Falsifying a young Universe. (re: Supernova 1987A)

The young Universe position is logically on a weaker footing than an old Universe stance.The YEC arguments base themselves as providing an alternative explanation for old Universe evidence.They do not provide any 'facts' that categorically prove a young Universe, just supposed new interpretations that allow for a young Universe.This being said, you only have to provide a single example of an old Universe that cannot be argued with and, ergo, you have falsified the young Universe position.As I see it, there can be no way around the older Universe interpretation of the distance to supernova 1987A.And I am talking about the GEOMETRICAL method of calculating the distance. This doesn't involve anything like standard candles, or relativistic redshifts but on good old trigonometry. (I do hope the YEC's accept trig.)No way of varying the speed of light (one of the lamest concepts in YECdom) will at the same time explain this supernova being nearby and yet not changing the observed radioactive decay rates of the nickel and cobalt from the explosion.This, and I stress, GEOMETRICAL distance gives a value of approx. 170,000 light years. No if's and's or but's about it.Therfore, this supernova occurred 170,000 years ago!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!And again, let me repeat, no tinkering with the light speed can get around this method of getting the distance whilst preserving the radioactive decay observations.Thus we have a piece of evidence that directly FALSIFIES a less than 10,000 year old Universe. Now I accept that this on it's own doesn't give a 13.7 billion year old Universe, BUT it does the job with respect to falsifying creation being some 6-10 thousand years ago.(Please note I am not referring to a parallax here, SN1987A is too distant for that.)

When you refer to a geometrical distance determination you say you are not refering to parallax. Could you explain the difference? I thought the measurement was basically one of angles with the earth's orbit as a baseline. Isn't that effectively the same thing?You seem to have a very clear challenge to the YEC'ers there. I think you can expect it to be ignored. But if we develop this thread a little more then perhaps it can be referred to the next time the age issue pops up.

Ring of the SN1987ASupernovae are interesting opportunities when they explode in our vicinity. One could tentatively say: the closer, the better. The Supernova SN1987A appearing in the LMC has been used to determine the distance to this dwarf galaxy. By measuring the time at which a ionized ring appears and the time at which it reaches its maximum, Panagia et al. (ApJ 380, L23) deduce in a very simple geometrical model the distance to this Supernova (). The problem is thus to know where the Supernova is located in the LMC. The first estimation by Panagia et al. gave while Gould et al. (ApJ452, 189) estimated . The result is sligthly model dependent but the inclination of the ring deduced from the model is in good agreement with the one deduced from the elliptical shape of the ring. This gives us confidence in the model. Anyway, even by using this nice opportunity the distance modulus of the closest galaxy cannot be measured to better than 0.2 magnitude.The conclusion is that the zero-point of the distance scale is not better than 0.1or 0.2 mag, whatever the method. The consequence about the value of the Hubble constant is not negligible (about 10%), but the main cause of discrepancy between different teams resides more specifically in the extension of the distance scale to larger distances.This method does not utilise a parallax. It uses the geometry of the expanding ionisation ring from the supernova. Above is the ApJ reference to the Panagia paper.

Gee, this is new to you? OK.EC is referring to simple trigonometry, but the baseline is not the Earth's orbit or anything local to us. It's sort of "inverse parallax". The baseline of the triangle is the distance from the exploded star to a ring of material that was given off in the explosion. The other two sides are the distance from Earth to the exploded star and the distance from Earth to the ring. This is obviously a fairly unusual situation, so SN1987A is pretty unique.And it's got all sorts of fascinating implications. The distance to SN1987A is about 997,800,000,000,000,000 miles whether or not the speed of light in a vacuum has changed during the time the light traveled to us. Furthermore, we have observed the products of decay of radioactive cobalt isotopes in SN1987A, and they decay at the same rate they do on Earth today. If the speed of light did change during the transit from SN1987A to us, then the decay rates of cobalt-56 and cobalt-57 had to change in exact lock-step in order to explain the observations. SN1987A contradicts a wide variety of YEC ideas.There's gobs of material on the Web about this. See SN1987A and The Antiquity of the Universe (by a former YEC), The Distance to Supernova SN1987A and the Speed of Light, and The Age of the Universe and SN1987A. If you enjoy seeing YEC's wriggle see The Mars-List Discussion on Creationism Table Of Contents and check out the SN1987A discussions.[This message has been edited by JonF, 11-16-2003]

YEC evidences. Evidence for a Young World | Answers in Genesis

Well let me say first that the link you provide is full of old ideas that have been refuted.Second, you didn't address my post itself. I pointed out that YEC arguments are based upon providing an alternative to the observed facts. But if just one piece of old Universe evidence is shown to be true then it invalidates the young Universe position in one fell swoop.Thirdly, and most pedantically, I didn't think was such a word as 'evidences'.PSIs there anything you can bring to the table with respect to the post I made at the start of this thread, instead of posting a link to old, easily refuted YEC claims.

It's funny you say they've been refuted yet you show no proof of this.

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2. Most of the events astronomers observe would never have happened. For example consider a star explosion which astronomers observed in early 1987. This bright explosion, called Supernova 1987a, took place in one of the Magellanic Clouds (see introduction), about 160,000 light-years away from us. It was visible to the naked eye, and astronomers were (and are) very excited about it.

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According to the "in-transit" theory, during creation week God would have made, about 6000 light-years away from us along the path between us and the Magellanic clouds, the light-wave images of an exploding star. He would also have had to have made the high-energy particles (gamma rays and neutrinos), as observed, from the exploded supernova. At the same instant of creation, further out along the path, He would have made images of an already-exploded star and its expanding shell of debris.

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To be consistent, at the end of the 160,000 light-year path, God would also during creation week have made an actual supernova remnant (a dead neutron star), seemingly 160,000 years old with a large debris shell around it.

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But according to the "in-transit" theory, in spite of the images and particles astronomers observed, no actual supernova explosion would have ever happened!

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This sort of fictional interpretation of events that we see in the sky would deny astronomy most of its value as a study of the real world. It would make the study of distant stars into a kind of theological literary criticism -- a study of the fiction God would have chosen to write for us in the sky. And if most of what the heavens declare to us were fictional, then according to Psalm 19:1 ("The heavens declare the glory of God"), most of the glory of God would also be fictional. This philosophical-theological problem does not bother some supporters of the "in-transit" theory, but it disturbs many other people, including myself.

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From: http://www.epcc.edu/faculty/jesseh/starlight_time_bk.htmRefer to Humprey's "Starlight and Time"------------------
-chris[This message has been edited by messenjaH, 11-16-2003][This message has been edited by messenjaH, 11-16-2003]

So you think that God is a liar?

No.------------------
-chris

So... then you agree with Humphreys that the "in-transit" model is objectionable on theological grounds?[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 11-16-2003]

Unless you are completely new to thinking about these issues you know that much material resides on the internet refuting these issues. I don't have the time nor inclination to type out (or provide links to) information you can get in 1 second with a Google search. I am sure you have heard of TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution ControversyRead both sides of the issue before making blanket statements on the issues. And more importantly, learn some science before accepting the writings of non-scientists about scientific issues.Do you think it's a coincidence that almost all scientists do not accept the YEC position on these points?[This message has been edited by Eta_Carinae, 11-16-2003]

Perhaps Messenjah could pick one or two things he thinks are telling and we can point him to the easiest material on them?

You seem to be suggesting that you support Humphries suggestion. I don't think it handles the problem of the measurement of the distance to SN1987A does it?

Probably because the refutations are so easy to find ... the fact that you haven't found them on your own speaks volumes.Also, it took you a few seconds to put that link up, and it takes a half-hour or so to dig up and write up the links to the refutations of all those claims. This is known as the "Gish Gallop"; throw out a buch of claims as fast as possible and hope that the other side won't have the time it takes to refute them. The Gish Gallop is often a sign of a poster who doesn't really understand the issues and isn't interested in the truth.Pick an issue from that page, start a new thread, and we'll rip it to shreds in short order. But first I suggest that you use the excellent search engine at talkorigins.org (link already posted) to look those claims up and see how flimsy and false thy really are. NAother good place to look, ath the same site, is the Index to Creationist Claims. Most if not all of the claims on your linked page are addressed there.