Definitely not enough salt in the sea?

Question

Previous replies generally take the unscientific approach that evolution is science and creation is religion. Not so.
All idea about the past are just ideas. We all have the same evidence, but intepret it differently.
If the earth were old then we would expect to see a good deal more salt in the sea than we do.
Do evolutionists have a satisfactory answer? All I've seen so far is ad hominem insults, religious (i.e anti Creation) bigotry, and one rebutted scientific critique.

Tentofield - I did read the talk origins link. Morton's assertions have been answered by Dr Humphreys - funny how TalkOrigins declines to note this :)

No, Glenn Morton is not at all correct on this, and sincere creationists can continue using sea sodium as an evidence for a young world. Morton showed you an early letter in his correspondence with Steve Austin and me, but not our replies. He also did not show you how he terminated the correspondence.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/578

Eugene - follow the link for detailed article of saltiness (lacl of) the sea.
The site also has many different indications of the youth of the earth.
http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3040/

Flyboy. The question (note the question mark) is do evolutionists have a satisfactory answer to why the sea is so lacking in salt? If the earth and sea were really ancient we would expect the sea to be much more salty.

Answer 1

Can you point me to the scientific evidence that says there's not enough salt in the sea with a history of what thappened to the sea during ice ages etc. One claim is not sufficent. If you're telling me the earth is 5757 years old, don't expect me to buy it.

Answer 2

Why should there be more salt in the sea?? The saltiness is being diluted by all the fresh water being dumped into our oceans by the melting polar ice caps, thus the lack of enough sea salt is due to the "global warming" effect and the heating up of the Earth over all NOT evolution or the creation story.... It's been proved at the Antarica and Greenland, that the same thing thats happening all over the world at the moment has happened before? Our polar ice caps disappeared and our magnetic fields swapped, thats whats happening at the moment, sorry it has nothing to do with you question but it does have some thing to do with the Earth's history (oh by the way, what happened a few thousand years ago - the ice caps melted etc - is only happening now because our CO2 emissions are heating the Earth and so it's sped up the whole process...
why did you think that religion had anything to do with it?

Answer 3

Interestingly, the article you show us indicates that any such research that Morton would be published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta and "probably awarded a Nobel Prize". I would suggest that the writers have little idea what mainstream research publication is actually like.

Also, the idea that albite would degrade in water is quite absurd - it is very stable in water and is found in large quantities on land as well.

Chlorite always consists of a metal cation (normally Mg or Fe) which would be unlikely to exist in such a form where it can readily exchange with the sodium

I also notice that Mortons critic is unnamed and unreferenced - normally when a valid challenge is issued via some paper, the author is only too happy to be referenced.

Answer 4

I don't think we all look at the same evidence. Some pick and chose their evidence to try to verify preconceived notions. Some posture rather than contemplate. Salt is precipitated in numerous ways in the ocean. If the earth were not old, I would ask creationists to explain the salt domes. These are layers of salt that were laid down millions of years ago and have slowly crept upward after they were buried by millions of years of deposition. These salt domes were once part of an ocean but since they are lower in density and somewhat plastic over million of years they rise like giant bubbles in a lava lamp. As a geologists I have seen mountains of nearly irrefutable evidence how these salt domes formed and how old they are. You may think you are winning brownie points from your pastor or from god but frankly I think you should simply study the subject more and maybe then you'll see the earthj really is billions of years old.

Answer 5

Russell Humphreys could not rebut his way out of a brown paper bag. This is not my field but in any discussion with Humphreys I will back the opposition for the simple reason thet Humphreys is so wrong in so many things. My own area is meteorology and climatology and Humphreys' attempts to explain the flood are laughable.

Don't take it from me, this is what Wikipedia says about him with further references to your supposed salt problem:

Many scientists disagree with Humphreys work. For example, on Humphrey's thousands of year old universe, in 1998 Dave Thomas wrote "he has his astronomy backwards - the Kuiper Belt contains the remains of the "volatile" (icy) planetesimals that were left over from the formation of the solar system - numbering in the hundreds of millions. If anything, it is the Kuiper Belt that supplies the more remote Oort Cloud, as some icy chunks are occasionally flung far away by interactions with large planets."[1]

Humphreys claims there is "not enough sodium in the sea" for a several billion year old sea. Conversely, Thomas notes that "Humphreys finds estimates of oceanic salt accumulation and deposition that provide him the data to "set" an upper limit of 62 million years. But modern geologists do not use erratic processes like these for clocks. It's like someone noticing that (A) it's snowing at an inch per hour, (B) the snow outside is four feet deep, and then concluding that (C) the Earth is just 48 hours, or two days, in age. Snowfall is erratic; some snow can melt; and so on. The Earth is older than two days, so there must be a flaw with the "snow" dating method, just as there is with the "salt" method."[2]

Likewise Dr. Kevin Henke explained he has "criticized and documented some of the numerous problems in Dr. Humphreys' work."[3] For example, Humphreys thinks "that zircons from the Fenton Hill rock cores... contain too much radiogenic helium to be billions of years old."[4] Henke noted that "the "dating" equations in Humphreys" work "are based on many false assumptions (isotropic diffusion, constant temperatures over time, etc.) and the vast majority of Humphreys et al.'s critical a, b, and Q/Q0 values that are used in these "dating" equations are either missing, poorly defined, improperly measured or inaccurate."[5]

Some critics simply assert "Humpherys misunderstands and misrepresents science" because "the rules of the scientific method do not allow individuals to invoke miracles to eliminate scientific data (i.e., U/Pb dates) and questions that they don't like."[6]

Others simply claim he uses arcane sources and misrepresents his sources. [7] For example, "in the eight years since, Humphreys has learned that 'Kuyper' is really spelled 'Kuiper'. That is all he has learned - his astronomy knowledge is still abysmal. The Kuiper Belt is no longer a "supposed" source of comets, it is a documented source, with over 800 Kuiper Belt Objects discovered since 1992," but "don't take my word for it - why not check out Humphreys's own reference on this claim."[8]

Answer 6

I've read the salt in the seas arguments. They predict more of many salts than can be maintained in solution. To use those models, the ocean would have to be supersaturated. Second, living creatures concentrate many minerals, die and fall to the seabed where they the minerals, particularly calcium which forms limestone, are not returned to the ocean. Having studied physiologic concentrations of minerals in marine and terrestrial life, I can confidently say that the salinity of sea water is consistent with the age of the Earth in billions of years.

Answer 7

`Horizon` made a programme on it.
My understanding, the `CUVIER` (Possible spelling mistake) the circulatory system is loosing its saltiness, by the fresh water i.e. the icebergs melting into sea.

Answer 8

This is very interesting, I'm going to try that one on my boyfriend we differ on our belief on stuff like that. He has a PhD in education with a minor in biology so sometimes its hard to argue stuff like that with him. Thanks

Answer 9

Thank you for posting a question on Yahoo Answers. What exactly is it?