Posted by Sometimes you read something that is so absurd that you think that’s just as bad as it could possibly get. Then you go down a level and find out that they can top it. To borrow a phrase from Hindu mythology, it’s stupidity all the way down. Such is the case with Kelly Hollowell, intrepid Worldnutdaily columnist and two-time winner of the Robert O’Brien Trophy (formerly the Idiot of the Month Award). Her latest column on the recent tsunami and the Noahic flood is stunningly stupid. First, she absurdly contrasts mainstream plate tectonics with “catastrophic plate tectonics”:
However critics would like to dismiss the Bible as allegory or fable, this present disaster impresses upon me biblical truth. The obvious and relevant example is given in the days of Noah. In this account of a global flood, the sources for the floodwater were the fountains of “the great deep” and the “flood gates of heaven.”The “floodgates of heaven” obviously refers to rain, while a careful study of Scripture suggests that the “fountains of the great deep” are oceanic or possibly subterranean sources of water. In the context of the flood, it could mean both. This idea has given birth to a now popular theory called “catastrophic plate tectonics.”
According to the standard version of plate tectonics theory, the earth’s crust is composed of a dozen or so plates, each approximately 30 miles thick. Normally, these plates move with respect to each other, at about an inch per year ? the rate a fingernail grows.
Continents and oceans ride on top of these plates. And sometimes a continent such as North America is on more than one plate. For example, different parts of North America separated by a fault running up through California, are constantly sliding past each other.
In the theory of catastrophic plate tectonics, movement in the plates can produce changes in pressure and cracks in the earth’s crust. These events combined with sporadic volcanic activity can produce a massive earthquake and associated tidal waves like those devastating the Indian Ocean coastline.
The problem here is that there is no distinction between plate tectonics and “catastrophic plate tectonics”. There is no non-catastrophic plate tectonics, as seismologists obviously recognize that earthquakes are catastrophic in nature. Plain old plate tectonic models include the idea that “movement in the plates can produce changes in pressure and cracks in the earth’s crust”. What is missing here is any actual evidence for this alleged global flood. Surely a global flood that killed off virtually every animal on the entire planet except those that could fit in a single ark would have left behind enormous amounts of evidence. We should see a single stratagraphic layer around the entire globe filled with the fossils of the most astonishingly huge global extinction that the world has ever seen. But no such thing exists. We can identify isolated local events that resulted in animal killoffs, such as the enormous bonebed of 10,000 hadrosaurs (duck-billed dinosaurs) discovered by Jack Horner in Montana. They were killed by a volcanic eruption that led to a river flooding and washing this enormous herd down into what became their burial place. Those events would have been dwarfed by this global flood by several orders of magnitude, yet it apparently left no evidence of such a killoff behind. But wait, here’s the best part:
Proof of a world impacting earthquake is seen by the Mid-Oceanic Ridge. That is a mountain range 46,000 miles long that wraps around the earth and is strangely located at the bottom of the ocean floor. One portion of this underwater mountain range is called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and is centered between Europe, Africa and the Americas.Imagine, if you can, a massive earthquake and the flooding splash made when this mountain range fell into the waters of the deep. It would be like a fat man jumping into a bathtub of water. The displacement would be so great, it could easily cause worldwide tidal waves and flooding.
Yes, dear readers, the good Dr. Hollowell actually imagines that this mountain range fell off the continental landmass and into the ocean, presumably coming to settle on the bottom where it now lies. Holy stupidity, Batman. The mountains of the mid-atlantic ridge are volcanic and they are part of the oceanic crust, they didn’t fall off the surface and settle to the bottom. The mid-atlantic ridge is a divergent boundary, which is a boundary where two plates are spreading apart and new crust is formed. To posit that this mountain range fell off the surface and into the ocean, causing the global flood for which there is no evidence to begin with, is nonsense on roller skates. This is the sort of thing that makes even the likes of Kent Hovind sound rational, and that’s not an easy thing to do. If Hollowell keeps up this level of sheer idiocy, I’m going to have to create a hall of fame for winners of the Robert O’Brien trophy and make her the first inductee.
January 3, 2005
January 3, 2005
January 3, 2005
January 3, 2005
January 3, 2005
January 3, 2005
January 3, 2005
January 3, 2005
January 4, 2005
January 4, 2005
January 4, 2005