How do creationists explain stars?

You and Fallacycop are exchanging one-liners and I think the original point is getting lost. You claimed that if the Bible were demonstrably false there wouldn't be a debate. Fallacycop was only pointing out that there isn't a debate. The account in Genesis is given no credence within science whatsoever.In other words, Fallacycop is saying there is no scientific debate.But there *is* a debate. It is a social and religious debate. It is religious because the creationists object to evolution on religious grounds. And it is social because creationists try to influence the educational community to reduce treatments of evolution while giving more consideration to creationist views.But there's no scientific debate. Even before Darwin geologists had already established that the world was far older than the account in Genesis implies.--Percy

AdminNosy correctly notes that to take up this part of the discussion would draw us off-topic, but there is an on-topic component to this. Who in the scientific community is arguing that polystrate fossils invalidate modern geology? Only creationists make this argument, right? There's no scientific debate.In the same way, there is no scientific debate about the age of stars and galaxies and how they formed. The objections once again come from the creationist community whose views are based upon an inerrant interpretation of the holy book of Christianity.Fallacycop was rebutting your point that the existence of a difference of opinion means that the objections must have some scientific legitimacy. But the objections are religious, not scientific.So if you want to argue that your views on stars have scientific validity, you'll have to point to scientific, not religious, evidence.--Percy

The problem with the "light slowing down" thing is that it contradicts known evidence. That's because the "light slowing down" thing was proposed to explain how the universe could appear old (which is what the scientific evidence says) when it is actually young (which is what creationists think the Genesis says). In other words, its a religious attempt to reconcile science with an interpretation of Genesis that has no scientific foundation. I'm totally satisfied with that answer, too, unless you think this is a scientific answer. I'm fine with it unless this is what you want to teach in science class.--Percy

After your reply of "Technical mumbo jumbo, dumbo" in Message 201 I'm naturally more circumspect about getting technical with you. First, it isn't a long list of scientists. The list of those who believe there is valid science behind a 6000 year old universe is extremely short, close to zero unless you count creationist scientists.Second, all scientific views compete on a level playing field. You can't abandon one scientific view in favor of another because the former view is "an approximation and not absolutely true", because the new view, if it is scientific, is also "an approximation and not absolutely true". In other words, they are precisely equivalent regarding the property of tentativity, and this principle cannot be offered as a justification for choosing one over the other.In science, the only justifications for abandoning one view in favor of another is because of better supporting evidence and/or superior explanatory power. You're not the first person to raise this topic here at EvC Forum, I'm well familiar with it. It probably comes up at least several times a year. One of the longer threads about it was Tired Light, give it a read. Bare links with no supporting discussion or argument are discouraged here at EvC Forum. If you'd like to enter some of the information from this article into the discussion then please go ahead.--Percy

Only in the sense that all theories are tentative is the jury still out. An open mind is permanently embedded in science by the principle of tentativity. The definition of an open minded person is not someone who refuses to ever draw conclusions from the data. Open minded means open not only to new information that might come in the future, but also to current information that we already have. Close minded is what you would call someone who refuses to consider the implications of current information.Saying things like "the jury is still out" in the presence of data contrary to your preferred viewpoint, preferring to wait until data more to your liking becomes available, is being close minded to the current data. Science requires considering all the data. The more information a theory addresses, the stronger that theory is. Creationism is the weakest of theories because it promotes a theory consistent with stories from Genesis instead of with real data. You mean empiricism. Empericism, rationalism and experience are all necessary tools within science and cannot be considered "different disciplines."--Percy

I interpreted Rob as meaning rationality. Grouping "rationalism" with empiricism and experience led me away from thinking he meant the philosophy of rationalism, though if that's what he meant it wouldn't surprise me.--Percy

Why would we admit we do not know something for which we have much evidence? Naturally by "know" I mean in the scientifically tentative sense.Rather than arguing on the basis of evidence for and against an ancient age for stars you seem to be using a more general argument that there are things science can't know. General arguments concerning the limits of scientific inquiry belong in the [forum=-11] forum.--Percy

If you want to debate the age of stars, this thread is the place. If you want to debate the limits of scientific inquiry then propose a new thread over at [forum=-25].--Percy

Hi, PetVet2Be! Large animal or small? Stellar evolution (science of star development from formation through death) is part of cosmology, which is a branch of physics. As far as cosmologists are aware, there is nothing in theories of stellar evolution that violates the laws of physics as we currently understand them. Theories that include violations of the laws of physics are among the easiest to falsify (disprove), so it is very unlikely that any accepted scientific theory would include one.I'm sensing that you don't have a specific objection to the evidence for star formation, nor to the evidence for the distance or age of stars, which is what this thread is really about. I think you're more focused on the more general creationist objection that science can't make statements about things that can't be directly observed in the here and now.If this is the case then I'll again state my opinion that discussion in this thread should concern the evidence for and against the age and distance of stars. More general objections concerning the limits of scientific inquiry belong in a separate thread in the [forum=-11] forum.--Percy

You're correct that heat will counterbalance gravity. That very principle is at work in our own sun, where the heat generated by the nuclear fusion processes in the core (around 15 million degrees Kelvin) operate against collapse due to the force of gravity.Obviously our own sun is an example of just how much heat it takes to counterbalance gravity. What makes you think that the rather less heat from a pre-star would be sufficient to prevent gravity from drawing in ever more matter?--Percy

Because light travels at a constant speed in a vacuum, a light year is a measure of both time and distance. Our sun is 93 million, not 24 trillion, miles away. It takes light from our sun about 8 minutes to reach us, and so it is about 8 light minutes away.You must be thinking of the next nearest star, Alpha Centauri, which is about that distance. It's takes light from Alpha Centauri a little over 4 years to reach us, and so it is a little over 4 light years away. In the near perfect vacuum of space there are few obstructions to block the passage of light. A light photon will travel forever until it strikes matter. For example, if you gaze up at Alpha Centauri, the light photons striking your retina are just completing a 4 year long journey. Unlike the vacuum of space, water is not perfectly transparent. A small percentage of light is absorbed by every meter of depth. If a half percent of the light is absorbed by each meter, guess how dark it is when you get below 200 meters. Only about 1% of sunlight reaches below 200 meters. Below 1000 meters no perceptible light penetrates. The Marianna Trench is about 11,000 meters deep - no light discernible light penetrates that deeply. This information is probably incorrect. Arp's ideas about the distance of interstellar objects and about the source of the red shift are outside the scientific mainstream, but he understands physics and the importance of evidence. He would be an unlikely ally for Setterfield. You have misunderstood the article. It states in the conclusion: In other words, the very article you referenced contradicts your claim that "it brings into question the theory of Relativity." This article does not make clear that the speed of light is not actually slower in a refractive material. For example, photons in glass do not travel more slowly. The speed of light remains precisely the same, it is just that it takes time for photons to be absorbed and retransmitted, and that extra time is what makes the light appear to travel more slowly. But with few exceptions, the light emerging from the other side of glass consists of different photons from the ones that entered. You are correct that these studies don't indicate that light speeds used to be different than today, but for the wrong reasons. You misunderstood the first study, and since there's no evidence that the vacuum of space is actually a Bose-Einstein condensate, the second study isn't relevant. Additionally, there's no convincing evidence that light ever traveled at significantly different speeds in the past. Parallax is how we measure the distance to nearby interstellar objects like Alpha Centauri. It's a geometric measurement that has nothing to do with the speed of light.When you think you've found articles claiming that relativity has been overturned or that long established constants like the speed of light have been found to be highly variable, you can usually assume the articles are incorrect or misunderstood.--Percy

This is from Wikipedia's article on the speed of light, the subsection titled Interaction with transparent materials: --Percy

Cavediver's response provided the correct answers but little explanations, but unless this inquiry can be tied directly into the topic (creationist explanations for the light from distant stars) it probably should be taken up in a different thread.--Percy

As I already explained in Message 215, this is about the speeding up of light: And about the slowing of light: There are probably very few scientific theories which are accepted by 100% of the members of the scientific community. Relativity continues to be challenged. The big bang continues to be challenged. Particle physics theory (usually called the standard model) in particular is being challenged every which way. There are always scientists or groups of scientists challenging significant aspects of accepted theory, but to conclude that this indicates that accepted theory has already been invalidated would be a profound error.No one here who understands science would claim that today's scientific theories will forever stand the test of time. Scientific theories are tentative, and it would be unscientific to claim that some theory will never be overturned. But we can only argue from the position of what we know today based upon experiment, observation, evidence and thinking, and what we know today is that the speed of light is inviolate as far as the transmission of information, and that no observer will ever observe light as traveling at anything other than c.So if you want to argue that someday we'll find out different, all we can say is that perhaps you're right. But if you want to argue that we've already found out different then you're dead wrong.--Percy

Hi John,Be sure to visit Nwr's link and watch those waveforms. The visual picture of the relationship between waves of light and the pulses that contain them is very helpful to understanding what the article is really saying. Here's the link again: First, it's important not to ignore the places in the article where they tell you in no uncertain terms that light is *not* traveling faster than c. There's this from the second paragraph: And this: And this from near the conclusion: The article is telling the reader in several different places that the propagation of information cannot exceed c and that relativity has not been invalidated.The article attempts to make clear what is really happening by saying that it is the motion of an effect and not of an object or light, and it does this with an analogy to the sweeping light beam from a lighthouse: You also quoted this from the article: But you left out the very next sentence: There must be something very appealing about the possibility of superluminal velocities that leads to such frequent misinterpretations of this experiment. Internet discussion boards are often abuzz with excited messages about having just read about successful superluminal light experiments, always followed by attempts at patient explanations about why you shouldn't be investing in faster-than-light communications just yet.It's even harder to figure out why the experiment has received any attention at all. It's a very boring and obscure effect, and I can only surmise that articles that include phrases like, "Relativity hasn't been overturned just yet, but..." are mere hype, and I can't even guess why they're trying to hype such experiments.To give you an idea just how boring and even silly this effect is (from the point of view of violating c or causality - I'm not saying the physics itself is boring or silly), here's an example using a long car and a short garage. This isn't a very strong analogy, but it's simple and it gets the point across.Imagine you have a car that is 15 feet long, and a garage that is only 5 feet long. The garage has doors at both ends, and both doors are open. Let us further say that for some reason we've decided that the car will be determined as having entered the garage when the tail of the car passes through the first door, and as having left the garage when the front of the car passes through the second door. Here's a diagram and some explanation: By the conventions we have chosen for how to measure when the car has entered and left the garage, the car appears to leave the garage before it has even entered it. But in the same way that the article states in several different places that light leaving before it enters is not what really happens, the car doesn't really leave the garage before it enters it.--PercyEdited by Admin, : Fix image.