Floating Forest And Evolution

[debrand]

answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v3/n4/floating-forest

Apparently, creationist believe that there was a giant, floating forest the size of a continent. Granted, that would make a great environment for a scifi or fantasy book but it isn't biblical. Creationists are so eager to prove that Noah's ark is literal that they are guilty of adding things to the bible. I don't get why it is easier to believe in giant, floating forest but evolution, which has evidence backing it up, is somehow impossible.

I'd love for some of you guys to look over the article and tear it apart.

But evolution cannot be the cause. The Bible indicates that different plant groups were specially created, not evolved. Furthermore, the six days of creation are clearly six ordinary days and therefore don’t allow enough time for evolution.

The writer doesn't understand how science works. Scientists have to leave room in their brains for the fact that they are wrong. That is why their theories are peer reviewed. Starting at a point that the bible is true is not being open to the fact that it might not be true.

What is weird about the entire article is that the writer uses some science to conclude that science is wrong.

If such a quaking bog were to explain the huge number of fossil plants, the bog would have to be enormous—the size of a continent. Since most of it would be forest, with smaller plants only around the edge, it would really be a floating forest. It turns out that floating vegetation mats are surprisingly common in the present day, and the mats can be made of different plants in very different environments (acidic quaking bogs in cold temperate North America, papyrus in warm temperate Africa, tropical forest in Amazonia). This suggests that plants can establish floating mats rather easily. The unusual plants that we find in the fossil record might actually have formed a floating forest.

[Esther]

The writer doesn't understand how science works.

Well, no, they don't. The writer also doesn't understand how the Bible works. As in, book written by men collecting myths centuries after the facts. As in this didn't literally happen. As in... a floating forest, really?

That said, I agree. That would make a great sci-fi/fantasy story.

[debrand]

Well, no, they don't. The writer also doesn't understand how the Bible works. As in, book written by men collecting myths centuries after the facts. As in this didn't literally happen. As in... a floating forest, really?

That said, I agree. That would make a great sci-fi/fantasy story.

I was trying to imagine how a floating forest would work because it would make a great world for a story. Would you have animals that never touched the ground but hopped from tree to tree? Maybe you'd have some fish hybrid thing that prowled the water but could also climb trees. My imagination is working overtime.

Sadly, these people aren't just coming up with cool ideas for scifi/fantasy books. They are trying to justify their creation myths. Ironically, they aren't taking their own beliefs literally or else they would not believe in floating forests.

[debrand]

I believe through atomic testing that a T rex evolved into GODZILLA!

Yes! Don't you just hate it when you flight to Tokyo is rerouted because of Godzilla related problems?

[synchroswimr]

In years of studying creationists, most make no attempt to understand science, and end up just getting it all wrong.

Edited to remove potential troll bait

[Esther]

I was trying to imagine how a floating forest would work because it would make a great world for a story. Would you have animals that never touched the ground but hopped from tree to tree? Maybe you'd have some fish hybrid thing that prowled the water but could also climb trees. My imagination is working overtime.

Sadly, these people aren't just coming up with cool ideas for scifi/fantasy books. They are trying to justify their creation myths. Ironically, they aren't taking their own beliefs literally or else they would not believe in floating forests.

I know. I fail to see how a floating forest seems somehow MORE PROBABLE to these people than the fact that humans and apes/monkeys (who hey, SORT OF RESEMBLE ONE ANOTHER) may share a common ancestor.

That said, I may give the story idea a try. Fundies inspiring fantasy fiction? That would make their brains explode. :D

[clibbyjo]

I want to go to the floating forest.

[bananacat]

Creationists are biblical literalists, except when they need to make up something ridiculous that was never mentioned in the Bible to support their wacky theories.

[formergothardite]

Where in the world did the floating forest come from? That is not in Genesis or anywhere else in the Bible.

[debrand]

Where in the world did the floating forest come from? That is not in Genesis or anywhere else in the Bible.

He invented it to explain coal and the presence of fossil plants.

If a floating forest once existed, how did the plants get buried in the right order? I suspected that the destructive waves of the Flood ripped apart the floating forest from the outside in—first burying the weak water plants, then the small bushes, then the tall bushes, and finally the tall trees.

Developing the theory was the hard part. Realizing how much it explained was exciting. I realized, for example, that once the Flood destroyed the floating forest, choppy waters would prevent it from ever forming again. Such an ecosystem would be stable if created that way, but once destroyed, it would never exist again. This explains why most of the plants in it are extinct today and why floating vegetation mats exist only in small, protected areas.

[formergothardite]

Wow, he basically wrote a fictional and is trying to pass it off as Biblical. That does take some nerve.

[browngrl]

Can you get to the floating forest on the good ship lollipop?

[Linnea]

But evolution cannot be the cause. The Bible indicates that different plant groups were specially created, not evolved. Furthermore, the six days of creation are clearly six ordinary days and therefore don’t allow enough time for evolution.

Assuming the conclusion much? "What the bible says is true because it says so in the bible."

[jenny_islander]

The point of the first part of Genesis is to collect all of people's attempts to explain, "Given what we know about the world, human nature, and God--how do we reconcile all of this?" Hence summarizing the common wisdom of the day (that is, Babylonian myths) from the then-radical perspective that humanity is not helpless flotsam in the quarrels of the gods. Hence the continually restated argument that human choices matter. Hence the peculiar nature of the account of the creation of humankind or the account of the Great Flood; they seem to contradict themselves because the collator(s) of Genesis basically cut-and-pasted similar but not identical versions of each story, leaving dissimilar passages side by side and letting the reader decide which was closest to the truth.

TL;DR: If you try to prove that everything related in the first part of Genesis was an actual factual event, ur doing it rong.

[lindsey]

Assuming the conclusion much? "What the bible says is true because it says so in the bible."

Well, his basic argument for the Great Flood/Floating Forrest seems to be:

"We know that the Flood happened, because we can't prove that there was ever a Floating Forest, which can only be because there was a Flood that made it impossible to recreate. So there!"

Kinda seems like all their arguments are circular like that.