QUESTION ON SPACE EXPANSION

There's an evolution/creationism debate taking place on the New York Mets message board. Somebody posted a long list of "proof" for creationism. I was able to answer every point but one, hopefully somebody here has an answer. Here's the part I'm having problems with."Astronomical estimates of the distance to various galaxies gives conflicting data.The Biblical Record refers to the expansion of space by the Creator Astrophysicist Russell Humphries demonstrates that such space expansion would dilate time in distant space This could explain a recent creation with great distances to the stars."

This could go into the Motion in an expanding space topic, but I will give it its own "Short Subject" topic.Adminnemooseus

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

The short answer is that Humphreys (note spelling) claims no such thing. He adds a kind of white hole spacetime distortion to give a massive time dilation, effectively with the Earth being in the center of the disturbance, so that six thousand years pass in Earth while billions of years pass in deep space.That is, he attempts a different model; but he does not claim space expansion would distort time, as if his time effects were a consequence of existing models.His model is ludicrous, and does not fit the evidence. Humphreys does not make any serious attempt to test the model with some obvious predictions (that would falsify it immediately). Instead, he proposes hand waving "explanations" for some lines of evidence (redshift, for example) with no proper quntified development.Initial versions of the model were also wrong mathematically; Humphreys relativity was not up to the task. He claims to have fixed the problems; and as far as I can see the people who know relativity are simply rolling around laughing, or ignoring it.The one line of evidence he offers for placing Earth at the center is Tifft's quantized redshift ideas; which have recently been pretty much disproved by detailed redshift surveys.The only real reason for this absurd model is an attempt to retain the strict fundamentalist literal-history model of Genesis with a 6000 year old Earth with the obvious great age of the universe.I don't know what they mean by conflicting data in distance estimates. Measuring distances in deep space is notoriously difficult; but there are a range of methods applied, and I am not aware of a substantial conflict. Any info on what that is about?Cheers -- Sylas

Thanks alot. The misspelling of his name explains why I couldn't find anything when I tried to track this theory down.

Look for "Starlight and Time". This little book was published in 1994. Humphreys has continued to try and prop it up, and creationists have welcomed it as the only credible creationist attempt to deal with cosmology. Despite this, even creationists who know a bit of astrophysics express caution. The total lack of any contributing work or research by others based on this over the last ten years show just how sterile it is a model.Some refs:

• Starlight Wars: Starlight and Time withstands attacks by D. Russell Humphreys, Ph.D., at Answers in Genesis. A laughable unilateral declaration of victory by the author.
• The Unraveling of Starlight and Time, by Samuel R. Conner and Hugh Ross, Ph.D., at Reasons to Believe, an Old Earth Creationist site. For some reason these guys have a bee in their respective bonnets about each other and trade criticisms and moral judgements on each other. Amusing; very critical.
• The Current State of Creationist Astronomy (1998) by Danny R. Faulkner, Ph. D. Faulker is a young earth creationist and astronomer, and therefore has a problem! He alludes to some problems in the creationist peer review of Humphreys' idea. Critical, but hopeful; based on wishful thinking.

There has not been a good mainstream response to this stuff that I am aware of. Most mainstream response seems content to give a superficial treatment pointing out one or another of the errors, and leaving it alone. That is all that is needed as far as review is concerned, but for education purposes I would like to be able to reference a more thorough treatment.Cheers -- Sylas

Wow, you're a veritable fountain of info. Thanks again.