To : Bob Bloodgood Subj: ice here is a quick list of a few of the problems with the astral

From: David Bushard                                    13 Jul 94  11:14
To  : Bob Bloodgood
Subj: ice

here is a quick list of a few of the problems with the astral ice idea, that
as far as i can tell from reading the echo, you have not addressed:

1.  if the ice appeared rapidly and recently, as you suggest, the ice would be
undifferentiated throughout it's thickness, or at most have only large scale
differentiation.  when a drill core is examined, the existing icecaps are seen
to be layered, as would be predicted my a deposition over many seasons.  why?

2.  ice bodies in the solar system (primarily comets) are composed of a
mixture of frozen volatiles, including but not limited to water.  large
amounts of carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane, and small amounts of others are
found mixed together.  if an extra-terrestrial ice body deposited this stuff
on the earth rapidly and recently, what is the evidence of these other
volatiles?  where are they now?

3.  ice bodies are also known to include non-volitile stuff, mostly rocky
things, but also dust, soot-like stuff, metal nodules -- things that resemble
meteorites.  did this stuff also come down with the ice?  why, and how, and if
not, why not, and where did it go?

4.  do you have any reason beyond requiring some explanation for the flood
myth for supposing that this event you postulate happened only 5000 years ago?

5.  as glaciers advance, entrained materials scour the bed under the glacier,
and when they retreat, they do so by melting, and they drop their entrained
stuff.  this has been directly observed in real time.  there is evidence that
there were 4 major advances and retreats of ice in northern north america in
the last 2 million years.  scratches in rocks (i have one in my front yard
that weighs several tons), moraines and eskers, sedimented river valleys, and
other features by the thousands and thousands agree.  how did this evidence
come to exist, if there was one and only one episode of ice, as you assert?

6.  pollen from earth plants is found in the laminations of ice in the
greenland and antarctic icesheets.  regardless of how the laminations got
there, how did the pollen get there?  this pollen is not randomly mixed into
the ice -- the sequence of kinds found agrees with the sequence found at other
non-ice accumulation sites.  how did it get like this, if the ice arrived
rapidly and recently?

7.  the rate of infall of meteorites is known.  meteorites are found in
antarctica, in the abundance that would agree with an age of millions of
years.  these meteorites show the exact same kinds of changes due to
atmospheric heating as do other meteorites recovered elswhere.  if the ice
arrived recently and slowly, why are the entrained meteorites heated just like
others?

8.  the arrival, gentle transfer of ice, and departure of the visiting body
that you postulate cannot happen without an enormous input of energy.  what
energy source is used to apply the stupefying amounts of delta-V required, and
how was it applied?  i presume you will not resort to LGMs for this one.

there is lots more, of course, but any one of these should be plenty.  there
are models of the history of the earth that account for observed phenomena
quite effectively, yet you insist on asserting one that is directly contrary
to observed fact.  why are you doing this, bob?

i should make clear that i am personally not at all puzzled by any of the
things listed above, so i am not really asking you for any answers; rather i
am presuming that you are being straightforward when you say that you want to
study these matters.  think of the above as study questions, or as guides to
the kind of phenemona that the theory you espouse must account for.  if you
cannot account for these phenomena at least as well as the more conventional
explanations do, you need to (at least) become a great deal more sophisticated
in your theoretical system.

your suggestions (from patten) about the ways the icecaps are "anomolous" are
all either distorted or flat out erroneous or require a specific supernatural
miraculous intervention.  you have stated over and over that your intent here
is to "shine a bright light" on the deficiencies of evolutionary theory, and
that you are convinced of these deficiencies not because you have any
understanding of evolution but because your religious beliefs demand it.  is
this still true?  do you insist that the evidence observed by science is wrong
on religious grounds?

david

--- Maximus 2.01wb
 * Origin: The Swamp, River Falls WI 715.425.8865 & 612.436.5254 (1:2245/101)