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The Universal Deluge:
Alternative Hypotheses for Hardground Origins

John Woodmorappe

Transport processes can potentially account for in situ hardgrounds in the sedimentary record. Steadily accumulating evidence undermines the certitude of life-position inferences of at least certain fossils. Some turbidity currents and debris fl ows allow for the contemplation of large-scale transport, imbrication, and coplanar deposition of large, flat slabs of antediluvian hardground origin. Modern volcanoes demonstrate that released gas can cause the flotation of large rock slabs. Finally, many in situ hardgrounds show evidences at least suggestive of a composite, allochthonous origin. A hardground-conduit hypothesis posits that hardgrounds formed in pseudokarstic-submarine (underwater cavelike) structures. This solves the apparent problems of time and stratigraphically superposed hardgrounds. The hardiness of hardground organisms is just one factor consistent with this hypothesis.

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Can Evolution Make New Biological Software?

Richard W. Stevens

The modern theory of biological evolution focuses almost entirely on how random mutation (including recombination) with natural selection could produce all of the physical features and functions that appear in plants and animals. Yet, how do new species of animals obtain the knowledge (the software) to operate the new limbs, organs, and other features (the hardware) that evolution produces? This article will look at reptile-bird evolution and the need for the simultaneous evolution of fl ying software to support the evolution of the fl ying hardware (the wings). Next, the article addresses whether random mutation and natural selection can modify software to achieve any new useful functions. Using the InforMutation simulation system, the analysis shows that random modifi cations to computer software yield broken programs, not improved software. By analogy, biological control systems cannot be modifi ed randomly and then be able to operate new biological hardware.

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Can Recolonization Explain the Rock Record?

John K. Reed, Andrew S. Kulikovsky, and Michael J. Oard

The recolonization model is a recently proposed diluvial solution to many enigmas of the rock record. Working within the framework of the global stratigraphic succession developed by uniformitarian geologists over the past two centuries, it seeks to reconcile it with Biblical history by moving the Flood event to the very base of the stratigraphic record. Thus the Flood is represented by that section that extends from the oldest crustal rocks (Hadean) up into the Carboniferous. The post-Carboniferous record refl ects a sequential terrestrial recolonization by Flood survivors, preserved as a series of historical snapshots by post-Flood catastrophes. Although appealing in its attempt to merge the geologic column with Genesis, the model’s positive arguments are unconvincing. An evaluation of Biblical, axiomatic, logical, and geological issues reveals significant weaknesses. Two of its greatest flaws lie in its two key assumptions: 1) the veracity of the geologic timescale’s relative chronology, and 2) the validity of uniformitarian depositional models.

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