On Wed, 07 Jan 2004 21:13:56 +0000, C. Thompson wrote:

Jason Spaceman wrote:

Article talks about that young earth creationist book that is/was being
sold at the Grand Canyon, includes a brief interview with the ICR's
Stone Cold Steve Austin.

(snip)

Read it at
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0107CanyonBook07-ON.html

From the article:
*****
George Billingsley, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, has
been studying the Grand Canyon for 36 years and said scientists have
never agreed about the exact age of the canyon, although most concur
that the oldest formations are nearly 2 billion years old. A scientific
symposium held in 2000 to resolve the question of how the canyon was
formed dissolved in acrimony and adjourned without consensus, he said.
*****

Is this so? Was there really that much of a dispute at the conference?

I find it unlikely that a scientific conference would "dissolve in
acrimony", at least to the extent that the words suggest everyone went
home before the conference was over.

OTOH, it only takes a single holdout for a group to "adjourn without
consensus". And Billingsley already admits that "most concur" on an age
for it.

IOW, it sounds like dishonest spin control to me.

From <http://wwwflag.wr.usgs.gov/GCSymposium/> we learn that Billingsley
was a participant, so there's your consensus-busting holdout if you wish.

That page also links to a list of dates, compiled in part by Billingsley
himself,
<http://wwwflag.wr.usgs.gov/GCSymposium/grca_chronologic_events_table.html>
There is indeed a broad range of dates, but the dates are for different
features! In a few cases where I spot the same feature dated more than
once, the dates are in fact in the same ballpark.

Be sure to check the two "topics" links at my first link above. This was
an ordinary scientific conference that covered lots of sub-topics relating
to the origins and history of the Grand Canyon, not some desperate attempt
to resolve a problem with the science. And the end-of-conference list
seems to give the lie to any claim that the conference dissolved in
acrimony.

Dunk <pdunkel@palebluedot.net> wrote:

Writing on the Answers in Genesis web site, writer Mike Matthews
commented in part, "It's simply untrue and deceptive to claim that
those who believe in a young earth are 'anti-science' and that the
book 'Grand Canyon: A Different View' 'aggressively attacks modern
science.' In fact, three creationist scientists made poster
presentations of their radiometric dating research at a conference of
the American Geophysical Union in December 5 -- and all three of these
men (Dr. John Baumgardner, Dr. Russell Humphreys and Dr. Larry
Vardiman) are contributors to Vail's Grand Canyon book."

....
Matthews added, "Evolutionists missed the story because they were not
looking for evidence of catastrophe on such a massive scale."

Anyone else notice this? Three ICR posters were presented at the
American Geophysical Union Fall Conference in San Francisco this
December. ICR are now touting that they had these posters at a
'science' meeting and they were well accepted:

http://www.icr.org/research/misc/aguconference.html

Clearly this is leading to 'we were published' and if not 'our research
was peer reviewed' certainly 'our ideas were accepted by our peers'.
What the ICR does not tell us is that most science meetings will accept
any poster if you pay your money. It is certainly not an endorsement of
the ideas.

I wonder how warm the reception would be for real geologists at an ICR
conference?