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Author Topic:   Does the speed of light allow new earth creationism
kbertsche
Member (Idle past 2131 days)
Posts: 1427
From: San Jose, CA, USA
Joined: 05-10-2007


Message 16 of 35 (640749)
11-12-2011 1:22 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by IDontKnow
11-11-2011 8:09 PM


quote:
I was just outside with my telescope looking at the stars and a question popped up in my head.
- New earth creationists believe the earth, heavens and all life on earth were created between 5 700 and 10 000 years ago.
- Light travels at 299 792 458 meter/second or 186 282 mile/second
- So the distance of 1 lightyear is just under 10 trillion kilometers or 6 trillion miles.
If the earth and all the stars and galaxies were created 10 000 years ago, the max distance light could have traveled is 10 000 lightyears.
BTW, the term is "Young earth creationists" (YEC's) not "New earth creationists".
As Dr A has said, there are a number of standard answers.
1) the simplest answer: God created light in transit. But when one considers the vast amount of information which is contained in the light from a star, this makes God seem deceptive. (The spectrum tells us elemental composition, recessional velocity, rotational velocity, etc.) Thus some YECs have said this argument should not be used.
2) another answer is that the speed of light was much faster in the past. But the main evidence for this is an imaginative analysis of historical data by Setterfield, which has been questioned even by other YECs. Again, some YECs have said that this argument should not be used.
3) Jason Lisle has recently proposed an imaginative theory, that the speed of light moves instantaneously toward an observer, and at 1/2 c away from an observer. He claims freedom to do this because he believes that we can only measure the round trip speed of light, but not the one-way speed of light. But in this he is wrong. We have good measurements of the one-way speed of light, and devices such as particle accelerators and free-electron lasers would not work if the one-way speed of light were not c.
I think the speed of light is a good issue to raise with YECs. I have a YEC friend who became an OEC ("old earth creationist") after thinking about the explosion of SN 1987A.

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." — Albert Einstein
I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives us a lot of factual information, puts all of our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity. Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously. — Erwin Schroedinger

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 17 of 35 (640752)
11-12-2011 1:59 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by kbertsche
11-12-2011 1:22 PM


3) Jason Lisle has recently proposed an imaginative theory, that the speed of light moves instantaneously toward an observer, and at 1/2 c away from an observer. He claims freedom to do this because he believes that we can only measure the round trip speed of light, but not the one-way speed of light. But in this he is wrong. We have good measurements of the one-way speed of light, and devices such as particle accelerators and free-electron lasers would not work if the one-way speed of light were not c.
Also, consider how the fact that the speed of light was finite was first discovered. It made sense of the apparent motion of the moons of Jupiter, which didn't make sense on the assumption that it was infinite. Now that, of course, was light coming from the moons of Jupiter to observers on Earth.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 18 of 35 (640767)
11-12-2011 8:19 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by kbertsche
11-12-2011 1:22 PM


The quote below is from the article Jason Lisle's article "Anisotropic Synchrony ConventionA Solution to the Distant Starlight Problem"
Anisotropic Synchrony ConventionDistant Starlight | Answers Research Journal
quote:
Genesis itself may suggest a simple answer to distant starlight. In Genesis 1:14—18 God tells us that the stars were created on the fourth day to give light upon the earth. This text also seems to strongly suggest that the stars fulfilled their purpose immediately (and it was so). Therefore, it would seem that the light emitted by the stars reached earth instantaneously, or nearly so. This suggests a synchrony convention: a procedure for synchronizing clocks separated by a distance.
Imaginative is not the word I'd have used to describe this reasoning.

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subbie
Member (Idle past 1254 days)
Posts: 3509
Joined: 02-26-2006


Message 19 of 35 (640770)
11-12-2011 9:16 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by NoNukes
11-12-2011 8:19 PM


Imaginative is not the word I'd have used to describe this reasoning.
Reasoning is not the word I'd have used to describe this flight of imagination.

Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson
We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat
It has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate
...creationists have a great way to detect fraud and it doesn't take 8 or 40 years or even a scientific degree to spot the fraud--'if it disagrees with the bible then it is wrong'.... -- archaeologist

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Pollux
Member
Posts: 303
Joined: 11-13-2011


Message 20 of 35 (640882)
11-14-2011 12:48 AM
Reply to: Message 16 by kbertsche
11-12-2011 1:22 PM


Constancy of light speed
From what I have read, the constancy of the period of pulsars disproves Setterfield, and I would think the steady expansion of light rings around supernovae, which have been used to confirm astronomical distance measurements, would disprove Jason Lisle's Thought (I could not call it a theory)
Edited by Pollux, : Quasar changed to pulsar

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foreveryoung
Member (Idle past 582 days)
Posts: 921
Joined: 12-26-2011


Message 21 of 35 (654833)
03-05-2012 1:18 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by hooah212002
11-12-2011 9:53 AM


Re: The Science Of The Matter.
There are a ton of scientists who are creationists, just not young earth creationists.

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Pressie
Member
Posts: 2103
From: Pretoria, SA
Joined: 06-18-2010


Message 22 of 35 (654840)
03-05-2012 5:14 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by foreveryoung
03-05-2012 1:18 AM


Re: The Science Of The Matter.
Do you see theistic evolutionists (as in religious scientists who reject both Young Earth Creationism and Intelligent Design Creationism) as Creationists?
Edited by Pressie, : Altered sentence
Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

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hooah212002
Member (Idle past 801 days)
Posts: 3193
Joined: 08-12-2009


Message 23 of 35 (654862)
03-05-2012 7:55 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by foreveryoung
03-05-2012 1:18 AM


Re: The Science Of The Matter.
In that case, I doubt we agree on what the definition of "scientist" is. Perhaps you'd care to define it for us?

"Science is interesting, and if you don't agree you can fuck off." -Dawkins

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(2)
Message 24 of 35 (654976)
03-06-2012 7:22 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by foreveryoung
03-05-2012 1:18 AM


Re: The Science Of The Matter.
There are a ton of scientists who are creationists, just not young earth creationists.
Assuming that your average scientist weighs around 180 lbs that makes about 12 of them.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 25 of 35 (654977)
03-06-2012 7:50 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by foreveryoung
03-05-2012 1:18 AM


Re: The Science Of The Matter.
Yes, but among the scientist who study a discipline which informs them about how species arose, how the solar system came to be, or how the earth has evolved, the number of Creationists is quite a small percentage.
Of course I'm using the term Creationists in the narrow sense to apply only to those young earth creationists and old earth creationists who claim that Genesis is a literal account of how, and in what order, were created life, man, the sun, moon, and stars.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


Message 26 of 35 (655019)
03-06-2012 2:39 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Pollux
11-14-2011 12:48 AM


Re: Constancy of light speed
From what I have read, the constancy of the period of quasars disproves Setterfield, . . .
The fact that there were oxygen breathing animals during Earth's history is enough to disprove Setterfield's "theory". His equations also call for a reduction in mass, and this results in oxygen reaching the escape velocity for Earth. This, and other refutations of Setterfield's "theory" can be found here:
http://homepage.mac.com/...x1/cdecay/cdecay_2007Jellison.pdf

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Pollux
Member
Posts: 303
Joined: 11-13-2011


Message 27 of 35 (655146)
03-07-2012 8:30 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Taq
03-06-2012 2:39 PM


Re: Constancy of light speed
Hi Taq.
Thanks for that link. Setterfield has more problems than I thought.
It is a pity people have to spend so much time and effort refuting hare-brained ideas!

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OpticalIllusions
Junior Member (Idle past 4364 days)
Posts: 9
Joined: 04-16-2012


Message 28 of 35 (659481)
04-16-2012 8:26 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by hooah212002
11-12-2011 9:53 AM


Re: The Science Of The Matter.
No scientist is a creationist? What about Newton?
Why do atheists think they get to decide who is a scientist and who isn't? Aren't all humans basically scientists trying to understand the nature of the universe? If there are no creationist scientists, then who created scientists?

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hooah212002
Member (Idle past 801 days)
Posts: 3193
Joined: 08-12-2009


Message 29 of 35 (659485)
04-16-2012 8:46 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by OpticalIllusions
04-16-2012 8:26 AM


Re: The Science Of The Matter.
Show me a creationist who is published in any reputable journal with a paper discussing creation "science" (and I use the term science loosely in this case since we all know creationism isn't science).
Go on, we can wait. Take all the time you need.

"Science is interesting, and if you don't agree you can fuck off." -Dawkins

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 30 of 35 (659498)
04-16-2012 10:31 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by OpticalIllusions
04-16-2012 8:26 AM


Re: The Science Of The Matter.
Aren't all humans basically scientists trying to understand the nature of the universe?
No. It is not the case that all humans are science. Was this supposed to be a trick question?
What about Newton?
Newton of course was a scientist, and an alchemist, and his investigation of light led him to stick sharp objects behind his eyes. What is your point?
If there are no creationist scientists, then who created scientists?
Yikes. What's the logic here?

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison

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 Message 28 by OpticalIllusions, posted 04-16-2012 8:26 AM OpticalIllusions has not replied

  
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