Talk:Channeled scablands
"(corrected quote attribution - the text quoted was to what Macrae was responding.)" Can you provide reference to this. I confirmed the quote attribution here.
http://www.nps.gov/iceagefloods/d-sctn.pdf
--Chris Ashcraft 20:38, 8 Oct 2005 (GMT)
Re: "Modern geology has been largely founded upon the need by naturalists to explain our world independent of supernatural Biblical references such as the global flood."
This may be the creationist viewpoint, but it is not shared by the geologists themselves. Some early geologists attempted to explain the world's rock formations in terms of the global flood, but were unable to do so.
Also the timing described is wrong - the antiquity of the earth was recognised by geologists before the 1850s, though the full extent of it's antiquity was not.
Rthearle 07:12, 25 Oct 2004 (GMT)
<<This may be the creationist viewpoint, but it is not shared by the geologists themselves.>>
I would respond that this may be the evolutionary viewpoint, but it is not shared by all geologists. I accept that this is only the talk page, but one thing that really annoys me is bibliosceptics' attempts to draw a false distinction between, in this case, "creationists" and "geologists". Geologists can be either creationists or non-creationists.
I also reject that early geologists were unable to explain rock formations in terms of the global flood.
As to the timing, whether or not it is the best way to put it, the article does not say that a shift in thinking occurred in 1850, but rather that by 1850 this new way of thinking had taken hold. That in itself implies that it had been around for some time before that.
Philip J. Rayment 04:13, 26 Oct 2004 (GMT)
I think your agreeing with me, but misreading the article, which actually says it had started to take hold. Re geologists, I wasn't drawing a distinction between 'geologists' and 'creationists'. Non-creationist geologists had no need...to explain our world independent of supernatural Biblical references - they didn't set out to disprove the flood. Nor did creationist (scriptural) geologists. Modern creationists (such as the article author) may try to attribute such motives to geologists, but such motives simply do not exist. Rthearle
Okay, perhaps this is a case of (a) me misunderstanding you, and (b) different understandings of the meaning of words. I didn't read your reference to "the geologists" in your second sentence to be a reference to the specific geologists referred to by "the naturalists" of the first sentence. If that's what you meant, I withdraw my comment. I took "the geologists" to mean geologists generally, as distinct from non-geologists. Also, my quote of "taken hold" was unfortunate in that I didn't quote the exact words, but my understanding of "started to take hold" refers to the time when it started to become widely accepted, as distinct from when the idea was first proposed. Ideas are often proposed well before they become widely accepted (i.e. before they "take hold"), and in some cases even the process of becoming widely accepted could take some time, so that you could refer to a time when something "started to bake hold" and a later time when it "finished taking hold". Whether or not this was the case here is a separate issue, but unless the information is factually incorrect, I see no problem with the wording. Philip J. Rayment 23:18, 26 Oct 2004 (GMT)
