Creationists may well have produced some of the best humor writing ever, albeit unintentionally.
In a Creation [ex hihilo] Magazine Vol 19 #3, Jun-Aug 1997, (1) article The Lost Squadron by noted Australian creationist, founder and editor of that publication, Carl Wieland, purports to show that, because a group of WWII airplanes were buried under several hundred feet of ice in 50 years, the technique of ice core dating is based on false premises.
After describing how holes were melted into the ice until the planes were discovered 250 feet deep, Weiland supplies this curious bit --
None of the discoverers had thought that the planes could possibly be buried under more than a light cover of snow and ice. And why would they?Maybe because they didn't bother to look at the available data for snowfall and ice accumulation for that area for the past 50 years. That is -- because they were amateur adventurers rather than scientists.
Weiland next proceeds to leap from the merely curious to the astonishing --
After all, the impression the general public has is that the buildup of glacial ice takes very long time periods thousands of years for just a few metresSince when is "the impression the general public has" considered a valid basis for science?
Anyone genuinely familiar with ice core dating knows that, like the growth rings of a tree, the quantity used in counting is the number of discernable annual layers -- not the thickness. Weiland at first seems to be somewhat aware of that as he continues:
In fact, ice cores in Greenland are used for dating, based on the belief that layers containing varying isotope ratios were laid down, somewhat like the rings of a tree, over many tens of thousands of years.Nowhere is it indicated that the seekers of the buried aircraft extracted intact ice core samples and subjected them to the tests used in scientific dating, yet, a bit further on, Weiland says:
Evolutionists and other long-agers often say that 'the present is the key to the past'. In that case, the 3000 metres of ice core brought up in Greenland in 1990 would only represent some 2,000 years of accumulation.Suddenly 250 feet of ice thickness that was melted through has become "3000 metres of ice core". Is this guy funny, or what? Exageration for comic effect, I suppose. He next shows us how it's all evidence for creationism --
Allowing of course for compression of lower layers, (which is also offset by the inevitable aftermath of a global Flood, namely much greater precipitation and snowfall for a few centuries) there is ample time in the 4,000 or so years since Noah's day for the existing amounts of ice to have built up even under today's generally non-catastrophic conditions.If ice cores had in fact been extracted and analysis determined that the aircraft were buried thousands or millions of years ago, Weiland might have an arguable case. As is, all he's got is proof of his own gullibility.
For a topper, his information sources for the article are offered in his first footnote --
1. Information for this article is mostly from: 'The Lost Squadron' Life magazine 15(14):6068, December 1992 and 'Search for a Fork-Tailed Devil' Compressed Air Magazine, pp. 3036, March 1996.And "creation 'scientists'" like Weiland wonder why no one with the brains of a gnat takes them seriously.
The Creation [ex hihilo] Magazine(1) article The Lost Squadron by noted Australian creationist, founder and editor of that publication, Carl Wieland, says, in Footnote 9 --
Argonne National Laboratories in the US combined wood, water and acidic clay, and heated in a sealed container (with no added pressure) at 150 C for 28 days, and obtained high-grade black coal. R. Hayatsu, et al., Organic Geochemistry, 6:463471, 1984.The cited article, however, describes use of lignin [soft coal] rather than wood, and heating duration of up to 1 year. The distinction between wood and lignin is crucial. No one has determined an experimental protocol for transforming wood or anything else into lignin in a short period of time -- thus the distinguished Herr Weiland's assertion is at best uninformed. Either he doesn't know the difference between wood and soft coal, has never actually read the original article or an abstract of it, or he is deliberately lying.
Given the demonstrated creationist practice of continuing to spout falsehoods even after they have been informed of their errors, it is reasonable to conclude that Weiland is either a deliberate liar or an ignoramus, and perhaps both.
REFERENCES
1. This is a footnote. Therefore, the message containing this footnote is a scholarly, scientific message, just like the publications of the Creation Research Society, whose sole claim to scholarship is the fact that they contain lots of footnotes.
LA> There is more than a possibility that you have blundered
LA> (again) Frank, since the distinction that you appear to have
LA> missed it that between LIGNIN and LIGNITE. You appear to
LA> refer to lignin which is; "an organic substance which, with
LA> cellulose, forms the chief part of woody tissue" with
LA> lignite, which is; "an imperfectly formed coal, usually dark
LA> brown, and often having a distinct woody texture; brown
LA> coal; wood coal."
LA> (The Macquarie Dictionary, 1981, ISBN 0 949757 00 4)
LA> Perhaps you should try that one again eh?
Nope.
How many times do we have to tell you about CONTEXT?
Despite your appeal to an irrelevant dictionary authority [a typical creationist con], the Argonne Lab project started with *soft coal* and hardened it. They used the term *lignin* rather than *lignite* because the coalification process was incomplete. It was the coal equivalent of a teenager that they started with rather than an adult.
One goal of the project was to find a practical way to convert soft coal, which is quite abundant but less desireable as an energy source, into hard coal, which gives greater BTU output with less polution.
My mother was a tech editor for the DoE at Argonne in the 1970s-80s. I've checked through people she knows there on specifics of the project and showed them famous creationist "Dr" Wieland's footnote. The people working there on the coal project think you creationists are a bunch of dishonest idiots.
Also note Wieland saying "no added pressure". What does he think happens when you heat water to 150 C in a closed container? Do you get a significant increase in pressure or not?
Look up "steam engine" in an encyclopedia.
Cheers.
Hoyle and Wickramasinghe think Appleton's dumber than a cockroach -- and he's trying to prove that they're right.
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