A little throwback this morning, I think. I've been working on a paper for my anthropology class, holding up certain aspects of the Flood geology "hypothesis" (and even that is being far too generous), and one of the sources I found that I thought would be useful is an older book called The Deluge Story in Stone. I picked it up as it purported to be a history of the idea of Flood geology, and indeed it was. But unfortunately it was written by creationists, so their agenda in penning this book (the author is Byron C. Nelson, first published in 1927, if you wanted to know) is in propagating the idea.
Once I realized that the man writing the introduction to the newly-republished edition was none other than the late Henry Morris, grandfather of Flood geology's modern incarnation, everything went downhill from there.
I believe the main point of what little I managed to read was the following; Flood geology, or the idea that the entire geologic column can be explained by the devastation of Noah's Flood of the book of Genesis, was widely accepted before the rise of uniformitarianism and later evolution. But (I hear the author whining), the Flood theory of geology was accepted by lots of smart people before those nasty modern geologists ruined it! I believe he misses the point, though I'm sure he really doesn't know what science is or how it works. The process he laments is exactly the process of science. Bad ideas get replaced with new, better ideas as we gather more evidence. Lots of smart people used to believe that the sun revolved around the earth, and that maggots spontaneously generated from bread or meat. Both are just as wrong as Flood geology.
Terrible to see so many people continue to cling to the past with this one. The findings of modern geology are much more interesting and, truly, amazing when compared to a myth about an old man on a boat.
Once I realized that the man writing the introduction to the newly-republished edition was none other than the late Henry Morris, grandfather of Flood geology's modern incarnation, everything went downhill from there.
I believe the main point of what little I managed to read was the following; Flood geology, or the idea that the entire geologic column can be explained by the devastation of Noah's Flood of the book of Genesis, was widely accepted before the rise of uniformitarianism and later evolution. But (I hear the author whining), the Flood theory of geology was accepted by lots of smart people before those nasty modern geologists ruined it! I believe he misses the point, though I'm sure he really doesn't know what science is or how it works. The process he laments is exactly the process of science. Bad ideas get replaced with new, better ideas as we gather more evidence. Lots of smart people used to believe that the sun revolved around the earth, and that maggots spontaneously generated from bread or meat. Both are just as wrong as Flood geology.
Terrible to see so many people continue to cling to the past with this one. The findings of modern geology are much more interesting and, truly, amazing when compared to a myth about an old man on a boat.
Fair and generous enough, to be sure.
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