Talk:Cretaceous

This is ridiculous. It would be like having a page that said "according to modern historical consesus, the 4th century came between the 3rd and 5th centuries." There is no "modern scientific consensus" about when the Cretaceous was, its the term we use to describe a certauin time period.

I see your point, but it doesn't apply in this case. Tsumetai was trying to accommodate two points of view. As you may know, geological time is a matter of controversy. A huge number of Americans are Young Earth creationists, and for them there was no "history of the earth" before it was created around 10,000 years ago.

Edit warring doesn't help. So before reverting again here, please explain yourself and get - well - "consensus". --Ed Poor 08:19, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

He's got half a point, actually. The weasel words ought to be associated with the dates, not with the ordering of the periods in question. Tsumetai 08:24, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

I agree it needs to be changed. Even though some don't believe the Earth is more than 10,000 years old, you still wouldn't have a page saying:

"According to modern scientific consensus, 4 million years BC came between 5 million years BC and 3 million years BC."

How about:

"In mainstream science, the Cretaceous period came after the Jurassic period and before the Paleocene period in Earth's geological history, dating from 145 million years ago until 65 million years ago.

Creation scientists do not believe such a period existed in the Earth's history."

--JamesK 08:56, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Well since no one has objected yet and Tim has since done his favorite amendment to the article, I'll put it in. --JamesK 11:02, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

Name change

Can this article be moved from "Cretaceous Period" to just "Cretaceous" so that it matches the related articles and the first sentence make sense? --JamesK 12:28, 29 March 2007 (EDT)

"Gibberish"

What was "gibberish" about the sentence that was reverted? Philip J. Rayment 11:16, 7 August 2007 (EDT)

Re-read it. Your sentence was either grammatically incorrect or was instructing the reader to reject the old earth timeline. Rather than try to determine your intent, I just reverted it to what was already a perfectly good sentence written by Conservative.--Conservateur 12:58, 7 August 2007 (EDT)

So which is it? Do you think it was grammatically incorrect, or do you think it was "instructing the reader to reject the old earth timeline"? That you've put two possibilities suggests to me that you don't actually know what was wrong with it! I reject that it has either fault, by the way, so please actually point out the specific fault(s). Philip J. Rayment 22:39, 7 August 2007 (EDT)

Um, my point was that I couldn't tell which it was. Your sentence ended with the clause "so reject these dates." You tell me what you meant by that.--Conservateur 10:58, 8 August 2007 (EDT)

Here's the clause in context of the entire sentence and previous sentence, highlighting the part referred to by that clause:

Under the dates assigned by uniformitarian geologists, it represents approximately the period of Earth's history from 145 million years ago to 65 million years ago.

Flood geologists reject the uniformitarian assumptions behind the dates derived by secular geologists, so reject these dates...

That is, flood geologists reject the dates of 145 million years ago and 65 millions years ago derived by secular geologists because they reject the uniformitarian assumptions behind those dates.

Philip J. Rayment 11:20, 8 August 2007 (EDT)

Oh, I see now. That must be some weird Australian way to write it. Americans should have no trouble understanding the clause if you put "so they reject these dates."--Conservateur 12:51, 8 August 2007 (EDT)

Although I couldn't previously see anything grammatically incorrect, I'll now concede that it might be grammatically incorrect (i.e. I'm not, in this case, going to plead that it's an American/Australian difference, although that might be the case). I'm happy to change the wording to include the word "they", for added clarity if nothing else. Would you be satisfied with that change? Philip J. Rayment 22:56, 8 August 2007 (EDT)

Gentlemen, I've been staying out of this area a lot, but I offer one observation. We need to make the articles intelligible both to the 45 percent of Americans who believe that God created plants, animals and Human Beings in their present form around 10,000 years ago - as well as to the 50 percent who believe that life "evolved" (with or without God's help) over a period of millions of years.

Perhaps our editorial direction could be to state (all in one place?) what mainstream geologists posit as the various eras, such as Jurrassic and Cretaceous. We can also point out that due to the origins debate there is controversy over whether the Earth actually was in existence that long ago. Americans are roughly split on this, and we cannot wish the split away; see Elephant in the living room.

If you can read the above without being able to tell where I stand on the evolution-ID-creationism spectrum, then maybe I've got a good point? --Ed Poor ^Talk 13:04, 8 August 2007 (EDT)

I have concluded that you are an old earth evolutionist. And from that basis I can predict with 95% certainty that you oppose mandatory school prayer.--Conservateur 14:06, 8 August 2007 (EDT)

Ed, I believe that what you suggest is what is already being done in this and similar articles. I disagree with you mainly to the extent that I believe that the two different points of view do need to be mentioned in each such article, not just in one common place, although extensive discussion of the different points of view should be confined to one place. Philip J. Rayment 22:56, 8 August 2007 (EDT)