Tiktaalik Roseae: Another Missing Link Myth!

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This post is about the (creature) Tiktaalik and is linked to the following posts:

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Darwinist media organizations have embarked upon a new wave of propaganda aimed at portraying a fossil recently described in the journal Nature as a missing link. The fossil in question is that of a fish, discovered in Arctic Canada by the paleontologists Neil H. Shubin and Edward B. Daeschler in 2004. Given the scientific name Tiktaalik roseae, the fossil is estimated to be 385 million years old. Evolutionists looking for possible candidates for their tales of a transition from water to land are putting the fossil forward as an intermediate form by distorting its “mosaic” features.

However, the claim of a transition from water to land is no more than a dream, because the physiological gulfs between terrestrial animals and fish cannot be overcome by any of the fictitious mechanisms of the theory of evolution. The latest attempt to make Tiktaalik roseae fit this scenario, which is supported out of blind devotion to the theory of evolution and rests on no scientific evidence whatsoever, is based on preconceptions and intentional misinterpretation. The facts the Darwinist media have concealed in their Tiktaalik roseae propaganda are set out below.

Tiktaalik roseae: A mosaic life form which is no evidence for evolution

There are three well-preserved fossil specimens of Tiktaalik roseae. Some 3 meters long, the creature exhibits various mosaic characteristics. (Mosaic life forms contain features belonging to different groups of life forms.) As in fish, it has fins and scales. Features such as its flat head, mobile neck and relatively powerful rib structure are found in terrestrial animals. The creature, whose name is derived from the Inuit language Inuktitut and means “a large, shallow-water fish,” also has bones in its pectoral fins. Evolutionists distort these mosaic properties according to their own preconceptions and maintain that the animal is a transitional form between fish and terrestrial life forms.

Mosaic life forms, however, are very far from being the intermediate forms required by the theory of evolution. The present-day Platypusthat lives in Australia, for instance, is a mosaic creature that possesses mammalian, reptilian and avian features at one and the same time. But nothing about it constitutes any evidence for the theory of evolution. Mosaic life forms are not what evolutionists need to find in order to back up their claims; they need to find “intermediate forms,” which would have to be with deficient, only half-formed and not fully functional organs. Yet every one of the organs possessed by mosaic creatures is complete and flawless. They have no semi-developed organs, and there are no fossil series that can be proposed as evidence that they evolved from some other life forms.

The theory of evolution hypothesizes that a process based on random mutations, in other words on chance, took place. According to this claim, the millions of living species on Earth must have evolved from a vast number of intermediate forms, all subjected to chance mutations, and as a result had deformed, abnormal structures, and the fossils of these so-called intermediate forms should have been found. To put it another way, the fossil record should be overflowing with the remains of life forms that can only be described as freaks of nature. However, this is known not to be the case. When species emerge, they do so suddenly, with all their distinguishing features fully developed, and with no series of freaks among them. In his 1999 book Fossils and Evolution, Tom Kemp, curator of Zoological Collections at the Oxford University Museum, describes the position as follows:

In virtually all cases a new taxon appears for the first time in the fossil record with most definitive features already present, and practically no known stem-group forms. (Tom Kemp, Fossils and Evolution, Oxford University, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 246)

The general picture concealed by evolutionists

Evolutionists attempt to give the impression that fossils actually support the idea of evolution. Yet the “missing link” concept is one that has been invented solely in the light of the needs of the theory of evolution and has no counterpart in the fossil record itself. The lack of fossil links alleged to connect species to one another has been known ever since Darwin’s time. Excavations by paleontologists since Darwin’s day have also failed to resolve this situation, which represents such a grave impasse for the theory of evolution and, on the contrary, have further confirmed the absence of any missing links among living groups.

E. R. Leach, author of the book Rethinking Anthropology, wrote this in his article in Nature:

Missing links in the sequence of fossil evidence were a worry to Darwin. He felt sure they would eventually turn up, but they are still missing and seem likely to remain so. (E. R. Leach; Nature, 293: 19, 1981)

A. S. Romer, one of the most eminent paleontologists of his time, said this on the subject:

"Links" are missing just where we most fervently desire them [to point to a transition between species] and it is all too probable that many "links" will continue to be missing. (A. S. Romer, in Genetics, Paleontology and Evolution, 1963, p. 114)

David B. Kitts, professor of geology and the history of science at the University of Oklahoma admits the absence of the intermediate forms required by the theory of evolution:

Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them. (David B. Kitts, "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," Evolution, Vol. 28, September 1974, p. 467)

The picture that emerges from the fossil record is completely compatible with creation. The record reveals that living things appeared suddenly and lived for long periods of time without undergoing any change at all. These facts can clearly be seen in an evaluation of evolution’s fossil impasse by the American paleontologist R. Wesson in his 1991 bookBeyond Natural Selection. Stating that the gaps in the record are real, Wesson goes on to say that the absence of a record of any evolutionary branching is quite phenomenal. Species are usually static for long periods. Species and genera never show evolution into new species or genera but are replaced by another, and change is usually abrupt. (R. Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1991, p. 45)

Some 250,000 fossil species have been collected to date, and there is absolutely no trace of intermediate forms in any of them. Evolutionists are behaving irrationally and unscientifically by ignoring this and embarking on campaigns of missing link propaganda.

The Error of Biological Inference from Skeletal Remains

When the bodies of vertebrates are fossilized, they generally leave no remains behind apart from bones. However, bones leave traces of only a very limited part of vertebrate biology, about 1%. When evolutionists begin interpreting the fossil remains of an organism, most of the information about its biology has been lost. Evolutionists, with almost no information concerning the organism’s soft tissue biology “fill” the gap in their knowledge according to the demands of the theory of evolution, which they have adopted as a dogma long beforehand.

The intermediate form claims that evolutionists produce solely by looking at bones is no more than vague conjecture. In his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, the molecular biologist Michael Denton makes the situation very clear:

Because soft biology of extinct groups can never be known with any certainty then obviously the status of even the most convincing intermediates is bound to be insecure. (Michael Denton, Evolution:A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books: London, 1985, p. 180)

Even the most convincing appearing intermediate forms for evolutionists can subsequently let them down very badly. One excellent example of this is the Coelacanthphenomenon.

Sensational reports show that evolutionists have learned nothing from the Coelacanthphenomenon

As with the latest fossil Tiktaalik roseae, the Coelacanth is a fish that evolutionists once fondly imagined to be a missing link in the transition from water to land. Evolutionists examined 400-million-year-old fossil Coelacanths, which was once believed to be extinct, and drew a number of evolutionary conclusions from the remains. For example, they maintained that the bony structures in its fins were feet that helped the animal walk across the sea floor, and they also claimed that it possessed primitive lungs. The important point here is this: All these assumptions were made in the absence of any information about the Coelacanth’s soft tissue biology.

The erroneous nature of producing evolutionary fantasies in the absence of any information about the animal’s soft tissues emerged following an important discovery in 1938. A living Coelacanth was caught, showing that it was not, as had previously been thought, an extinct life form at all.

Furthermore, many more living specimens were caught in subsequent years. Evolutionists immediately set about examining the fish’s anatomy and way of moving in its natural environment, and saw that the missing link assumptions they had ascribed to it were completely incorrect. The fish, which they had assumed to live in shallow waters and to move by crawling over the seabed, actually lived at depths of around 180 meters,and they also observed that its fins never made contact with the seabed at all. The structure they imagined to be an evolving lung turned out to be a fat-filled swim bladder that had nothing to do with respiration whatsoever.

The realization that the Coelacanth, which had once seemed such a convincing-looking intermediate form for evolutionists, was just an ordinary species of fish clearly shows that the intermediate form claim being made about this latest fossil is also based entirely on uncertainties and speculation, because it, too, is based on imaginative interpretation of soft tissues from the fossilized remains of an extinct life form. In short, the ongoing propaganda through the media is based on nothing more than the exaggeration of scientifically vague information in the light of evolutionist dreams.

Evolutionists’ missing link propaganda actually works against their own claims

Whenever a discovery is depicted as a missing link, the evolutionist media always give the impression that a most extraordinary finding has been made, whereas this actually conflicts with their claims regarding the truth of evolution.

Were the theory of evolution true, then the geological strata would be full of fossil intermediates, and their numbers would be far greater than that of all the species living today or that ever lived in the past. Therefore, the discovery of missing links would be such a routine matter that it would have no news value at all.

Alternatively, if, as evolutionists claim, there were as much evidence for evolution as there is for the force of gravity, then reporting on missing link discoveries would be as nonsensical as reporting on a stone thrown into the air falling back to the ground. In the same way that we would regard a news report along the lines of “We threw a stone into the air and it actually fell back to Earth” as utterly insignificant, so we would regard reports reading “Paleontologists have discovered a new missing link” as equally insignificant. In short, if evolution were a “fact,” there would be no need for any missing link propaganda at all.

The evolutionary series in which Tiktaalik roseaehas been placed is based solely on preconception

One can see in some newspapers that the latest fossil has been inserted as an intermediate form between Acanthostegaand Eusthenopteron. By doing this, evolutionists are seeking to give the impression that the fossil record supports evolutionary transitions and that the evidence for this is mounting up with every passing day. The fact is though that these series represent no evidence that the organisms in question evolved at all. For example, laying out a row of screwdrivers in order of size does not show that they are all descended from one another.

In fact there is no known evolutionary line of descent from Eusthenopteron to Tiktaalik roseae or from Tiktaalik roseae to Acanthostega. These life forms are separated from one another by morphological gulfs based on profound differences and millions of years of time. Evolutionists reveal only their own prejudices with the series into which they place Tiktaalik roseae. Henry Gee, editor of the journal Nature and also a paleontologist, admits that “missing links” and evolutionary series are the work of preconceptions:

New fossil discoveries are fitted into this pre-existing story. We call these new discoveries “missing links”, as if the chain of ancestry and descent were a real object for our contemplation, and not what it really is: a completely human invention created after the fact, shaped to accord with human prejudices. . . . Each fossil represents an isolated point, with no knowable connection to any other given fossil, and all float around in an overwhelming sea of gaps.(Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time, Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life, p. 32)

(For information on the invalidity of evolutionist claims regarding Acanthostega and Eusthenopteron see, http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/natural_history_1_07.html)

The myth of the transition from water to land: an illusory and dogmatic claim

The theory of evolution maintains that change in living things is based on the selection of beneficial differences among those produced by random mutations. However, it is a known fact that mutations have no power to cause anything to evolve by adding new information to living things’ DNA. Mutations damage the genetic information in living things’ DNA, producing effects that leave them deformed or dead. That is because the DNA sequences are exceedingly sensitive, and the effect on these of any mutation based on chance can only be harmful.

For example, no random changes to the letters comprising a manual for an electronic device will turn it into a novel; it will merely damage the information in that manual. In the same way, it is totally impossible for mutations in a fish’s DNA to acquire it a powerful skeletal structure capable of weight-bearing, to construct temperature regulating systems or systems for the use of water (involving such a complex organ as the kidney), or to cause gills to turn into lungs.

It is clear that if a fish does not undergo rapid change in different ways, such as in terms of its respiratory system, excretory mechanism and skeletal structure, it will inevitably die. Such a chain of mutations must take place that it must immediately acquire the fish a lung, turn its fins into legs, add a kidney onto it, and provide its skin with a water retaining structure. Systems of such vital importance to the animal either have to change instantaneously, or else not at all. Such a change is impossible through evolution, which is proposed as a chance-based and aimless process. Any rationally thinking person can see that the only possible explanation is to accept that fish and terrestrial life forms were created independently.

In short, the scenario of a “transition from water to land” is at a complete dead-end. Evolutionists have no consistent fossil evidence they can point to. In her bookVertebrate History: Problems in Evolution, the evolutionist paleontologist Barbara J. Stahl writes:

None of the known fishes is thought to be directly ancestral to the earliest land vertebrates. Most of them lived after the first amphibians appeared, and those that came before show no evidence of developing the stout limbs and ribs that characterized the tetrapods." (Barbara J. Stahl, Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution, Dover, 1985, p. 148)

Conclusion: Evolutionists have to realize they will never get anywhere with outmoded propaganda techniques left over from Adolf Hitler

As has been demonstrated, the “missing link”notion is an unscientific one with no factual counterpart in the fossil record and used solely because of the requirements of the theory of evolution. The way that the Darwinist media cling so strongly to the idea is a method they resort to in order to spread their own ideologies among the public. Evolutionists have no evidence with which to spread their theory, which is the greatest scientific deception in history. All they can do in the face of the collapse, one by one, of such fossils as the Coelacanthand Archaeopteryx, and equine series once defended as evidences of evolution, consists of frequently and loudly ensuring that the missing link fraud is kept on the public agenda.

All these endeavors are a propaganda technique, as described in the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s statement that a lie would be believed by many if repeated loudly and often enough.

Evolutionists must accept the fact that paleontology demolishes their theory, and must realize that constantly repeating their missing link tales will not alter the fact in the slightest.

Harun Yahya!

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Polonium Halos: Unrefuted Evidence for Earth's Creation

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Darwin Dethroned by Geologist

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Gradual evolution seems synonymous with Charles Darwin, but a geologist at New York University disagrees. According to an article on PhysOrg, Michael Rampino thinks Patrick Matthew deserves the credit for a different, more realistic view of evolution – a catastrophist view:

“Matthew discovered and clearly stated the idea of natural selection, applied it to the origin of species, and placed it in the context of a geologic record marked by catastrophic mass extinctions followed by relatively rapid adaptations,” says Rampino, whose research on catastrophic events includes studies on volcano eruptions and asteroid impacts. “In light of the recent acceptance of the importance of catastrophic mass extinctions in the history of life, it may be time to reconsider the evolutionary views of Patrick Matthew as much more in line with present ideas regarding biological evolution than the Darwin view.”

By emphasizing catastrophic events, Rampino is also discrediting one of Darwin’s best friends – Charles Lyell, the uniformitarian geologist. Rampino thinks Patrick Matthew was far ahead of its time but escaped the notice of the scientific community of the day. This is a startling announcement that could put Rampino in grave danger. It’s not that he or Patrick Matthew have anything worthwhile to contribute to the understanding of how we got here. Good grief, catastrophes do not manufacture wings and eyes and brains, or else they would spontaneously emerge on Mars and Titan. What is startling is that Rampino would put his reputation and livelihood at stake. Doesn’t he know the penalty for failing to pay homage to Charles Darwin? PaV on Uncommon Descent fears, since not even Stephen Jay Gould could survive scorn with his catastrophist theory of punctuated equilibria, even though being an ardent evolutionist, that Rampino will be “gobbled up by the Darwinian thought police” in short order for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

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Secular Geology Admits to Rapid Canyon Formation by Megafloods

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June 21, 2010 — It’s hard to deny catastrophic canyon formation when you have the evidence right in front of you. Look what happened in Texas a few years ago, as reported by PhysOrg:

In the summer of 2002, a week of heavy rains in Central Texas caused Canyon Lake – the reservoir of the Canyon Dam – to flood over its spillway and down the Guadalupe River Valley in a planned diversion to save the dam from catastrophic failure. The flood, which continued for six weeks, stripped the valley of mesquite, oak trees, and soil; destroyed a bridge; and plucked meter-wide boulders from the ground. And, in a remarkable demonstration of the power of raging waters, the flood excavated a 2.2-kilometer-long, 7-meter-deep canyon in the bedrock.

The actual canyon was formed in just three days, said Science Daily. Live Science also reported the story, saying, “Some of the most spectacular canyons on Earth and Mars were probably formed in the geologic blink of an eye, suggests a new study that found clues to their formation deep in the heart of Texas.”
Such catastrophic floods and canyons that resulted are not unknown in historic times, but what’s new is that geologists are taking note and applying the lesson of Canyon Lake to large, prehistoric megafloods on earth and even Mars. PhysOrg continued, “Our traditional view of deep river canyons, such as the Grand Canyon, is that they are carved slowly, as the regular flow and occasionally moderate rushing of rivers erodes rock over periods of millions of years.” Quoting Michael Lamb of Caltech, co-author of a paper in Nature Geoscience,¹ the article said that such is not always the case: “We know that some big canyons have been cut by large catastrophic flood events during Earth’s history.”
Lamb went on to explain that there is not often an easy way to tell a catastrophically-formed canyon from a gradually-formed one:

Unfortunately, these catastrophic megafloods – which also may have chiseled out spectacular canyons on Mars—generally leave few telltale signs to distinguish them from slower events. “There are very few modern examples of megafloods,” Lamb says, “and these events are not normally witnessed, so the process by which such erosion happens is not well understood.” Nevertheless, he adds, “the evidence that is left behind, like boulders and streamlined sediment islands, suggests the presence of fast water”—although it reveals nothing about the time frame over which the water flowed.

Lamb found that process like “plucking” – in which boulders popped up from fractured bedrock became sledgehammers in the current, and headward-eroding waterfalls, led to quick downward erosion of the canyon. He hopes the features witnessed in the Canyon Lake flood will aid in interpreting megaflood evidence on earth and Mars. Here is the abstract from the paper by Lamb and Fonstad:

Deep river canyons are thought to form slowly over geological time (see, for example, ref. 1 [Grand Canyon]), cut by moderate flows that reoccur every few years 2, 3. In contrast, some of the most spectacular canyons on Earth and Mars were probably carved rapidly during ancient megaflood events 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Quantification of the flood discharge, duration and erosion mechanics that operated during such events is hampered because we lack modern analogues. Canyon Lake Gorge, Texas, was carved in 2002 during a single catastrophic flood 13. The event offers a rare opportunity to analyse canyon formation and test palaeo-hydraulic-reconstruction techniques under known topographic and hydraulic conditions. Here we use digital topographic models and visible/near-infrared aerial images from before and after the flood, discharge measured during the event, field measurements and sediment-transport modelling to show that the flood moved metre-sized boulders, excavated ~7 m of limestone and transformed a soil-mantled valley into a bedrock canyon in just ~3 days. We find that canyon morphology is strongly dependent on rock type: plucking of limestone blocks produced waterfalls, inner channels and bedrock strath terraces, whereas abrasion of cemented alluvium sculpted walls, plunge pools and streamlined islands. Canyon formation was so rapid that erosion might have been limited by the ability of the flow to transport sediment. We suggest that our results might improve hydraulic reconstructions of similar megafloods on Earth and Mars.

Their references included the paper by J H Bretz on the channeled scablands of Washington, and other research on the Lake Bonneville floods, but no work by creation geologists who have postulated rapid formation of the Grand Canyon by a dam breach megaflood. They did not discuss the Grand Canyon in their paper other than to state in the introduction that “Most bedrock river canyons are thought to be cut slowly over millions of years (for example, Grand Canyon, USA, ref. 1) by moderate flows that reoccur every few years.” They did not say whether they agree with that assessment now in light of their work.
Lamb and Fonstad described in the paper how it is hard to tell slow processes from rapid ones:

It is difficult to identify morphologic features in Canyon Lake Gorge that indicate canyon formation during a 3 day event, versus a longer-lived flood or multiple events. For example, inner channels, knickpoints and terraces are often formed slowly over geologic time in response to shifting climate or tectonic forcing, but in Canyon Lake Gorge and other megafloods they must have formed rapidly through intrinsic instabilities in the erosion processes. A narrow gorge is sometimes inferred to represent slow persistent erosion, whereas Canyon Lake Gorge was formed in a matter of days. It is clear that models for the rate of bedrock erosion are needed to calculate the duration of flooding necessary to excavate a canyon of known volume. Although notable progress has been made, there are no well tested mechanistic models of bedrock erosion via plucking during megafloods.

They did the best they could to come up with a “semi-empirical theory” of sediment transport capacity to account for the rapid erosion of Canyon Lake Gorge. Apparently it was not the strength of the bedrock that limited erosion, but the ability of the water to pick up and move large blocks: “Thus, it seems plausible that erosion of well-jointed rock by large floods might be extremely rapid, such that canyon formation is limited by the capacity of the flood to transport plucked blocks rather than by the plucking processes itself.” Whether that is the only surprising paradigm shift from this observational example of rapid canyon formation remains to be seen. It may be time to change a lot of western national park interpretive signs.

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1. Lamb and Fonstad, “Rapid formation of a modern bedrock canyon by a single flood event,” Nature Geoscience, Published online: 20 June 2010 | doi:10.1038/ngeo894.

What does he mean this is not well understood? If the secular geologists had been reading the creationist journals for decades, which are way ahead of the curve on this topic, they would not be so clueless. The Creation Research Society Quarterly, Journal of Creation and other peer-reviewed journals written by creation scientists, with field research and PhDs, have for years been talking about the power of catastrophic processes to produce the Grand Canyon and other large earth features in just days and weeks by breached dams and other megaflooding processes. This is nothing new, but the secular journals and news media act like it is. It’s nice for the secular crowd, still awaking from their Lyellian slumbers, to catch the groove finally (better late than never), but how about some attribution? Creationist authors of papers on this subject should get together and walk into Lamb’s office with a stack of their papers on catastrophic canyon formation by megafloods, pile them on his desk, and ask, “Where have you been all this time?”

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Geology: Where Darwin Went Wrong

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Are Secular Geologists Ready to Consider a Global Flood?

http://creationsafaris.com/crev200904.htm#20090430a

30, 2009 — Everyone knows the Bible tells the story of a global flood in Noah’s day. Creation scientists argue that its effects would have left visible evidence today – including most of the sedimentary layers and most of the fossil record. Secular geologists have laughed off this story since the 18th century as nothing but myth, of course, but a paper in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences suggests that some of them are re-evaluating the role of “megafloods” in earth history. Some megafloods might be considered as “global planetary phenomena.”

Author Victor R. Baker was not thinking of Noah but of a more recent fellow, J Harlen Bretz (see 07/25/2008). In his paper, “The Channeled Scabland: A Retrospective” in the May 2009 Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences,¹ he retold the story of the brave geologist who bucked the established and proposed an “outrageous hypothesis” for the scarred landscape of eastern Washington state.

His 1927 proposal that an ice-age megaflood scoured the extensive channel network in a matter of days was met with scorn and derision. Baker wrote, “the geological community largely resisted his bold hypothesis for decades, despite an enthusiastic, eloquent defense thereof” – Bretz was finally vindicated in the 1960s and his theory is the new consensus.

Baker clearly states the reason for the rejection of Bretz’s hypothesis. Geologists would not even consider such extensive processes, because their worldview assumptions could not accommodate them:

The prolonged nature of the Spokane Flood controversy arose in part because of the adherence of many geologists to substantive and epistemological presumptions of uniformitarianism (see sidebar) that were erroneously thought to underpin their science (Baker 1998). According to a common, mistaken application of the uniformitarian principle, cataclysmic processes, like those responsible for the origin of the Channeled Scabland, were considered to be unsuitable topics for scientific investigation. To counter this presumption of uniformitarianism, Bretz could only provide meticulously described field evidence for inspection by those willing to seriously consider it. The eventual triumph of his hypothesis, against its initially antagonistic reception, set the stage for the resurgence of a new understanding of geological catastrophism, which is perhaps most prominent today in the acknowledged role of impact cratering in Earth’s history.

Baker has just said that the majority consensus can be wrong – for decades – because of worldview bias, or epistemological presumptions (i.e., presuppositions about what we know and how we know it). These presumptions do not arise from the scientific evidence, but in spite of it: Bretz had the evidence, but his colleagues refused to see it, because in their worldview, such topics were “unsuitable ... for scientific investigation.” This is not a discovery from science. It is a statement of philosophy about science. In the sidebar on uniformitarianism to which Baker referred, he said this:

Uniformitarianism is a regulative principle or doctrine in geology that unfortunately sometimes conflates (a) the pragmatic application of modern process studies to understanding the past (actualism) with (b) substantive presumptions that deny effectiveness to cataclysmic events. As recognized by William Whewell, who invented the term, meaning b is contrary to the logic of science (Baker 1998).²

(For information about Whewell, see the June 2007 Scientist of the Month.) Most of Baker’s paper reviews the evidence in the Channeled Scablands for a megaflood when Lake Missoula breached its ice dam, sending a million cubic feet of water per second towards the Pacific. The evidence includes coulees, cataracts, gravel fans and bars, streamlined residual hills and islands, giant current ripples in the shape of dunes, and large isolated boulders.

He discussed the high-energy processes that left this evidence: vertical vortices (kolks), plucking and cavitation, bedrock erosion and transport. “The scabland megaflooding exhibited phenomenal sediment transport capability, as evidenced by the boulders that were entrained by the flow,” he said. He showed a picture of an 18m boulder that was transported 10 km by the raging waters. The car beside the rock looks small by comparison.
What is the lesson of J Harlen Bretz and the Spokane Flood controversy? Baker discussed this in the ending paragraphs, entitled, “Megafloods as Global Planetary Phenomena”. Have geologists been misapplying uniformitarian presumptions, ignoring evidence for megafloods all around them, on the earth – and even on Mars?

Bretz thought the landforms of the Channeled Scabland to be unique (Bretz 1928a). “Nowhere in the world is there known or suspected,” he wrote (Bretz 1959, p. 56), “a story at all comparable to what we read from the scabland forms.” He reasoned that its uniqueness might make his Spokane Flood hypothesis more acceptable to those who held to the generalization that landscapes are created by the prolonged action of noncataclysmic processes. In recent years, however, cataclysmic flood landscapes with many similarities to the Channeled Scabland have increasingly been documented in many parts of the world (Baker 1997, 2002, 2007). Spectacular examples of GCRs [giant current ripples] are found in central Asia (Baker et al. 1993, Carling 1996, Rudoy 2005), along with immense gravel bars and scour marks (Rudoy & Baker 1993, Carling et al. 2002, Herget 2005). Megaflood streamlined hill morphologies occur in the glacial lake spillway channels of central North America (Kehew & Lord 1986) and on the floor of the English Channel (Gupta et al. 2007). Most surprising to Bretz, however, would be the discovery of scabland-like morphologies on Mars (Baker & Milton 1974; Baker 1982, 2001; Komatsu & Baker 2007).
In addition to stimulating discoveries of cataclysmic flood landscapes, studies of the patterns, forms, and processes evident in the Channeled Scabland have informed understanding of processes that occur at smaller scales in modern bedrock channels that are impacted by extreme, high-energy floods (e.g., Baker 1977, 1984; Baker & Pickup 1987; Baker & Kochel 1988; Baker & Kale 1998). Slackwater deposition by scabland flooding at the mouths of various valleys tributary to the Cheney-Palouse scabland channels (Bretz 1929, Patton et al. 1979) was used to infer flow depths along those channels (Figure 10). This methodology proved to be critical in stimulating the development of that form of paleoflood hydrology that utilizes paleostage indicators for the reconstruction of relatively recent (late Holocene) floods, thereby increasing our understanding the frequencies of rare, modern high-magnitude floods (Baker 1987, 2006, 2008b). Indeed, one can envision a kind of investigation that inverts the usual reasoning process whereby studies of common, small-scale processes are extrapolated to the domain of less common, unobserved large-scale processes.

What should future geologists do? Baker ended by discussing future challenges to understanding the Channeled Scablands. One problem, for instance, is that the volume of water stored in hypothetical Lake Missoula seems “insufficient to account for the indicated levels of maximum inundation throughout the Channeled Scabland and adjacent area.” One possibility is “subglacial outburst flooding from under the Cordilleran Ice Sheet,” he suggested. Details aside, Baker had a concluding remark about bold hypotheses, the nature of scientific inquiry and understanding, and the need to think outside the box:

In retrospect, studies of the Channeled Scabland might be viewed as concerned with the unique origins of a single landscape. However, this remarkable landscape was not studied to test a preexisting hypothesis or theory (e.g., erosion and deposition by high-energy megaflooding). Instead, discoveries about the Channeled Scabland are leading scientific inquiry to the recognition of what can now be seen as related phenomena, such that a completely new theory is required. The resulting rich set of research opportunities traces back to a single imaginative hypothesis proposed in the 1920s by J Harlen Bretz. Though these opportunities may now be pursued with techniques that to Bretz would have seemed almost magical, the most important pathway to advancing understanding remains that which is best exemplified by Bretz’s most lasting contribution: informed and insightful geological fieldwork.

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1. Baker, VR. The Channeled Scabland: A Retrospective. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Vol. 37: 393-411 (Volume publication date May 2009; doi:10.1146/annurev.earth.061008.134726).
2. Baker VR. 1998. Catastrophism and uniformitarianism: Logical roots and current relevance. In Lyell: The Past Is the Key to the Present, ed. DJ Blundell, AC Scott, Spec. Publ. 143, pp. 171–82. London: Geol. Soc.

Hallelujah! A secular geologist finally gets it. Geological science is not always driven by evidence, but by presumptions. This is one of the most remarkable papers from a secular journal in recent memory. It contains lessons for history of science, philosophy of science, rhetoric of science, and the interplay of logic and empiricism.
Before continuing, let the reader understand that Victor Baker is not doubting long ages and evolution. He believes, for instance, that multiple flooding events from Lake Missoula occurred over many thousands of years, the last occurring about 14,500 years ago. It would be unfair to portray Baker as supporting creationist Flood geology. Baker would undoubtedly be angry to be tarred with such associations. Nevertheless, it is certainly fair to take the same principles and methods he advocated and think outside his box, too. Maybe he is on the right track but doesn’t go far enough.
Consider first the empirical evidence. Baker evaluated evidence of high-energy transport processes that are certainly not uniformitarian. Creationist Flood geologists date the Spokane Floods as post-diluvial (i.e., after the global Flood of Noah’s day). The same kind of evidence of high-energy transport, though, is visible throughout the deeper layers of the Grand Canyon. The Great Unconformity, for instance, displays a sudden scouring of the top of basement rock, on which sit most of the sedimentary layers. This Great Unconformity is arguably a worldwide phenomenon. So here is prima facie evidence for a global megaflood in earth history. Right on top of this flat surface (where evolutionists put an imaginary time gap of a billion years) lie the sedimentary layers of the Tapeats Sandstone. In the Tapeats are huge boulders, suggesting the same high-energy transport Baker inferred in the Scablands – not slow deposition over millions of years. The Tapeats, and layers above all the way into the Redwall, show soft sediment deformation in places. Fault lines extend all the way from bottom to top. Most of the contacts between the formations are flat, suggesting there were no time gaps between them. Evolutionists invent time gaps of 10 million years, 60 million years, even 100 million years between some of these formations, just to keep them in sync with their evolutionary assumptions, but you can see with your own eyes that the layers are flat, like a layered cake, with no evidence of the passage of time between them. These are other strong evidences of megaflood far exceeding anything in the Channeled Scablands. To the unbiased mind, the same kind of inferences made at Scablands can be extrapolated at Grand Canyon to infer a megaflood of global proportions. Genesis 6-9 then can be re-examined as a historical record, not myth. It left empirical evidence of its power.
Consider also the philosophical and logical lessons of this paper. For decades, from the 1920s to the 1960s, uniformitarian geologists had blinders on. Their worldview prevented them from seeing evidence that was there for the looking. This should be remembered when creationists are criticized for having “religious motivations” for their scientific models. That criticism cuts both ways. Terry Mortenson, in The Great Turning Point, documented how it was anti-Biblical worldview bias that turned Lyell, Hutton and the other founders of uniformitarianism into apologists for billions of years. Quotes from Lyell show he had a conspiratorial attitude, with a goal of turning the universities against the Scriptural geologists. Like Darwin, these moyboys (pushers of “millions of years, billions of years”) did not “discover” their theories in the data; they instituted a framework for interpreting the data (04/29/2009). This framework served (and continues to serve) to insulate their evolutionary philosophy from falsification. They have put blinders on with their own biased hands.
Baker praised J Harlen Bretz for providing “informed and insightful fieldwork” in support of his bold hypothesis. It took years for that fieldwork to cut through the dogma of the uniformitarians, and now, neo-catastrophism is enjoying a renaissance after 150 years of dogma. Guess what: creationist geologists have been doing “informed and insightful fieldwork” for decades, too. It doesn’t get seen much by the mainstream secular scientific societies, because they have a vested interest in maintaining their evolutionary worldview from serious challenge. But it is good work. You can find it in published journals from the Creation Research Society, Creation Ministries International, Institute for Creation Research, Answers in Genesis and Center for Scientific Creation, among others. You can also see the Flood evidence with your own eyes by taking one of Tom Vail’s rafting trips down the Grand Canyon (see Canyon Ministries; highly recommended for fun as well as education).
Victor Baker did not propose a global Flood like that described in Genesis, but he did bring in some much-needed fresh air into the discussion about how science should be conducted. He pointed out the propensity for worldview bias, even among the leading geologists of the world, that can blind them from evidence for half a century. Nothing in his paper advocates a global megaflood – but nothing rules it out, either. The principles and historical lessons he advocated should liberate those not beholden to blinding uniformitarian presumptions to ask, boldly, “Noah’s Flood – why not?”
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