Flood Geology

I have a student in my class who is always emailing me to ask the most trivial questions. She recently asked me "Is it true that the Noachian deluge was believed to have scattered the remains of animals and therefore, creationsists believe that is the reason for the fossil record?" I didn't really know what to make of the question. When she put it like that it sounded such a stupid thing to believe, the subject line of the email was, "IS this true?"; maybe she thought we were having a lend of her!

I replied:

Short answer 'yes' with an 'if...', long answer 'no' with a 'but...'

That is to say, yes but it depends on the creationist. There are as many different flavours of creationism as you care to name. Many of them DO attribute aspects of the fossil record to a literal global flood as described in Genesis. (Most who call themselves "creationists", as opposed to "intelligent design" folks would say something like this.) But I don't think scattering is the right word. It's more like the 40 days of flooding put down fossils in a specific order that looks like millions of years of sedimentation.

NB This has not always been a scientifically disreputable position. Some geologists a few generations before Darwin believed that all rock forms are due to the action of water and tried to reconcile their observations with the Biblical account. Needless to say, modern geologists see no evidence for a global flood of the sort described in Genesis.

Now they're comparing different species of creationism (Young Earth vs Old Earth; Day=Age vs Gap old Earth interpretations of Genesis) with Theistic Evolution. But still I can't stimulate debate in my discussion groups.

Amateur Biology

This class is making me feel more like a science-teacher than a philosopher. Luckily I'm pretty au fait with the mechanism of evolution but I'm not a biologist by trade so I can't think of that many examples when trying to explain something to the class.

Last Friday's class was pretty technical, going over the definition of neotenic traits, the difference between vestigial traits and evolutionary side-effects, etc. And now, before their test, my students are emailing me to ask scientific questions like "What is the difference between an ancestral and derived characteristic?" and "What is allometric growth?"

I never thought I'd say this but I'm really looking forward to teaching creationism next week!