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Caf, thanks for the very well-stated reply! No, I don't think that 'creationists' should be held to a different standard; on the contrary, they should be held to exactly the same standard as scientists. Science is provable and disprovable - 'creationism' is neither. Science looks at all the evidence and forms conclusions based on the evidence. As science progresses and new evidence is found, the conclusions may change. 'Creationism' starts with the conclusion, for which there's no evidence whatever, and ignores all the evidence to the contrary. You tell me, caf, which is the more legitimate method of reasoning? Please be honest. If a 'scientist' says or writes something 'silly', and you are correct - this frequently happens, (s)he is subject to peer review by the scientific community. 'Creationism' has been thoroughly reviewed, examined, sliced, diced, chewed up, and spit out by legitimate biologists, geologists, astronomers, and other scientists and found to be nonsense. If it were not, there would be, somewhere on this planet, at least a small number of scientists that concur with the 'creationist' tenets in the absence of any religious agenda whatever. As far as I know, no such persons exist.
I do not doubt that evidence can be found for a catastrophic flood in that part of the world at about that time in history. Such floods still occur from time to time. That is quite different than a GLOBAL flood only a few thousand years ago, for which there's no evidence whatever. Scientists continue to seek new evidence for the age of the universe. The fact that it is VERY ancient is not in doubt. Based on current knowledge, (and, of course, subject to change), the best estimate is 15 billion years, more or less. Some (not all) preliminary findings from the new space telescopes seem to suggest an older universe, perhaps 40-50 billion years or more, but that will require much more research to verify. In any case, science marches on while superstition and ignorance remain the same always. The bottom line is, what is the use of arguing or wasting time worrying about whether there is a 'gap' between the first and second verses of a narrative that was 'cribbed' from a non-Biblical source in the first place and is clearly metaphoric in any case? I would suggest using the time to study the history of the Bible and the sources of the various OT writings. When one realizes that all of Genesis was carefully sewn together by scholars during the Exile, from three major and a couple of minor sources, previously unrelated, then one realizes why the accounts in Gen 1 and Gen 2:4ff are so incompatible. Trying to reconcile both of them with scientific fact is futile at best and foolish at worst.
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