The Mud Problem: Why Young-Earth Flood Geology Fails Basic Physics

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Another Joel Duff classic:

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Peak thumbnail design

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This is great.

Duff refers to the equations as coming from engineering, but I think that point should be highlighted: rates of mud consolidation are studied by people who have no agenda regarding the age of the earth, who simply want to build dams and foundations for buildings and such. They are incentivized to be accurate by concerns for safety and profit. If YECs were right that consolidation could happen quickly, engineers of all faith perspectives would be using different calculations.

I first saw an argument like this with respect to the geologic column: if it weren’t consistent, petroleum engineers wouldn’t use fossils to help them drill to the right depth. They vote with their bottom line for the standard model.

YECs often allege scientific bias, and I think wherever an obviously objective party can be found, it’s worth highlighting.

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The comments from the oilfield geologists are great. :slight_smile:

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If I were a YEC, I might be comfortable appealing to a miracle to solve the mud problem. “God wanted the mud to dry up faster so that normal life could resume, so he made it happen.”

The idea of accelerated radioactive decay is much tougher theologically. “God miraculously sped up decay because… he wanted lots of radiation and heat… except that would kill everything and melt the world… so he miraculously got rid of it… leaving only the illusion of age.”

Previously discussed in The Burning Bush Reversed: the Unbiblical Miracles of Young Earth Creationism

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Scratching around for YEC responses to the underlying Mud Problem, I came across the following:

It’s optimistic tone seems to be summarised by this quote from Kurt Wise:

It seems possible that under catastrophic conditions any sediment can be rapidly deposited and rapidly lithified. For example, an understanding of the formation of beachrock and allied limestones as well as the diagenesis of carbonates may well lead us to an understanding of how all the limestones of earth came to be.

This quote in turn comes from this article:

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