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Flood geology vs secular catastrophism

What are the differences?

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Much is made of the debate between ‘gradualists’ like Charles Lyell and ‘catastrophists’ like Georges Cuvier in the history of geology. In the 19th century it seemed that Lyell’s gradualism won the day—it was the dominant paradigm in geology for 150 years. However, Cuvier’s catastrophism has made a massive comeback in the last few decades. This presents new opportunities and challenges for biblical creationists. Carl Froede in his article The K/T impact hypothesis and secular neocatastrophism—why is this important to Flood geology? discusses some of the opportunities. Nick L. from the United States writes in response to this article, and CMI’s Shaun Doyle responds with comments interspersed, outlining some of the challenges and differences.

Dear Nick,

Thank you for your email.

I really hate to be nitpicky, but mainstream acceptance of a form of limited catastrophism hardly validates the idea that the strata of the entire American West was deposited and sculpted by Noah’s flood and the ensuing retreat of the floodwaters (just an example I picked).

True, but neither was the article implying that. The point is just that catastrophe is back on the table for discussion where it wasn’t before. At least now we don’t have to be completely talking past one another.

The stratigraphic record is rife with the evidence of catastrophic events (that is why one of the basic sedimentary structures geology students are taught to identify is the scour/fill structure). But it is far more common to see the effects of slow deposition and erosion.

Can we seriously say that after only ~30 years of serious reassessment of Lyell’s hold on geology? Lyell understood just how destructive the notion of catastrophe was to his entire historical framework—without something slow and gradual as an absolute norm there is no way to know purely from forensics when anything happened. This is why Lyell fought Cuvier and his followers with such vigour, and it’s why secular catastrophism must always anchor itself in something Lyellian—it has no timeline without Lyellian gradualism.

And we would of course dispute the notion that slow and gradual is the norm in the rock record (see our Geology Q and A). But unless you understand the philosophical/theological background to our understanding of geology, then you’ll most likely be left trying to launch a positivistic1 critique against a worldview that shuns positivism in any sort of historical study. (This doesn’t mean we leave no room for science, only that science doesn’t always get the final say.) We can all reduce each other’s fundamental justifications for our timelines to something rather facile: “natural law shows the world is billions of years old” or “the Bible says deep time is wrong”. But each position is far more complex than that in practice, especially when dealing with some specific empirical evidence. To summarize the issue as best as possible in a single sentence: we believe the Bible is the only self-attesting foundation for knowledge about the past, while the assumptions that ground deep time are internally inconsistent.

It has also been noted in laboratory experiments that the deposition of carbonate minerals (calcite, dolomite, aragonite, etc.) occurs on a timescale too slow for flood geology (read: Catastrophism) to explain the thick carbonate sequences of the Grand Canyon (see Plummer et al. 1978 or Reddy et al. 1981 for a discussion on the kinetics of carbonate deposition and dissolution).

Creationists are not unaware of such ‘problems’. Andrew Snelling discusses a few factors that speak against the ideas that the Grand Canyon limestones are evidence of slow and gradual deposition.2 First, the grain size distribution and structure of the Grand Canyon limestones differ markedly from modern lime mud deposits found in shallow tropical waters. Second, there is observational evidence of catastrophic formation of lime mud deposits caused by hurricanes. Third, many of the Grand Canyon limestone deposits cover thousands of square kilometres. Fourth, the Redwall Limestone has a fossil nautiloid bed with an estimated one billion fossils. Moreover, from those observed there is a distinct pattern to their deposition position; they generally face a NW–SE direction, which suggests a strong current depositing the remains catastrophically, and not of slow-and-gradual processes.

Wikimedia Commons/Drenaline
You cite Bretz as your catalyst persona for breaking away from true uniformitarianism. This would not be noteworthy but for the fact that Bretz stubbornly clung to a far outdated theory of cave development (originally postulated by William Morris Davis in 1930) that was disproved by researchers in both Europe and the Americas. This ‘ostrich mentality’ is what I most often notice about publications Creation scientists: latch onto the only study that supports your views and stick your head in the sand to discount all others.

Actually, the article somewhat questions Bretz’s impact on the gradualism/catastrophism debate. Carl Froede finds the catalyst for mainstream geology’s en masse break with Lyell in the impact hypothesis for the extinction of the dinosaurs. And note that Froede is not citing this K/T extinction event hypothesis because he believes it, but because it caused a paradigm shift among secular geologists.

Besides, modern research on the Channeled Scablands still follows Bretz’s lead. There are disagreements over the number of floods that formed the scablands, but the flood hypothesis remains the constraining paradigm.

And what do Bretz’s ideas about cave development have to do with his ‘Missoula Flood’ hypothesis? Just because one of his ideas was (presumably) wrong doesn’t mean they all were. And Bretz is widely recognized as a paradigm changer with respect to the Channeled Scablands—this is not news to modern geologists. So I don’t know how this article engendered an accusation of an “ostrich mentality” against us—you’ve cited something irrelevant to the impact of Bretz in relation to the article’s theme and have provided no evidence of said “ostrich mentality”.

Just in case this engenders a response, please understand a couple of things first. First, the mere fact we write rebuttal articles at all suggests we don’t simply cite studies that support our views. Second, it’s not as simple as ‘this study supports our ideas; this one doesn’t’. We come to the secular literature with a completely different set of assumptions about the past from what that literature operates with. We are bound to find certain studies more ‘useful’ than others because many will ask what we consider to be irrelevant questions—just as would be the case for a secular geologist if they investigated the creationist literature.

As a modern secular geologist currently stuck in academia (read: grad school H***), I am not opposed to reading of or even considering the possible validity of other views, but I do believe in the process of peer review and full (within limits, obviously) and fair consideration of all pertinent research.

You are willing to give full consideration—within limits. What limits? What determines those limits? Is how you determine those limits logically sound?

We believe peer review is a useful method of evaluating ideas as well—we wouldn’t run a peer reviewed publication if we didn’t (and I personally speak as a member of the editorial team)! However, peer review is far from perfect—see Creationism, science and peer review for more details.

The biblical framework is very different from anything you’ll find in the secular literature. It really is a different way of thinking about the rocks (see e.g. CMI geologist Dr Tas Walker’s website on biblical geology for a good introduction). I pray you will take the time to investigate how the biblical worldview works.

Kind regards,

Shaun Doyle
Creation Ministries International

Published: 14 April 2013

References

  1. Positivism is the idea that the only valid way of knowing anything is through the scientific method. Its influence can be seen in the way science has primacy in how many in Western society today understand anything about reality, including history, philosophy, and theology. Return to text.
  2. A.A., Earth’s Catastrophic Past, Vol. 2, ICR, Dallas, TX, pp. 493–499, 2009. Return to text.