometimes I have to ask why YEC would even want evidence if they they already have faith. In a certain sense it seems that I have more faith in God than they do. It’s weird.

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I have seen many YEC’s try to claim that varves could be formed all at once in a single flood event. However, the dead insects and leaves found in the varves pose a very serious problem for YEC’s.

First, if these leaves and insects were buried in one event then they should all have nearly the same 14C age. They don’t. The 14C content in the organic samples differs greatly through the varve layers.

Second, the sorting of insect and leaves by their 14C content. As you go deeper, the less 14C the samples have. A flood doesn’t sort small pieces of biological detritus by tiny differences in radioactive carbon isotopes.

I have yet to see a YEC solve these problems.

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Nor do floods differentially and consistently sort large pieces of biological detritus, such as various kinds of animal carcasses.

The “hydrological sorting” argument appeals to many layperson audiences because it sounds “scientific” and most people don’t have much familiarity with what can be learned from flood deposits and sedimentary geology. So when people are told that scientists reject evidence of the global flood because they wish to reject the Bible and want to encourage the public to do likewise, it can sound plausible. When I was young I heard this in many churches and even from John Whitcomb Jr. himself (of The Genesis Flood fame) when he would speak in those environments.

If someone has been told that all radiometric dating is unreliable, then the moment some scientist mentions C-14, there is a kind of brain lock. I report that from personal experience. I had to “unlearn” a lot of disinformation before I could finally work my way out of the creation “science” community. Keep in mind also that even atrociously bad arguments are rarely discarded by most professional and layperson apologists for young earth creationism. They get recycled so often that only the most informed individuals recognize woefully obsolete claims. (That’s why even the Creation Museum has exhibits promoting ideas which are listed on AIG’s “don’t use these bad arguments” webpage.)

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I don’t know if it helps, but I try to separate the measurement of 14C from the age determination. There is no doubting the actual measurements of isotopes in the samples, so any YEC explanation needs to explain why we get those measurements. Like you said, there is a moment of brain lock, but if they break out of it perhaps they can see the problems YEC explanations face.

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Nothing refutes creationism.
These varves are very , very, unlikely to have been set in a iorder over these episodes in time. More likely they are pulses in the force that happened withing a fantastic great force. they are showing the influence from great power moving as a force. This is also shown in glacial ages in relation to bedrock morphological creations. A bigger subject.

I didn’t notice anyone here refuting creationism. I’m a creationist so I would surely have noticed if they did. But it is possible that I missed it.

As long as one ignores the mountains of evidence, I suppose one might say that.

I believe in being a good sport. I rarely swing at a pitch that is slow and right across the plate.

I don’t know what that means.

Too big for me. (At least, not tonight. And I am going to be tied up for several days.)

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The truth that comes from the reality of God’s creation refutes ‘Young Earth Creationism’, not dissimilar from the way that it refutes flat earth conspiracism.

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Not me. I sense a disturbance in the force, as if a million voices had thought about crying out and been silenced.

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How would this result in the sorting of organic samples by their 14C content? Why do we see a gradual reduction in 14C as we go down in the layers?

By definition.

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The issue I have confidence to deal with is the sorting. I see varves as explained as just pulses in a fluid movement that moves things. so a great movement easily can do a seeming impressive count.
The sorting of organic by 14C is not my thing. however it might just represent the effects of theb pressure that laid the varves. Just a guess.

“It might”? How in the world would pulses of fluid sort organic matter by tiny differences in 14C? I personally use fluidics to sort things in the lab, and I am telling you that this is impossible for the types of systems you are describing. Not only that, but you need to explain why all of these organic samples have different 14C content at the time of burial if they are the result of a single event. How does that work?

Until you solve these problems your explanation doesn’t work.

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Originally, all the carbon was concentrated at the top of the column and diffused downward from there. 14C of course diffused more slowly than 12C, and thus when the mud lithified and diffusion ended, its concentration in the sediments depended on their distance from the surface. I’m sure that if you checked you would find a similar pattern in 13C.

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Assuming you are playing Devil’s advocate . . .

Carbon doesn’t diffuse out of organic samples in an isotope dependent manner. If this were the case then we wouldn’t expect to see elevated 12C in organic samples, consistent with photosynthetic carbon capture. Instead, organic samples should have the same 12C/13C as inorganic pools if your scenario is correct, but that is not what we see. We aren’t talking about the carbon in the sediments, but carbon in the organic samples.

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I will admit that there are some unsolved difficulties with the theory, but I’m confident they will be dealt with eventually.

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My irony meter just went bonkers

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@John_Harshman’s explanation is more plausible (though still implausible) than the rest we have heard. To boot, it is directly testable.

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You better copyright that before it shows up in Sal Cordova’s YEC “science” class. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I present it freely to the world.