Scientism and the myth of Long Ages. The Grand Canyon as an example.

Theological, a-priori theories are unsupported by observational evidence and experimentation.

The world is saturated with long-age accounts.  From kindergarten until death, we are inundated with ‘proofs’ of endless time, allegedly premised on ‘scientific consensus’.  This same term ‘consensus’ advocated the Medical Nazism of the Corona plan-demic and supports other theologies masquerading as ‘science’ including the Climate fraud, ‘Big Bang’ and Evolution.  

It reminds one of the consensus culture of pre-Socractic Greece, replete with Hesiod, Homer and the age of myths, God, and demi-gods.  A general belief in supernaturality and miracles including the rather limitless number of deeds performed by Heracles and other personas, usually to the benefit of a particular polis or region.  So, it goes with much of the modern world’s consensus ‘science’. More fable than reality.

Is geology and the dating of rocks anywhere close to being a ‘science’ with irrefutable proof of long ages and billions of years? 

Richard Milton, an atheist and well-known UK journalist and writer, wrote in ‘Shattering the Myths of Darwinism’:

“Recent research into the age of the Earth has produced evidence that our planet could be much younger than had previously been thought: existing methods of geochronometry such as uranium-lead decay and radiocarbon assay have been found to be deeply flawed and unreliable…only a catastrophist model of development can account for important Earth structures and processes such as continental drift and most fossil-bearing rock formations - most of the Earth's surface in fact. These major discoveries have had profound consequences for the neo-Darwinist theory of evolution, yet few of them have found their way into the public domain, still less into school or university textbooks or museum displays.”

Previous articles on the unreliability of the ‘gold standard’ techniques identified by Milton, namely C14, Isotope and Isochrony calculations, make it clear that there is little scientific veracity to long-age claims.  You don’t need a PhD or a certification to understand that the processes used for long age dating of carbon-based material, or of rocks, are fraught with contradictions, assumptions and theories which do not consider observational reality and complexity.  As Milton says on the fraudulent, tautology that informs rock-dating:

“Most disconcerting of all is the fact that these various methods of dating commonly produce discordant ages for the same rock deposit. Where this occurs, a 'harmonization' of discordant dates is carried out - in other words, the figures are adjusted until they seem right. The chief tool employed to harmonize discordant dates is the simple device of labeling unexpected ages as anomalous and, in the future, discarding those rock samples that will lead to the 'anomalous' dates. This practice is the explanation of why many dating results seem to support each other -- because all samples that give ages other than expected values are rejected as being 'unsuitable' for dating.”

Milton is polite.  The above circular ‘logic’ is called fraud to support the mythical ‘geological column’ which simply does not exist.

Georges Cuvier and columns

Georges Cuvier the great geologist and fossil expert from the early 19^th century summed up the non-science of geology based on his observations of ‘experts’ pursuing data to support a-priori or pre-formed theoretical conclusions, despite evidence to the contrary:

“In fact it is fossils and petrifactions that, by exciting curiosity and awakening the imagination, have made geology take too rapid a course, and have made it move too carelessly beyond the first bases that it should have founded on facts, carrying it in search of causes, which should only have been its final result. In a word, they have changed it from a science of facts and observations into a fruitless web of hypotheses and conjectures, so much at odds with one another that it has become almost impossible to mention its name without provoking laughter.”

He was dismissing those pursuing the ‘geological column’ or endless layers of uniformitarian deposition.  It simply does not exist.  Cuvier’s remark was accurate in the early 19^th century, and it is still relevant today.  Nothing much has changed in 200 years.  Geology is an a-priori induction theory approach which ignores contradictory evidence and deductive observations and reassembles data to support a pre-built conclusion.  By definition a-priori inductions are not scientific.  They are simply theoretical abstracts.

Cuvier observed the real world, especially the strata and layers of rocks and sediments around Paris where he lived.  He found no evidence of uniformitarianism or layers of rock in nice, neat formations.  In recent times his work has been corroborated.  Field observations from natural disasters such as the Colorado 'Bijou Creek' flood of 1965, the formation of sediments following the Mount St. Helen's eruption in 1980, and ocean drilling by the Glomar Challenger survey vessel in 1975 are a few of many such proofs. According to the famed French geologist Guy Berthault who has studied these surveys, 'These experiments contradict the idea of the slow build-up of one layer followed by another. The time scale is reduced from hundreds of millions of years to one or more cataclysms producing almost instantaneous laminae.'  

Richard Milton comments on why observations don’t support the ‘layer’ theory:

“This (long ages) has been the central belief of the Earth sciences since it was enunciated by Charles Lyell in 1833. Since 1985 French geologist Guy Berthault has carried out a series of laboratory experiments involving pouring sediments into large tanks of moving water to study the internal structure of the strata, and how lamination takes place. Berthault started his research at the Institut de Mechanique des Fluides at Marseilles and was later invited to complete his work at the hydraulics laboratory of Colorado University's Engineering Research center. Samples of laminated rocks were crumbled to reduce them to their original constituent particles of varying size.

The particles were sorted (and colored to make them easier to identify). They were then mixed together again and allowed to flow into a tank, first in a dry state, and later into water. What Berthault found was that when the sediments settled on the bottom they recreated the appearance of the original rocks from which they had come. But the strata were not formed by the deposition of a succession of layers as had been formerly assumed. Instead, the sediments settled on the bottom more or less immediately, but the fine particles were separated from larger particles by current flow, giving the appearance of layers.”

There is no observational proof that layers develop in uniform sections, laid down by ‘age’, the oldest ‘layer’ at the bottom the youngest at the top, all created by the Holy Spirit of ‘Time’, through the ‘accumulation of dust and soil’.  Not a single experiment or observation can be offered by Long Agers after some 200 years of theorising, yet here we have a French scientist experimenting over 30 years who confirms quite readily and easily that the simplistic theory of layers is junk science. 

There is also the obvious fact that thousands of meters of sediments are not by itself evidence for a great age for the Earth.  There is thus another observation that can be made about all the sediments of the ‘geological column’ in relation to present day processes, and it is the greatest anomaly of all.  Today there are no known fossiliferous rocks forming anywhere in the world. None.  Yet there is no shortage of organic remains, no lack of quiet sedimentary marine environments.  The bones and shells of millions of dead creatures are available on land and in the sea.  But nowhere are these becoming slowly buried in sediments and lithified.  This observational evidence is clear and obvious – fossils and our geological landscape can only be formed through catastrophism. 

Grand Canyon mythoids

Rock formations are impacted by many large-scale trends left out of the set of assumptions enjoined by the Long Agers, which have nothing to do with radioactive decay.  Take the Grand Canyon as an example, a poster girl for long-ages and the nice and easy sedimentary deposition over many millions of years (laid down by a river and processes of wind and erosion).  In fact, there is no ‘consensus’ from secular uniformitarians on the age of the Canyon, or even how it was formed.  Age ranges are spread from 5 Ma to 117 Ma (millions of years ago), or more with maybe 6 Ma as an accepted normative guess.  None of these dates make much sense when the data is analysed. 

There are three uniformitarian hypotheses for the Grand Canyon:  

1-Antecedent stream, (ancient stream which ‘carved’ out the Canyon, rejected about 50 years ago for lack of evidence)

2-Stream piracy, (a stream plunging from the uplifted or uplifting Colorado Plateau into the Lake Mead area eroded headward 160 to 320 km and captured the ancient Colorado River)

3-Lake spillover (a lake developed in the region of the Little Colorado River area, called Lake Hopi or Lake Bidahochi, with another lake possibly existing northeast of the Kaibab Plateau, this lake or lakes breached the Kaibab Plateau to form Grand Canyon)

These explanations are sheer nonsense.  No evidence supports any of them.  The lake spillover theory has never found a lake or lakes in the area it suggests.  The plunging stream plundering the Colorado River is another myth, with no factual substantiation.  Yet the ‘science’ declares that these 2 explanations are the only possible alternatives in the formation of the Grand Canyon. 

(The layers of the Grand Canyon are ‘bent’ which means they were ‘soft’ when formed into shape.)

Many studies have taken a sample of basalt from the base of the Grand Canyon strata which purportedly was formed by lava which spilled over the edge of the canyon. Lava should be a ‘billion years’ younger than the basalt from the bottom.  Standard laboratories have analyzed these isotopes.  The rubidium-strontium isochron technique suggested that the recent lava flow was 270 million years older than the basalts beneath the Grand Canyon—an impossibility, based on Long Ager dogma. 

There are many issues with rock dating and isotope testing when considering the ‘long ages’ of the Grand Canyon.  These are the same issues mentioned above and in other articles on the unscientific nature of such calculations:

·       Sedimentary rocks make up the layers of the Grand Canyon (and many other famous formations worldwide) and these are not dateable by radiometric dating (or isotope testing which is valid for non-sedimentary rock only).  Thus the vast majority of the Grand Canyon rock structure cannot be verified.

·       Sedimentary layers are derived from ocean bottom sediments, filled with fossils of ocean-dwelling creatures and plants, constituting in the Grand Canyon, shafts running to almost a mile high from top to bottom.  Another obvious issue, risible to Long Agers, is how did the sea cover modern Nevada and lay down these ‘layers’?  If the God of uniformitarianism is ‘science’ how did that God cover the US with tonnes of water?  This is where the ‘lake spillage’ theory comes from – a feeble attempt to avoid the obvious. 

·       Given the plethora of C-14 with the sedimentary layers found in the Grand Canyon, by definition, these formations cannot be hundreds of millions of years in age and must only be thousands of years in age.  

·       The igneous rocks in the canyon were supposedly formed from a volcano on top of the canyon, which native-Indians saw erupt, about 1000 years ago.  We know this is a fact given that the lava flows contain Indian artefacts.  These lava-formed rocks were dated and assigned an age of 1.3 billion years old.  This is simply absurd.  

Long Agers cannot explain any of the above objections – in fact they simply ignore them or call those questioning their dogma ‘deniers’ and other ad-hominems.

Below are listed Long Age radiometric testing of basaltic rocks, from the Grand Canyon Uinkaret plateau.  The ages are all over the place, ranging from 10.000 years to 117 million years in age.  Surely tourists must be confused by it all.

Method                                             'Age'

Six potassium-argon model ages   10,000 years to 117 Ma

Five rubidium-strontium ages        1,270–1,390 Ma

Rubidium-strontium isochron       1,340 Ma

Lead-lead isochron                          2,600 Ma

(Ma = millions of years ago)

None of these methods is provable or verifiable.  The calculations are riddled with assumptions that if changed or altered, greatly affect the end result.  They are next to useless in reality. 

Bottom Line

Much of geology is not scientific. The Grand Canyon is not 6-117 million years old.  The geological column is a fraud and the Earth’s geology is a jumble mash of shafts, depositions, curvatures, structures and arrangements which defy uniformitarian theology.  Fossiliferous formations in the observable world do not exist.  Observations and experiments on rock strata completely contradict long age dating and expectations.  As Georges Cuvier insisted, we should not use a priori theories to form concrete conclusions.  Anyone can see in the world around them, evidence for catastrophe which does not support long age theology.  The Grand Canyon is no exception and is a model of such observations. 

The earth's crust is literally covered with evidence of a global flood, or a series of water borne disasters, aptly described by every ancient civilization on this planet.  The proof includes many separate features such as rapidly buried organisms, ephemeral markings like ripple marks and animal tracks, the huge lateral extent of individual layers (often covering hundreds of square miles and crossing continents), polystrate fossils, lack of erosion between layers, folding of multiple layers together, the predominance of aquatic fossils, sequence of fossils consistent with a flood scenario, and many other lines of evidence.  

I would bet that if Genesis or other ancient theological constructions did not mention a global flood, then the modern-secular geologist would have no hesitation in ascribing a ‘great flood’ as the best explanation for what we see around us. 

The bottom line is that there is no evidence which supports long ages.  But who will object to the reigning Scientism and paradigm which preaches the myths of endless time as factual Homeric legends? Maybe Hercules carved out the Grand Canyon as one of his labours.

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Pederson, J., Young, R., Lucchitta, I., Beard, L.S. and Billingsley, G., Comment on “Age and evolution of the Grand Canyon revealed by U-Pb dating of water table-type speleothems”, Science 321(1):634b, 2008

Williams, E.L., Meyer, J.R. and Wolfrom, G.W. Erosion of Grand Canyon Part I—Review of antecedent river hypothesis and the postulation of large quantities of rapidly flowing water as the primary agent of erosion, CRSQ 28:92–98, 1991