NephillimFree and The Genesis Conflict

Ventures Into Scepticism

Real Sceptic has its origins as a companion site for the videos produced by Collin Maessen. The site has progressed beyond this original purpose and now predominantly includes articles that are independent of the content released on YouTube. However this original content is still an important part of the site.

This page serves as an archive for videos produced and released on YouTube. You can find full transcripts, source listing and used media files for the videos. We are currently in the process of transcribing all the audio.

Please note that the first nine videos are of a substantial lower quality than videos that were produced after these. As these first nine videos were as much, and in some case more, about learning to edit videos and learning how to tell a story in sound and images.

Video description

NephilimFree uploaded a series of video's he named The Genesis Conflict. It's a presentation made by Dr. Walter J Veith titled The Fossil Record Speaks. In that presentation he tries to 'debunk' the theory of evolution.

He makes several gross misrepresentations of the science involved, even ignores evidence we have to the contrary and often refers to dubious sources and newspaper articles to make his point.

The claim he made that there are no meteorites found in the geological record irked me in such a way that I had to say something about it. While I was pointing this out to NephilimFree he decided to remove those video's. Probably because even the Discovery Institute doesn't support a lot of the claims Veith makes.

Transcript

Yesterday NephilimFree posted the following video:

I'd like to ask you how old this rock is. And this particular one is a mixture of all kinds of processes. But lets assume for arguments sake it's sedimentary rock. How old is it?

[inaudible background murmur from audience]

Well what would science do to tell you how old it is?

[inaudible background murmur from audience]

Well you say carbon-dating, now you can't use carbon-dating on sedimentary rock, because carbon-dating doesn't go back far enough. And you can't date sedimentary rock in the first place. So if you cannot date it, how old is it?

[inaudible background murmur from audience]

Well you don't know how old it is.

Yes, it is true that you can't directly date sedimentary rocks. However you can still date such rocks very reliably via indirect methods.

This set the stage for several gross misrepresentations on what we known and don't know in science. However, the part that really irked me was the following:

Now science would like us to believe meteorites struck the earth, and that's why you have this iridium layer. And that is what destroyed the dinosaurs selectively. But there is a major problem with that. And that is that in all the layers of the geological column you don't find meteors. You don't find meteors. You don't find remands of meteors.

And I mean.. How much mining has been done in the world up to date? Huge, huge mining undertakings. How much coal has been removed from the earth, in strip mining? Huge deposits. You don't find meteors. You find meteors on top. Huge masses of meteoric evidence on top. But not at the bottom.

Meteorites are rare, even on the surface. I takes the right equipment and a lot of time to find them.

Meteorites are even harder to find in the geological record. One problem we face in finding them is their chemical composition which allows rapid decay.

But despite the problem we actually have found meteorites in the geological record: Nature, 22 January 1981, Per Thorslund & FRans E. Wickman.

Also, he's ignoring the fact that we have found impact craters in the geological record.

I pointed this out to Nephilimfree. During my exchange with him, the following happened:

Wow. You really are uninformed. Google it. There's enough to keep you reading for weeks.

[Screen shot showing "This video has been removed by the user"]

Yes, he removed the videos.

He probably figured out that even the Discovery Institute doesn't support a lot of the claims Veith makes.

Sources

  1. Middle Ordovician chondrite in fossiliferous limestone from Brunflo, central Sweden
    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v289/n5795/abs/289285a0.html
  2. Young-earth "proof" #4: There are no fossil meteorites in the geologic record. If the latter were laid down over billions of years we would expect to find at least a few fossil meteorites in the geologic strata. Therefore, the geologic record was deposited rapidly.
    http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-earth/specific_arguments/meteor.html

Media resources

  1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IpmRf07iGM (part 1)
  2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY8f1N3rv7g (part 2 meteorite claim)

Ventures Into Scepticism