The universe appears "old", but it is still less than 10,000 years old

[orogenicman]

The plot thickens.

I got curious so I put the exact name of the paper in quotes into Google and it came up in

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003AGUFM.V32C1045B

which is the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System.

However, I couldn't help but notice that the rest of the postings were for one creationist asshole site after another so I checked SAO/NASA further and found......(not to my surprise!)

The Astrophysics Data System (usually referred to as ADS), developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is an online database of over eight million astronomy and physics papers from both peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed sources.

So this is nothing but more creatard hogwash which, I learned with a smile, waldork has previously tried to slip into the discussions on this very board - that came up in my search, too - with little success.

What is even more interesting is that I can only find the abstract, not the actual paper, which was apparently presented at the 2003 AGU fall meeting. I can find no evidence that it was ever actually published. What I did find was a long article about some of his other work that has been severely criticized by the scientific community, particularly his work with Helium diffusion "dates":

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/helium/appendixc.html

To begin with, the "dating" equations in Humphreys et al. (2003a) are based on many blatantly false assumptions (isotropic diffusion, constant temperatures over time, etc.) that cannot be dismissed with any claims of "generosity" to the "uniformitarians." Also, the vast majority of Dr. Humphreys' critical a, b, and Q/Q0values that are used in these "dating" equations are either missing, poorly defined, improperly measured or inaccurate. For example, he should stop picking and choosing from the obviously questionable data in Gentry et al. (1982a) and instead take several months to redo the analyses. Dr. Humphreys must further realize that the uranium and thorium data in Gentry et al. (1982b) indicate that his Q0 is far too low and that his Q/Q0values are probably inflated by at least an order of magnitude, which by themselves invalidate his YEC agenda. Rather than ignoring the problems or relying on invalid assumptions about the concentrations of 3He, 4He, uranium and thorium in his zircons, Dr. Humphreys actually needs to perform some detailed analyses similar to those in Gentry et al. (1982b). Extraordinary claims demand extensive and high quality data, which Dr. Humphreys currently doesn't have.

Contrary to claims in Humphreys (2006) that my November update is "rehashing" and has a lack of "substance", anyone can review the diagrams, tables and text in my update and realize that I have raised many new issues and properly reemphasized countless other critical problems in Dr. Humphreys' work, which he continues to unjustifiably belittle and ignore. Just as he did in Humphreys (2005), Dr. Humphreys in Humphreys (2006) believes that he can just read brief snippets of my detailed evaluations of his work, throw out some insults, try to trivialize his serious mistakes, repeat false claims, misrepresent critical details in the literature, invoke several irrelevant analogies, ignore the details, and then hope that his readers will just accept whatever he says and go away. Now, some individuals might accept this type of arm waving, the invoking of "God did it!", and the brushing off of serious criticisms, but real scientists and editors of scientific journals would not. Dr. Humphreys needs to overcome his denial and answer the questions, defend the details of his claims, and fully admit and correct his mistakes. To illustrate the long list of serious flaws in Dr. Humphreys' work, I have summarized some of the problems in my Appendix D.

Dr. Humphreys' work is a prime example of fallacious reasoning that YECs (e.g., Woodmorappe, 1999) falsely accuse geochronologists of using. Because his bogus calculations and inaccurate data just happened to spit out a meaningless number that he likes (6,000), Dr. Humphreys is more than willing to ignore and inappropriately dismiss any data or criticisms that expose the fraudulent nature of his "creation date."

If Dr. Humphreys really wants respect from scientists, he must actually publish something in an AUTHENTIC PEER-REVIEWED science journal and not just Sunday School materials (e.g., Humphreys, 2003) and YEC tabloids (e.g., Creation Research Society Quarterly [CRSQ]), where other RATE members and YEC officials will readily rubber stamp anything he says and suppress criticisms of his work (for example, not publishing or referencing the actual statements from an anonymous critic of Dr. Humphreys' work, which are referred to in Humphreys et al., 2004).

Furthermore, as for the original "paper" Humphreys is alleged to have published in the AGU, I'll note the impact of that paper by the utter lack of anyone in the scientific community talking about it ot referencing it.

Case closed.

I might also add that Humhpreys believes the universe is 60,000 years old (+ or - 400,000 years!!!), well out of proportion with what our dear Statler subscribes to, never mind that his error is 2 order of magnitudes out of whack from what any scientist would accept.