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

[Zazzy]

Well, since you brought it up, I have to ask, how is it possible that you, a molecular geneticist, can, with a straight face, claim fondness for Tomkins' work, declaring that "he does know what he’s talking about", and yet in nearly in the same sentence call his work "terribly unscientific", "absolutely and unremittingly terrible" and "not honest"?

After reading 4 papers by him, he knows a lot about genomes and how to study them- that much is clear. This makes his very bad work (as in the "chromosome fusion" paper) look very suspicious. Since he clearly knows what the evidence shows, such a terrible misrepresentation of it, along with evidence that claims what all evolutionary biologists have been saying (which renders it useless) and presenting this evidence selectively and disingenuously, can only mean he is deliberately lying (the other option would be that he is ignorant- and he has proven that he's not). Since his audience is going to consist largely of people who will be impressed by "sciency" language, he can get away with that, since I don't think he has many peers at his level of education to review his work.

The "chimp and human chromosomes" paper isn't VERY bad. It's just misrepresentative of others' work and has gaping holes in its study design. What he has done in it I believe he has done correctly- his evidence looks good to a layperson but is fairly meaningless as he has presented it. Still, there is a point of interest in the work itself, and I won't pretend there isn't.

It is absolutely possible to know a great deal about genomes and tell lies about them to other people. The work is a strange mix of correct terminology and selective but correct descriptions of our understanding of certain areas of chromosomes, combined with an utter disregard for facts he finds inconvenient. My fondness comes from the novelty of having a YEC speak my language.

[orogenicman]

Well, since you brought it up, I have to ask, how is it possible that you, a molecular geneticist, can, with a straight face, claim fondness for Tomkins' work, declaring that "he does know what he’s talking about", and yet in nearly in the same sentence call his work "terribly unscientific", "absolutely and unremittingly terrible" and "not honest"?

After reading 4 papers by him, he knows a lot about genomes and how to study them- that much is clear. This makes his very bad work (as in the "chromosome fusion" paper) look very suspicious. Since he clearly knows what the evidence shows, such a terrible misrepresentation of it, along with evidence that claims what all evolutionary biologists have been saying (which renders it useless) and presenting this evidence selectively and disingenuously, can only mean he is deliberately lying (the other option would be that he is ignorant- and he has proven that he's not). Since his audience is going to consist largely of people who will be impressed by "sciency" language, he can get away with that, since I don't think he has many peers at his level of education to review his work.

The "chimp and human chromosomes" paper isn't VERY bad. It's just misrepresentative of others' work and has gaping holes in its study design. What he has done in it I believe he has done correctly- his evidence looks good to a layperson but is fairly meaningless as he has presented it. Still, there is a point of interest in the work itself, and I won't pretend there isn't.

It is absolutely possible to know a great deal about genomes and tell lies about them to other people. The work is a strange mix of correct terminology and selective but correct descriptions of our understanding of certain areas of chromosomes, combined with an utter disregard for facts he finds inconvenient. My fondness comes from the novelty of having a YEC speak my language.

It is inexcusable for any scientist to misrepresent the work of another, much less their own work, no matter how informed they are about their field of study. To me, that makes his behavior unethical and should be subject to sanction.

[Zazzy]

It is inexcusable for any scientist to misrepresent the work of another, much less their own work, no matter how informed they are about their field of study.

Of course. This behavior is par for the course in the ID movement, so it's no shock to find it here. And he's doing it somewhat subtly here- for instance, claiming that degenerate telomere regions in a fused chromosome will be a big shock to evolutonary biologists, when in fact that's already a well-known (and expected) fact about this region of the chromosome.

I'm going to evaluate the science in these regardless of any dishonest tactics, though.

To me, that makes his behavior unethical and should be subject to sanction.

Who should sanction him, since he's not part of any system that could revoke his tenure? I don't know for sure, but I can guess that this journal does not have a lot of knowledgeable scientists on staff to peer-review him, so sanction by refusal to publish when he appears to be their only real geneticist would be unlikely.

The 2 papers I have read very well would never pass peer review for a scientific journal, and it's not because of bias against YEC.

If I appear to be blase about the dishonesty, I suppose it's because given my experience with ID creationists, I expected such behavior, and I don't think it much matters in the grand scheme of things. It will not impact any working scientists- it will just annoy them.

[orogenicman]

So, as long as nobody does or says anything about what these unethical people are doing, they are free to wreck the science, which is their purpose anyway. Are you alright with that?

[Zazzy]

So, as long as nobody does or says anything about what these unethical people are doing, they are free to wreck the science, which is their purpose anyway. Are you alright with that?

Well, I am saying something about it. What would you like me to do other than point it out and ask readers to think critically about it? I'm not going to pitch a hissy fit because some guy said some questionable stuff in a creationist mag on the internet.

What I'm going to do is point out errors- and strengths- and hopefully help any interested parties learn something about genomes and about reading papers about genomics.

And they're not wrecking science. They're not even a blip on most scientists' radars. They are expressing free speech in their own journals, which nobody but fundies (and me, apparently) read anyway. If their audience can be convinced by this stuff, then I am at a loss as to how to help them.

If you think I should be getting all aggrieved at Statler Waldorf, then we're going to disagree on that. He did what I asked him to do, and I have no illusions that I am going to change his mind. It's an interesting look into a different mindset for me, not a mission to change him.

[Statler Waldorf]

[Zen Badger]

Fuck off Statler, Romers discovery was the one way speed of light heading towards Earth.
Directly contradicting Lisles bullshit dressed up as science.
And all your lame attempts to say otherwise with crap like "conventions" are so much piss and wind.

[Esquilax]

Of course a secular journal would not publish these articles- they are too busy publishing the Piltdown man hoax, Hwang Woo-suk’s falsified data, and Jan Hendrik Schön’s falsified data and fraudulent work.

All of which, funnily enough, were found to be false and corrected by those same secular sources, and not theistic ones.

[The Valkyrie]

Thanks for the video.

I just can't resist commenting on the ignorance of creationists. Especially the YECS.

[Optimistic Mysanthrope]

What? How did you figure that?

If you knew that, then why present the argument you were presenting?

It's a moot point now. I was merely pointing out that your post would require all oceanic crust to have been generated during or after the Noachian flood. Since that is indeed what you claim, it's somewhat irrelevant now

The explanation behind redshifts would be the same, they are due to the expansion of the Universe and ASC does not change the Doppler Effect any.

Ok, but since the distance of a galaxy is calculated using "standard candles" and luminosity, the distance remains the same regardless of the convention employed. If the manner of calculating cosmological redshift is also the same, then it would appear that mature creation is a necessary conclusion. It would also seem to imply that galaxies were created in varying states of "maturity" that are inversely proportional to distance.

I suppose you could also posit that the galaxies underwent massively accelerated development during creation week, with those furthest away being created later (and subject to the same inverse proportionality) and thus subject to a shorter period of rapid development, but this would seem to conflict with the biblical account.

2) How come communication with the apollo mission, ISS, etc suffers from delay? Surely each transmission would arrive instantly in that convention?

We know that motion affects the passage of time, so the clocks aboard the Apollo vessel were not synchronized with clocks on Earth anymore; this is why we saw a delay according to the two clocks.

True, but if I've understood Lisle's paper on ASC correctly then time dilation is relative to position rather than speed. If this is the case, then surely the transmissions would still have been received almost instantaneously and would instead have been subject to a doppler shift.
It strikes me that a time dilation of such magnitude being caused by positional time dilation would be easily tested

I cannot get the links to open, could you post them again?

Apologies, I screwed up the tags. I'll try again:


Review of experiments to test the isotropy of the speed of light
K.C. Turner and H. A. Hill

We do not actually need that many instances of this to take place because there really are not many trees on Earth with more than 4,350 rings (I believe the oldest Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) had 4,723 rings); so you would only need about a century of the special climatic conditions needed to produce multiple rings. I actually think this is strong evidence confirming the Biblical timescale.

I think there was one found recently that is just over 5000 years old, but either way, those are just the trees that are still living. We also have samples from dead trees which I believe date back about 9000 years.

Rings are not just used to determine the age of tree, they give a lot of information regarding the history of the tree, the area in which it grew and the climactic conditions at that time, so any such period of special conditions should be easily identifiable.

The occurrence of double tree rings in bristlecone pines is very rare [Ferguson, 1968, p.840]. Missing rings occur far more often, so if anything, you're far more likely to get an age that is too young, rather than too old.

Let me see if I can find it.
http://creation.com/safety-investigation...n-a-seaway

Cheers I've had a look at the article, and I can see a few problems.

While the article looked into the arks ability to self-right, it didn't appear to take into account its stability in strong waves and winds. With a strong, side on wind in a rough sea, the ship will roll much harder. Without a method of propulsion, this is quite a problem.

It also didn't seem to account for the stresses and strains caused by twisting and rolling. With wooden ships this size, this puts incredible strain on the hull planks and creates gaps which let in water. 18th century wooden ships were no more than 2/3 of the size, had bilge pumps, much shorter voyage times and the opportunity to repair damage.

Another point worth baring in mind is that due to length, large enough waves would have left a large proportion of the ark suspended in mid-air, which isn't particularly desirably unless you want your ship turned into driftwood :p

Sure, is there actually a problem with this or do you just prefer a gradual deep time model for the same occurrence?

Aside from the massive impact forces involved in the collision of tectonic plates moving at those speeds? No problem at all. I don't really need any other problems.

Even if we allow the movement of the plates to be spread out over the entire year, the forces involved in the collision of tectonic plates at such speed would be......noticeable.

Evidence? Not for flood legends and the bible, obviously.

Why do you discount those? We’d expect flood legends if a global event took place (and we have them). I also think it is important that a creation model is compatible with the Biblical text.

I meant that we don't need evidence for the existence of the bible and other flood legends, we can be pretty sure that they exist