The not so distant star light problem

From ICR's website:

As for its energy production, it is believed that the sunlight we see everyday is made of units of radiant energy called photons which originate in the inferno of the Sun's core. They may take many years slowly wandering up to the surface, then in a little more than eight minutes they speed across the 93,000,000 miles of space to the Earth, if they happen to be headed our way. The Greater Light to Rule the Day - Ladies and Gentlemen - The Sun! by J. Timothy Unruh

Fantastic Tim! Many years indeed. So many in fact that you properly decided to leave that figure out of your remarks. Likewise for the stars in the night sky Tim. For our sun those many years are between 10,000 and 170,000 years as the photons generated in the core make a "random walk" to the surface. The required travel time can be calculated using a Monte-Carlo simulation. As much as you'd like to throw Twinkies at these figures Tim and cast doubt about their reliability one thing is certain, you cannot shorten the time required to fit the text of the Bible.

Please direct me to the scripture that relates how the sun and stars remained dark for many years after being created. I'm not finding it.

It is strange that young earth 'researchers' have invented fanciful cosmologies to answer the distant starlight problem without even being aware of the not so distant starlight problem.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/.../nab/does-starlight-prove

So of the assumptions listed in the previous link we can now remove all but one, the assumption of naturalism. This is the get out of jail free card. When reason, logic, and evidence let you down, simply regard the need for their inclusion to be an unwarranted assumption.

Now maybe young earthers can stop weaving pseudoscience into their ideas and just stick to supernaturalism. Next they can stop complaining that science doesn't countenance their beliefs since supernaturalism by definition is not science.

This thread is an opportunity for young earth creationists to explain how scientists have it all wrong and to explain how light takes no time at all to get from the core of a star to its surface. This is your chance to be a star and shine!
(if only dimly)

And how sure are you that the first light generated by the sun took thousands of years to escape. That is certainly what we expect right now, but at the time when the sun was first condensing from a gas cloud and the generation of visible light first began, how long did it take light to escape? I suspect that answer is "somewhat shorter than the current timeframe".

Hi NoNukes.
I would consider it a great accomplishment if a YEC were forced to consider stellar dynamics at all. The question would then become how did the sun age and get to its current condition so quickly?
There are many versions of creationism afloat. Some have 'answers' for the earth being created before the sun which involve the earth falling (as in fall of Adam kind of falling) to its present position from another system.
Confirmation bias and 'shelving' or compartmentalization are what keep people from thinking and continuing to live with cognitive dissonance. Every little bit helps. As soon as a crack in the dam is made it is not long before the waters are released. Doesn't happen for a lot of people perhaps but it does for some of us.

Edited by shalamabobbi, : gray matter early morning startup fart.

Hi Coyote,

International no less. Is that to be sure enough people will be in attendance? 354 creation scientists and supporters but I see they didn't break that figure down. Is that 3 creation scientists and 351 supporters? Does that count mom and dad, sons and daughters? Did they pay a few homeless to come inside and warm themselves? dunno.

Oh but dozens of authors presented peer reviewed papers. Would that be bakers dozens or regular dozens? dunno. Which peers did the reviewing? Peers as in a jury of your peers? Oh but wait, nearly all of the papers were 'technical' in nature. Woah! So some were not technical in nature and may have contained poetry? dunno.

Gravity driven events that occurred during the Genesis Flood?? Must have their own theory of gravitation I guess.
Dr. Tomkins will set the record straight on the similarity in the DNA between a human and a chimpanzee? Headline news stuff going on at this conference. Where was the media coverage? How'd they miss this?
Brian Thomas and the dino soft tissue. Oh wait, is this current? hmmmm, 2013.
The Byron C. Nelson and the Luther D. Sunderland awards?
Many thanks to the volunteers that helped make the conference a success? (what tightwads). Many thanks to the technical referees? Is that the peer review referred to earlier? Who were these referees? dunno.

I had to click on that impressive looking "That's a fact" button where to my delight I found plenty of scientific articles and discussion on topics such as how the dinos fit onto the ark, what Fibonacci numbers reveal about the creator, how God's design was apparently intended to allow us to play the game of baseball (God is a big baseball fan. It may be the reason he created mankind in the first place), oh goody - biblical giants!, the ToE weighed in the balance by the metric of how many people believe in it today, and I had to stop on episode 17 - sharp teeth. Here's the caption,

If God created humans and animals to eat only fruits and vegetables, how did meat get onto the menu? And why do some animals have sharp teeth if they weren't supposed to eat meat in the beginning?

Well worth the click and it's short (well of course it's short). Apparently an alligator's sharp teeth were designed so it could eat coconuts.

Oh my gosh! episode 8! what a gem! Here's the caption,

Some say that the Bible is religion and science is truth, and that means the two are incompatible. But if the Bible is only a religious book, then we might as well not study gravity, the hydrological cycle, and the importance of blood in living things, because Scripture describes all these facts.

Wow, just wow.

More. Humans are unique. We are the only creatures on earth that celebrate holidays!
Episode 5 is fun. "Evolution in action." Worried that baby animals that don't resemble their parents such as tadpoles -> frogs or caterpillars -> butterflies might be interpreted as evidence for evolution they state,

after all, a puppy never grows into an ostrich and a kitten never becomes an armadillo.

Episode 1 is about how huge a number a billion is. Then some speculation that it is unreasonable that the earth could be , not just one billion , but FOUR billion years old. It ends with,

But more than that one billion can not even come close to describing how big our creator is.

Kinda reminds me of that old TV commercial, the one about frying an egg, "this is your brain on drugs."

but there are far more people who simply believe that man's ideas about stellar formation and evolution are simply wrong, and in any event don't describe how God created this particular solar system.

Well that is the point of my post. Since they are relying upon supernaturalism to begin with why all of the weaving of pseudoscientific BS into their arguments? Why not just be satisfied with supernaturalism?

When I was getting my education years ago I was under the burden of YECism, but a particular variety that didn't have quite the number of difficulties to deal with as the standard variety. I was sure that I'd be able to answer the tuff questions when I got around to researching it on my own. Finally the time arrived when I felt I knew enough to begin studying these issues. So I looked into the isochron method of dating. I felt sick to my stomach as I realized the initial condition loophole was no longer available to fall back on. In desperation I corresponded with young earth scientists not unlike those from ICR. When I received their answer I was floored.

All rocks display an isochron pattern.

That was it? "Let there be isochrons" was their explanation??

Come young earthers and let your light shine, however dimly. The brain operates on about 8 watts of power so it is indeed dim compared to the output of a star. I meant it as no slight.

Enlighten me. Call me back from the brink!

Abstract thinking is not their strong suit.

When you say 'they', who in particular do you mean?

The YECs who attempt to prop up their world view by abusing science, putting the cart before the horse.

I doubt that one young earth creationist in ten knows enough science

Here, you are being too generous.

such that anyone debating him would take his explanations seriously.

It is that portion of the population who takes their explanations seriously that concerns me. Not knowing the science themselves they believe that there are 'real' scientists in their camp, that the data can be read another way to tell a different story.

This thread is too aid anyone under the spell of a YEC world view to simply realize that when they look at the sun, the light they are seeing had its origin before their creation event took place.

That all the assumptions they think science is propping itself up with don't apply here save one, the assumption of naturalism.

And finally if supernaturalism is required to explain your world view to begin with, why even bother dabbling in naturalistic explanations to support your beliefs? If 'God did it' is your explanation, doesn't coming up with naturalistic explanations really mean 'God didn't do it'?

Hi Stile,

Are you sure about that?

Yes, I'm sure about that.

(An honest question, I really don't know)

If I'm sure about that? Yes, I'm quite sure about that.

Perhaps you mean the other stars?

Yes, I'm sure about those as well.

I was under the impression that the sun's light is about 7 minutes old or so... by the time it hits us.

Travel time is 8min 10.3sec perigee, 8min 27sec apogee from the surface. But photons don't age.

Please correct my understanding of star-light origin if there's some aspect I'm missing, though.

It seems that is no longer necessary.

(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Thanks for stopping by and posting. I apologize that my post wasn't as clear as I thought it was.
I am talking about the sun in particular but for the YEC position this is also an issue for the other stars as well. (I'm guessing that YEC is not likely to be your position so the 2nd post after this is directed to those holding to the YEC world view)

Nonetheless, shalamabobbi's statement is probably not completely accurate.

Well yes, there are a lot of details that are not mentioned in the OP.

Energy is likely absorbed and re-radiated as it travels from core to surface, and any visible light photons that reach us are likely of fairly recent vintage.

Yes, and necessarily so.

The photons released within the core are high energy gamma rays that get absorbed and re-emitted by nuclei at a particular frequency, so to get from this initial high energy state to the energy distribution of photons released at the surface there has to be inelastic scattering taking place as well. The energy transferred by scattering then gets re-emitted at the lesser frequencies. So the initial gamma ray becomes many photons by the time they leave the surface.

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=677683

Since the travel time is not of great interest/importance to the astronomical community this amount of detail isn't taken into account in the calculation which simply tracks the progress of a single photon making a random walk to the surface. They even assumed for simplicity a fixed mean free path between direction changes. The model has only more recently been improved by using concentric shells.

Here's a pretty good overview of the calculation that is easy to follow for those who are interested
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=2009022214242...

Thanks for deepening the discussion.

Let me reiterate that I am well aware that one can arbitrarily posit that the sun was created supernaturally with light already at its surface and in transit from the core towards the surface. In this viewpoint the YEC admittedly wins. I'm well aware of this same argument for the creation of starlight in transit to answer the distant starlight problem.

But notice the article by answers in genesis and what they say about this explanation.

But if God created the light beams already on their way, then that means none of the events we see in space (beyond a distance of 6,000 light-years) actually happened. It would mean that those exploding stars never exploded or existed; God merely painted pictures of these fictional events. It seems uncharacteristic of God to make illusions like this.

So even THEY don't like it. (But I think it's better than the alternative non-answers they come up with)

So the question I ask of YECs, and perhaps particularly of the folks at answers in genesis, is the following: Why did God create the sun as the source of light for the earth when all the daylight that has been provided to the earth for the last 6,000 years wasn't generated by that source? It's sort of like buying a savings bond to provide money for your child's education that matures well after the time it is needed to attend the university.

Dear NoNukes,

Thanks for the reply and for taking up the debate on behalf of the missing YECs.*
I will do my best, with gentle kindness, to force my argument down your throat. I will also add a disclaimer that I may be wrong, (just in case), after all I was a YEC once myself at one point in time.

I want to rearrange your comment.

those who don't like the fake starlight issue might have absolutely no problem with there being some cause for light to be created at the sun surface during the early days of the sun

Well of course they don't. Otherwise we'd still be waiting on that light to get to the surface if it had a natural cause rather than a supernatural one. So, poof! A fully functioning sun. We can't sit around and wait because, POOF! What have we here? A fully functioning man to dress the garden with a brain filled with fake memories so he knows how to walk and talk and get into trouble with Eve. Memory of clothing wasn't included however. God didn't have an Internet connection.

And poof! Fully functioning stars. Never mind that the sun and these stars vary in lifespan from 1 million years to 200 trillion years and that they are observed to populate the universe at various stages of these lifespans.

http://stellar-database.com/evolution.html

or alternatively with the light escaping the sun's core quickly back then.

In the beginning the sun was lubricated with holy water and this allowed the light to escape quickly. The situation changed when God removed the water for the flood.

OR

I'm picturing all the atoms lining up holding hands just outside the inner core, "OK, let 'em fly boys, we have an earth to light up, get on with it."
Of course these are high energy gamma rays, something the early inhabitants of the earth would likely rather avoid. "Give us night, night is fine!"

But OK, why not!! I'll go with it! I'm feeling better already as my inner fundie rises from its place of exile. Yes, I'd like to know more. And leave a pamphlet if you have one.

no fraudulent cosmological events are associated with some method of getting sunlight to us quickly

Well I have to disagree here. (Of course I do, this is my thread.)

The sun itself is an assembly of cosmological events at the atomic scale.
With the stars there is no difference between falsely portraying an exploding star and falsely portraying an aging star.
The deception is the same. The 1st star never exploded and the 2nd never was that age.

Likewise with the sun. The photons never were the result of nuclear fusion within the core. They portray events that never took place. It's the same deception.
In one case the photons focus upon the retina to make a picture, in the other they do not. But in both cases we infer the reality of events that never really took place as a result of the existence of those photons.

IOW if we accept the initial supernatural creation of the sun with sunlight in transit from the core, the core need not actually exist (at least for the reason of creating the initial gamma rays).

*Oh, but I see now that I've actually snagged one.

Hi marc9000,

Hi shalamabobbi, I don't believe we've met before. You'll surmise from my very low member rating that I'm a creationist,

Shalamabobbi looketh not upon the outward appearance of your member rating, but upon your heart. Fear not my son. Shalamabobbi loves you.

though I'm not necessarily bound to a "young earth" belief.

Whaaat?? Ah then, go to hell.

some acts of God are explainable by current scientific mechanisms,

If they are explainable by scientific mechanisms, naturalism, how then are they acts of God?

God can guide naturalistic processes

If they are guided in part by God then that part of the process is not naturalistic and a wholly naturalistic explanation would come up short.

It's easy to understand that atheists don't think guidance is necessary for naturalistic processes.

It has nothing to do with atheism really. It has more to do with the definition of a natural process.
Maybe what you are trying to say is everything is upheld by God and there really are no natural processes? In which case there is no need to waste your energy coming up with any explanations at all.

as if there can only be one time, and three space dimensions

Actually there is some science that deals with more spatial dimensions than three. Check it out it's really cool.
http://www.pbs.org/...hysics/imagining-other-dimensions.html

Hey marc9000, sorry you got hooked in with my post #10. As you probably now realize it was a bit sarcastic. I hope you enjoy your romp here and begin to see further than your initial knee jerk reaction to posters. You may be surprised to find that many who self-identify here as atheists began their journey with beliefs not dissimilar to your own. You may also be surprised to discover that some here are theists and they are treated with respect despite this area of disagreement. Have fun and learn to shoot with a rifle rather than a shotgun, it will reveal more about your target.

Yes, I completely misunderstood you.

But I take your point and understand why you disliked this thread now. Random walks take no time at all with infinite c.

E=mc^2, so now with a very large value of c, the fusion in the sun generates a very large value of E . Earth is toast. Is this good enough? Or does the hypothetical YEC get to speculate that the mass was less in the early history of the earth as well?

(Take that, Barry Setterfield)

You've never heard of an "old earth creationist"? Good, I'm not one of those either. I'm somewhere in between.(In response to "ah then, go to hell") and this I realized it was sarcastic when I first saw it. Likewise, I'm sorry if I rained on your atheist love fest.

Let me try and better explain my point.

The comment about loving you and then telling you to go to hell was not really about whether you were an old earth or young earth creationist or somewhere in between. Notice that you have labeled me an atheist with your other comment.

When someone's level of acceptance of science gets too far away from your particular world view you label them and write them off as atheist. Conveniently now their arguments can be ignored and don't have to be thought about too deeply anymore.

Someone from Answers in Genesis or ICR might consider you someone to be written off despite your claim to theistic creationism because your view isn't quite young earth enough for their particular world view or perhaps your explanation simply varies too far from theirs.

The Flat Earth Society might write us all off for daring to disagree with them about their particular world view.

Sure, they're treated with respect, as long as they bend and shape their Christianity to fit whatever atheists are telling them about science

Is it unreasonable to expect people to accept the findings of science? Whether or not Christians would need to bend their Christianity to fit with it really isn't the issue. I was auditing an on-line astronomy class once and the professor started off by stating that he wasn't interested in hearing any objections from students based upon whether the science disagreed with their beliefs. A few chuckles resulted and the class got underway. Science isn't out to attack religion. It is perhaps a side effect - a result of what's been learned and still being learned.

I will go out on a limb here and assume that you are in general disagreement with the beliefs of the Flat Earth Society. I will go further out on that limb and assume that you have no problem with making use of what you know as the result of the findings of science to find their particular world view unacceptable. Is it unreasonable to expect the flat earthers to accept the findings of science?

"Sure, the falt earthers are treated with respect, as long as they bend and shape their Flat Earthism to fit whatever atheists are telling them about science."

You'd have to know more about Christianity (the nature of God) to accept the fact that he can be in control, and still allow humans free will. and this We do have irony! Have you ever witnessed 5, 10, or 15 angry atheists here insulting one creationist poster?

Just a reminder that you are on the science forum. You won't get by here without backing up your assertions and beliefs with physical objective evidence.
I responded once to one of Straggler's threads without paying attention to this fact and had my ass handed to me. If you want to discuss philosophy or have a more casual conversation you may get along better in one of the other sections of the board.