Our sun

Here is an excellent question for those who believe the earth is old and evolution occurred over millions of years: Given the following quote and extrapolation, how exactly did evolution occur, when life could not have existed on the earth only 100,000 years ago?"By analyzing data from Greenwich Observatory in the period 1836-1953, John A. Eddy [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and High Altitude Observatory in Boulder] and Aram A. Boornazian [mathematician with S. Ross and Co. in Boston] have found evidence that the sun has been contracting about 0.1% per century during that time, corresponding to a shrinkage rate of about 5 feet per hour. And digging deep into historical records, Eddy has found 400-year-old eclipse observations that are consistent with such a shrinkage." *"Sun is Shrinking," Physics Today, September 1979.Extrapolating back, 100,000 years ago, the sun would have been about twice its present size, making life untenable.

I refer you to my reply to your 'Granite' topic.Seriously, nothing you mine from a creationist website has not already been refuted. Chances are you can find that refutation on TalkOrigins.org.

Hi, Badger!Did you read Mr Jack's reply to you in your Granite thread? Your posting some of the most egregiously wrong Creationist nonsense.The shrinking sun fallacy has been debunked many, many times on the web, but one more time won't hurt if anyone can muster up the interest and energy for it. It's already debunked here at EvC Forum in this thread here: The Sun is Shrinking, the Earth is Young.--Percy

The Sun is not shrinking; it is oscillating with an 80 year cycle.As already noted in the "Dates and Dating" forum, please do not post quotes from creationist web sites without checking out talkorigins.org or the old threads in this site or other reliable sources. The claim you posted is absolutely false and is one of the better known creationist frauds. Any site or person promulgating that claim loses all credibility instantly. It is so well known that Howard J. Van Till wrote a detailed paper on it, The Legend of the Shrinking Sun - A Case Study Comparing Professional Science and "Creation Science" in Action. From the abstract:

quote:

---

Within the professional scientific community, a preliminary report which suggested a long-term and rapid shrinkage of the sun presented a puzzle for solar astronomers. Consequently, additional studies were made and the credibility of the original data was re-evaluated. The result is that secular shrinkage has not been
substantiated, but an 80-year oscillatory behavior was discovered. Within the "creation-science" community, however, the response to the original report has been remarkably different. The suggestion of rapid long-term shrinkage was uncritically accepted, the evidence and conclusions drawn from subsequent studies were generally dismissed, and extrapolations of the presumed rapid solar shrinkage have been performed without restraint. Isolated from the corrective of continuing professional investigation and evaluation, the "creation-science" community continues to employ this unwarranted extrapolation of a discredited report as a scientific evidence" for a young earth. The credibility of the Christian witness to a scientifically knowledgeable world is thereby clouded.

---

More information is available at The Solar FAQ: Solar Neutrinos and Other Solar Oddities: Shrinkage.

Just for comparison to other phenomena, this is like weather here on earth. If I extrapolated the plunging temperature in the month of October here in the states, could I then extrapolate and say that in the year 2006 the average temperature will be -250 F (just a guesstimate)? The answer is no for the same reason that the sun shrinkage extrapolation is wrong, ie it is cyclical. So, if you want to hold this as proof you would also have to claim that it will be very cold in a couple years by the November tempurature shrinkage.

Thread copied to the Our sun thread in the Big Bang and Cosmology forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.