Everything that happens on a geological scale leaves geological evidence. There is no such evidence for a global flood. It's not just the mechanism for causing the flood that's missing, but any sign of it whatsoever. I grew up learning about and believing in a global flood, and confronting the hard truth that there is no evidence for a flood was an important part of my intellectual development.
However, since there are reasons other than reason and evidence for people to believe in a flood, no amount of reasoning or evidence will change those beliefs, so I propose we focus on the tantalizing science fiction implications instead.
There is, however, plenty of evidence for a huge, huge flood at about the correct time. About 1/3 of the Black Sea was dry land until about 6000 BC [1]. The theory goes that it went from essentially dry land with forests and cities and ... to open sea in as little as 2 months, which can't have been a pleasant experience for the inhabitants.
Also note that floods don't simply go in a straight line from A->B. In practice because towns are built on the more stable land, what you'd see happen is pretty much the worst possible scenario : the water would surround cities, first making most roads unusable (non hardened ones because they become mud, hardened ones because some parts of them collapse). Then the water level would rise until nothing remains above the water level. (I've got some experience living in Northwest Europe, and every 20 years or so you get introduced to this problem firsthand)
Of course, even though the affected area was huge, it was still a local phenomenon.
It is indeed fascinating to study possible true origins of flood myths and other myths, but it's important to remember that finding a possibly true local origin doesn't provide evidence for a miraculous flood, whether global or local.
The absence of evidence is not proof of the contrary. I am an atheist and I laud your dedication to evidence based reason, but don't go overboard and ignore things many people believe are true, often they do for a reason.
That said, if there never was such a flood there would likely be evidence that it never happened.
I'm curious what you think "evidence that it never happened" would look like, except for looking like the absence of evidence?
What would evidence that there was never a global flood look like? One example might be "lack of a global species disruption in the fossil layer". But that's just absence of evidence again.
You're talking about the idea of the Genesis flood, occurring some 4500 years ago, drastically rearranging the recently-created Earth's geology, wiping out every living thing except for the few that survived on a boat that landed on a single mountain in what is modern-day Turkey?
I think there are some predictions you could make there. However every single one of them is just so far divorced from what we observe that they aren't even worth enumerating.
Absence of evidence is not "proof" of the contrary, but it is evidence of the contrary.
"Proof" is a complicated word. People typically take it to mean "slam-dunk, 100%, without-a-doubt proves the case." But little in science ever works like that. Math, sure, where you can prove things analytically. But when trying to "prove" things about the universe, you have to collect bodies of evidence, and see how well that evidence matches expectations.
So, when you go out looking for something, and despite your best efforts, cannot find it, then that may not "prove" that something did not happen, but it is good evidence in support that it did not.
Despite centuries of scientists looking hard for evidence of it (and knowing what kind of evidence they are looking for, adn being able to get it), they've been unable to get any. That's as strong evidence of the inexistence of a phenomenun as you can get.
> Go check sedimentary layers in affrica / Arabia / golden triangle
1. Why only those? Isn't it global?
2. This comment has no value without an academic paper to reference. If nobody has studied it, this is just hot air. If someone has, you are expected to link to it in these lands.
However, since there are reasons other than reason and evidence for people to believe in a flood, no amount of reasoning or evidence will change those beliefs, so I propose we focus on the tantalizing science fiction implications instead.