Stunning victory of Creation

[Paul of Eugene]

Originally posted by Scott J:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
So just how far away are the clouds of Magellen, naked eye objects that they are? Why doesn't seeing them at 200,000 light years distance qualify as seeing things outside our solar system?

Because you have no means of validating your measuring system by direct observation.

You can assume things constant so long as you acknowledge that they may not be and that the results could vary radically if they are not.

All I am really asking for is basic honesty and integrity. </font>[/QUOTE]In 1987 astronomers in Australia observed a supernova in the clouds of Magellen. Over the years since that time they prepared pictures of the light spreading out from that supernova and illuminating dust in the neighborhood. The light spreading out from the supernova takes up space in the sky and shows us how far away they are merely by how much room in the sky a light year or so actually turns out to be in the neighborhood of the clouds of magellan. The distance turns out to be 170,000 light years.

Check out the cool pictures here . . .

http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/AAO/images/captions/aat066.html

Now I know I'm slow and dim and such, but these seem to be honest folks, with integrety, and I begin to form an alternate opinion of people who say these observations aren't observations and that seeing and measuring these things isn't seeing and measuring things.

 

[OldRegular]

For those concerned about the long times indicated by measurement of light from stars I recommend the book Starlight and Time by D. Russell Humphreys. Humphreys, using Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, shows that these long indicated times are consistent with the six day creation period of Genesis.

 

[UTEOTW]

Except that Humphreys does not follow Relativity accurately.

I'll give two examples.

First, Humphreys says that time is slower here on earth than in the rest of the universe because the earth is in a gravitional well. Light falling into such a well should be blue shifted. Instead the light we observe is redshifted.

Second, if his ideas were true, the effect of the time dilation should be noticable in our observations of the cosmos. Instead, things that change with time, such as supernova light curves and Cepheid variables are observed to change with time just as they should in the absence of time dilation.

Read this article from a Christian website to get a more in depth look at the book.

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/unravelling.shtml?main

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Scott J:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Paul of Eugene:
So just how far away are the clouds of Magellen, naked eye objects that they are? Why doesn't seeing them at 200,000 light years distance qualify as seeing things outside our solar system?

Because you have no means of validating your measuring system by direct observation.

You can assume things constant so long as you acknowledge that they may not be and that the results could vary radically if they are not.

All I am really asking for is basic honesty and integrity. </font>[/QUOTE]In 1987 astronomers in Australia observed a supernova in the clouds of Magellen. Over the years since that time they prepared pictures of the light spreading out from that supernova and illuminating dust in the neighborhood. The light spreading out from the supernova takes up space in the sky and shows us how far away they are merely by how much room in the sky a light year or so actually turns out to be in the neighborhood of the clouds of magellan. The distance turns out to be 170,000 light years.</font>[/QUOTE] You have just illustrated my point very well. Thank you.

If the speed of light is not constant or if there is an unknown inhibitor of light travel between us and this body then it is closer than you think. If it is closer than you think then the expansion will appear larger than it actually is... like those warnings on rear view mirrors.

Now I know I'm slow and dim and such, but these seem to be honest folks, with integrety, and I begin to form an alternate opinion of people who say these observations aren't observations and that seeing and measuring these things isn't seeing and measuring things.

It isn't necessarily a matter of intergrity though it might be. People who thought the moon would be covered with hundreds of feet of dust weren't dishonest... just mistaken about their assumptions- and this without regard to whichever explanation is adopted to explain why there wasn't a thick layer of dust.

As of a year ago, Voyager 1 was 12.5 light hours from earth. That's .00143 light years. We have observed .000000841% of the space between here and this supernova assuming you are right about 170,000 light years and a somewhat better but not significant percentage if I am right.

We simply have not gather enough information about space to make rigid assumptions about it. Anyone who claims otherwise is mistaken or dishonest.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
Ah, the LMC.

But we do have alternate ways to measure distance.

I gave you a pretty indepth method before. PLot all the stars of the LMC on an H-R diagram. By the difference in relative brightness, the distance can be determined. You have voiced your objections to this.

In 1987 we received light from a star that went supernova in the LMC. As the light moved out, it intersected rings of material that had been previously thrown off. We can observe how long it takes after the initial explosion for these rings to be lit up. This tells us how far from the star they were. We can then measure the size of the rings as observed from here. A little simple geometry and you have the distance.

These are independent methods.

No. They are not.

Simply measuring from a single point of reference the degree of displacement between two distant bodies does not provide enough information. You must make other assumptions or draw on other conclusions which had their own assumptions.

The only truly accurate way of measuring these things is to go there.

You could also make a reasonable estimate by taking random samples of conditions in various parts of the universe to determine whether the uniformitarian model is valid. Short of these two things, your distances are tied to assumptions that you won't even honestly acknowledge.... that is not scientific nor credible.

 

[Scott J]

Oh, and by the way. I contacted Setterfield about your objections to the probe evidence and claim that a solution had been accepted.

He said that the solution had been rejected and that possible missions were being planned to investigate the anomaly in our probes' acceleration measurements.

 

[UTEOTW]

"If the speed of light is not constant or if there is an unknown inhibitor of light travel between us and this body then it is closer than you think. If it is closer than you think then the expansion will appear larger than it actually is... like those warnings on rear view mirrors."

Think about this logically. Completely made up numbers will follow.

Let's say that the ring was 3 million kms from the star. So it would take 10 light seconds for for photons to travel the distance. While the light was travelling 3 miilion kms to the ring and being reflected, the original light had traveled 3 million kms towards earth. The two sets of photons will arive at earth 3 million kms apart and 10 second in time.

Now pretend light was travelling ten times as fast. Light arrives at the ring in one second. In the mean time, the original light has still travelled 3 million kms towards earth. When the light arrives here they will still be 3 miilion kms apart. Based on our observed speed of light, we would still see the light arrive 10 seconds apart.

"We simply have not gather enough information about space to make rigid assumptions about it. Anyone who claims otherwise is mistaken or dishonest. "

Did you not read this post where I responded to such claims by showing how we can measure things out far into the universe and find them to be the same? DO oyu have any criticisms of the methods that peer review failed to catch.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/2714/3.html#000038

 

[UTEOTW]

"Oh, and by the way. I contacted Setterfield about your objections to the probe evidence and claim that a solution had been accepted.

He said that the solution had been rejected and that possible missions were being planned to investigate the anomaly in our probes' acceleration measurements."

Citation of where it had been rejected?

Besides, a changing speed of light is not the ONLY other solution. And a changing speed of light can also be rule out by other observations. For example, the problem of measured rates of galactic rotation.

Let me give a more detailed reasoning for my example earlier of effects that would be predicted by Setterfield but that fail to be seen.

We use of doppler effects to measure the rotation by looking at the different relative speeds of each side of the galaxy.

Now, if you assume that the galaxy is not rotating at relativistic speeds and you only consider the velocity vectors directly towards and away from you, the formula for doppler shift reduces to

(velocity of object)/(speed light) = (change in wavelength) / (wavelength)

(Barry has been very clear that it is frequency that changes with c.)

Now if you solve for the change in wavelength, you will see that it is inversely proportional to the speed of light. So if you take a given situation, plug though the change in wavelength with a higher speed of light to get the change in wavelength, then go back through with today's speed of light, you will see that your speed measured will be off by exactly how much the speed of light has changed. The exact same thing will happen if you use frequency instead of wavelength.

Take M31. It is about 2 million light years away so light would have been necessary to have been traveling at least a few thousand time faster when it left than now to get here in 6000 years. This means that the measured speeds of rotation are off by at least three orders of magnitude. And M31 is the nearest large galaxy. The problems get much worse at greater distances.

The rotational speed of M31, the largest nearby large spiral galaxy, has been measured at 275 km/s. ( http://helios.astro.lsa.umich.edu/Course/Labs/tully_fisher/tf_intro.html ) It is about 2 million light years away so let's take as a conservative (and one that makes the math easy) factor that light would have been traveling at 1000 times the current speed of light when it left Andromeda to get here by now. This means that the 275 km/s must also be multiplied by 1000 giving a speed of 275,000 km/s! This is over 90% of the speed of light! Imposssible for a variety of reasons.

Since there is not a sharp dropoff in measured rotational velocity as you look further into space, more distant galaxies would be in the position of having their stars orbiting at speeds greater than the speed of light! As it is, the measured velocites are higher than the visible matter would allow which is one of the reasons that dark matter is proposed to account for the extra mass that is needed.

 

[Johnv]

Sidenote:

There are numerous YEC's here on the BB who make the claim that radiocarbon dating is inaccurate and subjective. Many of them also cite Dr Barry Setterfield numerous times, such as with the claims about changes in the speed of light. Yet, Dr Setterfield himself has said that "...rocks are dated correctly using radiometric dating, but that the decay rates varied with the variance of [the speed of light]...". So which is it? You can't have it both ways. Yet another example of YEC's picking and choosing their claims, which are often incinsistent with each other.

 

[Phillip]

I cannot help but think that maybe a lot of us are missing something here. Follow me through this before responding.

God is an eternal God, we know that. At one point in eternity He decided to create the universe. To us, the universe looks as if it may be infinite. Physicists can debate this back and forth day after day, are we in an enclosed system. Are we all trapped within a specific (although extremely large to us) size of space much like a black hole where mass has reached a point that it cannot escape? If not do we indeed live in an infinite universe?

People say that when they see a star turn supernova or a star being born more than 100,000 years ago, God would be lying if He created it to look like that.

Let me examine it this way. If I were to put my humble self in a place with just a wee bit of the supernatural, omnipotent power of God, and I wanted to build (for instance) an automabile factory. How would I do it, if I were to snap my finger and say, its done and its "great".

First, I would probably snap my finger and then view my factory. My factory would be full work workers, there would be raw material being trucked into the front door, there would be automobiles completely manufactured sitting in the out-going lots and trucks picking them up.

Now, what is the HISTORY of all of this. Does the man that I snapped my finger who works in the paint shop greasing the robot spraying the clear-coat have a history? Does he have a memory of a history?

Where did the trucks come from that are carrying in the raw materials? Do they have a history? Could I look back and "see" that they left a plant with their materials on a certain-certain day long before I snapped my finger. Is there anything wrong with this history?

Are we so limited in our time/space/universe to see that God could create a universe 10,000 years ago that is really 20 billion-billion years old? Can we not see that God is completely OUTSIDE of the realm of time and space and that His creation does not have to be limited to time and space and therefore its history may appear to have existed and may exist on God's plane of existence, but in reality, to us measley little humans God created it 10,000 years ago like He tells us? In six day, like He tells us?

A way to explain this so our finite minds might further understand what I'm getting at is that the universe, when created did indeed go through all of the history observed by scientists, could it have not taken place in the micro-second after He snapped his finger?

Can we not see that I cannot even describe how God would do it because my finite mind could not understand it, even if I could describe it?

An omnipotent God is capable of ANYTHING and since God created time, why could He not give something that He created a billion year history? You can say all you want about, well that light never came from that nova if it wasn't there over 10,000 years ago. What if it was, but God didn't create it and its history until 10,000 years ago?

I know I'm zooming right past most because of my difficulty putting this into words. TIME is the creation of God. He tells us He made his universe in six days. Is God only capable of going forward in time, the way we are? We are designed to move one direction in time. Can God move in any direction? (I would certainly think so.) Does God see all of the universe and all time, future, past history and present as a panarama in front of Him?) Does He continously see Jesus hanging on the cross for our sins? Unlike us, who read about it taking place 2000 years ago?

Just a few things to ponder. Somehow, in our infinite scientific wisdom, we are not giving God the power to do what HE wants to do. Not what we think we SEE Him do.

 

[UTEOTW]

No one is limiting God's power at all. He is perfectly capable of doing whatever He wishes. That includes making a universe at once that looks 13.7 billion years old.

If you take an honest look at the Creation, it appears that God used long periods and mostly natural processes to create. The universe gives us a coherent 13.7 billion year history. The earth's geology gives us a coherent 4.6 billion year history. Biology gives us about a 4 billion year history. Everything looks as if God used inflation to make the universe and common descent to give us the current diversity of life.

Now, could He have spoken everything into existance just as we see it? Of course He could have. None of us doubt that.

The question is did He. I don't think so. I, personally, do not think He would speak a mature universe into existance and then take exceeding care to make everything look as if it was made over long periods of time and through mostly natural processes.

I could very easily be wrong. But, again, I don't think so.

Now, my question for you. Do you think that the evidence in the creation is consistent with an old earth and common descent and God made it that way for His own purposes or do you think that what we think means an old earth, an old universe and common descent are wrong and that the data actually shows a young earth with a few exception to make the earth habitable from the beginning?

 

[Phillip]

Originally posted by Johnv:
Sidenote:

There are numerous YEC's here on the BB who make the claim that radiocarbon dating is inaccurate and subjective. Many of them also cite Dr Barry Setterfield numerous times, such as with the claims about changes in the speed of light. Yet, Dr Setterfield himself has said that "...rocks are dated correctly using radiometric dating, but that the decay rates varied with the variance of [the speed of light]...". So which is it? You can't have it both ways. Yet another example of YEC's picking and choosing their claims, which are often incinsistent with each other.

Johnv, Everything discussed here is based on theory. YEC try to fit the science they see with what the Bible literally says. Old Earth's claim the Bible is being misinterpreted by the YEC's or the material is allegorical.

Each side is striving to fit science into a container that fits their own belief about Genesis 1-11.

Both sides will make mistakes and to be honest, we are simply trying to see if what we observe fits with what happened. This is difficult when we must go by the premise that it is impossible for us to use the "power of God" or supernatural powers.

For example, the non-flood people will complain about how to get rid of waste inside the ark. Don't you think if God can create a flood and save all of the animals in the world in that ark that He can see to it that the ark is kept clean without us having to PROVE a physical law that allows this to be done?

I am not understanding the fact that science has reached such a point that we have blinded ourselves from the omnipotent power of God our creator. We will accept that He walked on water, but we won't accept that He can keep animals alive in an ark during a world-wide flood.

We accept the New Testament verbatum, then we throw out the Old as allegory.

Those who have the faith to believe that God can do ANYTHING will not have a problem (like Carl Sagan thought) if we find other intelligent life in the universe. Those who limit their beliefs strictly to science will most likely have their faith in God shaken.

If we can't see it, we don't believe it. That is what the scientists are telling us. Have you seen God anywhere?

 

[Phillip]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:
No one is limiting God's power at all. He is perfectly capable of doing whatever He wishes. That includes making a universe at once that looks 13.7 billion years old.

If you take an honest look at the Creation, it appears that God used long periods and mostly natural processes to create. The universe gives us a coherent 13.7 billion year history. The earth's geology gives us a coherent 4.6 billion year history. Biology gives us about a 4 billion year history. Everything looks as if God used inflation to make the universe and common descent to give us the current diversity of life.

Now, could He have spoken everything into existance just as we see it? Of course He could have. None of us doubt that.

The question is did He. I don't think so. I, personally, do not think He would speak a mature universe into existance and then take exceeding care to make everything look as if it was made over long periods of time and through mostly natural processes.

I could very easily be wrong. But, again, I don't think so.

Now, my question for you. Do you think that the evidence in the creation is consistent with an old earth and common descent and God made it that way for His own purposes or do you think that what we think means an old earth, an old universe and common descent are wrong and that the data actually shows a young earth with a few exception to make the earth habitable from the beginning?

Even by your description of making a universe instantly then taking care to make it 13.7 billion (or whatever) years old shows me that even you have completely missed what I said in my post. Please go back, read it carefully again and then if it still misses, I will try another way of explaining it.

Personally, I cannot tell you WHAT the data says because I know for certain than in 100 years the scientists will tell us everything we observed was wrong; even though it fit so conveniently for us today. The same reason the Sun traveling around the Earth fit so conveniently to scientists years ago. It was what was observed with their limitations. We do NOT EVEN KNOW what our observational limitations are today.

 

[UTEOTW]

"For example, the non-flood people will complain about how to get rid of waste inside the ark. Don't you think if God can create a flood and save all of the animals in the world in that ark that He can see to it that the ark is kept clean without us having to PROVE a physical law that allows this to be done?"

But therein lies the problem.

Take the Flood. When most YEers go about trying to justify a literal worldwide flood that covers every mountain, they invariably start point to physical things. Fountains and water canopies. Fossils and erosion. Rapid plate techtonics. The Grand Canyon. And so on.

And when they do, they present things that are not physically possible. I would be much happier if they simply said God supernaturally made the animals go where they needed, supernaturally took care of them, supernaturally made the water appear, supernaturally made the water disappear, supernaturally cleaned up from the earth the evidence of the flood so it would be habitable again, and supernaturally dispersed and repopulated the animals, plants, whatever.

We they go into possible mechanisms and what they see as evidence, they invariably mess it up and present things that are not possible. Just make it all supernatural. You'll be ahead of hte game.

 

[UTEOTW]

"Even by your description of making a universe instantly then taking care to make it 13.7 billion (or whatever) years old shows me that even you have completely missed what I said in my post. Please go back, read it carefully again and then if it still misses, I will try another way of explaining it."

Still get the same view. You were talking about making a fully operational factory at once and questioning if God lied if he let us see a supernova that never actually went supernova or maybe how billions of years could have happened in a flash.

"Personally, I cannot tell you WHAT the data says because I know for certain than in 100 years the scientists will tell us everything we observed was wrong; even though it fit so conveniently for us today. The same reason the Sun traveling around the Earth fit so conveniently to scientists years ago. It was what was observed with their limitations. We do NOT EVEN KNOW what our observational limitations are today."

OK, I'll broaden the question. Just based on what we know today, what do you think? FOrget about what may change in the future or any kind or wild speculations about how things might operate under vastly different physical laws at places remote in space and/or time.

Just based on what we observe today, what is your answer. Do you think the data supports a young earth or an old earth?

 

[Phillip]

Based on what I know and what I have discussed with very experienced scientists I must say there is evidence to support both.

The Christian scientists I know claim the evidence points towards a young earth, but only if you use the premise of a supernatural creation. By the way, these are working scientists who have NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH to gain by teaching young earth. They are NOT involved in YEC museums, etc.

You have admitted God must have had a hand in evolution, so therefore do you admit supernatural creative activity, regardless of what the evidence shows?

Second question, you have failed to give us your background and primary field of study. Can you provide that in more than just generalities? It always helps to know exactly where your debator is "coming from" (so to speak).

 

[UTEOTW]

"You have admitted God must have had a hand in evolution, so therefore do you admit supernatural creative activity, regardless of what the evidence shows?"

Mine is a tricky admittance.

I think that man was the obvious goal of God's creation. He wanted beings that could be given free will and could then chose to accept Him or reject Him. What good is the praise of beings without such choice? It is all part of the plan.

Now I suppose that God might could have set up things from the beginning such that man was the destined outcome. But I have problems with this. The first is that if the conditions could be set up from the beginning such that the outcome of everything was set from the start, then that seems to remove the whole free will idea.

The second is more scientific. To be able to set things up as such implies that the universe behaves according to classical physics. But, quantum mechanics has shown that because of its probability aspects, that such a thing cannot be done. God has given us laws of physics that says that you cannot actually know the history and future of the universe if you could measure all the properties of all the particles at once. It is the equivilent of asking if God could make a rock so big that He could not lift it. So this implies to me that at least some guiding role was necessary along the way.

I think that natural explanations are capable of giving us everything that we see. However, since a specific outcome seems to have been desired, this implies to me some intervention along the way. Where? Well I cannot point to anything in particular. It just seems necessary.

"Second question, you have failed to give us your background and primary field of study. Can you provide that in more than just generalities?"

I am not sure if this was missed or not detailed enough.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/2714/3.html#000033

Just in case, I'll fill a few more details.

First off I have been in Southern Baptist churches all my life. I was saved as a child. My grandmother was the strongest influence in my life as far as such things go. She played the organ in our local, somewhat rural church. She was a wonderful and odd woman.

I went to a fairly large rural / suburban high school. About 200 kids in my class. Went striaght to U. of Alabama and studied chemical engineering. While there I took a job working in a physical chemistry lab. Some for pay some for class credit. I did research into the selective flocculation of minerals and ores.

After graduation I went to work doing research on a novel coal gasifier for electrical power generation. The basics are that you use about 1/3 of the stoicometric air required for combustion. This burns part of the coal and provides energy which can be used to convery that rest of the coal into a fuel gas consisting of hydrogen, methane and carbon monoxide. There are a lot of trace gasses plus nitrogen from the air and carbon dioxide from the combustion. This as is cleaned and then burned in a combustion turbine to make electricity. My title is senior research engineer. I lead various projects, write reports, analyze data, and go present at conferences (including writing papers to be published). I have been at this ten years. Recently our project was awarded a Department of Energy contract to build a commercial facility in Orlando. I have begun working with others on some of the pre-engineering for that.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by Johnv:
Sidenote:

There are numerous YEC's here on the BB who make the claim that radiocarbon dating is inaccurate and subjective. Many of them also cite Dr Barry Setterfield numerous times, such as with the claims about changes in the speed of light. Yet, Dr Setterfield himself has said that "...rocks are dated correctly using radiometric dating, but that the decay rates varied with the variance of [the speed of light]...". So which is it? You can't have it both ways. Yet another example of YEC's picking and choosing their claims, which are often incinsistent with each other.

The data collection and collation is correct. The interpretation of the data is wrong because the underlying assumptions are wrong. You imagine a conflict where there is none.

 

[UTEOTW]

How, specifically, is the interpretation wrong?

Remember, we need something that explains why the dating would be wrong when compared against tree rings from all over the world, lake varves from different places, ice cores from diverse places, dating of corals and comparing things that can be both carbon dated and dated with a uranium series. All of these methods give similar results and so a mechanism that seeks to show why carbon dating has been wrongly interpreted should account for why all these different methods give the same answer.

I have seen some YEers say that a large upset in the carbon balance could explain this. There is a case to be made with that for some of these, but that would not work when comparing uranium and carbon dates at all. An upset in the carbon balance would not upset uranium dating.

 

[Scott J]

Originally posted by UTEOTW:

"We simply have not gather enough information about space to make rigid assumptions about it. Anyone who claims otherwise is mistaken or dishonest. "

Did you not read this post where I responded to such claims by showing how we can measure things out far into the universe and find them to be the same? DO oyu have any criticisms of the methods that peer review failed to catch.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/3/2714/3.html#000038

Yes. ALL of these measurements were made from HERE. They require the assumption in every case that there are no unknown factors in between us and the distant light sources and that physical laws operate the same way universally.

If I understand correctly, even evolution believers involved in theoretical physics anticipate violations of accepted laws of physics out in the universe... except you probably think their ideas are OK since they are intended to support rather than undermine evolution.

You are fond of demanding evidence from me but I haven't seen you attempt to toss Sagan et al. out of science for the totally unsubstantiated idea that the universe is eternally oscillating.

Which brings us to a good point. "Science" once declared (not that long ago) emphatically that the universe was static and eternal. All of the interpretations then were wrong because the wrong assumptions were made and accepted. Now, only the truly faithful materialists still argue against the idea that the universe had a beginning... they still seek to deny the necessity of a prime cause- which of course naturalism cannot provide.

You apparently believe we are beyond discovering other factors out in the universe that influence our measurements and interpretations. I am not.