(June 21, 2014 at 8:31 pm)Heywood Wrote:(June 21, 2014 at 7:54 pm)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: Is that contradictory to what I said? It appears to be constant through a homogenous medium. Those that make positive claims otherwise need to show their work - and they'll need to propose a falsifiable mechanism by which it could be so.
To show their work requires a vast amount of time. We simply haven't had enough time in which we knew how to measure the speed of light to make such a determination. 100,000 years from now we will be in a much better position to claim the speed of light is constant over time(if it turns out that it is).
I would submit, that this being the case, that one should not make truth claims regarding said incomplete information.
And really, by "show their work", what I mean is to show what led them to prefer a particular interpretation of the evidence over another, besides wish-thinking. In the absence of observation the suggest that the speed of light is not isotropic, I believe that the principle of parsimony suggests that a constant speed of light is the only reasonable assumption to make. Should we remain open to alternative explanations? If and when there is observational data to support them, yes, we should be open to examine such data.
However, I will also say this - though my mind remains open, the concept of a very young universe (and earth) as put forth by young earthers remains ludicrous.
