Flood geology: Encyclopedia II - Flood geology - Flood geology versus mainstream science

Flood geology - Flood geology versus mainstream science

Flood geology is a part of the broader endeavor of creation science, particularly being associated with proponents of Young Earth creationism. Flood geology adherents support their views with geological field work that they believe gives strong evidence of a universal flood, and they invariably profess a literal belief in the Biblical record as their baseline for research.

Mainstream science does not consider the young earth biblical interpretation of a global flood and associated deluge mythology to be a valid scientific theory. Although flood geology was widely supported by early practitioners of geology and geosciences, it was contradicted by many scientific discoveries of the first half of the 19th century and it was abandoned as a serious scientific hypothesis by the middle of the century. It was revived in the early 20th century as part of the growth of the Christian fundamentalist movement in the United States.

Many scientific objections have been raised concerning the proposed mechanics of flood geology, which often require the suspension of basic laws of physics - something which mainstream science sees as being extremely improbable. A massive flood of the size suggested by creation geologists is extremely difficult to reconcile with basic physical laws. In particular, the amount of water required to cover the Earth's entire surface is enormous and no naturalistic mechanism proposed to explain where it came from or where it went will satisfy mainstream proponents. The mechanisms proposed by creationists to account for the fossil record, lithospheric layering, and tectonic formations are rejected by the vast majority of geological scientists. In short, mainstream geologists consider it to be pseudoscience as do old earth creationists.

Note that flood geology should not be confused with episodic catastophism as observed by geologists and earth scientists at many locations throughout the Earth's five billion year natural history. Such confusion surrounded the observations of the geologist J. Harlan Bretz who discovered the Missoula Floods in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. His observations and theories were rejected out of hand by mainstream geologists and scientists on the basis that catastrophism was not science, but rather religion. The Earth's physical history is replete with catastrophic events that can be misconstrued this way.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Flood geology versus mainstream science", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki