2) Galaxies. The centripetal force of the spinning galaxies would rip them apart within 10,000 years.
Scientific answer - "we don't know yet" Creationist answer - Gosh, they don't know so it must be GOD!!! (and not just any god but our very own personal version ...)
This is known as the god-of-the-gaps argument.
3) Snakes and humans.
False. Now you can prove me wrong by actually providing evidence and substantiating your claim.
4) (This is my idea) Life. Simply put, the basis of life is amino acids.
This is a typical post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy.
None of this is evidence for any special creation one way or the other.
... means that the galaxies should be torn apart within 10,000 years.
Assuming this is true for the sake of argument ...
or the universe and galaxies are less than 10,000 years old, and the galaxies haven't had time to decay.
... is NOT a logical conclusion: the visible galaxies could be less than 10,000 years old, but the age of the universe could still be totally unaffected. This also leaves open the way galaxies are formed, replacing those that have long since expired due to lack of appreciating the gravity of the situation.
AND, IF this galaxy decay were true THEN we should be able to measure the expansion of the galaxies over time, this leads to the proposition that IF the galaxies are expanding then this is likely to be true, BUT IF the galaxies are NOT expanding then this concept is falsified.
Care to place any bets? Do you think this was neglected in the calculations of galaxy rotation that resulted in the concept of dark stuffs?
Unless, however, life needed an Intelligant Designer to be made, and not a random sequence of events.
So why is an omnipotent etc Intelligent Designer be restricted to only making life on one planet? Why shouldn't Mars have vibrant life similar to ours in complexity but based on some slight difference in basic structure (not carbon based)? Doesn't the absence speak to inability?
quote:At an earlier stage in its life, the star which exploded gave off material which formed a ring. Light from the supernova eventually bounced off of this ring, and about a year after we saw the explosion, we suddenly saw the ring.
Now, imagine a triangle. We know one of the angles - the angle, from here, between the supernova and the ring. And we know the length of one side, in years. From that, high school trigonometry gives us the lengths of the other two sides. The distance is 168,000 light years, 3.5%.
A light-year is a measure of distance, specifically the distance light would travel in one earth year at the current speed of light. This is about 5.88 trillion mi. (9.46 trillion km) , so 168,000 light-years would be about 988,000 trillion (1012) miles or ~9.88 x 1017 miles. How do we know this distance is not affected by a change in the speed of light?
quote:The distance is based on triangulation. The line from Earth to the supernova is one side of the triangle and the line from Earth to the edge of the ring is another leg. The third leg of this right triangle is the relatively short distance from the supernova to the edge of its ring. Since the ring lit up about a year after the supernova exploded, that means that a beam of light coming directly from the supernova reached us a year before the beam of light which was detoured via the ring. Let us assume that the distance of the ring from the supernova is really 1 unit and that light presently travels 1 unit per year.
If there had been no change in the speed of light since the supernova exploded, then the third leg of the triangle would be 1 unit in length, thus allowing the calculation of the distance by elementary trigonometry (three angles and one side are known). On the other hand, if the two light beams were originally traveling, say three units per year, the second beam would initially lag 1/3 of a year behind the first as that's how long it would take to do the ring detour. However, the distance that the second beam lags behind the first beam is the same as before. As both beams were traveling the same speed, the second beam fell behind the first by the length of the detour. Thus, by measuring the distance that the second beam lags behind the first, a distance which will not change when both light beams slow down together, we get the true distance from the supernova to its ring. The lag distance between the two beams, of course, is just their present velocity multiplied by the difference in their arrival times. With the true distance of the third leg of our triangle in hand, trigonometry gives us the correct distance from Earth to the supernova.
Note that this is independent of the speed of light, thus it cannot - alone - confirm the speed of light at the time of the nova, but it does confirm the stellar distance involved.
The next question is whether we can confirm that the speed of light was relatively constant during the time it took the light to travel from SN1987A to earth.
The Speed of Light
Back to ref 2:
quote:Our first argument is based on a straightforward observation of pulsars. Pulsars put out flashes at such precise intervals and clarity that only the rotation of a small body can account for it (Chaisson and McMillan, 1993, p.498). Indeed, the more precise pulsars keep much better time than even the atomic clocks on Earth! In the mid1980s a new class of pulsars, called millisecond pulsars, were discovered which were rotating hundreds of times each second! When a pulsar, which is a neutron star smaller than Manhattan Island with a weight problem (about as heavy as our sun), spins that fast it is pretty close to flying apart. Thus, in observing these millisecond pulsars, we are not seeing a slow motion replay as that would imply an actual spin rate which would have destroyed those pulsars. We couldn't observe them spinning that fast if light was slowing down. Consequently, we can dispense with the claim that the light coming from SN1987A might have slowed down.
A more quantitative argument can also be advanced for those who need the details. Suppose that light is slowing down according to some exponential decay curve. An exponential decay curve is one of Mother Nature's favorites. It describes radioactive decay and a host of other observations. If the speed of light were really slowing down, then an exponential decay curve would be a reasonable curve to start our investigation with ...
We want the light in our model to start fast enough so that the most distant objects in the universe, say 10 billion light-years away, will be visible today. That is, the light must travel 10 billion light-years in the 6000 years which creationists allow for the Earth's age. (A lightyear is the distance a beam of light, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, covers in one year.) Furthermore, the speed of light must decay at a rate which will reduce it to its present value after 6000 years. Upon applying these constraints to all possible exponential decay curves, and after doing a little calculus, we wind up with two nonlinear equations in two variables. After solving those equations by computer, we get the following functions for velocity and distance. The first function gives the velocity of light (light-years per year) t years after creation (t=0). The second function gives the distance (light-years) that the first beams of light have traveled since creation (since t=0).
V(t) = V0 e^(-Kt) S(t) = 1010(1 e^(-Kt))
V0 = 28,615,783 (The initial velocity for light) K = 0.00286158 (the decay rate parameter)
With these equations in hand, it can be shown that if light is slowing down then equal intervals of time in distant space will be seen on Earth as unequal intervals of time. That's our test for determining if light has slowed down. But, where can we find a natural, reliable clock in distant space with which to do the test?
As it turns out, Mother Nature has supplied some of the best clocks around. They are the pulsars. Pulsars keep time like the Earth does, by rotating smoothly, only they do it much better because they are much smaller and vastly heavier. The heavier a spinning top is the less any outside forces can affect it. Many pulsars rotate hundreds of times per second! And they keep incredibly precise time. Thus, we can observe how long it takes a pulsar to make 100 rotations and compare that figure to another observation five years later. Thus, we can put the above creationist model to the test. Of course, in order to interpret the results properly, we need to have some idea of how much change to expect according to the above creationist model. That calculation is our next step.
Let's start by considering a pulsar which is 170,000 light-years away, which would be as far away as SN1987A. Certainly, we can see pulsars at that distance easily enough. In our creationist model, due to the initial high velocity of light, the light now arriving from our pulsar (light beam A) took about 2149.7 years to reach Earth. At the time light beam A left the pulsar it was going 487.4686 times the speed of light. The next day (24 hours after light beam A left the pulsar) light beam B leaves; it leaves at 487.4648 times the speed of light. As you can see, the velocity of light has already decayed a small amount. (I shall reserve the expression "speed of light" for the true speed of light which is about 186,000 miles per second.) Allowing for the continuing decay in velocity, we can calculate that light beam A is 1.336957 light-years ahead of light beam B. That lead distance is not going to change since both light beams will slow down together as the velocity of light decays.
When light beam A reaches the Earth, and light is now going its normal speed, that lead distance translates into 1.336957 years. Thus, the one-day interval on our pulsar, the actual time between the departures of light beams A and B, wrongly appears to us as more than a year! Upon looking at our pulsar, which is 170,000 light-years away, we are not only seeing 2149.7 years into the past but are seeing things occur 488.3 times more slowly than they really are!
Exactly 5 years after light beam A left the pulsar, light beam Y departs. It is traveling at 480.5436 times the speed of light. Twenty-four hours after its departure light beam Z leaves the pulsar. It is traveling at 480.5398 times the speed of light. Making due allowances for the continual slowing down of the light, we can calculate that light beam Y has a lead in distance over light beam Z of 1.318767 light-years. Once again, when light beam Y reached Earth, when the velocity of light had become frozen at its present value, that distance translates into years. Thus, a day on the pulsar, the one defined by light beams Y and Z, appears in slow motion to us. We see things happening 481.7 times slower than the rate at which they actually occurred.
Therefore, if the above creationist model is correct, we should see a difference in time for the above two identical intervals, a difference which amounts to about 1.3%. Of course, the above calculations could be redone with much shorter intervals without affecting the 1.3% figure, being that the perceived slowdown is essentially the same for the smaller intervals within one day. As a result, an astronomer need only measure the spin of a number of pulsars over a few years to get definitive results. Pulsars keep such accurate time that a 1.3% difference--even after hundreds of years--would stand out like a giant redwood in a Kansas wheat field!
Such time discrepancy has not been observed in any pulsar. Thus by two different methods we confirm the speed of light is constant within our ability to measure it for the time period covered by the travel of light from SN1987A to earth. This of course ALSO means that the minimum age of the universe was 168,000 years (+/- 3%) in 1987 (when the nova was observed) ... AND it confirms the age of the light coming from the nova is ~168,000 years, so that any observed phenomena that occurred during that nova would have occurred 168,000 years ago.
Yes, my mind is made up. There is a very small chance (I'm talking 1.00*10^-10000000%) of me changing my mind.
Denial of contradictory evidence is not faith, or rational - it is delusion:
A closed mind can only hold a little information.
I do want to know what people's arguments are. I'm here for the information. I want to be caught up in this debate, so I can understand what's going on. I debate to try and draw out more information.
The real question is what is true, what is real, regardless of people's opinions, beliefs, feelings and everything they have been taught. This question then leads to the problem: how do you determine what is true, what is real? This affects everything from evidence that the earth orbits the sun to the age of the universe to the existence of past all events.
This is rather fundamental to the debate isn't it? Your OP talks about having evidence that supports creationism, and you have tried out a few standard creationist items which have been refuted. You say you want to learn more, that you are ill-informed, and want to learn "both sides" (there are many more than two) of the debate - are you planning to (a) to present any more or (b) defend all those that have been refuted? Perhaps when you learn a little more, you will return to these items and recant or revise them.
I'm in a school that doesn't teach evolution, so ...
... so you don't have a single valid opinion on it: you don't know enough to have an opinion, and what you do know - what you have been taught or told - is likely FULL of errors and misconceptions.
My response to your Message 58 (where it was off topic), is still unanswered on Message 71, and it presents some information on what evolution really involves, PLUS it links you to two university sites used to teach courses on evolution to students, so you can see what actual evolutionary biologists are teaching (as opposed to people who are NOT evolutionary biologists).
Let me hit on the basic points again and expand some of the arguments for clarity:
Evolution as FACT
Evolution is the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation.
This has been observed to occur in every population studied, observed and known. That this evolution occurs is a fact.
Well known examples are Galapagos Finches and Peppered Moths. Other examples are Walkingstick insects - where the evolution of wings in on again off again on again, and involves a whole tree of related insect species - and Foraminifera - where change has been observed over 65 million years in an virtually complete fossil record. In fact you cannot talk about a single fossil record of related specimens (horses, man, bears, etc) and NOT talk about change in hereditary traits that have occurred in those specimens.
Evolution as THEORY
The theory of evolution is that the mechanisms that cause evolution - the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation - are sufficient to explain all the diversity of life that we see in life today, in the historical record, in the fossil record and in the genetic record.
This theory predicts that results of studying the different records will match: that the results of the historical and fossil record of past life and the relationships between different species - resulting in (among other things) a taxonomic tree of life - will match the results of the genetic record and relationships - which results in (among other things) a genetic tree of life. So far this prediction has been the case. We can combine these results into a phylogenetic tree of life.
This theory also predicts that where there are breaks or gaps in a fossil record, that when additional information is found that covers the missing period and appropriate ecology for the gap in question, that fossils can be found that are intermediate in form from between those before and those after. So far this prediction has been the case.
Do these results prove evolution theory? Of course not - no more than validating results prove any theory in science, from gravity to the big bang. All they show is that so far as these results are concerned it is a valid concept.
More to the point, no evidence to date has invalidated the concept that the mechanisms that cause evolution - the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation - are sufficient to explain all the diversity of life that we see in life today, in the historical record, in the fossil record and in the genetic record.
That makes it a robust theory. Another thing that makes it a robust theory is that it is a synthesis of sub-theories, theories on various different mechanisms and how they operate. This means that some of these sub-theories can be invalidated and replaced with new theories and the overall synthesis is still going strong, and that to invalidate the overall synthesis theory ALL the sub-theories need to be invalidated.
Some may call "foul" here, claiming that it shows that the theory of evolution cannot be falsified, however this is ignoring the facts. In science when a theory is falsified, it is either replaced with a new theory or modified to fit the new facts: in this case the synthesis theory has been modified by the removal and replacement or modification of the sub-theory in question. This has occurred too: several early theories on how new hereditary traits were acquired and passed on to following generations have been falsified, including the theory known as Lamarckism that also was included by Darwin in his "Origin of Species".
This is similar to the "Standard Model" of physics: it too is a synthesis of sub-theories on how physics works, including "mico" - quantum mechanics - and "macro" - relativity - theories.
What is "MACROevolution?"
Simply stated "macroevolution" is the branching of the tree of life, for without the branching the structure we know today would not occur, nor would there be differentiation into the major taxon groups in a nested hierarchy such as we see in the phylogenetic tree of life. Without branching we could not explain the diversity of life we see.
Now let us note that, by definition, all evolution occurs within a breeding population of organisms all of the same species, and that this is often referred to as "microevolution" - often dismissed by creationists as "adaptation within (undefined) kinds.". This kind of evolution can continue within any breeding population of organisms all of the same species for any period of time, even very long periods of time, and it can encompass a remarkable (to us) degree of change. Each generation will still be similar to the ones before and after it: at every stage, all the organisms within the breeding population will still appear to be all of one species, using the "biological definition" of species ("a species is a group of actually or potentially interbreeding individuals who are reproductively isolated from other such groups." -UMich).
After many generations have passed the species may no longer look like the original species we started with, and we can (arbitrarily) say that it is a new species due to the noticeable (to us) amount of change that has accrued. We don't know if this population could breed with the original population because they are separated in time, thus we cannot use the "biological definition" of species.
This is called "Arbitrary Speciation" in evolutionary biology, and - as seen here - it occurs by the process of microevolution. Here we need to use a different definition of species, like the "morphological definition" ("members of a species are individuals that look similar to one another." -UMich). This speciation is "arbitrary" because it is dependent on subjective observation of an arbitrary degree of change.
The speciation that is of particular interest here though, is the type of speciation where branching occurs - where one species becomes two (or more) similar species that no longer interbreed. These are called "Non-arbitrary Speciation" or "Speciation Events" in evolutionary biology, because it is not based on some subjective degree of change, but on the physical split of one breeding population into separate populations that don't interbreed. Once they no longer interbreed we can easily see that they will accrue additional differences from each other as they diverge into different ecologies and accumulate further change by microevolution and, with time, arbitrary speciation, within each sub-population, but HOW do they become divided?
All that is needed is reproductive isolation between two (or more) sub-populations of a species, ... and different evolution within each sub-population. This are not difficult conditions, and in fact speciation has been observed, and speciation is a fact. This is not surprising because different evolution is pretty much guaranteed by (a) random mutations must necessarily be different, (b) the ecologies must necessarily be different and (c) natural selection is a opportunistic response to (a) and (b).
Even if the two sub-populations live is similar ecologies (environment plus predator-prey, food sources, etcetera) and even if natural selection tends to keep the populations adapted to those ecologies, there will be differences in the mutations selected and differences in genetic drift, differences that will result in divergence in behavior, appearance, and mating preferences within the populations. This occurs even if the sub-populations are not totally isolated, as in the example of the Asian Greenish Warblers
The two forms are connected by a long chain of populations encircling the Tibetan Plateau to the south, and traits change gradually through this ring of populations. There is no place where there is an obvious species boundary along the southern side of the ring. Hence the two distinct 'species' in Siberia are apparently connected by gene flow. By studying geographic variation in the ring of populations, we can study how speciation has occurred. This unusual situation has been termed a 'circular overlap' or 'ring species'.
Here you end up in the same ecology, but the gene flow between the sub-populations is not sufficient for the two end populations to behave as the same species - there is sufficient difference in song and coloration that they do not recognize each other as mating material.
When two or more sub-populations live in different ecologies (different environments or different predator-prey relationships or different food sources, etcetera) then the forces of natural selection will necessarily tend to enforce change in different directions to adapt those sub-populations to the different ecologies. Similar but non-breeding populations will also tend to evolve away from each other to reduce competition for food and habitat (eco-niche) due to natural selection.
Evolution - the change in hereditary traits in populations from generation to generation - continues in each diverging population until the next Speciation Event where the process is repeated, but now we have another branch on the tree of life, and in this way the tree of life is developed by the process of evolution, arbitrary speciation, speciation events and the branching from common ancestors at different times in the past. This provides the taxonomic structure where we arbitrarily make taxon divisions based on some arbitrary degree (to us) of difference between existing species or groups of species and their ancestors - the higher the taxon level the greater time that has passed since the common ancestors.
This is the pattern we see again and again. We see it in Foraminifera, we see it in Pelycodus, horses, bears and man. We see it in the evolution of mammals from reptiles and of quadrupeds from fish.
The differences in features that we see are due to evolution within populations of breeding organisms that at any one time appear to be all of the same species, with each each population of breeding individuals evolving in different directions, taking different paths.
At no time is there anything like a "part this part that" creature: that is a creationist misrepresentation of evolution.
Speciation that results in branching results in two populations that are related by a common ancestor population - and this results in a prediction that all species are related by common ancestors, some of them recent and some of them very ancient. This is actually the place where creationism has a different argument from science - it is not the issue of evolution per se (see creationist comments characterizing "microevolution" as "change within kind" or as "adaptation"). Taken to a logical conclusion, the concept of "common ancestor" predicts that at some remote ancient time there was one original population of life. The creationist prediction on the other hand would be that there would be some (small? Large?) discrete number of original "kinds" - more than one original population.
Re: why this still isn't evidence for young creation
cleaning up my emails I see this one was missed.
Yes, that would create a time distortion, but we already experiance a time distortion here on earth with something much slower: sound.
If a car is going at, say, a quarter of the speed of sound, away from you and it honks its horn twice, ten seconds apart. Then, the first honk, honk A, will be traveling backward, away from the rapidly receding car. Ten seconds later, the car emits honk B. However, in between, the car has traveled 2820 feet. Both honks are now traveling at the same speed toward you, but 14100 feet apart. therefore, even though Honk B was sent only ten seconds after Honk A, they would arrive 12.5 seconds apart.
Nope, that is not a time distortion at all. Time NOT being distorted explains the phenomena with standard Newtonian physics.
You can think of the light traveling from the supernova as being on a board game, there are two paths, one straight to you with 1000 spaces, and one perpendicular to that line for X spaces and then straight to you with 1000 spaces. You can throw a pair of dice and move a marker along each path the amount shown on the dice, representing a variable light speed, and no matter how you play the game they will arrive at the end X spaces apart. Thus we only need to know the distance between the markers at the end to know the distance between the start and the corner point.
This demonstrates that the diameter of the ring measured by the time differential and the speed of light when the observations were made is the real physical distance from the star to the ring. Simple geometry then gives us the real physical distance from the star to the earth.
Likewise the spectrum of the light shows element bars (cobalt-56 and others) in the same locations(when adjusted for a little red shift over 168,000 light-years) as light from the sun and from experiments here on earth. These are frequency dependent functions that would be different if light traveled at a different speed at the start.
Angular momentum of a particle about some origin is defined as:
L = r X p
where:
L is the angular momentum of the particle, r is the position of the particle expressed as a displacement vector from the origin, p is the linear momentum of the particle, and X is the vector cross product.
When each child is thrown from the merry-go-round the values of r and p do not change for that child, and the total of momentum about the origin is the same as before.
What we are familiar with, and remember from experience, is the spin sometimes induced in the child from holding onto the handle and then losing grip in such a way that it induces a spin in the child based on the linear momentum of the child and the arm length (literally) of the child, and which ALSO results in a loss of angular momentum of the remaining merry-go-round (it slows down, having been pulled back), plus the effect of being dizzy.
Try placing a ball on the merry-go-round on a ring (so that it resists some rotational speed) and when you speed it up enough that it rolls off, it will roll without spinning about the vertical axis.
... how creationists LIE about science, regularly. Doesn't matter WHAT the science is, their objective is misinformation, misrepresentation and denial of reality.
If creationism had a shred of truth, why would creationists need to LIE about reality?
Even after they have been told that what they said is false.
You can also consider what happens in reverse: have a child run and jump\climb onto the merry-go-round. The spinning of the merry-go-round is not due to the spin of the child before getting on board, nor does the child counter-rotate to face their original direction once on board.
So (1) when did "football players" ever run 60 mph (or even 30 mph)? (2) if the football player lets go of the merry-go-round, would they spin? and (3) how can you tell if a galaxy is "spinning backwards"? Look at the other side?
And we have whole auditoriums full of gullible people that believe this nonsense. What other falsehoods are they incapable of seeing.
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