Four questions for YECs - (and a little history of creationism vs evolution)

[The Barbarian]

35 minutes ago, Sparks said:

our evidence that it was all soft ash, other than Teddy mentioning once?

I've been there.   Walked down there.   Mostly soft ash, rhyolite (which is like granite, except it forms almost instantly when the mountain explodes and has no visible grain like granite does.   You can scoop up handfuls of it.   That's why the walls come down if they get much higher than a few dozen meters.    It packs well, and over time hardens into a soft stone.  I picked up this toad figurine that was made by mixing the ash with resin and casting it.

[Sparks]

33 minutes ago, The Barbarian said:

What makes it easy for me, is that you barely read the stuff you link.    Like that site that lists retracted scientific papers.  You claimed none of those people had any consequences,but the first four listed cases involved consequences including losing a PhD, losing a job, etc.   If you were more careful I'd have a tougher time.

Actually, it has nothing to do with the Earth's orbit, which is essentially too small to consider in the calculations.   Instead we use the diameter of the galaxy, which greatly increases the accuracy (It's six degrees of arc, which is more the the Moon shows us)

Six degrees is a very doable base for trigonometric analysis.   Try it yourself at home.   You'll see you get very good results.    Because my baseline is many millions of times larger than that of the Earth's orbit, the accuracy is correspondingly better.   You can do just about any distance if the baseline is long enough.   Do you see why?

It's just that you don't seem to know what you are talking about, are very confident in your posts, but you don't get it.  It's the Dunning Kruger effect.

For example, you don't understand the limitations of Parallax, and just keep pressing on like it's valid for great distance.  Good luck with that.

[Sparks]

30 minutes ago, The Barbarian said:

I've been there.   Walked down there.   Mostly soft ash, rhyolite (which is like granite, except it forms almost instantly when the mountain explodes and has no visible grain like granite does.   You can scoop up handfuls of it.   That's why the walls come down if they get much higher than a few dozen meters.    It packs well, and over time hardens into a soft stone.  I picked up this toad figurine that was made by mixing the ash with resin and casting it.

Uh huh.  So, you were there measuring when the water rushed through?  Might be ash now, but was it all then?  No.

Consider the before and after pictures I posted.  No ash.  That section washed away in hours.

[The Barbarian]

9 hours ago, Sparks said:

Uh huh.  So, you were there measuring when the water rushed through?  

Remember when you learned that evidence can show you what happened even if you weren't there to see it?   Here's another example.    We know what happens in a Plinian explosion of a stratovolcano.     Huge quantities of ash are blown out and form huge deposits.  The process was enhanced in this case, because the volcano blew out sideways.   And as you could see from the Google Earth shots, the ash eroded the way soft deposits always do.

And before there was much of the erosion you mention, I was there.   And yes, soft ash piled up with gullies cut through by rain runoff from the mountain.

9 hours ago, Sparks said:

Consider the before and after pictures I posted. 

Piled up rhyolite ash.    If you were there, you might understand.  But I was, and you weren't.

 

[The Barbarian]

9 hours ago, Sparks said:

It's just that you don't seem to know what you are talking about,

You didn't know how information worked.   You were shocked to see that a pretty good estimate for the distance of the Andromeda Galaxy could be gotten by high school trigonometry.   You didn't know how mRNA vaccines work.   Because I have degrees and certifications in things like this, and because I had to know about things like that to do my work, I was able to show you them.  

I actually visited the site of the Mt. St. Helens eruption, but you didn't.   And yet you confidently feel competent to tell me about all those things that you do not understand.   It's the Dunning Kruger effect.    And everyone here sees it. 

For example, you don't understand how parallax works.   It's not absolute distance, it's the size of the angle subtended that matters.    Because the diameter of the Andromeda Galaxy is many millions of times longer than the distance between the Earth's position at the extremes of it's orbit, the angle subtended from the Earth is substantial, about 6 degrees.   We can therefore confidently obtain a good estimate for the distance from Earth to that galaxy by simple trigonometry.   If I could find a better number for the angle and for the average size of star in Andromeda Galaxy, I could get an even better estimate.  

[Sparks]

35 minutes ago, The Barbarian said:

Remember when you learned that evidence can show you what happened even if you weren't there to see it?   Here's another example.    We know what happens in a Plinian explosion of a stratovolcano.     Huge quantities of ash are blown out and form huge deposits.  The process was enhanced in this case, because the volcano blew out sideways.   And as you could see from the Google Earth shots, the ash eroded the way soft deposits always do.

And before there was much of the erosion you mention, I was there.   And yes, soft ash piled up with gullies cut through by rain runoff from the mountain.

Piled up rhyolite ash.    If you were there, you might understand.  But I was, and you weren't.

 

Naturally, you were there with your ash measuring kit. 

[Sparks]

31 minutes ago, The Barbarian said:

You didn't know how information worked.   You were shocked to see that a pretty good estimate for the distance of the Andromeda Galaxy could be gotten by high school trigonometry.   You didn't know how mRNA vaccines work.   Because I have degrees and certifications in things like this, and because I had to know about things like that to do my work, I was able to show you them.  

I actually visited the site of the Mt. St. Helens eruption, but you didn't.   And yet you confidently feel competent to tell me about all those things that you do not understand.   It's the Dunning Kruger effect.    And everyone here sees it. 

For example, you don't understand how parallax works.   It's not absolute distance, it's the size of the angle subtended that matters.    Because the diameter of the Andromeda Galaxy is many millions of times longer than the distance between the Earth's position at the extremes of it's orbit, the angle subtended from the Earth is substantial, about 6 degrees.   We can therefore confidently obtain a good estimate for the distance from Earth to that galaxy by simple trigonometry.   If I could find a better number for the angle and for the average size of star in Andromeda Galaxy, I could get an even better estimate.  

Yeah, I do understand how the math works and it's limitations.  You cannot measure galaxies distances with parallax, because it cannot measure that far.  You cannot measure the distance with only 16 minutes of angle which takes a year to achieve. 

Even your liberal friend told you 10,000 light years with the aid of a satellite to expand the angle, which I believe strains belief, but I will give him that claim because it is somewhat plausible.  I am thinking 300 light years using the Earth position alone, and that number is a gift because it is likely much less.

[The Barbarian]

27 minutes ago, Sparks said:

Yeah, I do understand how the math works and it's limitations.  You cannot measure galaxies distances with parallax, because it cannot measure that far.  You cannot measure the distance with only 16 minutes of angle which takes a year to achieve. 

You're still confused.   We measure using the diameter of the galaxy as the baseline.    By looking at the stars in that galaxy, we can get a good estimate of the diameter of the galaxy.    And the galaxy takes 6 degrees of arc in the sky, seen from the Earth.   Knowing one side of the triangle and the opposite angle, we can then find the line bisecting the angle, which is the distance.  

High school trigonometry.

Again, it's not the distance; it's the subtended angle that matters.    If the angle is very tiny, it becomes hard to accurately determine the distance.   However, the angle in this case is substantial; six degrees.

 

[The Barbarian]

42 minutes ago, Sparks said:

Naturally, you were there with your ash measuring kit. 

Fortunately, one can determine heights of ash deposits by a variety of methods would you like to learn how we do that?   Notice my estimate of the gulley's height turned out to be very close to your claim.   About 164 feet to your 150 feet.

 

[The Barbarian]

11 hours ago, Sparks said:

Concentrate.  Spirit Lake.  It's happening right now.  The 'strata' is already affected by trees.

The trees are fallen and  horizontal there.  You won't see polystrate trees that way.  They have to be upright so that the layers form around them.