YoungCosmos is now split into 3 websites;

1. www.YoungCosmos.com (main website, and portal to everything else)

2. www.YoungCosmosBlog.com
(the replacement for the blog you are now reading)

3. www.YoungCosmosDiscussion.com (professional level YEC science forum)

The current www.YoungCosmos.com is located at:

http://smartaxes.com/blog/

If you are viewing this site, then it means the links you are using are out of date. But don’t worry. Simply go to this URL to go to the 3 new websites:

www.YoungCosmos.com

Salvador

This morning, after much searching I may have found confirming evidence of a VERY VERY bold prediction of Barry Setterfield’s light speed decay theory. Light speed decay (CDK) theory predicts that we will see celestial objects move in slow motion (time dilation) depending on an equation calculated by Dr. Stephen Cheesman. For example, the degree of time dilation predicted when we start to look at objects at say about 30,000 light years is about 59, their physical motions will appear to be slowed down by factors of 59!

In a survey of Visual Photometric Binary stars and Visually accessible Spectroscopic Binary stars, I have found confirming evidence of this time dilation! Astronmers have acknoweldged the anomaly and tried to explain away the fact that as one looks farther out from Earth there is an increase in population of slow visual Binary Stars (Stars which orbit one another), or apparently no binary stars at all. Actually, with extreme time dilation, binary stars will look frozen, and this is actually what we are seeing in globular clusters 30,000 light years away.

I have also asserted that there are only supposed eclipsing binaries detected by micro-lensing techniques which are not binaries at all.

I would welcome review of the current work on this subject as it would confirm:

1. Intelligent Design
2. Recent Special Creation

Visit www.YoungCosmosDiscussion.com

regards to everyone, especially my brethren,
Salvador

http://www.virtual-creations.net/~youngcos/phpBB2/rss.php?t=1

This will get you a feed that displays all new topics as though they were posts on a blog.

If you want all posts (i.e., not just new topics, but also the follow-ups), then leave off the “?t=1″ at the end.

This is a nice way to keep up on the activity at the forum. There is a way to format the url to limit it to just a particular forum category, but I haven’t quite figured that out yet.
I haven’t put an icon there for it, though. I’ll need Rick’s help for that.

1. Main Portal
2. Blog
3. Discussion Forum

One of the 3 new websites is now up and running. It is the Discussion Forum, and the Discussion Forum I consider to be the heart of YoungCosmos mission, where serious ideas and long term projects can be explored, discussed, and collaborated.

To access it, please visit:

www.YoungCosmosDiscussion.com

This forum is for collaboration and exploration of important long term topics.

For example, there is a new discussion of an Advanced Creation Science topic of interest:

Revision to Setterfield and Dzimano 2003 paper, Eq. 25

Many thanks to Rick and JB for their help. The discussion forum also has latex capability so we can do really cool things with math equations!

Tiny tablet provides proof for Old Testament

The sound of unbridled joy seldom breaks the quiet of the British Museum’s great Arched Room, which holds its collection of 130,000 Assyrian cuneiform tablets, dating back 5,000 years.

But Michael Jursa, a visiting professor from Vienna, let out such a cry last Thursday. He had made what has been called the most important find in Biblical archaeology for 100 years, a discovery that supports the view that the historical books of the Old Testament are based on fact.

Searching for Babylonian financial accounts among the tablets, Prof Jursa suddenly came across a name he half remembered – Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, described there in a hand 2,500 years old, as “the chief eunuch” of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon.

Prof Jursa, an Assyriologist, checked the Old Testament and there in chapter 39 of the Book of Jeremiah, he found, spelled differently, the same name – Nebo-Sarsekim.

Nebo-Sarsekim, according to Jeremiah, was Nebuchadnezzar II’s “chief officer” and was with him at the siege of Jerusalem in 587 BC, when the Babylonians overran the city.
…
“This is a fantastic discovery, a world-class find,” Dr Finkel said yesterday. “If Nebo-Sarsekim existed, which other lesser figures in the Old Testament existed? A throwaway detail in the Old Testament turns out to be accurate and true. I think that it means that the whole of the narrative [of Jeremiah] takes on a new kind of power.”

It is however a bit sobering to read the passage which this artifact refers to:

Jeremiah 39, The Fall of Jerusalem

Jeremiah 39
The Fall of Jerusalem
1 This is how Jerusalem was taken: In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his whole army and laid siege to it. 2 And on the ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year, the city wall was broken through. 3 Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came and took seats in the Middle Gate: Nergal-Sharezer of Samgar, Nebo-Sarsekim [a] a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officials of the king of Babylon. 4 When Zedekiah king of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled; they left the city at night by way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls, and headed toward the Arabah. [b]
5 But the Babylonian [c] army pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. They captured him and took him to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced sentence on him. 6 There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes and also killed all the nobles of Judah. 7 Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him with bronze shackles to take him to Babylon.

8 The Babylonians [d] set fire to the royal palace and the houses of the people and broke down the walls of Jerusalem. 9 Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard carried into exile to Babylon the people who remained in the city, along with those who had gone over to him, and the rest of the people. 10 But Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people, who owned nothing; and at that time he gave them vineyards and fields.

11 Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had given these orders about Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard: 12 “Take him and look after him; don’t harm him but do for him whatever he asks.” 13 So Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard, Nebushazban a chief officer, Nergal-Sharezer a high official and all the other officers of the king of Babylon 14 sent and had Jeremiah taken out of the courtyard of the guard. They turned him over to Gedaliah son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him back to his home. So he remained among his own people.

15 While Jeremiah had been confined in the courtyard of the guard, the word of the LORD came to him: 16 “Go and tell Ebed-Melech the Cushite, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: I am about to fulfill my words against this city through disaster, not prosperity. At that time they will be fulfilled before your eyes. 17 But I will rescue you on that day, declares the LORD; you will not be handed over to those you fear. 18 I will save you; you will not fall by the sword but will escape with your life, because you trust in me, declares the LORD.’ ”

1. Main Portal (something like the www.ARN.org)

2. Blog for news, articles, and sort term discussion (basically a continuation of this blog)

3. Discussion Forum for long term discussion and collaboration

1998:
$13 million market
Institute for Creation Research: 45%
Answers in Genesis: 28%
Discovery Institute: 15%
Creation Evidence Museum: 3%
Creation Moments: 2%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 3%
Creation Research Society: no data
All others: less than 1% each

1999:
$13 million market
Institute for Creation Research: 41%
Answers in Genesis: 30%
Discovery Institute: 13%
Creation Evidence Museum: 7%
Creation Moments: 2%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2%
Creation Research Society: 2%
All others: less than 1% each

2000:
$16 million market
Answers in Genesis: 46%
Institute for Creation Research: 34%
Discovery Institute: 10%
Creation Evidence Museum: 4%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2%
Creation Moments: 1%
Creation Research Society: 1%
All others: less than 1% each

2001:
$20 million market
Answers in Genesis: 46%
Institute for Creation Research: 30%
Discovery Institute: 15%
Creation Evidence Museum: 3%
Creation Research Society: 1%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 1%
Creation Moments: 1%
All others: less than 1% each

2002:
$19 million market
Answers in Genesis: 49%
Institute for Creation Research: 31%
Discovery Institute: 12%
Creation Evidence Museum: 3%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2%
Creation Research Society: 2%
Creation Moments: 1%
All others: less than 1% each

2003:
$21 million market
Answers in Genesis: 52%
Institute for Creation Research: 28%
Discovery Institute: 15%
Creation Evidence Museum: 2%
Creation Illustrated Ministries: 2%
Creation Moments: 1%
Creation Research Society: 1%
All others: less than 1% each

2004:
$22 million market
Answers in Genesis: 59%
Institute for Creation Research: 20%
Discovery Institute: 16%
Creation Research Society: 1%
Creation Moments: 1%
Creation Evidence Museum: no data
Creation Illustrated Ministries: no data

Incidentally the IDEA Center, whcih I’m affiliated with, has a published annual budget of $7,000. None of the YEC resources we recommend are even on Lippard’s list! That’s how impoverished the best and the brightest YEC organizations are!

Lippard has many other posts on the activities of creationist organizations. For example Answers in Genesis hires Andrew Snelling

Snelling is one of the very few young earth creationist geologists on the planet with a Ph.D. from a mainstream academic institution (Steve Austin of the Institute for Creation Research is another). Ronald Numbers’ book, The Creationists, describes how Henry Morris of the ICR wanted to see a young creationist successfully obtain a Ph.D. in geology from a mainstream institution, only to be faced with failures by Clifford Burdick (who was kicked out of the program at the University of Arizona) and Nicolaas Rupke (who succeeded in obtaining his Ph.D., but rejected young-earth creationism as a result of what he learned in the process).

It is a bit heart breaking that there really is not a lot of money involved, considering this represents the entire USA. Furthermore, only a tiny fraction is devoted to research. AiG is mostly an evangelistic organization, not a research institution.

However, there is the bright side. I have personally found that I tend to distrust the scientific work of creationists bent on evangelism. Whether right or wrong, I worry that someone’s enthusiasm to prove creationist theory will lead to shortcuts or sloppy research. It is much more compelling when secular quarters will publish data that unwittingly support creationist conclusions. I find that research more trust worthy.

And I must break ranks with other creationists on their lack of clarity with the notion that the Bible is incontrovertable. It depends on what one means by incontrovertible. If one believes it to be the case because that’s the way reality really is, then one would look forward to seeing the Bible’s claims succeed when subjected to the most intense scrutiny. Incontrovertible does not mean God’s word cannot be questioned. Recall, the Berean’s were considered to have a noble spirit as they investigated the words of the Apostles. The Lord also commended one of the 7 churches of Asia minor for subjecting putting prophets to the test…..

I believe it is also wise to make a distinction of when one is running a science or marketing operation versus a church. Too many creationists organizations are run like churches. Contrast the ID organization, the Discovery Institute, that is organized on a secular basis. The Discovery Institute is a model organization which certain creation organizations would do well to emulate. Ironically, my faith has grown through involvment with a secular organization, not a religious one (namely the Discovery Institute and the IDEA Center). And incidentally, how often do I hear of Christians losing faith by going to seminary. I have found faith surprisingly flourishes in secular schools.

I do not believe it is wise to set up creation science organizations where serious and sincere objections can be dismissed by theological fiat, or where legitimate concerns are implicated as some conspiracy with Lucifer. I believe there is evil in the world, and that we are blind and fallible. But what is wrong with confessing that one has doubts and that one is needing healing of ones eyes? People who have sincere doubts should be welcomed and encouraged.

Be merciful to those who doubt

Jude 1:22

The modus operandi of suppressing legitimate questions actually fosters an intense distrust in the hypothesis of creation. I think the AiG museum is a bit pre-mature. It may be entertaining, but it does not help friendly skeptics like myself to be more convinced that God really made the world less than 10,000 years ago. The over marketing of an idea with pre-mature evidence does not instill trust. Faith is about trust.

In the mean time, the point of the post was to point out the financial and academic poverty of creationists. Few creationists have serious academic credentials or influence. We might say, in some sense, few creationists are “wise” as the world defines them. Few have the money and influence you would expect to achieve the grand aims of showing the world evidence of intelligent design and special creation. Perhaps that’s just the way it was meant to be:

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

1 Cor 1:26-31

PS
I’ll be away for the weekend. Apologies in advance if stuff gets caught in the spam buffer. The other admins can be called on to release comment.

Note to admins: Click “Manage” from the admin page to release comments.

The problem of explaining the existence of galaxies has proved to be one of the thorniest in cosmology. By all rights, they just shouldn’t be there, yet there they sit. It’s hard to convey the depth of frustration that this simple fact induces among scientists.

Trefil, The Dark Side of the Universe, p. 55.

Every few years the American Physical Society, the professional association of physicists, has a session at one of its meetings where astrophysicists talk about the hottest new ways of tackling the galaxy problem. I have been a bemused listener at many of theses sessions, and I have come away with a great respect for the ingenuity of my colleagues. At the same time, I have also come a way with a profound skepticism about the ideas they advance. Having sat through explanations of how turbulence, black holes, explosive events during galaxy formation, heavy neutrinos, and cold dark matter would solve all our problems, I’ve developed an immunity to waht Princeton astrophysicist Jim Peebles cals the “snake-oil approach” to cosmology. Despite what you may read in the press, we still have no answer to the question of why the sky is full of galaxies…

Reason #1: Galaxies could not have formed before atoms…interaction of radiation and matter prevents the beginning of processes that could lead to galaxies before the universe is 500,000 years old. This turns out to be a major problem, because of…

Reason #2: Galaxies Haven’t Had Time to Form…can gravitational forces act quickly enough after decoupling occurs to gather matter into galaxy-sized clumps before the Hubble expansion carries everything out of range? One of the great shocks to the astronomical community in the 1930’s was that the answer to this question is a resounding “No!”….

One way out suggests itself…some other physical process, such as turbulence in the gas clouds after the formation of atoms….Alas, this line of argument leads us to….

Reason #3: Turbulence Won’t work, either

Reason #4: Galaxies haven’t had time to form clusters

Reason #5 If Radiation Clumps with Matter, and Matter Clumps into Galaxies, The Cosmic Microwave Radiation Comes out Wrong

The microwave radiation can’t be uniform and non-uniform at the same time.

Amusingly, one solution to #5 is VSL (Variable Speed of Light–Old Earth) or CDK (Young Earth). I apologize for the brevity, but suffice to say, it seems these points are available on the web, but you’ll have to piece it together with scraps here and there.

To be fair to Dr. Trefil, he offers Dark Matter as a solution to some if not all of these problems. He cautions:

PS
For the record, I studied under Trefil after I had already graduated since I was so honored to have a chance to say I learned from a great master in the field. Though it is difficult that he and I are on opposite sides of the ID debate, I have never stopped admiring his scientific insights and achievements. He is also a wonderful teacher.

I got a copy of his book, and Dr. Trefil autographed it:

To Salvador Cordova, it’s been great having you in class.

James Trefil

Many readers may not realize, that no one has drilled down very far at all. The deepest drilling has only been about 14 miles down. From the surface to the Earth’s core is almost 4000 miles. We have barely scratched the surface, and we really don’t know what’s down there. On the picture below, the deepest we’ve drilled could hardly even be seen on the picture!

The demise of the mantle plume hypothesis will improve the chances of various YEC geologies, particularly Walter Brown’s hydroplate theory. If lava flow and plate techtonics can be refuted, then there is room for YEC geology to succeed. Hydroplate theory ties current volcanic activity and lava flow to the mechanisms that caused the great flood. Plate techtonics have a passing relation to mantle plume theory, and thus the demise of plumes furthers the chances of Brown’s hydroplate theory prevailing over old Earth, plate techtonics.

Scientists are unable to abandon a paradigm simply because its empiric base has crumbled. Denial …then anger ….is evident, just as in other bereavements [acceptance usually comes with the next generation, after a period of bargaining (ad hoc adjustments, rationalisations ….,changes in the protective shield of auxiliary hypotheses…

According to philosophers of science a research program is progressing if it displays the power to anticipate and accommodate additional data . Otherwise the program is called degenerating. A sign of an impending crisis in a paradigm is the number of times the words anomaly, paradox, unexpected, dilemma, counterintuitive, not understood, and problem appear in papers defending a hypothesis, or the number of rationalizations and additional assumptions made for failed predictions.

in 2002 several hundred papers about them are listed by the Science Citation Index, so the subject is paying a lot of mortgages.

Are we talking about Darwinian evolution? Well, not quite, but we are talking about bad ideas that have crept into science textbooks for the last 30 years. The issue is the origin of lava and mantle plumes.

Here is an example of a theory that should have been torpedoed on basic thermodynamic principles long ago, but was allowed to persist. The idea is that lave orginates from the Earth’s core and takes 30 million years to migrate to the surface. 30 MILLION YEARS!!!! Bury a hot or ice cold brick in the ground and tell me how long do you think it will maintain a temperature differential. Not 30 million years, not even a 1000 years, maybe not even 1 year!

Plumes or no plumes, that is the question Scientists having hot debate over how islands are formed

For more than three decades, scientists have offered a charmingly simple explanation for the Hawaiian Islands. They say the islands formed millions of years ago as the Pacific plate — a huge, slowly moving chunk of Earth’s crust, washed over by the Pacific Ocean — moved over a rising column of super-hot rock from Earth’s innards. The rising plume melted just below the plate as it passed overhead, forming a line of volcanoes that rose above the waves.

The theory is appealing partly because it’s so simple. Many high-school science students have watched their teacher simulate the formation of the Hawaiian Islands by moving a sheet of plastic, which mimics the moving Pacific plate, over the hot flame of a Bunsen burner, which mimics the plume. Result: The plastic develops a chain of blisters — which mimic the Hawaiian Islands.

Quick acceptance in 1970s

Plume theory won quick acceptance in the 1970s, when it seemed to jibe perfectly with plate tectonics theory, the then-trendiest idea in Earth science. According to that now widely accepted theory, Earth’s crust is broken into crustal plates that move about steadily, like slabs of ice in an ice floe, but very slowly, at rates of millimeters to centimeters per year.

The coolest implication of plume theory is that plumes bring us scientific treasures from the center, or near center, of the Earth. Geoscientists can’t travel to the center of the Earth a la Jules Verne to recover its contents. Rather, they rely on plumes to push those inner-Earth treasures from the edge of Earth’s core through its overlying mantle to the surface, where they gush from volcanoes.

Geoscientists also invoke plumes to explain so-called swells where Earth’s crust bulges upward, like the surface of a piping-hot souffle. Such bulges surround many volcanic regions, such as Iceland and the Hawaiian Islands.

For these and other reasons, “if there were no plumes, it would be a great disappointment,” says geoscientist Donald J. DePaolo of UC Berkeley.

And that’s the rub, for now some experts are starting to question the whole plume hypothesis. A showdown may come late next summer, when geoscientists plan to hold what they call the great plume debate at a conference in Scotland. A sort of dress rehearsal for that debate was held last month in San Francisco, at the annual gathering of the American Geophysical Union.

The Smoking Gun September 16, 2003

The Great Plumes Debate

Notes:

1. This is something I was perparing to post at Uncommon Descent some months back, but decided would have been too provacative since it argues for special creation. Bill Dembski, Denyse O’Leary, DaveScot, Patrick, and about half of the UD authors and admins accept Old Earth. Out of respect for them, I post this essay here. DaveScot was focused on issues related to exterior Global Warming, I’m focused on interior Global Warming (or cooling depending on how one looks at the issue).

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
….
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

That is how I view the saga of the creation/evolution war. There are also subtleties to this as well, particularly with the YEC issue because there are OECs who are allies of the YECs in the most major cause, and yet do not agree on the issue of the age of the Earth.

In the war against Darwinian evolution, there is lots of rhetoric, public relations, campaigning, one-upsman ship, public denigration of each other. There is a time and place for this, imho. The war metaphor for that discussion is appropriate. In my 4 years of debate with the pro-Darwin crowd, I have gained very little in the way of scientific information from the critics. What I have gained was having to learn scientific arguments to refute them. The reason for that is I maintain, the physical evidence is strongly against naturalistic evolution. It does not take a lot to realize life doesn’t emerge from lifeless chemicals spontaneously. This is scientific fact! The origin of life had to have emerged from process we don’t see in operation today. The arguments were mostly rhetoric and metaphysics and politics.

In contrast, with respect to the age of the Earth, the arguments are not so easy, and there are days I have thought the problems were insurmountable. Furthermore, unlike Darwinian evolution, the death sentence for YEC came from a YEC (in Maxwell), not from someone inherently opposed to the idea of special creation (as Darwin was). But as I said, even with the death sentence for YEC signed, sealed, and delivered, the executioner has not been quite able to deliver the fatal blow. Like in the movies, a hero comes at the last second as the fatal blow is about to fall!

With that in mind I wish to entertain ideas of how to foster a civil and welcoming environment where two parties can exchange information in such a way as they feel they are cooperating in the search for truth, rather than trying to tear each other down.

a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

Some things I find helpful. If you really think your opponent is mistaken, it is best to try to:

1. restate his argument
2. recognize that from his perspective it can seem right
3. recognize you could be wrong
4. state the factual reasons why you disagree

Adding qualifiers like “bad” or “poor” probably starts to so seeds of discord. It would suffice to say to a fellow participant, “this seems incorrect because….”

And let us in this debate turn the other cheek as much as possible. There will be a time to fight, but imho, OECs and OE-ID are our beloved friends, we should treat them and the arguments they bring to the table with respect. Those who also come to the table who are not pro-ID, but have good Old Universe arguments are also welcome. The YEC cause will do well to cognizant of serious scientific difficulties of YEC theory….

So I invite readers to speak their mind….

The craters on the moon.

How do the craters on the moon fit into a YEC world-view? What event, occurring during, or after the creation, produced them?

Things that must be accounted for include:

a) Any celestial meteor storm is bound to have had a vastly greater affect on earth than on the moon, due to the fact that the earth is a far larger gravitational target than the moon; not only would it sweep up more objects, the impacts would average several kilometers per second higher in velocity. Large areas of the moon are at saturation, e.g. it is apparent that any new craters were covering up previous ones, so the devastation was total, in fact they would have had an affect far greater than would have been achieved by a world-wide flood in terms of geological impact.

b) Such a storm would have produced a cloud of debris in orbit around the earth that would still be detectable today.

c) It would also likely have produced a cloud of debris around the moon as well, which should still be detectable today (in an OEC viewpoint, the impacts would have occurred when the moon was very near the earth, and the orbiting debris would have been swept away long ago by interactions with the earth).

d) Why is the distribution of impacts different on the “near” side of the moon than the “far” side (in an OEC perspective, this is all wrapped up with the origin of the moon)?

I would submit that any celestial event capable of producing the cratered surface of the moon, occurring in the short time-scale offered by the YEC perspective, is incompatible with the continued existence of “higher” life forms on the earth, and, at the least, would have been worth recording in the Bible.

1. Stable Resonances and Tidal Locking

An orbital resonance, according to Wikipedia, “occurs when two orbiting bodies exert a regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other, usually due to their orbital periods being related by a ratio of two small integers.”

Stable resonances occur when the orbits of two bodies become trapped in a fixed ratio due to the mutual exchange momentum, and deviations from the resonant state are self-correcting.

Examples include:

a) The 1:2:4 resonance of Jupiter’s moons Ganymede, Europa, and Io.

b) The 2:3 resonance between Neptune and Pluto that maintains the stability of this pair, despite their crossing orbits.

c) The resonances defining boundaries and gaps within the asteroid belt, due to the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn etc.

d) Various other resonances between the moons of Saturn, Kuper belt objects, planetary rings etc.

Tidal locking is the process whereby the rotation of a planet’s satellite becomes locked to the planet; e.g. like the earth’s moon, which always keeps the same face towards the earth. In addition to the earth and the moon, there are a large number of cases of tidal locking in the solar system, including Mercury (3:2 with the sun), and many of the moons of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.

The point I want to make here is that stable resonances and tidal locking are the natural result of gravitational interactions operating over millions of years (because that is the time scale on which these things settle out at). If the solar system were truly old, we would expect to see exactly this phenomena; in fact the absence of stable resonances or tidal locking in bodies highly susceptible to it would be evidence that they are recent additions to the solar system.

But, why would we see such things in a newly created solar system? The stable resonances and tidal locking, in and of themselves, do not generally confer any advantage in terms of the stability or longevity of the systems involved. The moon could quite happily rotate once every 10 hours and nothing would be any different here on the earth. God could certainly have created moons and planets in any number of stable orbits and with any variety of rotationary periods, with and without tidal locking, with no ill short or long-term affect on the stability or longevity of the solar system, or life on earth. It has always been my experience that God does things for a very good reason. I can see the reasons in an OEC perspective, but not in a YEC one, except that God may have intended the solar system to look very old even though it is really young, and I can’t find a great deal of satisfaction in that answer.

Sincerely,

Stephen Cheeesman

Last week, a German court sentenced a 55-year old Lutheran pastor to one year in jail for “Volksverhetzung” (incitement of the people) because he compared the killing of the unborn in contemporary Germany to the holocaust. Next week, the Council of Europe is going to vote on a resolution imposing Darwinism as Europe’s official ideology. The European governments are asked to fight the expression of creationist opinions, such as young earth and intelligent design theories. According to the Council of Europe these theories are “undemocratic” and “a threat to human rights.” . . .

(HT Bill Dembski)

Was there a Big Bang? by David Berlinski.

NOTWITHSTANDING THE investment made by the scientific community and the general
public in contemporary cosmology, a suspicion lingers that matters do not sum up as they should. Cosmologists write as if they are quite certain of the Big Bang, yet, within the last decade, they have found it necessary to augment the standard view by
means of various new theories. These schemes are meant to solve problems that cosmologists were never at pains to acknowledge, so that today they are somewhat in the position of a physician reporting both that his patient has not been ill and that
he has been successfully revived.
….

THE BIG BANG rests on the hypothesis that the universe is expanding, and in the end the
plausibility of its claims will depend on whether the universe is expanding. Astronomers can indeed point to places in the sky where the redshift of the galaxies appears to be a linear function of their distance. But in astrophysics, as in evolutionary biology,
it is failure rather than success that is of significance. The astrophysical literature contains interesting and disturbing evidence that the linear relationship at the heart of Hubble’s law by no means describes the facts fully.

At the end of World War II, astronomers discovered places in the sky where charged particles moving in a magnetic field sent out strong signals in the radio portion of the spectrum. Twenty years later, Alan Sandage and Thomas Mathews identified the source of such signals with optically discernible points in space. These are the quasarsquasi stellar radio sources. Quasars have played a singular role in astrophysics. In the mid-1960’s, Maarten Schmidt discovered that their spectral lines were shifted massively to the red. If Hubble’s law were correct, quasars should be impossibly far away, hurtling themselves into oblivion at the far edge of space and time. But for more than a decade, the American astronomer Halton Arp has drawn the attention of the astronomical community to places in the sky where the expected relationship between redshift and distance simply fails. Embarrassingly enough, many quasars seem bound to nearby galaxies. The results are in plain sight: there on the photographic plate is the smudged record of a galaxy, and there next to it is a quasar, the points of light lined up and looking for all the world as if they were equally luminous. These observations do not comport with standard Big Bang cosmology. If quasars have very large redshifts, they must (according to Hubble’s law) be very far away; if they seem nearby, then either they must be fantastically luminous or their redshift has not been derived from their velocity. The tight tidy series of inferences that has gone into Big Bang cosmology, like leverage in commodity trading, works beautifully in reverse, physicists like speculators finding their expectations canceled by the very processes they had hoped to exploit.
….
WITHIN ANY scientific discipline, bad news must come in battalions before it is taken seriously. Cosmologists can point to any number of cases in which disconcerting evidence has resolved itself in their favor; a decision to regard the quasars with a watchful indifference is not necessarily irrational. The galaxies are another matter. They are central to Hubble’s law; it is within the context of galactic observation that the crucial observational evidence for the Big Bang must be found or forged. The battalions now begin to fill. The American mathematician I.E. Segal and his associates have studied the evidence for galactic recessional velocity over the course of twenty years, with results that are sharply at odds with predictions of Big Bang cosmology. Segal is a distinguished, indeed a great mathematician, one of the creators of modern function theory and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has incurred the indignation of the astrophysical community by suggesting broadly that their standards of statistical rigor would shame a sociologist. Big Bang cosmology, he writes,

“owes its acceptance as a physical principle primarily to the uncritical and premature representation of [the redshift-distance relationship] as an empirical fact…. Observed discrepancies … have been resolved by a pyramid of exculpatory assumptions, which are inherently incapable of noncircular substantiation.”

The serious student of creation science is invited to enjoy the rest of the article!

Let’s first consider the problems of the Big Bang cosmology creating galaxies. A former professor of mine, James Trefil (no friend of ID and had debated William Dembski in 2005), had this to say about galaxies:

Five Reasons Why Galaxies Can’t Exist

The problem of explaining the existence of galaxies has proved to be one of the thorniest in cosmology. By all rights, they just shouldn’t be there, yet there they sit. It’s hard to convey the depth of frustration that this simple fact induces among scientists.

Trefil, The Dark Side of the Universe, p. 55.

There are numerous problems getting and explosion to create things. We know that from experience, and that is certainly the case with the Big Bang making galaxies. Part of Trefil’s solution to some of the problems of galaxy formation is the invocation of so-called Dark Matter.

Trefil was one of the early pioneers of the idea. But the existence of Dark Matter is in doubt. It’s invoked because it has to be there even though we have never directly measured it. Some dark matter may exist, but we do not know if there are enough quantities to fix the problems with galaxies. Furthermore Dark Matter won’t fix all the problems with galaxy formation….

Walter Brown describes the situation:

Evolutionists now admit that galaxies cannot evolve from one type to another. There are also good reasons natural processes cannot form galaxies. Furthermore, if spiral galaxies were billions of years old, their arms or bars would be severely twisted. Because they have maintained their shape, either galaxies are young, or unknown physical phenomena are occurring within galaxies. Even structures composed of galaxies are now known to be so amazingly large, and yet relatively thin, they could not have formed by slow gravitational attraction. If slow, natural processes cannot form such huge galactic structures, then rapid, supernatural processes may have.
….

Figure 161: Hubble Deep Field North. The Hubble Space Telescope, searching for evolving galaxies in December 1995, focused for 10 continuous days on a tiny patch of sky, so small when viewed from Earth that a grain of sand held at arm’s length would cover that area. This picture of that tiny patch of sky is called Hubble Deep Field North. Most objects in it are not isolated stars, but galaxies, each containing billions of stars. Of the 3,000 galaxies photographed that emitted enough light to measure their redshifts, which presumably measure distance, all seemed surprisingly mature. As stated in Scientific American, “the formation of ‘ordinary’ spiral and elliptical galaxies is apparently still out of reach of most redshift surveys.”16 Moreover, fully formed clusters of galaxies, not just galaxies, are seen at the greatest distances visible to the Hubble Space Telescope.17 In 1998 and 2004, similar pictures—with similar results—were taken.

Think about this. There is not enough time in the age of the universe (even as evolutionists imagine it, times a billion) for gravity to pull together all the particles comprising clusters of galaxies.18 (As explained under “Galaxies” on page 30, clusters of galaxies cannot form, even granting all this time.) Because the most current studies show fully-formed galaxies even farther away than those shown above, creation becomes the logical and obvious alternative. We may be seeing galaxies as they looked months after they were created. Vast amounts of time are no longer needed.
….

Figure 162: Spiral Galaxies. The arms in these six representative spiral galaxies have about the same amount of twist. Their distances from Earth are shown in light-years. (One light-year, the distance light travels in one year, equals 5,879,000,000,000 miles.) For the light from all galaxies to arrive at Earth tonight, the more distant galaxies, which had to release their light long before the closer galaxies, did not have as much time to rotate and twist their arms. Therefore, farther galaxies should have less twist. Of course, if light traveled millions of times faster in the past, the farthest galaxies did not have to send their light long before the nearest galaxies. Spiral galaxies should have similar twists. This turns out to be the case.

Here are some references that support Brown’s arguments. Galaxies.

Like ReMine’s Biotic Message Walter Brown is arguing for a Cosmic Message, that the universe is specifically designed to resist evolutionary interpretations and force one to accept that the most scientifically reasonable solution is that of special creation.

My professor, Trefil, in his book with self-deprecating humor refered to his own theories of galaxy formation as potential snake oil. He entitled one of his chapters in Dark Side “Solution or Snake Oil?”

Indeed, Trefil is honest enough to admit, there are such serious problems in theories of galaxy formation, that the term “snake oil” is appropriate to describe the state of affairs. If Cosmic Message theory is correct, the empirical evidence will continue to resist evolutionary (Big Bang) interpreations of formation in favor of recent special creation. If Cosmic Message is correct, following the evidence where it leads will lead us to the conclusion of recent special creation.

Finally, in addition to Trefils mild skepticism of the Big Bang (which he expresses in his book Dark Side of the Universe), three professor at my former university reject or seriously question the Big Bang. A website that has the list of dissenters and their reasons for rejection can be found at www.CosmologyStatement.org. David Berlinski of the Discovery Institute wrote: Was There a Big Bang?

Beyond every act of understanding, there is an abyss. Like Darwin’s theory of evolution, Big Bang cosmology has undergone that curious social process in which a scientific theory is promoted to a secular myth. The two theories serve as points of certainty in an intellectual culture that is otherwise disposed to give the benefit of the doubt to doubt itself. It is within the mirror of these myths that we have come to see ourselves. But if the promotion of theory into myth satisfies one human agenda, it violates another.
Myths are quite typically false, and science is concerned with truth. Human beings, it would seem, may make scientific theories or they may make myths, but with respect to the same aspects of experience, they cannot quite do both.

jb asked that I post my thoughts on evidences for YEC. He asked in comment #3, Wavelength behavior at a fixed location, Jellison and Bridgman’s critique…

Maybe you could make a blog post elaborating on this in layman/popular-audience terms. What are the specific physical evidences that have moved you more toward accepting a YEC model? What are the problems you’ve identified with galactic, stellar and planetary evolution?

I will offer answers over several threads as the topic is deep. So let me introduce the topic.

Many OECs and Old Earth ID proponents (OEIDs) have risked their careers and reputations in the cause of Intelligent Design. I do not question their integrity and commitment to the truth. And for the Christians OECs and OEIDs, I do not question their desire to see Christianity succeed. I know personally and have grieved along side various OECs and OEIDs who have suffered persecution: Caroline Crocker, Guillermo Gonzalez, William Dembski, Michael Behe, etc. That’s not to even mention the countless others it would be best I not comment on, lest I identify them publicly…..

It’s too simplistic to assert OECs and OIEDs are somehow part of an effort to erode the Christian world view because they accept an old universe. The evidential case for an old universe is very substantial. If one thinks the Bible absolutely says the world is young, one must wrestle with the evidential case that it is old, and the evidential case is formidable.

I do not think for one second the case for mindless abiogenesis or Darwinian evolution has substantial merit, and my experience over the years has only reinforced that view. The case for Intelligent Deisgn is substantial, the case for special creation (versus universal common ancestry) is not quite as substantial as the case for ID, but formidable.

[For those who accept special creation (as I do), I would like to point out we still have our work cut out for us. I would like to point out this fine paper by the president of BSG, Todd Wood: The Chimpanzee Genome and the Problem of Biological Similarity. Wood is exemplary in his willingness to criticize the YEC hypothesis which he holds dear. That spirit of open and honest inquiry will bear fruit in due season, and that is the spirit I hope to foster at YoungCosmos...]

It is with that spirit of Wood’s openess I explore the question of the age of the universe. But first some basics. How do we know the universe is not eternal? The simple answer is the stars cannot be burning forever. The laws of thermodynamics suggest, like a car running out of gas, the universe is running out of fuel, hence it could not be eternal.

We can thus put an outer bound of maybe billions or trillions of years, but for the most part it’s hard to argue the universe is eternal. It is “young” in that sense, since it is not from everlasting to everlasting.

The question then is how old is the universe if it’s not eternal? There are two prinicple reasons to think it is billions of years, none of which have to do with metaphysics, namely distant starlight and long-term radiometric dating.

We use speed of light to measure all sorts of things today. We are able to tell how far one object is from another by using laser range finders. This is real science. On the presumption of a constant speed of light we can build things like laser guided smart bombs. It stands to reason then, that if laser range finding works so well on Earth, the concept would be extrapolatable to anything else. Indeed, we are able to exptrapolate these ideas to determining the distances to spacecraft. Thus, with some modification of the math we use in laser range finders, we might be tempted, nay, compelled to say far away stars must have been in existence long ago, otherwise, presuming a constant speed of light, we would not be seeing them today. Ergo, the universe is billions of years old.

[I can't begin to tell you how grating it is to people who build devices like laser range finders and space craft to be dismissed by YECs as compromising the word of God. Unlike Darwinian evolution, the physics behind Old-Earth theory actually has real world application for the benefit of humanity. It should not be dismissed by theological fiat. It must be resolved scientifically for the Old Earth view to be overturned.]

Furthermore, long term radiometric dating suggests an old earth. Like fuel being consumed, we see the consumption of radioactive material. The very natural interpretation is an old universe. Combined with the light speed considerations, the inference to an old universe is almost irresistible. I cringe to hear suggestions that Old Earth ideas were mainly an attempt to erode Christian beliefs.

And irony of ironies, it was the greatest YEC scientist, math and physics genius James Clerk Maxwell, whose equations suggested the constancy of the speed of light, and thus Maxwell’s equations unwittingly signed the death sentence to YEC theory. Ah, but the executioner could not quite deliver the fatal blow to YEC….

YEC, on evidential grounds could be rescued if the problem of distant startlight and radiometric dating could be solved. In fact, research can proceed even if at least tentative solutions to these two major problems were being actively pursued. I for one, and the researchers at Loma Linda/GRI determined the C-14 dates for various fossils were absolutely fallacious. In fact, the provider of one of the C-14 data points in the 1970s, Reiner von Protsch, was found out in 2004 to have fabricated C-14 dates. It was no surprise to me or the researchers at Loma Linda/GRI. The evidence pointed to data being pulled completely out of the air.

The following papers (not easy reading!) describe why the following graph demonstrates systematic errors in C-14 dating. The downward slope in the data points indicates an error. If C-14 dating were reliable, the points should be horizontal not sloping downward:

See: Amino Acid Dating by bio-chemist Michael Brown

Amino Acid Dating by RH Brown

And hence, the doubts began to continue that there may be good reason to consider YEC.

Before I go into more detials, I should be careful to note, there are several separate issues:

1. Problems with the Big Bang vs. Special Creation
2. Age of the genomes
3. Age of the geological column
4. Age of the Earth
5. Age of the Solar System
6. Age of Stars
7. Age of Galaxies
8. Age of the Universe

One could argue the universe could be old, but life was recently created (an OEC position). Or one could argue the universe is old but the solar system is young, etc. To see why this is important, it would be illogical to point to a five-year-old child and argue the universe is young because the child is young. In like manner, one must be careful to not make the same mistake with the age of the universe. One could look at the young rings of saturn, young comets, etc. and one could still not convincingly argue the WHOLE universe is young. One could legitimately argue the rings of Saturn are young, the comets are young, but beyond that, one is probably making an invalid inference.

There are numerous markers for each of the above 8 items in favor of YEC. The case for YEC is more believable as we see that each of the 8 suggests youth and/or special creation. But again, caution is in order, the youth of items 2-7 does not imply the youth of the whole universe, but the YECs must prove the first 7 to prove their case. In the parlance of math and logic, we would say YEC-friendly evidence in the first 7 items is a necessary but not sufficient condition to infer YEC. Fortunately, those 7 items have evidence in YECs favor. I will, God willing, blog on those 7 issues.

So what would suggest a young universe, assuming we can solve the problem of distant starlight and radiometric dating? How do we solve item #8? Under the assumption of a constant speed of light we hypothesize the objects the farthest from us should look the youngest, since we are supposedly looking at events that happened 13.4 billion years ago.

There are various markers for age. But suffice it to say, something young should not look like something old. The stars and galaxies near us are presumably old, and the ones far away should look presumably young. Thus we would expect the ones far away should not look like the ones nearby since the ones far away ought to look very young. But is that the case? Nope!

Here is an observation by one of the scientists looking at the early universe. It looked OLD (or rather the paradigm is all wrong)!

“It’s becoming more and more clear that the young universe was a big zoo with animals of all sorts,” said Labbé, lead author of the study. “There’s as much variety in the early universe as we see around us today.”
The most surprising of these animals are the dead galaxies that literally ran out of gas – or at least cold gas – for making new stars. These giants suffocated far sooner than expected.

“We are really amazed – these are the earliest, oldest galaxies found to date,” Labbé said. “Their existence was not predicted by theory and it pushes back the formation epoch of some of the most massive galaxies we see today.“

Surprising New View of Early Universe, Space, March 2005

The alternative view is that the nearby stars and galaxies are young, and we have only supposed that the nearby stars and galaxies are old. When we adopt the view that the nearby stars and galaxies are young, the mystery that confronted Labbe disappears.

But do we simply presume the universe is young and be done with it? In the interest of being thorough, I suggest the YECs must solve the problem of distant starlight and long-term radiometric dating. Even though my research and that of Loma Linda/GRI has cast doubt on C-14 dates, the issue of other isotopes still formidably argues for an old universe. These other isotopes are used for long-term radiometric dating (billions of years) whereas C-14 is for relatively short term (millions of years). If the YECs can overcome the problem of distant starlight and long-term radiometric dating, they will make a compelling scientific case for a young cosmos. Until then, I think we’re in something of a stalemate, but I’m cautiously optimistic.

I will obviously have to write more on these topics.

Note:
The big bang argues for seeing aged stars nearby and young stars far from us. This is figuratively illustrated with the three people below going from left (nearby stars) to right (far away stars):

In actuality, what we see is more akin to seeing every thing about the same age like the triplets below:

Although I think YEC theory has a ways to go, there are various anomalies reported from secular quarters that continue to give hope to YEC proponents. One paper cited is a 1991 peer-reviewed paper by Tifft: Properties of the Redshift III: Temporal Variation. In this paper, Tifft argues that changes in redshifts from the same have object have been detected by historical measurements. It is like looking at an object and seeing its color change before your very eyes. This would throw some doubt on the standard interpreations of the Big Bang.

Comparisons between new 21 cm redshifts and older data, especially older 300 foot telescope data, are used to demonstrate the presence of systematic deviations, toward higher redshifts, in all the older data.

Objectivity cannot be equated with mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny — and also in a willingness to revise or abandon your theories when the tests fail (as they usually do).

— Stephen Jay Gould

[Gould was the beloved mentor of creationist Kurt Wise]

I will try to put a mix of advanced creation science with topics of interest to the general reader. YoungCosmos will be set apart from other websites in its willingness to invite and discuss serious challenges with various YEC hypotheses.

However, I recognized, exclusive focus on specialty topics will discourage interest in the website. So, I’ll try to maintain about a healthy mix of interesting topics and specialty topics. This post deals with an attempt at clarification of both Setterfield’s work and Dr. Jellison and Bridgman’s work regarding wavelength behavior with respect to time at the same general location and at various locations….

The wavelength of various waves of light can be measured directly or indirectly. The earliest measurement a wavelength was not too far of from the notion of using an actual ruler, but with some clever variation to measure wavelengths of light. One such method is the use of Diffraction Techniques.

My reading of CDK is that, presuming a chemical or electrical generation of light, if hypothetically I were around near the beginning of creation on Earth, I could take a laser and the wavelength measured at day 100 would be the same at day 30,000 when the diffraction measurement is made close to the laser (say 10 meters or so).

However, what would happen if I somehow measure the laser beam from far away? Say I measure a light beam emitted by the laser and detect it on day 30,000 but much farther away, in fact, as far away as the beam could travel from day 100 to day 30,000. I would presume, I would see a red shift, but is my interpretation of CDK wrong?

There is also another consideration on top of all this. When the Zero-Point Energy causes the universal transition which Barry Setterfield ties to quantized red shifts, would the laser device create a different diffraction frequency when changes in light speed/ZPE cause a universal quantum jump?

If the change of such processes (like with the laser) were universal, chemical processes ought to behave similarly since the abosorption behavior will be alter as well. However, any processes which are tied to physical distances (like crystal lattices) might be affected. This consideration, might of course lead to empirical confirmations or falsifications. That’s presuming of course, I’m representing CDK correctly. I would welcome discussion of this.

This discussion is tied to issues raised in Jellison and Bridgman, which can be found: here

Encyclopedia Britannica
In 1878 Michelson began work on what was to be the passion of his life, the accurate measurement of the speed of light.

One of Michelson’s last measuring devices is depicted by Barry Setterfield here:

Wherever one may stand on the cdk (slowing of light speed) issue, I thought Barry had a wonderful article on the history of speed of light measurements here: Rotating Mirror Experiments. Michelson’s measurements may have detected a slowing in the speed of light.

The persistent downward trend in the measured value of c was noted by de Bray after Michelson’s 1924 series results became available. As a result, he wrote to the Editor of Nature on the 20th December, 1924, and to l’Astronomie in France on January 23rd, 1925, calling attention to the trend.56 In the latter case, he predicted a lower value for Michelson’s next determination, which was in the process of being prepared. In the event his prediction was justified. As a result of that circumstance, the Editor of Nature, having ignored his earlier calls, decided to publish de Bray’s next offering, which opened up the discussion in the scientific literature throughout the late twenties, the thirties and into the early forties.

Michelson’s measurements:

year speed of light

1878.0: 300,140 ± 480

1879.5: 299,910 ± 50

1882.8: 299,853 ± 60

1924.6: 299,802 ± 30

1926.5: 299,798 ± 15

To the Stars.

PS
Setterfield references the work of one of the scientists, Hal Putoff, at www.Setterfield.org

Sample
ALL my friends with Ph.D. degrees who are college professors believe in evolution. NONE of my friends with Ph.D. degrees who work in the defense industry believe in evolution.

I’d like to thank Dr. Jellison for raising important question regarding CDK which I expect many others will have and which I hope CDK supporters will consider carefully.

I would like to offer my counter-critique in defense of CDK pertaining to page 29. The traditional Boltzman distribution is:

Dr. Jellison’s interprets Boltzman under CDK to be:

I believe this interpretation is mistaken, albeit very understandably mistaken. Before I move forward, to emphasize the dependence on “t” let me rephrase the traditional Boltzman equation as:

A mis-interpretation of the Boltzman distribution occurs because of the meaning of m(t). m(t) should be judged in terms of m(t) relative to the mass of other objects in the universe at time t, not m(t) in relation to the mass of the universe at other times ( t plus or minus some number). Thus, with this in mind, m(t) will observationally appear to be invariant with t, and m(t) = m under classical dynamics.

The derivation by Dr. Jellison reflects an interpretation of m(t) relative to the universe at other times, and I consider this erroneous. When this aspect of m(t) is taken into account, it can be shown this derivation by Dr. Jellison:

is erroneous. The correct, interpretation, under CDK axioms, and the presumption k(t) = k, and m(t) = m (for the considerations stated above) is:

which is what we observe. Hence, CDK with respect to the question raised on page 29 of Dr. Jellison’s paper, is not controverted by the Boltzman distribution.

PS
Use of Latex to display equations is discussed by jb here. To display an image in Latex on this website use

< img src="URL" />

Part of advancing the his work involves exposing it to scientific criticism. Though facing criticism may be difficult, if a theory is true, it will prevail in the end.

With that in mind, I present the hard work of two scientists (Jellison and Bridgman) who have written a critique of an idea I really like, namely CDK. I do not expect the discussion to be settled anytime soon, and the work of these two scientists is worthy of consideration. I’d like to thank them for making their work available online. The issues here could take years to settle, and I think it unfair to Barry to make any demands he respond anytime soon.

I must sadly assert, rather than condemning Old-Earth Creationists as being compromisers or finding flaws in OEC theology, it would be far more productive (for science and the cause of the gospel, if indeed CDK is true) to solve scientific problems such as the ones outlined by Dr. Jellison. For as long as these scientific problems linger, there will be those who will accept an Old Universe, and I for one can’t blame them…..

Though Dr. Jellison and I disagree intensely, I would like to thank him for his care and hard work on the issue, and his very civil demeanor. If one firmly believes in YEC and that Barry has a chance of being correct, then one ought to pray for Barry and supporters of his work. And also importantly, if one has scientific insight, by all means join the exploration.

Dr. Jellison’s critique can be found at: Critique of CDK. I would ask we respect Dr. Jellison’s privacy and that discussion be focused on the questions he poses.

This thread will not be the last time his work is featured. I will try to put a place on the new website where it can be discussed and where Latex can be used to present mathematical ideas. In the interim, I’m simply posting this to make available.

I would like to encourage Barry Setterfield to not be pressured to comment immediately. Public exposure of the theory will generate interest and get creationists with physics backgrounds involved and contributing to the discussion. Further, I’d like to assure Barry, he has friends he may not be aware of who may be willing to help with his work. I hope they will visit this site and help out. If CDK is correct, I think the Intelligent Designer will ensure that it will be vindicated as that was ordained from the beginning of time….

I’d like to thank Barry Setterfield, Gerard Jellison, Stephen Cheesman for their participation here at YoungCosmos. I recognize that surely at least one of you must be wrong, and that entails even the very hard work at least one you have put forward will be eventually falsified. I can’t thank you all enough for each of you volunteering hours of your personal time to exploration of these very important topics.

http://smartaxes.com/blog/yec-resources-online/

Another journal (perhaps) for theology, archaeology, philosophy, and rhetoric will be in the works, since it is so much on people’s minds.

Some of us (like myself) in the creationist community would prefer a journal free of strong theological premises. For example, any statement such as, “it’s true because in Genesis it says….” would defeat the purpose of an objective scientific inquiry and would probably not be what I’d like to see in a scientific journal. Walter ReMine’s Biotic Message and Walter Brown’s Creation Science are role models in terms of scientific writing. Such a journal does not mean we have any less reverence for our beliefs.

I have a suggestion for a name. Feel free to weigh in with suggestions for a name or any thing else on your mind.

Suggested name: Ciencia Empirica

which is Spanish for Empirical Science.

Mission: To explore empirical evidence for various origins theories and applications of various origins paradigms to industry, medicine, and historical inquiries.

Feel free to weigh in everybody.

Salvador

In fact, the BSG’s activities have reached the very halls of the Unted States Congress and the Office of Special Council in the Richard Sternberg affair. See: www.rsternberg.net

Here are my reflections of Thursday, June 14, 2007:

In attendance were 65 people including

Kurt Wise
Paul Nelson
Marcus Ross
Todd Wood
Gordon Wilson
Tim Brophy
Georgia Purdom
David Cavanaugh
Steve Gollmer

There were several others, some of whom I perhaps should not mention since they’re somewhat in Guillermo Gonzalez’s shoes right now if you know what I mean.

[Ironically, I did not have the privilege of meeting Jean Lightner who gives her alternate report here.]

I was only there on Thrusday Evening, June 14, 2007 for the business meeting (election of officers) and the poster session so I will focus on that.

When I walked in to DeMoss hall I saw a very attractive and charming woman talking on her cell phone. It was none other the molecular biologist Dr. Georgia Purdom. Purdom had made some very negative comments about ID at the 2005 YEC mega-conference. Conversely, I had also made some very negative remarks publicly about what she had to say about ID. She recognized me too. OOPS! She was very kind to show me around, and I’ve decide from this day forward, to be much nicer when I crticize Dr. Purdom publicly.

Most creationist ideas that one reads in the literature is geared toward demolishing naturalistic evolution. BSG is for the most part is not focusing on that. In a manner of speaking, Darwinism is about as relevant to their science as phlogiston is to chemsitry….

Their investigation is not focused on disproving Darwinism (like most everyone else). The question they focus on are:

1. what were the created kinds and how did they evolve into the creatures we see to day. For example, many Baraminologists think Wolves, Jackals, Dogs, and Foxes proceeded from a common ancestor. If this sort of front-loaded evolution existed, then that would solve a lot of problems with all the creatures in Noah’s ark. One can somewhat commically argue, YECs are hyper-evolutionists. [See this great YEC article: Evolution: God's Greatest Creation.]

2. what sort of things were front-loaded into the organisms. Gordon Wilson and others argue death, disease, thorns, thistles, and all sorts of other miseries were pre-programmed into life. They discuss empirically detecting evidence to support this hypothesis. Plagues, like those today, and those which God used against Pharoah, are the work of Intelligent Design….

3. Systems Biology and Medical Research from a creationist theory. I have pointed out many times at Uncommon Descent, how the Darwinian paradigm continues to incorrectly characterize biology as it operates today (much less as to how it operated in the past). If Darwinists like Ken Miller can so casually dismiss DNA as junk, when in fact it has medical significance, how much better will a creationist biology help advance medical science.

I was impressed that active interest in pusuing medical and industrial science is becoming a major focus versus purely activities of “evanglizing and making war on evil world views”. As creation theory helps advance science, it will help further its acceptance. In the words of the Apostle Peter, there are times hearts are won over without saying a thing…..

I talked to Marcus Ross, and he agreed that 20 years ago, creationist ideas were in horrible shape. The classic example is canopy theory by Henry Morris which dominated (dare I say impeded) creationist theory for 30 years…..

With that thought, I mentioned that creationists would do well to start a journal where fierce criticisms of their theory would be admitted and not censored. I said it would attract readership because it allowed controversy rather than supress it. He thought it was a good idea. [Any one willing to help in this enterprise. hint hint.]

One of the best creationist journals has only 10 submissions, and is available for free online. It is the BSG’s occasional papers. I would be delighted to see one like that, but one that reflects some of the values of the YoungCosmos website, where contrary opinions are welcomed and even sought after.

Most creationists journal will not pass something written favorable to Old Earth or Darwinists. But this scientific research is not about evangelizing or persuading, it is about dealing with tough questions and finding answers. YEC theory will advance by allowing criticism, it will be hindered to the extent it evades and supresses it. YECs will not solve problems with YEC theory unless they are willing to first acknowledge these problems exist.

If God is for the YECs, the theory will prevail in the end, despite human efforts to disprove it. I am officially sympathetic to the theory, but I think as a scientific hypothesis (versus a theological one), it has a long, long way to go.

Finally, I must mention Kurt Wise whom I met for the very first time. Oh my goodness. He had studied under the best paleotologists in the world at University of Chicago (under David Raup) and then got his PhD at Harvard under the tutelage and association of the most famous Darwinsits:

Stephen Gould
Richard Lewontin
Ernst Mayr
E.O. Wilson

Oh, my goodness. Could a creationist have a richer background than that? Wise helped teach some of Lewontin’s classes in statistical biology. He also studied fractals under Mandelbrot. Good gravy, the guy is a scholar. He spoke so glowingly of his mentors like Gould, Lewontin, and Mayr.

If one wonders whether miracles can happen, one only need look at Kurt Wise, the YEC who was awarded a PhD by Stephen Gould and the Darwinists at Harvard.

If the YEC timeframe is correct then donosaurs must have lived at the same time as humans. This is occasionally hit upon in creationist literature from time to time, and occasionally some writers set out to demonstrate that this is indeed the case by referring to ancient art, legends, etc. which depict dinosaurs living contemporanously with humans.

Janice brought up the Ica Stones and the Acambaro Figurines. However, while I do not discount the idea that dinosaurs very well could have lived contemporaneously with humans, I am skeptical of this particular bit of evidence. I will admit, however, that I’m not in any way an expert in this area, and I could very well be all wrong. However, after reading something like this…

http://skepdic.com/icastones.html

… I’m inclined to really wonder if this is something we should be using as an apologetic for YEC. This just has something about it that seems fishy; if only because it appears to be a too-good-to-be-true “too easy” bit of evidence. Now, I’m skeptical of the skeptic site skepdic, but this particular article seems compelling.

Not wanting to completely leave it up to a site like skepdic, I also queried CMI, AiG, and ICR for information on these. I also tried several of the web sites that Salvador linked to in a previous post. ICR and the sites that Salvador had linked to did not turn up anything (a few references came up at creationresearch.org, but apparently you have to sign up to access their material, and I have not done so; and it didn’t appear that the hits I got there were very relevant). CMI and AiG pretty much have a lot of the same articles, and the relevant ones in this search were the same at both sites.

At CMI/AiG, I came up with this:

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/133#r17

With particular attention given to note # 17. However, Rick pointed out that on this page, just below the footnote is an “Editors note” somewhat apologetic of what the footnote says. They still don’t come out and endorse the stones, and state “we would not advise using them as an apologetic evidence,” they do seem to back off slightly and leave some room for them being proven to not be hoaxes. However, that Editors Note was from 2003, and they seemed to indicate that they would persue the matter further in an issue of their magazine. I’m not aware if they indeed did so. I might email them and ask them about it. If so, I will report back here what I find out.

Also at CMI, I came across this page, which seems to be a reader-feedback page. One reader had this to say:

“I’ve been interested in dinosaurs for about 20 years and thoroughly enjoy every article that Creation puts out on them. I was surprised to learn of the Ica Stones in your article on pterosaurs and American Indians (24(2):28-32). While I believe that man and dinosaur definitely once co-existed, the photograph that went with the article appears to suggest that the stones are fake. I notice they show an outdated version of a sauropod with a vertical neck and drooping tail (something the animal could never have had—it would have fallen over). The T. rex and Stegosaurus also appear to have the same drooping tail problem. Thanks for a great read though!”

CMI did not respond to this comment, as it appears that the purpose of the page was not for them to respond, but rather just to publish the comments without further comment.

In the previous conversation, Rick had this to say:

[quoting from the CMI article] “The Institute of Geological Sciences in London has since examined one of the stones and confirmed its modern origin. The fraud was exposed on a Nova television documentary in 2002.”

Am I the only one whose smoke detector goes off with this statement? What, after all, is the examination of a single stone supposed to prove? Those who believe the stones genuine are aware that some are, in fact, of modern origin–so this isn’t a revelation.

…

I happen to have a book about these stones, by, I believe, Dennis Swift. He discusses the differences between the modern stones and ones that appear to be ancient. He talks about the two categories and compares examinations of each under high magnification. He also examines the claims of the local artists and explains why it would be in their best interest to say that they had carved the stones themselves.

Now, I happen to think that there are other, very compelling evidences that demonstrate man’s contemporaneous existence with dinosaurs. For me, just the similarity between dragon traditions and dinosaurs is compelling. Also there are a few other artifacts, like this one that Jehu pointed out, as well as the Bishop Bell’s Brass Behemoths (which is the article that contained the footnote disclaiming the Ica Stones).

I’m still skeptical of the Ica and Acambaro artifacts, but not of the contemporaneous human/dinosaurs hypothesis itself. But then, I’m just a lay person who’s read a few articles on the web. Others disagree. What do you think? I’m open to looking at further evidence one way or the other, and I’m fascinated by the subject, so it should be a good discussion. I’d be interested to see refutations of the skepdic article.

After the Flood

Whoa!

I please keep the discussions going. I’ll be tied up most of the rest of the week, but I’ll check in occasionally. I’ll be meeting Michael Behe, Kurt Wise, Gordon Wilson, Tim Brophie, David DeWitt, Paul Nelson, etc. etc. this week…There is the big Discovery Institute event today in DC, and the Baraminology Study Group (BSG) tomorrow in Lynchburg, Va and more activity for me in Tunica Mississipi this weekend….so I’ll hope you’ll excuse my sporadic participation until next week.

We are getting offers from authors and contributors. I will also seek top talent from both sides to offer articles. I’d like to thank everyone for their participation, especially the adminstrators who are helping rebuild the website, weblog, and discussion forum.

In Criticism of CDK from brother Stephen J. Cheesman, I was confronted with some of the sobering difficulties of a particular YEC Cosmology known as CDK (speed of light decay). In that discussion, the topic arose as to what would constitute an empirical support or refutation of Barry Setterfield’s ideas.

It appears aerospace engineer George Sanctuary independently derived a time-dilation equation and found several anomalies that appear to support the Setterfield cosmology.

GENERAL RELATIVITY or NEWTONIAN TIDAL EFFECTS?

1) Quite surprisingly, the derived nominal tidal effects model duplicates general relativity precessions for all celestial bodies in the solar system. However, for two binary stars, (DI Herculis and AS Camelopardalis), GR predicts double the measured orbital precessions, while the NTE model duplicates the measured values.

Nominal Tidal Effects (NTE) combined with the Hyperbolic Creation Model (HCM) described in this paper offer a reasonable alternative to a universe cosmogony which is explained using general relativity (GR). The HCM cosmogony is heliocentric (sun-centered), as also is the well-known background Red Shift. The cause of the Red Shift frequencies could be a decaying transit super-speed of light. Finally, the possibility that the age of the universe is just a few thousand years has been demonstrated.

To understand a bit more, see Einstein’s nemesis: di herculis

DI Herculis is an 8th-magnitude eclipsing binary about 2,000 light years from earth. These two young blue stars are very close — only one fifth the distance from earth to our sun. They orbit about a common center of gravity every 10.55 days. So far, no problem!

The puzzle is that, as the two stars swing around one another, the axis of their orbit rotates or precesses too slowly. General relativity predicts a precession of 4.27°/century, but for DI Herculis the rate is only 1.05°/century. This does not sound like a figure large enough to get excited about, but it deeply troubles astronomers. D. Popper, an astronomer at UCLA, says:

“The observations are pretty clear. I don’t think there’s any question there’s a discrepancy and, frankly, it is an important one and it’s unresolved.”

The solution may be a Young Cosmos and YEC CDK cosmology.

[Note: I'm on vacation till Monday, June 11, 2007. Sorry I can't joint the fun for a few days. ]

[Update 6/6/07]
YoungCosmos will shortly be split into 3 websites:

YoungCosmos.com

YoungCosmosBlog.com

YoungCosmosDiscussion.com

We will try our best to preserve the logins and passwords from the current blog when we migrate to the improved blog at YoungCosmosBlog.com.

The weblog you are reading will be accessible the YoungCosmos.com website and directly accessible through the www.YoungCosmosBlog.com URL. The reasoning behind the split was something I envisioned a long time ago:

YoungCosmosBlog.com will be the blog you are reading now, but it will be
substantially improved from today’s blog. It’s main purpose is to keep track of recent developments.

www.YoungCosmosDiscussion.com is a discussion forum where participants can conduct discussion of topics of interest to them. They will also have the ability to moderate their own discussions!

YoungCosmos.com will be a general portal to every thing else. It will have lots of links and educational resources including YoungCosmosBlog.com and YoungCosmosDiscussion.com

Please visit YoungCosmosBlog.com fand let us know what changes you would like. Please, for you own sake, DO NOT POST THERE since it is merely a test site and what you write will be forever lost into the great bit bucket in the sky whenever we make upgrades (which be almost daily).

However, I welcome your feedback on the new site. We have set up a discussion forum where more orderly discussion on the website can be discussed. Visit

Young Cosmos Feedback and Web Development Forum

Thanks to everyone who has been a part of our weblog since it began February 17, 2007. I had a vision for a www.YoungCosmos.com website for over two years. It’s main function was to be a portal for information, resources, collaboration, networking, and discussion. It was intended to follow the architecture of www.ARN.org

There is now apparently a holy war, dare I say, “holier than thou” war betwen two Young Earth Creationists organizations, AiG and CMI. I have no intentions of taking sides in the AiG-CMI holy wars, except I point out, it’s ulikely both sides can be completely right in this dispute. Each side claims to have conducted itself “biblically”. [See: Biblical battle of creation groups.]

God bless many of the supporters of AiG and CMI, but I will point out, the smaller and, imho, more scientifically capable creationists and pro-ID organizations, have been (on occasion) given brusk treatment at the hands of AiG/CMI.

The creationist and pro-ID groups I have respect for are the ones who’ve shown their ability scientifically. Perhaps, not surprisingly, these are the poorest in terms of money. It echoes the word the Lord said, “I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! ” (Rev 2:9).

What pro-ID and pro-Creation organizations do I recommend:

YEC:
www.grisda.org
www.creationscience.com
www.bryancore.org/bsg/index.html
www.creationresearch.org/index.html
www.trueorigin.org
www.rae.org
www.CreationSafaris.com
www.setterfield.org
www.wildersmith.org/

ID and OEC:
www.origins.org
www.origins.org/mc/menus/index.html
www.idthink.net
saintpaulscience.com/index.html
www.discovery.org/csc
www.ideacenter.org
www.truthinscience.org.uk/
www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/

Though AiG and ICR have many venerable brothers in Christ, and I think highly of Henry Morris and Duane Gish, I must express my reluctance in endorsing all of their literature. Though I think their literature is correct in many respects, in the matter of theory and empirical science, I think there is better material out there, even by those who may not consider themselves Evangelical Christians.

And as far as this website goes, I do not claim that I or anyone else (save God) has an infallible grasp of truth, scientific or otherwise. I believe God is infallible, and we humans are not, but we try our best to discern what is true and good. This website is offered in acknowledgement of human fallibility and our dependence on God to guide us and teach us. I hope we all can assist and pray for each other here in the search for truth….

(HT: PZ Myers at Pharyngula)

(HT: Crevo at Baraminology weblog)

“Supporters of the Big Bang have no cause for pride, because they have a light-distance problem, too! It is called the horizon problem. And it is serious.”

One solution was offered by secular cosmologist Paul Davies, and that was varialbe speed of light (VSL):

Are the fundamental constants of nature really constant?

“The leftover glow from the Big Bang, known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB), has been observed in great detail. It shows that the entire observable Universe was once at a common temperature. This poses a conundrum because large sections of our observable Universe have never been in causal contact – they have never been able to communicate because light moves too slowly to have crossed the distance between them. If they have never been in contact with each other, how do opposite sides of the observable Universe know what temperature to be? ….But what if there was another solution? What if everything was in causal contact because the speed of light was faster in the past? ”

Visit: www.CreationSafaris.com

Let me know if you want to star discussion on any articles you find there.

1. accept that the words of Genesis  came from God, and should be interpreted to mean the Cosmos is young (several thousand years old)

2. accept that the words of Genesis  came from God, but should be interpreted to allow the Cosmos to be old

3. reject the Genesis account as coming from God 

I am of the opinion study of the physical evidence versus debating theology will help resolve the problem.  The scientific method (which incidentally was inspired by verses like Romans 1:20 and other scriptures) is premised on the belief that nature is structured such that the scientific method will be able to lead us to important truths. 

I am of the opinion God delights to make bold statements about human history which can be corroborated by physical evidence.  He even said ”If Christ is not raised, your faith is in vain”.  If certain historical truths are not true, the Christian faith is in vain.  I believe God has invited sincere seekers to examine the phyiscal evidence, and follow the evidence where it leads. 

That said, I’d like to begin the discussion with something Janice of Uncommon Descent asked here:

At UD some people remarked on the fact that the Bible doesn’t give specifics about things such as when angels were created and someone mentioned that “the verb used in Gen 1:2 allows for (but does not specify) the so-called gap theory”.     

In Genesis the Bible states that God created the sun, moon and stars on the 4th day. Isaiah 40:22 and 42:5 say that God stretched out the heavens but the Bible doesn’t say when He did it.

My understanding of physics is limited to matriculation level followed by one undergraduate unit in physics for the life sciences, and that was 30 years ago. So forgive me if the following is completely silly.

It seems to me that there are two options:

1. God put the stars more or less where they are now.
2. God put the stars in the heavens (in some sort of close proximity to earth) and then stretched the heavens out so that the stars were carried to more or less where they are now.

In the former case light would have to travel from where the stars are now all the way to the earth and (ignoring Setterfield’s solution for now) you have the problem of “appearance of age”.

In the latter case, assuming (fairly reasonably I think) that the stars were producing light before the heavens were stretched out, wouldn’t it be that their light could have already reached the earth? What effect would stretching out of the heavens (and its contained stars) have on the amount of light reaching earth from those stars? I presume it would red shift the light. Might it also explain why the night sky is dark? What is going on out there in the infra-red and longer spectra? That radio image of the universe is interesting but I have no idea what it means.

Helen Setterfield on RATE

“In response to the RATE material. We disagree strongly with a lot of what they are proposing. They are saying the speed of radio decay accelerated miraculously during creation week and during the Flood. We disagree. The speed of radio decay is linked to the changes in all the atomic constants, which are triggered by the changes in the Zero Point Energy. This article of Barry’s might help:
http://www.setterfield.org/behaviorzpe.html

It summarizes his work for the last ten years.

God bless. ”

Here is an animation of the Great Flood. It is narrated by a retired director of a major DOD research Center, Walter Brown, PhD MIT scientist and NSF fellow:
Hydroplate Theory

Here is an excerpt of another person explaining a portion of Hydroplate theory:

Hydroplate Theory Lecture Part 12

The first order of business is to get the website up and running. It’s not quite where I envision from a technical standpoint, but in the mean time I will be posting topics just to keep things running while the website continues to be improved.

I will post links to various beta test sites that will showcase the look and feel of the envisioned website after the first round of construction is complete.

I welcome your all’s feedback and assistance.

Consider this an open thread to talk about anything (with the provision the discussion is restricted within limits of civility.)

I am a Christian, and I believe the discovery of a YoungCosmos will honor Christ, but the approach, imho, should be through arguing the evidence, and not theology. If the evidence speaks for itself, then the Bible and various theologies will be believable.

Christ recognized in John 10:38 that some will distrust His Words even if they are willing to believe in Him. Imho, He admonished such good-hearted individuals who are doubting His words, rather than to simply stop doubting, begin considering the empirical evidence.

The miracle of the universe and life point to God. And if we discover the Cosmos is Young, the world not only points to the existence of God, but the Christian God. Let us follow the evidence where it leads.

History of the Light-Speed Debate by Helen Setterfield

[Ed Note: We have been following Barry Setterfield's research on the speed of light since 1993.
It is interesting that both evolutionists and creation scientists can be blinded by their own presuppositions...]

More

[The reader is invited o right click the link below and then do a "Save Target As" and then listen to the sermon from the saved file.  You may have to turn your volume up to hear it.]

Sermon on Acts  Chapter 2:14-21 by Jack Lash 

If the cosmos is indeed young, then the literal genealogy of Jesus Christ will be affirmed and all the universe will then be shown to point to His advent.  Every molecule, every law of physics will affirm the genealogy of Luke 3:23-37 in a powerful way.  

Though I could still accept the genealogy of Luke 3:23-37 even if the cosmos were old, if physical evidence points to a young cosmos, then the most daring interpretation of Luke 3:23-37 will be vindicated, and Christianity’s sacred scriptures will affirmed beyond question.  It will show the Intelligent Designer of the Universe has truly spoken to us “in these last days through His Son”. 

I cannot imagine a grander discovery for science than to discover a young cosmos.  This raises the question then of the problem of suffering and evil in the world.  I would respond by saying that a master playwright’s greatest drama will have suffering and tragedy in the beginning of the drama as part of the glorious ending he had in mind.  Why should we be surprised the greatest Playwright of all would write the Divine Drama in a manner otherwise?

The sermon by my pastor is 42 minutes long, and I recognize not all will be able to listen to it.  But for those that do, I hope you are as blessed as I was this morning.