The argument is not that "a flood took the fossils of all the animals and people that have ever lived" . . . that's a straw man at best. If that's the basis on which you reject the global flood, then you are rejecting something no one believes
I'm not referencing the scale of the flood, but that the layers are sorted so precisely and not a mixture of known species, WHEREVER the flood touched - whether global or not.
No, it isn't "precisely why asserting the flood did this is ridiculous." Again, that's just more argument from incredulity. You've completed ignored the mechanisms whereby the flood would sort out the fossils and rocks as we have them today.
WHAT possible NATURAL mechanisms would do that???!!! NONE! No flood sorts things like an accountant. Yes, God could have done so - but then we're back to Him doing what would cause mankind to DISBELIEVE the earth is very young - which is very interesting in light of those who rabidly insist that He wants us to believe that it IS young? Would God provide radically conflicting evidences between His two testimonies - regardless that one carries far more weight - especially wherever its properly understood? That makes me very skeptical of such an assertion. So we have massive evidences of processes that just happen to comprehensively reinforce across tons of data and diverse scientific data - that supposedly didn't occur - AND then God SUPERnaturally configured things in such a way that just happened to complexly match the discerned processes,
and precisely as science would expect them to???!!! That is one heck of a lot of complicated coincidences! In fact, the more explanations I see from young earth viewpoints - so often that insist that so much was done supernaturally that we really can basically ignore what we think we can discern by scientific study of the Creation. Because when they argue from a SCIENTIFIC view, it just get more and more complex, and the explanations make very little sense or appear very contradictory. Either say science matters and we can trust it, properly understood, OR say that so much about the way God created cannot be understood or detected by science, and that massive agreement across so many studies and disciplines should simply be ignored. Really, you can't have it BOTH ways, or it begins to make no sense.
I take it you didn't read the article, because the article is not addressing the age of the layers. The entire point IS to address what is in them, particularly with reference to the species found in them.
My point is NOT the age of the layers either - although it clearly has implications for that. And my point IS precisely what is IN them - sorted, like my cake analogy. That is a fact! And if God sent a flood to destroy, discombobulate - to do all the things a flood would otherwise do, then IF he perfectly sorted things as they are found - and NOT as a blend of species in all strata, then I'd say He wanted anyone serious about science to be potentially misled by its applications - OR to simply ignore them. He's given and allowed us a powerful and proven methodology that we've seen produce so many marvels and new knowledge come from - and so He's given us good reasons to take science seriously! So we're to believe He's deliberately built in massive evidences that would lead us to a false conclusions - as He surely knew they would. Would He have us simply ignore such massive evidences from the study of His Creation? Why would God want men to intensely study His creation, see massive evidences of processes within it, that 1) did not actually occur, and 2) that would at the very least appear at odds with the supposed/asserted notion that Scripture is literally true about age issue - especially as even many Christians as well would conclude it's not even addressing things from a scientific view - or not in the way interpreted?
