Setterfield and the variable speed of light model

[Peter101]

>>>>>First of all, we are talking about the 1987 Report and nothing that came before. I had been pressured into publishing before that, as I have stated on my website, and have requested that material published before 1987 in creation publications not be taken into consideration when dealing with the total of my work.<<<<<<<

No, the 1987 report is not what I was talking about. All of your responses in the last few days seem to be about that report, but I was quoting the critical comments by Day, which were about a 1981 paper published in a creationist journal. The link that I cited, giving Day's critique, tells what he was referring to. If you want to declare the scientific equivalent of bankruptcy and wipe the slate clean prior to 1987, I suppose you can do that. But readers can still form an opinion about your ability by reading Day's comments. Helen offered the work by Montgomery as defending your statistics against the critical comments by Day. I simply pointed out that Montgomery does not defend the methods of the 1981 paper but offers a new analysis. While the new analysis does defend your conclusions, it certainly does not address the criticisms made by Day. And your, Setterfield's, published response to Day does not answer his major criticisms either. It seems that you, Setterfield, did not read my original posts which made quite clear that I was talking about Day's comments.

On a different point,
I will quote one of your recent comments below:

"Peter101 claims that Montgomery's articles were only a response to Aardsma's critique. This is not true,...... but Montgomery also did an entirely new analysis".

Your comment above is not quite accurate about what I said. I agree that Montgomery did an entirely new analysis and I mentioned that in my post. The point I was trying to make was that because it was an entirely new analysis, it was not a response to Day's criticism, as Helen seemed to imply. Helen is often quite careless in characterizing the gist of other publications.

If you want to declare bankruptcy, in a scientific sense, and have it effective in 1987, then I am sure people will accept that. But my criticism is that you ought not to offer your comments on Day's critique as being responsive to his comments, because it clearly was not. You didn't even deal with his comments on your mistaken statistics.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Somebody emailed me a link to a site on the website of the Institution for Creation Research critical of Barry Setterfield's use of statistics. It seems to be fairly recently written. It is a criticism of the 1987 paper, apparently . . .

http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-179.htm

 

[Helen]

Peter, Barry was pressured extraordinarily into the material in 1981. He was pressured by Carl Wieland, the same person who did an about face and totally retracted support of Barry's material later. If there is any way we could wipe out those early publications, we would. You are free to quote this entire paragraph anywhere you like. The material from 1981 until the 1987 Report was entirely preliminary and published only because that is the only way Barry could get the support of that organization, which he needed to get any press at all at the time.

However, that being said, and this can be quoted, too, for TalkOrigin or anyone or other site to critique Barry's material on the basis of stuff that is over 20 years old when he has done so much else and modified so much else is totally bizarre. That is why I have said over and over again, please read his actual material on his website! We have notified Talk Origins of the nonsense of the Day material -- and it is nonsense!

In fact, it was in part to try to deal with the nonsense of taking the 1981 material and treating it as though it were Barry's current material that I asked Barry to write up a bit on the changes in his ideas in past years, which he did and we posted here:

http://www.setterfield.org/theorymods.html

You will also find an explicit request to ignore material previous to the Report (some of which was co-authored by Wieland although he never put his name on it! -- and some of which Barry disagreed with even at the time...) here, which I already linked to you and which you said you had read!
http://www.setterfield.org/history.htm#setterfieldwork

In the meantime, I have read each of my responses to you to Barry first and he approved them, so thanks anyway for the comment about my carelessness. I don't think you are even reading much of the material, Peter. I think you are simply looking for criticisms instead of doing your own thinking.

I encourage you to think on your own. Read the material. Ask all the questions you like. But the Day material is nonsense and TO is showing absolute desperation in keeping it up instead of something which actually deals with Barry's model. They really are not worth responding to as long as they are playing that game.

Paul of Eugene -- yes, that is the Aardsma article which was so extraordinarily dishonest in the way is dealt with the 1987 Report. We have linked it, too, and if you had read the history of light speed research page which I had long ago linked you to, you would have seen that link there and the answer to it.

Please, both of you, read Barry's material yourself before you jump on some bandwagon of criticism and are not even sure what you are talking about.

 

[Peter101]

>>>>>We have notified Talk Origins of the nonsense of the Day material -- and it is nonsense!<<<<<<<


O.K. well, maybe you can explain to us exactly how the statistical criticism of Day is nonsense. You will see earlier in this thread, an exact quote from Day. Do you agree or disagree that you can get a correlation coefficient of 1.0 when none of the points fall on the line? Please respond precisely to this point and don't try to change the subject. I am not interested in Montgomery's analysis. I am interested in how you and Setterfield can refute the detailed criticism of Day. You have said the Day's criticism is nonsense, so now you must explain how exactly. Your saying it does not make it so.

 

[Peter101]

Helen and Barry,

The following is the quote from Day that I would like you to respond to. You have spent several days avoiding comment, but now that you have characterized Day's comments as nonsense, I don't see how you can avoid telling us how his comments are nonsense exactly. Don't try to change the subject, comment on this:

"The final blow to Setterfield's credibility is his statistical analysis of the results, given in Appendix 3, in which he discards 3 of the 41 data points shown in an earlier table, and claims a coefficient of determination r2 of "1 to nine significant figures, indicating a near perfect fit to the data" (emphasis added). As anyone with even the most basic knowledge of analysis will know (and as Setterfield will later learn the hard way), a coefficient of determination of 1 can only be realized if the data points lie precisely on the curve in question, yet Setterfield shows a pathetic ignorance of this fact by following the above claim with, "All told, 17 values were above the curve and 21 below, the r2 value indicating a perfectly balanced distribution of the cluster of points as well as close proximity to the curve."

In fact, as Setterfield openly admits, not a single data point of the 38 considered lay on the curve, yet this does not prevent him from claiming a perfect correlation."

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Originally posted by Helen:

Paul of Eugene -- yes, that is the Aardsma article which was so extraordinarily dishonest in the way is dealt with the 1987 Report. We have linked it, too, and if you had read the history of light speed research page which I had long ago linked you to, you would have seen that link there and the answer to it.

Fair enough, I looked again for Barry's rebuttal material, and did not find it relating to this particular item. Perhaps you could be kind enough to link it directly for us?

In the meantime, let me quote my own example of a problem statement by Barry Setterfield, this one from a post under his name in this forum just last year:

From an archived post dated 3/11/2002 by Barry Setterfield:

Having said that, Radiochemist and Paul need to be instructed a little
further as to what is in the paper undergoing review. It is important
that a distinction be made between the “bare” mass of an atomic
particle, and the “dressed” mass, “m” of that particle, which latter
quantity determines atomic behaviour and is being referred to above.
However, it is the “bare” mass-energy, M, that determines macroscopic
phenomena. This means that gravitational equations can be approached in
two ways; one using “dressed” atomic masses, “m”, the other using the
“bare” mass-energy, M. Both give the same results, but on a macroscopic
scale it is the “bare” mass-energy, M, that is being perceived as mass.

Here, Barry clearly states that there is a variety of mass that does not respond macroscopically as mass. Taken at its face value, this is an incredibly wrong statement, one that to anyone knowledgeable about the nature of mass and energy and their relationships comes off as far off the mark as saying that a best fit line that hits none of the data points can have a correlation coefficient of one.

 

[Helen]

Peter101.
The statistical crits of Day are nonsense because they are taken from the earlier papers before all the data was in. Please check for yourself. And it is only in those earlier papers where Barry included appendices. If you are interested in Barry’s material, read it for yourself, please, from his website and quit this nonsense.

Paul of Eugene.
Lambert Dolphin and Alan Montgomery refuted the Aardsma material here:
http://www.ldolphin.org/cdkgal.html
and here:
http://www.ldolphin.org/cdkalan.html

You will find information on the data used here:
http://www.setterfield.org/data.htm

Barry’s rebuttal is not on the web as we do not have the copyright to it. It was published in the CRSQ, vol 25, March 1989. However I can give you a few quotes from it. Since I am pulling it off of a rough scan of a Word file I have, I cannot give you page numbers:

Aardsma states that “. . . it is highly unlikely that 16
different experimental methods would all accidentally
and independently conform to the same mathematical
equation describing c decay, if c was constant.” I agree!
That was the purpose of the analysis in the Report.
Each of the 16 methods used to measure c did in fact
register a statistical decay. Furthermore, in the many
instances where the same equipment was used later, a
lower value for c resulted. Generally, aberration measurements
obtained at the Pulkova and Flower Observatories,
as well as those conducted by the International
Latitude Service each individually registered a
decay, as did the whole suite of aberration measurements.
As Aardsma states, this would be highly unlikely
if c were constant. Coincidence fades as a possibility
when confirmatory trends appear in 475 measurements
of 11 other atomic quantities by 25 methods, as
tabulated in the Report.
Uncertainties in Decay Rates
Aardsma points out that for all 163 c data, an
uncertainty in the decay rate of ±100 km/s per year
would not be very ‘convincing,’ whereas ±1 km/s per
year would. He then gives the decay for all 163 c data as
38 ±8 km/s per year. However, if the least squares
procedure is followed (Bevington, 1969, pp. 104-5) the
uncertainty is even smaller than that. I have corrected
the Roemer point to read 292000 km/s for reasons
outlined below. When this is done, all 163 c data yield a
decay rate of 28.59 ±0.0016 km/s per year. Analyses of
data from each of the 16 methods of c measurement
give similarly ‘convincing’ results.

… The center-piece of Aardsma’s critiques is his
weighted analysis of the data. This was claimed to be
necessary because of the wide range of uncertainties in
the measurements. However, as shown above, it is
possible to treat the data with respect to error bars
without weighting.
I have used standard statistical procedures to analyze
the c and other data. Firstly, analysis of data means
broadly indicated CDK. Data means were usually
significantly above c now for each method and for all
163 points. Newcomb in 1886 reported that the ‘best’ c
value in 1740 was about 1% higher than that pertaining
in 1880. Birge in 1941 conceded that the average c value
obtained in the 1880’s was in turn 100 km/s higher than
that in 1940. These statements of observational fact
confirm our data means analysis. Secondly, median
analysis of all 163 points indicated that the hypothesis
that the median value was equal to c now could be
rejected at the 97% confidence level. Regardless of
measurement error or date of observation the distribution
of c values was significantly skewed. Thirdly, the
Spearman-Rank test indicated that there was strong
correlation with the date of observation for all 163 data
as well as for data analyzed according to the 16
methods of observation.
Confident that these three non-parametric tests indicate
CDK, we then applied the parametric tests. The
least-squares linear fit and Students t-distribution were
used as outlined in the Report with concordant CDK
results. Analysis of residuals indicated a non-linear
decay. Residuals reduced from 22,000 for an assumption
of a constant c, to under 2000 for a curve fit
(Malcolm, 1982). A final parametric test of the mean
square successive difference performed on successive
data or each third datum, produced high confidence
intervals for CDK with time. Therefore, although the
conclusions from Aardsma’s weighted analysis differs,
it can be unequivocally stated that seven major statistical
tests all favor CDK.

Regarding mass, both micro and macroscopically, if you have kept up with the replies Barry and I have been giving, you will know that this is the subject of the paper he is working on now, so patience. What I will tell you is that there are quiet discrepancies within the mainstream, peer-reviewed literature itself between measurements of the two different ‘sizes’ of mass. Whether or not you think this is ‘incredibly wrong,’ is not the issue. The data is the issue.

 

[mdkluge]

I don't wonder that Setterfield seeks to distance himself from his pre-1987 papers. But it is Setterfield's respondibility, not Day's, nor Peter's, nor mine, nor anyone else's responding to Setterfield. In 1981 when Setterfield published his ill-considered statistical analysis, he was a man. Perhaps it is true that he was under pressure to publish, but he was a man with a man's respondibilities, and it is as a man that Setterfield was, and is, responsible for his 1981 putlication.

Day, like anyone else, is perfectly entitled to criticize Setterfield's work, whether from 1981 or 1987 or 2003. You are free to frankly and honestly respond. A response, however, chiding Day's frank criticism of Setterfield's 1981 work as out of date is neither of those. Day would be out of date if he had claimed to be criticizing the statistical treatment of Setterfield's later work while actually treating only his 1981 paperHe did not do so. Day criticized Setterfield's 1981 paper to show how silly its statistical treatment was It is a clear and accessible argument plainly suggesting that the author of the 1981 garbage cannot be taken seriously in his later work.

You might Wish Day had discussed Setterfield's later work, but Day did not pretend to do so, nor was he obliged to do so. Your only reasonable response is that the Barry Setterfield of 1987 and later is frankly not the incompetent Barry Setterfield of 1981. Eat your humble pie. It is not Day's or any other critic's fault that Setterfield published material below amateurish standards in 1981. Like it or not, this was Setterfield's first "scientific" impression. As you know it's often hard to live down a bad first impression; but if you give one (as Setterfield most assuredly did here) it's YOUR responsibility to live it down by subsequent establishment of your reputation. That doesn't happen by cutting down those who criticize you based upon what you have done previously to earn your ill fame.

Really, Helen, this embarrassing whining has to stop! In response to critics like Day, why can't you and Setterfield, instead of making pat excuses about pressure to publish, or attacking reviewers, simply and frankly respond to Day to the effect that "Barry blew it in 1981. He recognizes that his failure to catch that .9999+ correlation coefficient for manifestly scattered data was a stupid lapse on Setterfield's part, and that critics are right to point out his error. . But then he could ask that his subsequent work be considered his mature product."

He isn't entitled to leave his past behind any more than any of the rest of us is. His past errors might still be ridiculed; but at least audiences will have reason to think that he has learned from them and renounced them rather than simply wishing that they hadn't happened.

By the way, Helen, it's also very shameful for you to cal Aardasma's analysis "dishonest" in a post with out then and there demonstrating not only that it was wrong, but that Aardasma knew it was wrong. It is true that you did provide some reasons in a subsequent post for believing Aardasma's analysis to have been wrong. I'm not going to discuss the merrits of your criticisms now, since this thread is tangled enough. I'm glad to see, though, that you have taken to making substantive criticism.

 

[Helen]

IN other words, Mark, all science except Barry's can be self-correcting. However his has to be absolutely correct from the beginning and no changes, no improvements are allowed.

Sorry, but real science actually does change, remember? Scientists do make mistakes and they do improve and they do change what they were thinking. If this bothers you, you should not be in science.

Aardsma's presentation was dishonest and he knew about it and ICR knew about it and it was published anyway. Here are the memories from both Lambert Dolphin and Brad Sparks from that time. These are via private emails which I have their permission to use:

First is a copy of Lambert's email to me several years ago:

>I want to fill in some regarding the fateful year of 1987: You are
>welcome to weave these in to your paper you are writing incorporating
>Barry's latest comments.
>
>I had known of Barry's work for several years when he and Trevor and I
>decided to publish a joint informal report in 1987.
>
>As a physics graduate student at Stanford in the mid '50s I was aware
>of the historic discussions about the constancy of c and other
>constants. Across the Bay, at UC Berkeley, in our rival physics lab
>Raymond T. Birge was at that time well known and respected. I knew he
>had examined the measured values of c some few years before and decided
>the evidence for a trend was then inconclusive. I also knew there of
>nothing in physics that required c to be a fixed constant.
>
>Therefore the Setterfield and Norman investigation of all the available
>published data seemed to be a most worthy undertaking.
>
>I was a Senior Research Physicist and Assistant Lab Manager in 1987 and
>in the course of my work I often wrote White Papers, Think Pieces, and
>Informal Proposals for Research--in addition to numerous technical
>reports required for our contracted and in-house research. I could
>initiate and circulate my own white papers, but often they were written
>at the request of our lab directory as topics for possible future new
>research. An in-house technical report would be given a Project Number
>the same a Research Project for an external client world--provided the
>internal report took more than minimal effort to prepare and print.
>Minimal-effort reports were not catalogued.
>
>In the case of the 1987 S&N report, I reviewed the entire report
>carefully, wrote the forward, approved it all; but the report was
>printed in Australia, so an internal SRI Project Number was not needed.
>It was simply an informal study report in the class of a White Paper.
>Ordinarily it would have circulated, been read by my lab director and
>been the subject of occasional in house discussions perhaps, but
>probably would not have raised any questions.
>
>Gerald Aardsma, then at ICR in San Diego, somehow got a copy of the
>report soon after it was available in printed form. He did not call me,
>his peer and colleague in science and in creation research, a
>fellow-Christian to discuss his concerns about this work. He did not
>call my lab director, Dr. Robert Leonard, nor the Engineering VP, Dr.
>David A. Johnson over him--both of whom knew me well and were aware of
>the many areas of interest I had as expressed in other white papers and
>reports. Dr. Aardsma elected to call the President of SRI! In an angry
>tone (I am told) he accused the Institute of conducting unscientific
>studies. He demanded that this one report be withdrawn. Aardsma then
>phoned my immediate colleague, Dr. Roger Vickers, who described Aardma
>as angry and on the warpath. Vickers suggested that Aardsma should have
>phoned me first of all.
>
>Of course the President of SRI asked to see the report, and checked
>down the chain of command so he could report back to Aardsma. There was
>no paper trail on the report and my immediate lab director had not
>actually read it, though he had a copy. Since the report had no
>official project number it could not be entered into the Library
>system. Finally the President of SRI was told by someone on the staff
>that ICR was a right-wing fundamentalist anti-evolution religious group
>in San Diego and should not be taken seriously on anything! ICR's good
>reputation suffered a good deal that day as well as my own.
>
>On top of this, major management and personnel changes were underway at
>the time. An entire generation of us left the Institute a few months
>later because shrinking business opportunities. Our lab instructor, Dr.
>Leonard and I left at the same time and the new director, Dr. Murray
>Baron decided that any further inquires about this report should be
>referred directly to me. There was no one on the staff at the time, he
>said, who had a sufficient knowledge of physics to address questions
>and we had no paying project pending that would allow the lab to
>further pursue this work. So the report should not be entereed into the
>Library accounting system.
>
>I next phoned Gerald Aardsma--as one Christian to another--and asked
>him about his concerns. I told him gently that he had done great harm
>to me personally in a largely secular Institution where I had worked
>hard for many years to build a credible Christian witness. He seemed
>surprised at my suggestion that out of common courtesy he should have
>discussed this report with me first of all.
>
>Aardsma told me that he could easily refute the claim that c was not a
>constant and was in fact about to publish his own paper on this. I
>subsequenctly asked my friend Brad Sparks, then at the Hank
>Hannegraaff's organization in Irvine to visit ICR and take a look at
>Aardma's work. Brad did so and shortly after reported to me not only
>that Aardsma's work was based on the faulty misuse of statistical
>methods, but furthermore than Aardsma would not listen to any
>suggestions of criticisms of his paper.
>
>It was not longer after, while speaking on creation subjects in Eastern
>Canada that I became good friends with government statistician Alan M.
>Montgomery. Alan immediately saw the flaws in Aardsma's paper and began
>to answer a whole flurry of attacks on the CDK hypothesis which began
>to appear in The Creation Research Institute Quarterly. Alan and I
>subsequently wrote a peer-reviewed paper which was published in
>Galillean Electrodynamics which pointed out that careful statistical
>analysis of the available data strongly suggested that c was not a
>constant, and neither were other constants containing the dimension of
>time. At that time Montgomery made every effort to answer creationist
>critics in CRSQ and in the Australian Creation Ex Nihilo Quarterly. All
>of these attacks on CDK were based on ludicrously false statistical
>methods by amateurs for the most part.
>
>The whole subject of cDK was eventually noticed by the secular
>community. Most inquirers took Aardma's faulty ICR Impact article as
>gospel truth and went no further.
>
>To make sure all criticisms of statistical methods were answered,
>Montgomery wrote a second paper, presented at the Pittsburgh Creation
>Conference in 1994. Alan used weighted statistics and showed once again
>that the case for cDK was solid--confidence levels of the order of 95%
>were the rule.
>
>Both Alan and I have repeatedly looked at the data from the standpoint
>of the size of error bars, the epoch when the measurements were made,
>and the method of measurements. We have tried various sets and sorts of
>the data, deliberately being conservative in excluding outliers and
>looking for experimenter errors and/or bias. No matter how we cut the
>cards, our statistical analyses yield the same conclusion. It is most
>unlikely that the velocity of light has been a constant over the
>history of the universe.
>
>In addition to inviting critiques of the statistics and the data, Alan
>and I have also asked for arguments from physics as to why c should not
>be a constant. And, if c were not a fixed constant, what are the
>implications for the rest of physics? We have as yet had no serious
>takers to either challenge.
>
>Just for the public record, I have placed our two reports on my web
>pages, along with relevant notes where it is all available for scrutiny
>by anyone. I have long since given up on getting much of a fair hearing
>from the creationist community. However I note from my web site access
>logs that most visitors to my web pages on this subject come from
>academic institutions so I have a hunch this work is quietly being
>considered in many physics labs.

following this were some additions by Brad Sparks, as follows. Lambert's comments are marked with the arrows and inserted in Brad's email:

>However, my inquiry into Aardsma's attack on Setterfield and you long
>preceded my 1992-4 tenure at CRI by YEARS. The incident with Aardsma
>calling the SRI President was in Aug or Sept 1987, right after the
>report came out (wasn't it like just before everyone was leaving for
>Labor Day holiday? vague recollection of something like that). We
>talked about by phone at the time. I had already given a "brown-bag"
>lunchtime slide presentation of my Exodus work at ICR in July 1987 at
>Aardsma's invitation. I happened to be down at ICR again around
>Christmas 1987 and that's when I dropped in to see Aardsma and asked
>him what happened with you and SRI. He just unashamedly said he had
>called the SRI President to complain about the publication of the
>Setterfield- Norman report. I asked him why he had called the
>President instead of your supervisor or you directly with scientific
>arguments, I didn't understand. He replied that it wasn't a scientific
>issue but a matter of ethics, that it was unethical for SRI to publish
>the report in violation of SRI policies and it thus misled people that
>it was officially sponsored by SRI and so therefore he felt justified
>in complaining to the SRI President. I asked if this was a proper
>complaint under Biblical principles -- Aardsma was taken a back as if
>he'd never considered that before, but replied that he still felt
>justified because you and Setterfield were misleading Christians about
>SRI sponsorship. I dropped the matter at this point.

----> I expect this is accurate and it sheds new light on things I was
----> not
aware of. The report was in no way out of the ordinary and it was a normal white paper sort of thing. How did he know what SRI's policies were? Even if it the report was not an officially published SRI report, it was one of any number of white papers that for years have been published in the same way. Why should Aardsma appoint himself as judge over me, over SRI, over Barry's work?


>
>I had already discussed scientific issues with Aardsma just before this
>conversation. In fact it all started with me noticing a computer graph
>posted on Aardsma's wall of a scatter plot of "c" values with time.
>Aardsma proudly asserted that this graph proved that the scatter of "c"
>values was about equally distributed both above and below the current
>"c" value. I was aghast as I knew this was not true and I noticed
>right off that because the scaling was biased, many of the
>above-current"c" points were hidden by being superimposed on each
>other. The above-"c" points couldn't be seen because the scale was
>unfairly compressed. I believe this same graph was shortly thereafter
>published by ICR as an Acts & Facts Impact article (Jan 88 ? issue). I
>pointed out this biased scaling to Aardsma and he said he would look
>into it but the graph was about to be published so he said it was
>unlikely he could or would do anything about it.

----> Yes, I think this is on target.

So yes, Aardsma's article was much less than honest.

Now, Barry has been moving ahead with his work. If you feel it necessary to be stuck in the pre-1987 material, that is up to you. But please don't expect us to take you seriously is that if where you are going to fixate.

 

[Peter101]

>>>>>>Peter101. The statistical crits of Day are nonsense because they are taken from the
earlier papers before all the data was in.<<<<<<<

That is not a valid or intelligent response, Helen. Day's criticism points out that Setterfield did not understand the concept of correlation coefficient and what it means to have the coefficient equal to 1.0. That misunderstanding on Setterfield's part does not depend on the number of points or whether all the data is in yet, contrary to your claim. Setterfield's later attempts to avoid commenting on this issue suggests that Setterfield now understands his mistake but prefers not to admit it or talk about it. Helen, I suspect that you do not understand his mistake and that you also do not understand how devastating it is to his attempts to be taken seriously. But even more damaging are the problems that result when you and Setterfield try to avoid responsibility for the mistake by blaming others for being critical and failing to handle the problem in a mature fashion. It is not good nor ethical to deny such a problem or to blame others for what Setterfield himself should be taking responsibility for. I have known several scientists to own up to a problem and admit that they have made a mistake. This is much better than denial because it does not permanently impair a person's reputation. The scientific community is forgiving of mistakes but not so forgiving of attempts to slide out of resposibility for mistakes.

I am still interesting in hearing from Setterfield as to whether or not he takes responsibility for his statistical mistakes as pointed out by Day. What say you, Barry?

 

[Peter101]

>>>>>So yes, Aardsma's article was much less than honest.<<<<<

But you have not shown what, if anything, was wrong with the actual contents of the article. It is a fairly simple article and I read it. It weights the data points differently according to the size of the error bars associated with each point. In other words, it gives less weight to those data points that have large error and more weight to those points with very little error. This was done in a systematic and rigorous fashion. When that is done, the result is that change in the speed of light over time is not significantly different from zero. In other words the idea is not proven that the speed of light has decayed any at all. For you to argue against that, Helen, you at least have to discuss the issue, and not just assert that the article was less than honest.

 

[Peter101]

Helen wrote: "Lambert Dolphin and Alan Montgomery refuted the Aardsma material here:
http://www.ldolphin.org/cdkgal.html
and here: http://www.ldolphin.org/cdkalan.html"


Helen, the first link above contains absolutely no mention of the Aardsma material and neither is it mentioned in the list of references at the end of the article. Please be more careful with your descriptions of things.

 

[Peter101]

Helen,

As a christian, you really ought to use great care in these discussions and write only what is true and accurate. Here are a couple of examples of carelessness on your part, over the last few days:

1. Helen writes: "The Day nonsense has been refuted on the web, as you can reference at his website: www.setterfield.org."

No, this is not correct. Setterfield did post a discussion regarding Day's critique, but it did not address Day's critical comments about Setterfield's use of statistics.

2. "Barry's use of statistics was defended by professional government statistician A. Montgomery."

No Helen, there was no defense by Montgomery of Barry's use of statistics. What Montgomery did was a new analysis that never once mentioned Barry's use of statistics. The best that can be said in favor of your man is that Montgomery's conclusions were supportive of Barry's conclusions, but not because Montgomery agreed with Barry's statistical methods. Surely you can understand the difference in what you said and what I am saying.

Don't you want to retract these false comments as given above? It will help your credibility.

 

[Helen]

My credibility is fine, Peter. Barry and I have work to do. I'm not interested in your harping on material which has been long since superceded. We have presentations to prepare, he is working on a paper on mass right now, we are preparing a home to sell, and we are in the middle of the re-write of a book.

Have fun hollering about stuff that is more than 20 years old -- perhaps your time is worth more than that, though?

If you bother actually reading the Dolphin and Montgomery stuff, by the way, you will see that in upholding and validating the Norman-Setterfield use of statistics and their conclusions, they are denying the validity of the Aardsma article. But unless you actually read them, I guess you would not realize that...

I presume, also, you never bothered reading this, which was also linked?
http://www.setterfield.org/data.htm#challenge

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Originally posted by Helen:

". . . Therefore, although the
conclusions from Aardsma’s weighted analysis differs,
it can be unequivocally stated that seven major statistical
tests all favor CDK." . . .

Regarding mass, both micro and macroscopically, if you have kept up with the replies Barry and I have been giving, you will know that this is the subject of the paper he is working on now, so patience. What I will tell you is that there are quiet discrepancies within the mainstream, peer-reviewed literature itself between measurements of the two different ‘sizes’ of mass. Whether or not you think this is ‘incredibly wrong,’ is not the issue. The data is the issue.

Aardsma's conclusions are based on his choice to use weights on the data points inversly proportionate to the error bars for the data points. Deciding to avoid using this technique will give a different answer, and it does not matter that you do it seven times!

It is not necessary to review all that statistical stuff, anyone can view the data directly on the chart and ponder this question:

Is the data consistent with a gradually improving precision in determining the speed of light, for light speed that has in fact never varied? Of course it is.

Is the data consistent with a gradually slowing of the speed of light, along the lines proposed by Barry Setterfield? It is also consistent with that.

But the data does not compel us accept that hypothesis, by a long shot!

Hence, we need to seek for evidence above and beyond this data to decide the question. Such as astronomical observation.

Astronomical observation data suggests there has been no change in the speed of light since creation.

Barry takes pains to develop his theory in more and more detail to explain why we cannot see any such evidence. But he cannot escape one fact: His theory maps a mere 6000 + orbits of earth around the sun into a 13 billion year history of the universe. Doing so absolutely requires orbits appear slowed drastically to the point of being even frozen to our view as we look to distant galaxies. The distant galaxies demonstrate standard galactic orbit speeds for their contituent stars, no slowing with distance is observed at all. The cepheid variables of the Andromeda galaxy swell and contract in the same rhythms as if gravity were working normally there, not slowed in any way. These things lead me to believe that if our telescopes were capable of observing an "earth" rotating around a "sun" in these galaxies, it would see that earth rotating once a year, not slowed in the least.

Your comment about the "difficulty" in drawing the line between different kinds of mass only serves to illustrate that they all act the same macroscopically. It has nothing to do with the wrongness of Barry's statement that there are different kinds of macroscopic responses from different kinds of mass. It occurs to me that your confusion about this issue is related to the fact you don't see how devestatingly final the arguments against any young earth rescuing cdk theory from astronomical observation actually are.

 

[Helen]

Aardsma's conclusions are based on his choice to use weights on the data points inversly proportionate to the error bars for the data points. Deciding to avoid using this technique will give a different answer, and it does not matter that you do it seven times!

Aardsma's use of statistics was flawed as pointed out before.

It is not necessary to review all that statistical stuff, anyone can view the data directly on the chart and ponder this question:

Is the data consistent with a gradually improving precision in determining the speed of light, for light speed that has in fact never varied? Of course it is.

No, you are wrong. If that were the case, a consistent trend would not be noted. The scatter would be on both sides of the current speed of light. That is not what we see. A consistent trend is what we see. This is also what Birge noted, and he sort of knew what he was talking about....

If anyone wants to look at the data, here are some links:

http://www.ldolphin.org/cdata.html

http://www.setterfield.org/report/report.html

http://www.setterfield.org/Charts.htm#graphs

I think the curious will find everything quite well referenced to the standard peer-reviewed journals and publications.

Is the data consistent with a gradually slowing of the speed of light, along the lines proposed by Barry Setterfield? It is also consistent with that.

It is only consistent with that.

But the data does not compel us accept that hypothesis, by a long shot!

Of course not.

Hence, we need to seek for evidence above and beyond this data to decide the question. Such as astronomical observation.

That's why his current material on the redshift.

Astronomical observation data suggests there has been no change in the speed of light since creation.

Wrong. Why do you think there is so much material that has appeared in mainstream peer-reviewed journals since January, 1999? There is solid evidence of a variable speed of light through time.

Barry takes pains to develop his theory in more and more detail to explain why we cannot see any such evidence. But he cannot escape one fact: His theory maps a mere 6000 + orbits of earth around the sun into a 13 billion year history of the universe.

Wrong. Barry does not agree with the 6000 year timeline. You have really not read his material, Paul, and since you seem to want to trash it so badly, don't you think you ought to?

Doing so absolutely requires orbits appear slowed drastically to the point of being even frozen to our view as we look to distant galaxies.

Wrong. You don't seem to have any grasp at all of what he is saying. He's not that stupid, you know...

The distant galaxies demonstrate standard galactic orbit speeds for their contituent stars, no slowing with distance is observed at all. The cepheid variables of the Andromeda galaxy swell and contract in the same rhythms as if gravity were working normally there, not slowed in any way. These things lead me to believe that if our telescopes were capable of observing an "earth" rotating around a "sun" in these galaxies, it would see that earth rotating once a year, not slowed in the least.

Since your original idea was so faulty regarding slowing orbits, I'm not surprised that this was a straw man you easily knocked down. I strongly suggest you spend a little time really reading Barry's material so you can discuss it with some degree of understanding about what he is saying.

Your comment about the "difficulty" in drawing the line between different kinds of mass only serves to illustrate that they all act the same macroscopically.

That is not what I said at all. Paul, please don't try to keep talking about what you really don't know that much about. I'm sure you are a nice person, and I can't for the life of me figure what you are getting out of all this, but I do strongly, again, encourage you to read his material before you try to jump in with these bizarre criticisms.

It has nothing to do with the wrongness of Barry's statement that there are different kinds of macroscopic responses from different kinds of mass. It occurs to me that your confusion about this issue is related to the fact you don't see how devestatingly final the arguments against any young earth rescuing cdk theory from astronomical observation actually are.

When you have more knowledge of the speed of light material from both the secular and Setterfield material, please feel free to discuss it. Until then, all the straw men and misunderstandings you present only serve to show me -- both of us, actually -- that you really don't understand more than a bit of what he is dealing with.

Thank you.

 

[Paul of Eugene]

Originally posted by Helen:
Barry takes pains to develop his theory in more and more detail to explain why we cannot see any such evidence. But he cannot escape one fact: His theory maps a mere 6000 + orbits of earth around the sun into a 13 billion year history of the universe.

Wrong. Barry does not agree with the 6000 year timeline. You have really not read his material, Paul, and since you seem to want to trash it so badly, don't you think you ought to?

Barry's mapping of the 6000 year timeline into the observational 13+ billion year history of the universe is explicitely laid out for all to see in this chart to which you posted a link yourself in another thread:


http://www.setterfield.org/ccchron/barrychron.html#tablethree

Do you plan to revise the chart soon, since apparantly it is no longer accurate? If so, I hope you understand why its hard to keep up with the changes. This was posted quite recently.

 

[Helen]

Barry is using that chart for comparison. Please keep reading. The next chart down...

However, Barry checked the chart you just referenced and didn't even realize Lambert had put it up on his website, which is the one I copied it from. I have asked him to get the corrections charted for me and whatever correct labeling is needed and I will get it on the net. He is thinking there is simply a typing error and labeling problem here. He may have time after dinner to take a closer look.

He does want you to know, however, that he does not follow the Masoretic text for the dating. He follows the much older Alexandrian Septuagint, the same that Christ and the Apostles and Josephus all referenced. That gives an older date for creation by about 2000 years.

ITM, if you look at the redshift curve ( http://www.setterfield.org/cdkcurve.html ), it will show you exactly what lightspeed has also done. There is no shoehorning of dates. It is not a matter of gravitational processes going more slowly, but of atomic processes going more quickly in the past. Gravitational processes are the ones God gave us for timekeepers in Genesis 1:14. They are the steady ones. Atomic processes are reflected in the lightspeed data and show must faster rates evident in the past.

==========

by the way, the reason the material is recent is because I just started loading stuff onto his webpage about a month or month and a half ago. A lot of it I took from Lambert's site so we could reference it easily. As a result, some of the errors on Lambert's site, such as typing errors, are only becoming apparent to us as people ask about them. Thanks for bringing this chart to our attention.

 

[mdkluge]

Helen wrote:

IN other words, Mark, all science except Barry's can be self-correcting. However his has to be absolutely correct from the beginning and no changes, no improvements are allowed.

No on both counts. Setterfield has the same opportunities--and the same responsibilities--as anyone mastering his youthful foibbles. The way that is done in saience, as well as most of the rest of the adult world, is by making accombplished sufficiently distinguished so that people will forget (or maybe even forgive) youthful mistakes. Complaining about those who bring up his past won't do it in science any more than elsewhere. To use a different metaphor, you and he have to learn to roll with the punches.

As for your complaint that Setterfield's science has to be perfect, that's just laughable. The criticism here is of his claimed .9999+ correlation coefficient for manifestly scattered data. That's not an "imperfection". That's a mistake the likes of which has probably never been published by anyone in the scientific literature anywhere. Few freshmen receiving passing grades in statistics would make such an "imperfection." Perhaps Peter is right and you really do not understand the magnitude of his blunder. But in any case, he'd easily live it down if he had actually done some uneqivocally good-quality science since then. Unfortunately he hasn't. He has no good scientific reputation to counter the bad one he earned in his youth.

Aardsma's presentation was dishonest and he knew about it and ICR knew about it and it was published anyway. Here are the memories from both Lambert Dolphin and Brad Sparks from that time. These are via private emails which I have their permission to use: [Letter texts deleted -- MK]

From those letters one might gather, assuming, absurdly, that they are factual and unbiased accounts of what really happened, is that Aardasma showed poor manners in not informing Dolphin of his visit to SRI executives. The letters contain nothing even suggesting dishonesty on Aardasma's part, and it is disappointing to hear you slander anyone based upon them. I say "at most" because I cannot see how Aardasma owed Dolphin a courtessy callOne is not reqired to be nice. I would have preferred it had Aardasma informed Dolphin either before or concurrent with his discussion with Dolphin's supervisor (somewhere up the chain of command). Certainly what Aardasma did burnt some bridges to Dolphin, but Dolphin is not, nor was owed bridges to Aardasma or me or anyone else, and anyway bridg-burning isn't dishonesty, although claiming instances of it to be so is so.

 

[Peter101]

It is quite interesting to consider how Helen and Barry have handled my inquiry into the criticism voiced on the Internet by their critic Robert? Day. A few days ago, I quoted Day as follows and then below the quote, gave the link where I found it. The quote is:

"The final blow to Setterfield's credibility is his statistical analysis of the results, given in Appendix 3, in which he discards 3 of the 41 data points shown in an earlier table, and claims a coefficient of determination r2 of "1 to nine significant figures, indicating a near perfect fit to the data" (emphasis added). As anyone with even the most basic knowledge of analysis will know (and as Setterfield will later learn the hard way), a coefficient of determination of 1 can only be realized if the data points lie precisely on the curve in question, yet Setterfield shows a pathetic ignorance of this fact by following the above claim with, "All told, 17 values were above the curve and 21 below, the r2 value indicating a perfectly balanced distribution of the cluster of points as well as close proximity to the curve."

In fact, as Setterfield openly admits, not a single data point of the 38 considered lay on the curve, yet this does not prevent him from claiming a perfect correlation."
--------------------------------------------------

If we fast forward to today, it is clear that Helen and Barry don't want to discuss the above criticism and will do almost anything to avoid a discussion of it. But before reaching that point yesterday, they threw out some distractions behind them like a fighter pilot throwing out flares to misguide an attacking missile. It should have been obvious to them, who made the criticism, when it was made and also what Helen and Barry did in the past to either refute the criticism or do decide not to answer it. But they failed to inform me of any of this, in response to my quote above. Instead what they did is to send out flares of distraction that had nothing to do with the above criticism. I don't remember the order of these "flares" but one of them was the claim that Montgomery defended Barry's use of statistics. That of course, was hogwash. Montgomery did no such thing. The second flare of distraction was to claim that Barry had refuted Day's criticism in a post on the Internet. That too was hogwash. Then there were other flares of a less blatant nature, which can be seen by looking back at the post. Finally this week, we have arrived at the moment of truth. With all exits blocked, Helen and Barry simply claim that they are not interested in discussing Day's criticism. It is too old, they say. I think it is clear that neither of them are handling the matter responsibly and in the best standards of science. Very well, it is obvious to everyone, it seems.