# Petroleum and Young Earth Creationists **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 29, 2012, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081 "2012-08-29T22:57:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/21 "2018-05-31T17:54:24Z")
> [@stonepalatin](#): > > And if we honestly don’t know, then I would be careful throwing God under the bus with your limited knowledge of the situation, unless of course you consider yourself God with unlimited knowledge yourself. What does God have to fear from a bus? ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/22 "2018-05-31T17:55:28Z")
Wow, I thought this was an interesting thread and then got surprised when I saw I made a post in it nearly 6 years ago. So, that was a pleasant surprise. > [@stonepalatin](#): > > I am in the oil and gas business and I can say with absolute surety that there are still many, many unknowns about how oil got to where it is and where it came from. Being in the oil and gas business doesn’t mean a whole lot in this case. The geologists and geophysicists express considerably more confidence that we have the overall story correct even if we’re still working on the details. This may come as a surprise to a lot of people, but the G&G folks are only a small part of the industry. A vast majority in the industry don’t really have an adequate understanding of the underlying geology and geophysical processes and don’t really need to. Coal miners don’t have to know how the coal got there to usefully extract it. > [@stonepalatin](#): > > What we are getting good at is finding where it is now and how to get it out. But where it came from and how it got to where it is now is purely conjecture and educated guesswork. Wow, this is just wrong. Very wrong. As you note, you don’t have to know a lot about the underlying science of how hydrocarbons got there to usefully extract them. You should, however, have an understanding of the underlying geology and geophysical processes to find them, however, especially in many of the more unusual fields we’ve seen. That’s how we have a clue where to look for the geologic plays, after all. Yes, it is conjecture and educated guesswork to figure out where hydrocarbons came from and how they got there. But that’s rather dismissive. That’s much like saying it’s conjecture and educated guesswork to wonder who made a disaster of the kitchen when your baby is sitting in the middle of the mess badly in need of a bath. You may not have direct evidence the baby was responsible, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. > [@stonepalatin](#): > > There are many, many problems with the theory that oil comes from living organisms as the chemical make up of oil rarely equates to the same chemicals found in organic compounds. We have all but given up the idea that oil came from dinosaurs, and now the guess is that it came from algae and is plant based, but even there essential elements are missing or toxic elements are in their place. The Russians have come up with a theory that oil is not biologically formed, which takes care of the chemical problems of non organic composition, but does not explain the migration of oil through multiple layers of rock after being necessarily “burned” by the extreme high temperatures at such great depths. Who is “we” here? There’s no real debate about it. Some people were taught in primary school that oil came from dinosaurs, but that’s much like some schoolchildren were taught the sky is blue due to refraction. It’s not correct and scientists never really believed it or promulgated it. The theory that fossil fuels were primarily plant derived is now literally [centuries old](http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/histgeol/lomonos/lomonos.htm) and now backed by both experiment and a rather large volume of physical evidence. Yes, there’s “abiogenesis”, which the [Soviets pursued for decades](http://static.scribd.com/docs/j79lhbgbjbqrb.pdf). It’s been out of favor also for decades, even in Russia, because it couldn’t provide useful predictions on finding new petroleum fields. It’s quite possible (thanks to newer, and might I add reproducible, experiments) for some petroleum to be produced via abiogensis, but the conditions required are not conducive to the large volumes of petroleum we have already extracted, which I might add much of which was found due to the theories you are here denigrating. > [@stonepalatin](#): > > None of the current theories can be scientifically reproduced and as such are just theories, not reaching the level of scientific fact, which involves observation, and repeatable results. Like the theory of gravity? The biological origin of hydrocarbon fuels as well as useful theories on how they migrate upward closer to the surface have been observed and also experimentally supported in a repeatable fashion. There is, of course, the ultimate repeatable trial, which is the major oil companies, which have used those theories to find and extract hydrocarbon in new fields based on geological and geophysical theory. > [@stonepalatin](#): > > And if we honestly don’t know, then I would be careful throwing God under the bus with your limited knowledge of the situation, unless of course you consider yourself God with unlimited knowledge yourself. And I’d be careful claiming knowledge which is contradicted by the very industry in which I work. > [@am77494](#): > > A friend told me that when you take all the possible radioactive elements that can generate helium - take their concentration in the first 25 km of earth’s crust and multiply by the volume of the earth’s crust - it gives you the mass today of the radioactive elements. Well, it’s been nearly 6 years (sorry, I didn’t come back to this thread to check in the interim), but I’m not sure, actually. Love to see the citation for it, though. Naturally, people are pretty confident in the mechanism but I wouldn’t be shocked if many of the numbers were the result of numbers with large error bounds (we have reasonable guesses at the subsurface but very few with a high degree of precision as direct measurements are quite difficult). ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/23 "2018-05-31T18:06:02Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > What does God have to fear from a bus? Buses are God’s arch enemy. > **[Atheist Bus Campaign](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist_Bus_Campaign)** > > The Atheist Bus Campaign was an advertising campaign in 2008 and 2009 that aimed to place "peaceful and upbeat" messages about atheism on transport media in Britain, in response to evangelical Christian advertising. > It was created by comedy writer Ariane Sherine and launched on 21 October 2008, with official support from the British Humanist Association and Richard Dawkins. The campaign's original goal was to raise £5,500 to run 30 buses across London for four weeks early in 2009 with the slo... ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/24 "2018-05-31T18:15:08Z")
> [@stonepalatin](#): > > I find it interesting that so many people in this thread were there at the creation of the world and saw the formation of oil and gas. The truth is that none of us were there to scientifically observe and record any information ourselves. If you first argument is the “how do you know, were you there?” trope, it really isn’t going to encourage anyone to take much interest in the rest of the content of a long diatribe resurrecting a thread that’s 0.1% as old as the entire YEC universe. > **[How do you know? Were you there?](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/How_do_you_know%3F_Were_you_there%3F)** > > "How do you know? Were you there?" is a summary dismissal of evolution and "Old Earth" science used by some creationists,\[3\] who incidentally, weren't there either. This response is a form of escape hatch argument used to question and dismiss any... ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/25 "2018-05-31T18:21:16Z")
On the “How do you know, were you there?” question, here is one of PZ Meyer’s finer moments. > [@](#): > > I went to a NASA display of a moon rock and a lady said, “This Moon-rock is 3.75 billion years old!” Guess what I asked for the first time ever? > “Um, may I ask a question?” > And she said, “Of course.” > I said, in my most polite voice, “Were you there?” > Love, Emma B In response to this 9-year old girl’s story, he wrote an open letter, here: > **[Dear Emma B](https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/06/23/dear-emma-b-2/)** > > Ken Ham is crowing over fooling a child. A young girl visited a moon rock display from NASA, and bravely went up to the docent and asked the standard question Ham coaches kids to ask — and sh… ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/26 "2018-05-31T19:06:03Z")
I used to know a petroleum engineer who was also a YEC. His beliefs really weren’t any deeper than “God made it that way.” The man seemed to have an entirely empirical mindset, utterly disconnected from theory, but I suppose that was sufficient. He neither knew nor cared about the geological processes that led to the current state. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/27 "2018-05-31T19:35:54Z")
> [@stonepalatin](#): > > I find it interesting that so many people in this thread were there at the creation of the world and saw the formation of oil and gas. The truth is that none of us were there to scientifically observe and record any information ourselves. You’re wrong. I _was_ there, and it happened pretty much the way modern geology says it did. (Was pretty boring waiting around for those millions of years the most part). And don’t be saying that I’m lying when I say that I was there. I mean _you_ weren’t there, and the fact that I don’t look a day over 200 can’t be used to infer anything. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/28 "2018-05-31T19:46:49Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > You’re wrong. I _was_ there, and it happened pretty much the way modern geology says it did. Were you the guy that I chatted to in southern Pangea in the early Mesozoic? I was the tall one with a beard wearing a T-shirt that said “Geologists: we know what makes the bedrock”. Pretty funny that we should run into each other again after all these years. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/29 "2018-05-31T20:26:22Z")
> [@stonepalatin](#): > > I find it interesting that so many people in this thread were there at the creation of the world and saw the formation of oil and gas. Well, this site does skew older. ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/30 "2018-05-31T20:30:31Z")
This thread treats geology as a very mature science and geologists as know all about the earth. This in my opinion is not true. Consider for example the Kola Superdeep Borehole - the deepest point we have ever reached (about 15 km) into the earth. This is equivalent of the skin on an apple, if the apple represented earth. Even at this small depth, the geological predictions were proven wrong: At this depth the geologists predicted a temperature of 100C- it was found to be 180C. Geologists predicted a transition from granite to basalt at about 7 km depth - it was not found :). They predicted no water at these depths but the rocks were found to be saturated with water. They predicted no hydrogen at these depths but there was large quantities of hydrogen. You get the idea. Next time a geologist gets cocky around you, remind her about the Kola borehole. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/31 "2018-05-31T20:46:30Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > This thread treats geology as a very mature science and geologists as know all about the earth. > > This in my opinion is not true. Consider for example the Kola Superdeep Borehole - the deepest point we have ever reached (about 15 km) into the earth. This is equivalent of the skin on an apple, if the apple represented earth. > > Even at this small depth, the geological predictions were proven wrong: At this depth the geologists predicted a temperature of 100C- it was found to be 180C. Geologists predicted a transition from granite to basalt at about 7 km depth - it was not found :). They predicted no water at these depths but the rocks were found to be saturated with water. They predicted no hydrogen at these depths but there was large quantities of hydrogen. You get the idea. > > Next time a geologist gets cocky around you, remind her about the Kola borehole. :rolleyes: Just because a research project started nearly fifty years ago produced some surprising results about the continental crust doesn’t mean that the whole fundamental timeframe of planetary geology is up for debate. Which is what YEC hypotheses are trying to claim. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/32 "2018-05-31T20:50:48Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Buses are God’s arch enemy. > > [Atheist Bus Campaign - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist_Bus_Campaign) ``` Domine, defende nos Contra hos Motores Bos! ``` ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/33 "2018-05-31T20:52:00Z")
I’m not sure how Kola does that at all. Geologists will be among the first to tell you that the field is not “mature”, whatever that means. And they’ll tell you they don’t know everything. That’s pretty obvious. But the same is true for many sciences we consider “mature”, like astronomy or physics or meteorology. We’re continually making new discoveries all the time and/or refining knowledge we already have. The Kola borehole example is much like saying the weatherman predicted it would be 95 degrees under overcast skies and 80% humidity but it was actually 98, sunny, and 20% humidity, and this somehow means weather forecasting in general is terrible. A single example is a terrible way to invalidate an entire science. The expected results in Kola, which were mainly geophysical not geological (yes, there’s a technical difference between geology and geophysics but not really relevant to the discussion), are of the type that happen all the time. The state of the art always advances. But that doesn’t really change some basic things which have very strong support. Things like: most, if not nearly all, petroleum is biogenic and sourced mostly from prehistoric oceanic plant matter, rock temperature gets hotter with depth, seismic wave character changes with the nature of the rock, which is how the granite/basalt thing came up - the seismic waves changed, which is much more commonly associated (and experimentally verified) with a change in type of rock. Also, the deeper you go, the older the rocks tend to be (this isn’t always true but is generally true - you’d be surprised that this was once considered cutting edge thinking not so long ago), rocks of the same age/depositional environment tend to be the same type of rock, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/34 "2018-05-31T21:17:46Z")
> [@stonepalatin](#): > > I find it interesting that so many people in this thread were there at the creation of the world and saw the formation of oil and gas. The truth is that none of us were there to scientifically observe and record any information ourselves. Meh, what a tired old argument - “you don’t know everything, therefore you can’t claim you know _anything_” [Were you there?](http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA221.html) Picture this scenario: you return home to find your partner lying dead on the floor in a pool of blood, shot dead; there is a man standing over her holding a smoking gun. What are you to do? You can’t assume this man with the gun is your spouse’s killer - _ **you weren’t there** _. No point calling the police - _ **they weren’t there either** _. The whole situation is just utterly hopeless and unsolvable, right? Because you weren’t there. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/35 "2018-05-31T21:28:49Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > This thread treats geology as a very mature science and geologists as know all about the earth. > > This in my opinion is not true. Consider for example the Kola Superdeep Borehole… > > …Next time a geologist gets cocky around you, remind her about the Kola borehole. Ok, but this is the “scientists don’t know everything therefore scientists know nothing” fallacy. What predictions did the Bible and the Koran make about Kola? ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/36 "2018-05-31T21:28:55Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Domine, defende nos > Contra hos Motores Bos! Sick transit’s glorious Monday. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/37 "2018-05-31T21:32:10Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Picture this scenario: you return home to find your partner lying dead on the floor in a pool of blood, shot dead; there is a man standing over her holding a smoking gun. > > What are you to do? You can’t assume this man with the gun is your spouse’s killer - _ **you weren’t there** _. No point calling the police - _ **they weren’t there either** _. The whole situation is just utterly hopeless and unsolvable, right? Because you weren’t there. I think the first step is to rule out Lupus. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/38 "2018-05-31T21:36:11Z")
It’s never Lupus ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/39 "2018-05-31T23:00:34Z")
Do all the “were you there?” religious types ever ask that question when talking about the Bible? Were you there when Jesus walked on the water, healed the sick, and rose from the dead? Did you see it with your own eyes? Of course they have an answer for that question, this question would not cause them any sort of problem, it is not an unbeatable gotcha ya that will leave them lying on the floor sobbing. So since they will have an answer for the things they haven’t witnessed personally but nonetheless believe, why do they think it’s an unbeatable gotcha ya against scientists? ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2018, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081/40 "2018-05-31T23:25:52Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > So since they will have an answer for the things they haven’t witnessed personally but nonetheless believe, why do they think it’s an unbeatable gotcha ya against scientists? There’s usually an exception for things that _someone_ has witnessed, not just them personally. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/petroleum-and-young-earth-creationists/633081.md?page=3)