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

[Statler Waldorf]

If the entire point of creation was to bring along a guy to fix it, then it was created to be intentionally flawed.

That’s the point of creation, yes. Did you think that it was just a science experiment that got out of hand for an omnipotent being? That’s funny.

Your statement demonstrates what has been obvious to all of us for a long time: Christian salvation is a fraud, a spiritual protection racket.

How would that make it a fraud? You’re good at non-sequiturs; unfortunately that is not something you really want to be good at.

Dolphins 34 Steelers 28

Using the standard Lorentz Contraction, Clock 1 experiences a RTF of 1.0000000004447147 for 2 hours. Clock 2 experiences a RTF of 1.0000000001111786 for 4 hours.

So clock 2 maybe travelling for twice the amount of time, but it is subject to a quarter of the contraction. Under ASC, they have travelled the same distance and should be subject to the same RTF. This should be demonstrable.

Interesting. I still think we are missing a few pieces of information or understanding here.

True, but what happened to them in the meantime? Were they stuck in hell until the crucifixition? Or purgatory? Or was it a case of cause coming before effect and they were already saved because of an event that would happen in the future?

I believe their souls go to Heaven immediately after death and they reign with Christ there until they are reunited with their new glorified bodies in order to inhabit the new Earth after Christ’s second coming. Right now my grandfather is reigning with Christ and kicking it with Moses, John the Baptist, King David and Elijah in Heaven. : )

Warped one,

Who?

if the speed of light is not a constant, what do you think that does for all the astronomical discoveries made in the last 100 years? What does it do for the Hubble constant, the expanding universe, the fact that other galaxies are not a part of our own? The constancy of the speed of light made all these discoveries possible.

No, the consistency of the round-trip speed of light made all of those discoveries possible. Nobody here is arguing that the round-trip speed of light is not constant.

Since you don't believe that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant, how do you fit 100 billion galaxies inside our own? Or do you own some magical ruler that somehow shrinks when exposed to the Bible?

I have no idea what you are talking about here. The round-trip speed of light in a vacuum is constant.

But if the earth is less than 10,000 years old, then the one way speed of light stops being a convention. The objection to ESC that Lisle raised in regard to a young earth was that a galaxy 13 billion light years away would have a 2.6 million year variation in age depending on the time of year. There isn't just a problem for creation week, according to YEC, we should still see some galaxies popping in and out of existence every 6 months when we stipulate ESC. Either the light has reached us or it hasn't and it is ludicrous to say that whether or not we can detect light from a distant galaxy is dependant on what you stipulate the one way speed of light to be. To my knowledge, disappearing/reappearing galaxies have yet to be reported, so either isotropy is non-conventional and ASC is empirically correct or the earth is much older than 10,000 years.

What Lisle was doing there was presenting evidence that Genesis is using ASC to describe the events of creation week because you could not do so using ESC. However, Humphreys and Hartnett both have cosmologies that can account for why we see distant starlight even under ESC (and would explain why galaxies do not appear and reappear); so the Earth could still be young and Genesis could still be using ESC if their cosmologies are accurate. I merely prefer Lisle’s because it is simple.

I guess that makes sense, but the amount of time dilation experienced is still dependant on the duration of the difference in relative velocity and acceleration alone doesn't account for that. Likewise, in ASC the amount of time dilation experienced would be dependant on the duration of the difference in position.

So this would mean that your proposed experiment would not demonstrate whether one was valid over the other?

I was thinking about this again and it reminded me of the formula for kinetic energy: Ek=1/2mv^2

So if time is relative to position rather than velocity, this means that velocity is also subject to Lorentz Contraction and should therefore require less energy than predicted by ESC.

I think it would depend on what your stipulated coordinate system was and where you were measuring time at.

I don't think it would have created utter confusion, how is it confusing to know that the earth orbits the sun or that the universe was in existence for at least 13.7 billion years before humanity? Considering some of the things that are written in the old testament, I doubt it would have raised an eyebrow.

I think there is a reason meteorologists still use the terms sunrise and sunset. It is far less confusing than trying to describe such events from the Sun’s perspective.

I mean I don't find it confusing at all, I just find it somewhat odd that it took so long for us to turn up if we're so damn special. On the other hand, it would lend great credence to the veracity of biblical claims if such information was written down before humanity had even invented the telescope!

Well this is where a distinction needs to be made between ASC and the ASC model. Lisle does give evidence as to why he believes the Universe is not billions of years old towards the end of the paper. It’s kind of a two pronged approach, why distant starlight cannot be used to contradict the Biblical timetable and what evidence actually supports the Biblical timetable.

Even if the Bible did make such statements about the Universe prior to the telescope people would not believe it. We find evidence all the time that seems to confirm a Biblical record but it is always simply waived off or a rescue mechanism is invoked.

How does it make sense to describe the passage of light from the perspective of something that has yet to be created? Doesn't it make more sense to describe events from the perspective of the creator? After all, humans were the last thing to be created on the last day of creation, so it would make no difference to them if the previous “days” were literal, relative or figurative.

It’s not describing the passage of light from the perspective of something not yet created because the Earth is created on Day 1 while the Stars are created on Day 4.

If Lisle assumes that the timing of creation “week” is relative to the perspective of humanity, why not also assume that descriptions of the Noachian deluge were written from the local perspective and that it was the known world which flooded rather than an actual global flood?

I would not say from the perspective of humanity, I would say from the perspective of Earth. As for the local flood theory it has some problems. A flood that covers the “highest mountain tops” is not going to remain local. Secondly, a local flood would not accomplish the goal of the flood (to destroy all flesh). God promises never to do it again, if this is a local flood he has broken that promise numerous times. Lastly, God’s covenant after the flood was with the entire globe.

[orogenicman]

Warped one,

Who?

I think you know who.

if the speed of light is not a constant, what do you think that does for all the astronomical discoveries made in the last 100 years? What does it do for the Hubble constant, the expanding universe, the fact that other galaxies are not a part of our own? The constancy of the speed of light made all these discoveries possible.

No, the consistency of the round-trip speed of light made all of those discoveries possible. Nobody here is arguing that the round-trip speed of light is not constant.

You have been arguing for a young universe (or Earth, whatever) based on your interpretation that the speed of light (one-way, whatever) is not a constant. Here you are admitting that the velocity of light (be it two-way, or whatever - what we use in equations determining the standard candle) is a constant in a vacuum. This is an important admission since you cannot make this admission and then come to the conclusion that the universe is young. Hence my statement below:

Since you don't believe that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant, how do you fit 100 billion galaxies inside our own? Or do you own some magical ruler that somehow shrinks when exposed to the Bible?

I have no idea what you are talking about here. The round-trip speed of light in a vacuum is constant.

So you are saying that you admit that the universe cannot be young. Is this a breakthrough? Or what? Do you want to rephrase your earlier bullshite statements, or what?

[Optimistic Mysanthrope]

Using the standard Lorentz Contraction, Clock 1 experiences a RTF of 1.0000000004447147 for 2 hours. Clock 2 experiences a RTF of 1.0000000001111786 for 4 hours.

So clock 2 maybe travelling for twice the amount of time, but it is subject to a quarter of the contraction. Under ASC, they have travelled the same distance and should be subject to the same RTF. This should be demonstrable.

Interesting. I still think we are missing a few pieces of information or understanding here.

Such as?

But if the earth is less than 10,000 years old, then the one way speed of light stops being a convention. The objection to ESC that Lisle raised in regard to a young earth was that a galaxy 13 billion light years away would have a 2.6 million year variation in age depending on the time of year. There isn't just a problem for creation week, according to YEC, we should still see some galaxies popping in and out of existence every 6 months when we stipulate ESC. Either the light has reached us or it hasn't and it is ludicrous to say that whether or not we can detect light from a distant galaxy is dependant on what you stipulate the one way speed of light to be. To my knowledge, disappearing/reappearing galaxies have yet to be reported, so either isotropy is non-conventional and ASC is empirically correct or the earth is much older than 10,000 years.

What Lisle was doing there was presenting evidence that Genesis is using ASC to describe the events of creation week because you could not do so using ESC. However, Humphreys and Hartnett both have cosmologies that can account for why we see distant starlight even under ESC (and would explain why galaxies do not appear and reappear); so the Earth could still be young and Genesis could still be using ESC if their cosmologies are accurate. I merely prefer Lisle’s because it is simple.

Yeah, I get that. But it doesn't change the fact that if the world is less then 2.6 million years old, then Lisle's model predicts we should still be able to witness these "peekaboo" galaxies (not to mention seasonal doppler shifts, etc..) that are the very reason that he rejects ESC in the first place. It appears to be a necessary consequence of his argument (whether he realises it or not) that the accuracy of the biblical depiction of creation is subject to convention and can be stipulated. That would amount to saying that Genesis 1 is absolutely accurate - as long as you interpret it correctly.

I guess that makes sense, but the amount of time dilation experienced is still dependant on the duration of the difference in relative velocity and acceleration alone doesn't account for that. Likewise, in ASC the amount of time dilation experienced would be dependant on the duration of the difference in position.

So this would mean that your proposed experiment would not demonstrate whether one was valid over the other?

On the contrary, the over-riding factor is still the duration of the alternate reference frame. Unless you're saying the positional time dilation is also subject to the rate of change, but that sounds rather like a change in relative velocity

I was thinking about this again and it reminded me of the formula for kinetic energy: Ek=1/2mv^2

So if time is relative to position rather than velocity, this means that velocity is also subject to Lorentz Contraction and should therefore require less energy than predicted by ESC.

I think it would depend on what your stipulated coordinate system was and where you were measuring time at.

Well a vehicle will use up the same amount of fuel for a given velocity regardless. All you have to do is compare the actual fuel consumption of the vehicle with that predicted from the position of an observer.

I don't think it would have created utter confusion, how is it confusing to know that the earth orbits the sun or that the universe was in existence for at least 13.7 billion years before humanity? Considering some of the things that are written in the old testament, I doubt it would have raised an eyebrow.

I think there is a reason meteorologists still use the terms sunrise and sunset. It is far less confusing than trying to describe such events from the Sun’s perspective.

True, but meteorologists aren't saying that the rising and setting of the sun is an objective fact. I've never heard anyone claim that the solar system must be geocentric because of the weather forecast. I'm unaware of anyone being declared apostate because they disagree with the weather forecast. The biblical account of creation is taken to be objective, inerrant fact.

Even if the Bible did make such statements about the Universe prior to the telescope people would not believe it./quote]
Why not? It's the inerrant word of god! Are you suggesting that god's loyal followers would dismiss a biblical claim merely because they hadn't witnessed it themselves?

We find evidence all the time that seems to confirm a Biblical record but it is always simply waived off or a rescue mechanism is invoked.

Evidence such as? I've seen creationists attempt to discredit evidence of an old earth/universe, but what positive evidence is there for a young earth/universe?

How does it make sense to describe the passage of light from the perspective of something that has yet to be created? Doesn't it make more sense to describe events from the perspective of the creator? After all, humans were the last thing to be created on the last day of creation, so it would make no difference to them if the previous “days” were literal, relative or figurative.

It’s not describing the passage of light from the perspective of something not yet created because the Earth is created on Day 1 while the Stars are created on Day 4.

I was referring to the humans.

[quote='Optimistic Mysanthrope' pid='557339' dateline='1386425384'] If Lisle assumes that the timing of creation “week” is relative to the perspective of humanity, why not also assume that descriptions of the Noachian deluge were written from the local perspective and that it was the known world which flooded rather than an actual global flood?

I would not say from the perspective of humanity, I would say from the perspective of Earth. As for the local flood theory it has some problems. A flood that covers the “highest mountain tops” is not going to remain local. Secondly, a local flood would not accomplish the goal of the flood (to destroy all flesh). God promises never to do it again, if this is a local flood he has broken that promise numerous times. Lastly, God’s covenant after the flood was with the entire globe.

Well that of course assumes that the biblical account is inerrant. If that's the case, then in addition all my previous objections, why do the flood stories from different cultures mention different survivors? Did god kill everyone (except noah & friends) or not? Why do some flood myths mention people retreating to mountains in order to survive? These other floods myths are often used as evidence of the noachian flood, but if other people survived it then the biblical account is wrong. If you don't think these other global floods actually happened then they can't be used to back up the biblical claim and you then have to show why those floods can be dismissed while the noachian flood is to be taken as fact.

If, on the other hand, these other myths are referring to different floods, then why does the bible not tell about these other global floods? If they occured but were not the noachian flood then the biblical account is wrong - unless of course god lied.

[Statler Waldorf]

I think you know who.

Seems rather childish to me.

You have been arguing for a young universe (or Earth, whatever) based on your interpretation that the speed of light (one-way, whatever) is not a constant.

No, I argue for a young Earth based on what scripture tells us. I am merely pointing out that the fact that we can see stars cannot be used to argue against that timeline.

Here you are admitting that the velocity of light (be it two-way, or whatever - what we use in equations determining the standard candle) is a constant in a vacuum. This is an important admission since you cannot make this admission and then come to the conclusion that the universe is young. Hence my statement below:

Not the velocity the speed, the velocity changes in the two-way speed of light experiments. I am not sure what you are getting at. Standard candles are used to determine distance not age.

So you are saying that you admit that the universe cannot be young. Is this a breakthrough? Or what? Do you want to rephrase your earlier bullshite statements, or what?

Again, you seem to be conflating distance with age. Nothing you have mentioned would be unexpected in an young created Universe.

Such as?

Well if it really is dependent upon how long the clock is at the different position then your experiment would not detect a difference between the two systems. Not only this, but the dilation could be due to the changing of initial frames rather than velocity or position.

Yeah, I get that. But it doesn't change the fact that if the world is less then 2.6 million years old, then Lisle's model predicts we should still be able to witness these "peekaboo" galaxies (not to mention seasonal doppler shifts, etc..) that are the very reason that he rejects ESC in the first place. It appears to be a necessary consequence of his argument (whether he realises it or not) that the accuracy of the biblical depiction of creation is subject to convention and can be stipulated. That would amount to saying that Genesis 1 is absolutely accurate - as long as you interpret it correctly.

At the same time, if the Universe is 14 billion years old we should be seeing anything that is farther than 14.026 billion light years away pop in and out of view every six months if ESC is stipulated and we do not observe this to happen to the best of my knowledge. It really is the conventionality of simultaneity; we stipulate how we consider events to be simultaneous.

On the contrary, the over-riding factor is still the duration of the alternate reference frame. Unless you're saying the positional time dilation is also subject to the rate of change, but that sounds rather like a change in relative velocity

No I am saying that since the second clock is taking more time the duration that it undergoes positional dilation is greater than the first clock’s duration. I may try to write AIG and ask them this question because I am intrigued now.

True, but meteorologists aren't saying that the rising and setting of the sun is an objective fact. I've never heard anyone claim that the solar system must be geocentric because of the weather forecast. I'm unaware of anyone being declared apostate because they disagree with the weather forecast. The biblical account of creation is taken to be objective, inerrant fact.

I am not aware of anyone who argues for this. The Bible can be inherent and still use such language. Given the fact that absolute motion does not exist I think it is unfounded to suggest the Bible is somehow wrong by using such language.

Why not? It's the inerrant word of god! Are you suggesting that god's loyal followers would dismiss a biblical claim merely because they hadn't witnessed it themselves?

Sorry, I was referring to unbelievers, not believers. Nobody would be persuaded by it is what I meant.

Evidence such as? I've seen creationists attempt to discredit evidence of an old earth/universe, but what positive evidence is there for a young earth/universe?

I’ll give you an example. If you had argued in the late 1980s that it would be possible to find soft tissue and proteins in dinosaur fossils you would have been laughed out of the room. The fact that we had never found any such thing was considered strong evidence supporting the notion that dinosaur fossils were millions of years old. Based on the empirical evidence such tissue degraded far too quickly to ever be found in fossils older than a million years. Then in the mid-1990s surprise! Soft tissue and proteins were found in dinosaur fossils. Not only this, but now it seems that they are found whenever we actually look for them. Rather than arriving at the obvious conclusion (such fossils must be younger than a million years old) the old Earth community simply said, “Well I guess DNA can last for 65 million years.” They can always come up with an ad hoc means of saving their paradigm.

I was referring to the humans.

I think Genesis merely describes things from the perspective of where the Humans live.

Well that of course assumes that the biblical account is inerrant. If that's the case, then in addition all my previous objections, why do the flood stories from different cultures mention different survivors? Did god kill everyone (except noah & friends) or not? Why do some flood myths mention people retreating to mountains in order to survive? These other floods myths are often used as evidence of the noachian flood, but if other people survived it then the biblical account is wrong. If you don't think these other global floods actually happened then they can't be used to back up the biblical claim and you then have to show why those floods can be dismissed while the noachian flood is to be taken as fact.

These people are all descendants of the eight survivors of the Genesis flood. What you are seeing are corrupted accounts of the same event. Since these accounts were not divinely preserved unlike the account in Genesis we would expect differences because people change stories as they pass them down. I will give you an example. After the Titanic incident there were people who swore the boat broke into two pieces while in the process of sinking. There were other people who swore that the boat stayed intact all the way down (we know the ship broke we just do not know when). Now this is a huge discrepancy seen in people who experienced the event themselves. Now compare this with people 20 generations out from an event and you’d expect great differences in the stories. There are some very significant similarities in the flood accounts though. One of the Australian accounts is very similar to the Genesis account (Gajara was told to build a vessel for himself, his wife, his sons and their wives. The flood covered the highest mountain tops. He released birds to see when land was available. They made an offering to God after the flood. God placed a rainbow in the sky to prevent future flooding.); yet aborigines are supposed to have been isolated as a people group for a very long period of time.

If, on the other hand, these other myths are referring to different floods, then why does the bible not tell about these other global floods? If they occured but were not the noachian flood then the biblical account is wrong - unless of course god lied.

People are fallible and therefore stories change as they are passed down.

---

OM,

I submitted a letter to AIG asking about your proposed experiment. I have had very good luck in the past getting responses from them so let's hope!

-SW

[orogenicman]

I think you know who.

Seems rather childish to me.

It is what it is.

You have been arguing for a young universe (or Earth, whatever) based on your interpretation that the speed of light (one-way, whatever) is not a constant.

No, I argue for a young Earth based on what scripture tells us. I am merely pointing out that the fact that we can see stars cannot be used to argue against that timeline.

It is not the fact that we can see stars that is used against your timeline. It is the fact that we can determine the distance to those stars based on the standard candle and other techniques, and the fact that those distances tell us a lot about the age of the universe that actually blows your 3,000 year old Bedouin timeline out of contention. Moreover, it is certainly not the only evidence that does this, as you well know. Denying what every real scientist on the planet (and even many clergy as well) recognizes merely for the sake of keeping your own damned delusions alive is, frankly, rather stupid.

Here you are admitting that the velocity of light (be it two-way, or whatever - what we use in equations determining the standard candle) is a constant in a vacuum. This is an important admission since you cannot make this admission and then come to the conclusion that the universe is young. Hence my statement below:

Not the velocity the speed, the velocity changes in the two-way speed of light experiments. I am not sure what you are getting at. Standard candles are used to determine distance not age.

The velocity of light in a vacuum is a constant, warped one. This is not an ambiguous statement. It is a statement of fact. Standard candles are used to determine the distance to astronomical objects such as stars and galaxies. They are measured in parsecs and also in LIGHT YEARS. The distance, based on these measurements, from one end to the other of our own galaxy is 100,000 light years, which means it takes light 100,000 years to reach from one end to the other. This measurement alone refutes your Bedouin timeline by an order of magnitude. And that is just the diameter of our galaxy, which is one of over 100 billion galaxies that exist in the universe. The KNOWN age of the universe, based on these measurements is 13.7 billion years. This is also not an ambiguous finding.

So you are saying that you admit that the universe cannot be young. Is this a breakthrough? Or what? Do you want to rephrase your earlier bullshite statements, or what?

Again, you seem to be conflating distance with age. Nothing you have mentioned would be unexpected in an young created Universe.

No sir, I am not. The distance that light travels in a year is used as a ruler to determine not only the size of the universe, but its age. You would have to be very poorly educated (or willfully ignorant) not to be able to solve for time from the units of measure used in these equations (such as m/s, or light year). As for your last statement, above, I have yet to see you demonstrate how you get a 10,000 year old universe out of evidence for a 13.7 billion year old universe. I know why you haven't, but I want to hear it from you.

[Anomalocaris]

I think when a man refers to bible as "the scripture", he stops being a man. He is more of a mere pile of puss with ability to echo words.

[Optimistic Mysanthrope]

Such as?

Well if it really is dependent upon how long the clock is at the different position then your experiment would not detect a difference between the two systems.

Well, this is exactly what would be tested.

Not only this, but the dilation could be due to the changing of initial frames rather than velocity or position.

True, but the level of disparity between the clocks (if any) should give a good starting point for further investigation.

Yeah, I get that. But it doesn't change the fact that if the world is less then 2.6 million years old, then Lisle's model predicts we should still be able to witness these "peekaboo" galaxies (not to mention seasonal doppler shifts, etc..) that are the very reason that he rejects ESC in the first place. It appears to be a necessary consequence of his argument (whether he realises it or not) that the accuracy of the biblical depiction of creation is subject to convention and can be stipulated. That would amount to saying that Genesis 1 is absolutely accurate - as long as you interpret it correctly.

At the same time, if the Universe is 14 billion years old we should be seeing anything that is farther than 14.026 billion light years away pop in and out of view every six months if ESC is stipulated and we do not observe this to happen to the best of my knowledge. It really is the conventionality of simultaneity; we stipulate how we consider events to be simultaneous.

AFAIK, the oldest known galaxy dates from 700 million years after the big bang and stars aren't estimated to have formed until about 200 million years after the big bang, so I'm not sure we can even expect to witness such a phenomena under ESC.

On the contrary, the over-riding factor is still the duration of the alternate reference frame. Unless you're saying the positional time dilation is also subject to the rate of change, but that sounds rather like a change in relative velocity

No I am saying that since the second clock is taking more time the duration that it undergoes positional dilation is greater than the first clock’s duration. I may try to write AIG and ask them this question because I am intrigued now.

In the example given, Clock 2 is travelling at half the speed of Clock 1, but the RTF experienced by Clock 2 is qpprox. a quarter of that experienced by clock 1. So even though Clock 2 is travelling for twice as long, it still only suffers approx. half the time dilation overall. Obviously, Clock 2 travelling for twice as long and suffering half the time dilation is just a quirk of the example given - at higher speeds the difference is much more pronounced.

E.g. If clock 1 travels at .96 c and Clock 2 travels at 0.48 c, Clock 2 still has twice the travel time but Clock 1 experiences more than 3x the RTF (Clock 1 = 3.5714 and Clock 2 = 1.1399)

Sorry, I was referring to unbelievers, not believers. Nobody would be persuaded by it is what I meant.

Ah, that makes much more sense Well, it might not necessarily be a slam dunk, but it would certainly be worthy of note!

I’ll give you an example. If you had argued in the late 1980s that it would be possible to find soft tissue and proteins in dinosaur fossils you would have been laughed out of the room. The fact that we had never found any such thing was considered strong evidence supporting the notion that dinosaur fossils were millions of years old. Based on the empirical evidence such tissue degraded far too quickly to ever be found in fossils older than a million years. Then in the mid-1990s surprise! Soft tissue and proteins were found in dinosaur fossils. Not only this, but now it seems that they are found whenever we actually look for them. Rather than arriving at the obvious conclusion (such fossils must be younger than a million years old) the old Earth community simply said, “Well I guess DNA can last for 65 million years.” They can always come up with an ad hoc means of saving their paradigm.

But is that the obvious conclusion? Would it really be rational to discard all the other data which has been repeatedly and independently verified? Is it more likely that everything science has learned about the relevant the disciplines, or that current scientific knowledge of cellular degradation is incomplete? If dinosaur fossils were less than 10,000 years old than obtaining tissue samples would be relatively common rather than a revolutionary discovery.

Actually, my work doesn't say anything at all about the age of the Earth. As a scientist I can only speak to the data that exist. Having reviewed a great deal of data from many different disciplines, I see no reason at all to doubt the general scientific consensus that the Earth is about five or six billion years old. We deal with testable hypotheses in science, and many of the arguments made for a young Earth are not testable, nor is there any valid data to support a young Earth that stands up to peer review or scientific scrutiny. However, the fields of geology, nuclear physics, astronomy, paleontology, genetics, and evolutionary biology all speak to an ancient Earth. Our discoveries may make people reevaluate the longevity of molecules and the presumed pathways of molecular degradation, but they do not really deal at all with the age of the Earth.

(Source: http://http://www.pbs.org/wg...ml)

Until further investigation has been completed it's premature to make assumptions one way or the other, but the other data certainly seems to support current thinking.

These people are all descendants of the eight survivors of the Genesis flood. What you are seeing are corrupted accounts of the same event. Since these accounts were not divinely preserved unlike the account in Genesis we would expect differences because people change stories as they pass them down. I will give you an example. After the Titanic incident there were people who swore the boat broke into two pieces while in the process of sinking. There were other people who swore that the boat stayed intact all the way down (we know the ship broke we just do not know when). Now this is a huge discrepancy seen in people who experienced the event themselves. Now compare this with people 20 generations out from an event and you’d expect great differences in the stories. There are some very significant similarities in the flood accounts though. One of the Australian accounts is very similar to the Genesis account (Gajara was told to build a vessel for himself, his wife, his sons and their wives. The flood covered the highest mountain tops. He released birds to see when land was available. They made an offering to God after the flood. God placed a rainbow in the sky to prevent future flooding.); yet aborigines are supposed to have been isolated as a people group for a very long period of time.

I agree that stories get distorted over time. The example flood myth you gave is interesting, mainly because I can't seem to find any reference to it other than creationist websites. A lot of the myths involves survivors reaching high ground rather using a boat or raft. The only that these multiple myths really show is that many areas have been flooded.

OM,

I submitted a letter to AIG asking about your proposed experiment. I have had very good luck in the past getting responses from them so let's hope!

-SW

Cool, it'd be interesting to know what they say

[Statler Waldorf]

It is what it is.

I consider the source.

It is not the fact that we can see stars that is used against your timeline.

Really? I have seen this argument raised dozens of times on this forum alone.

It is the fact that we can determine the distance to those stars based on the standard candle and other techniques, and the fact that those distances tell us a lot about the age of the universe that actually blows your 3,000 year old Bedouin timeline out of contention.

Well it’s actually 6,000 years and the fact that an object is far away does not mean it is old. Talk about a non-sequitur.

Moreover, it is certainly not the only evidence that does this, as you well know.

Sure, and we have counter-explanations for such evidence as well, as I am sure you well know.

Denying what every real scientist on the planet (and even many clergy as well) recognizes merely for the sake of keeping your own damned delusions alive is, frankly, rather stupid.

Pretending that scientific facts are somehow determined by majority or consensus opinion is well…stupid.

The velocity of light in a vacuum is a constant, warped one.

You see! Here is where you insist on displaying your ignorance. Velocity is a vector quantity. This means it has a directional component so even if the speed of an object is constant but it changes direction the velocity changes. If I bounce light off of a mirror its velocity changes because its direction of travel changes. The fact that you would even attempt to discuss the speed of light while being ignorant of the difference between velocity and speed is nothing short of mind-blowing.

This is not an ambiguous statement. It is a statement of fact.

Perhaps by someone who does not know the difference between velocity and speed. Nobody argues that the velocity of light is a constant.

Standard candles are used to determine the distance to astronomical objects such as stars and galaxies.

Yup.

They are measured in parsecs and also in LIGHT YEARS. The distance, based on these measurements, from one end to the other of our own galaxy is 100,000 light years, which means it takes light 100,000 years to reach from one end to the other.

Based on the round-trip speed of light. We have no way of knowing how long it takes light to reach one end from the other on a one-way journey. I am sorry, that is just a fact.

This measurement alone refutes your Bedouin timeline by an order of magnitude.

No, it does not.

The KNOWN age of the universe, based on these measurements is 13.7 billion years.

Only if the one-way speed of light towards the observer is c, which we have no way of knowing. You cannot claim we know something if it depends on something that is by definition unknowable.

No sir, I am not. The distance that light travels in a year is used as a ruler to determine not only the size of the universe, but its age.

Only if you assume it travels towards us at c, which there is no way to demonstrate that it does.

You would have to be very poorly educated (or willfully ignorant) not to be able to solve for time from the units of measure used in these equations (such as m/s, or light year).

How poorly educated would a person have to be not to know the difference between velocity and speed? Just curious. Those are units, not equations by the way.

As for your last statement, above, I have yet to see you demonstrate how you get a 10,000 year old universe out of evidence for a 13.7 billion year old universe. I know why you haven't, but I want to hear it from you.

Do you even bother reading what is posted on here? I am beginning to doubt that you actually do.

I think when a man refers to bible as "the scripture", he stops being a man. He is more of a mere pile of puss with ability to echo words.

Where did anyone use the term “the scripture”?

AFAIK, the oldest known galaxy dates from 700 million years after the big bang and stars aren't estimated to have formed until about 200 million years after the big bang, so I'm not sure we can even expect to witness such a phenomena under ESC.

I think you’d still expect to see a change in the age of stars depending on which part of its orbital cycle the Earth was in. This is really counter-intuitive stuff.

But is that the obvious conclusion? Would it really be rational to discard all the other data which has been repeatedly and independently verified? Is it more likely that everything science has learned about the relevant the disciplines, or that current scientific knowledge of cellular degradation is incomplete? If dinosaur fossils were less than 10,000 years old than obtaining tissue samples would be relatively common rather than a revolutionary discovery.

Well in science it is important to always value what we know through empirical means over what we infer occurred in the past. We know that the rates of cellular and biotic degeneration are far too great to ever last for 65 million years. So if we find such material in fossils that we inferred were 65 million years old we need to have the intellectual honesty to admit that we were wrong. They actually do find it now all the time, they had just never really looked very closely because they knew they’d not find any. It was interesting; at the time many scientists vehemently argued that what they were finding was not soft tissue and proteins because they knew the implications of this. Now since the evidence is overwhelming they merely argue that soft tissue and proteins can last that long. Think about that though, they believe that DNA sequences can survive intact for 65 million years…even though it’s hard to retrieve a significant amount of DNA from remains that they know are a few thousand years old. This would be like a person claiming that they were 1.9 million years old and everyone believing them even though the empirical data suggest people cannot live much past 100 today.

Actually, my work doesn't say anything at all about the age of the Earth. As a scientist I can only speak to the data that exist. Having reviewed a great deal of data from many different disciplines, I see no reason at all to doubt the general scientific consensus that the Earth is about five or six billion years old. We deal with testable hypotheses in science, and many of the arguments made for a young Earth are not testable, nor is there any valid data to support a young Earth that stands up to peer review or scientific scrutiny. However, the fields of geology, nuclear physics, astronomy, paleontology, genetics, and evolutionary biology all speak to an ancient Earth. Our discoveries may make people reevaluate the longevity of molecules and the presumed pathways of molecular degradation, but they do not really deal at all with the age of the Earth.

Exactly! That’s my entire point. Here’s the very scientist who discovered the soft tissue. She is so married to the paradigm that she will not divorce herself from it no matter how compelling the evidence is. She is being rather disingenuous though, if this was not strong evidence contradicting the accepted biological timeline then how come she did the tests 17 times to ensure she actually was seeing what she thought she was seeing? Why did she receive so much resistance from her colleagues? As a side note, the soft tissue does not tell us how old the Earth is, but it certainly does give us a strong suggestion of how old those dinosaur fossils are.

I agree that stories get distorted over time. The example flood myth you gave is interesting, mainly because I can't seem to find any reference to it other than creationist websites. A lot of the myths involves survivors reaching high ground rather using a boat or raft. The only that these multiple myths really show is that many areas have been flooded.

Areas are flooded quite often, but these flood legends seem to all describe one single cataclysmic event which does not seem to be consistent with localized flooding that occurs every generation or so.
Here’s the article I was referencing by Howard Coates…

http://creation.com/aboriginal-flood-legend

Cool, it'd be interesting to know what they say

I got a response! Seems that I had it backwards, apparently the one-way speed of light affects time dilation. They sent me a response that Dr. Lisle had to a similar experiment, but in this experiment distance is the variable and clock transport speed is the constant. I think his response does clear things up though, under ASC clocks would tick at different rates when moving different directions relative to the observer.

“Hi [My Name], thank you for contacting Answers in Genesis

In regards to your synchronizing clocks question, Dr. Lisle, before he left AiG for ICR in December 2011 wrote a response, which I will include below:

“It's a good thought experiment. And many similar ones have been thought of. But they all have a subtle flaw. In this case, it is assumed that the clocks will experience equal time dilation if they are moved at equal speeds but in opposite directions. That is only true if the speed of light is isotropic, because time dilation depends upon the speed of light. So, if the speed of light is different in different directions, then the clocks will experience different time dilations, even if they are moved at the same speed.
Also, a signal sent from the central position will travel at different speeds in the two directions if the speed of light is different in different directions. So, the clocks will not necessarily be synchronized when a signal is sent from the original central position.
-Dr. Jason Lisle”




Sincerely,


Troy Lacey
Answers in Genesis
PO Box 510
Hebron, KY 41048”

[orogenicman]

It is what it is.

I consider the source.

It is not the fact that we can see stars that is used against your timeline.

Really? I have seen this argument raised dozens of times on this forum alone.

Can you give us an example?

It is the fact that we can determine the distance to those stars based on the standard candle and other techniques, and the fact that those distances tell us a lot about the age of the universe that actually blows your 3,000 year old Bedouin timeline out of contention.

Well it’s actually 6,000 years and the fact that an object is far away does not mean it is old. Talk about a non-sequitur.

Some creationists believe it is 6,000 years (i.e., Bishop Uusherites), while others believe it is 10,000 years old. Still other creationists concede that it is much older. The fact remains that there is no scientific evidence to back up any of these claims. The fact that an object is far away does not mean that it is old. This is true. For instance, the fact that a star is one light year away doesn't mean that it is only one year old. However, an object that is 13 billion light years away means that the light we see from that object left on its journey to us 13 billion years ago, and that means that the universe in which it was formed cannot be less than 13 billion years old. So no, it is not a non-sequitur.

Moreover, it is certainly not the only evidence that does this, as you well know.

Sure, and we have counter-explanations for such evidence as well, as I am sure you well know.

None of which have withstood scientific scrutiny. Next.

Denying what every real scientist on the planet (and even many clergy as well) recognizes merely for the sake of keeping your own damned delusions alive is, frankly, rather stupid.

Pretending that scientific facts are somehow determined by majority or consensus opinion is well…stupid.

That WOULD be stupid, but that isn't how it works. Scientific facts determine what the consensus is. And the consensus is that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, while the Earth is at least 4.56 billion years old. That consensus is based on the scientifically determined facts.

The velocity of light in a vacuum is a constant, warped one.

You see! Here is where you insist on displaying your ignorance. Velocity is a vector quantity. This means it has a directional component so even if the speed of an object is constant but it changes direction the velocity changes. If I bounce light off of a mirror its velocity changes because its direction of travel changes. The fact that you would even attempt to discuss the speed of light while being ignorant of the difference between velocity and speed is nothing short of mind-blowing

I'll assume you're talking about Galilean principle of relativity whereby the velocities transform by pure addition. This concept breaks down when the speeds one is dealing with are very large. Speed of light is an extreme case of such speed. Then one has to use Special Relativity and instead consider four-vectors transforming by Lorentz transformation. Now, this transformations preserve the Minkowski length of four-vectors (in the same way that rotations preserve length of usual vectors).

The point is that velocity of light corresponds to zero Minkowski length and so light moves at a constant velocity in every inertial frame. This is the famous Einstein's postulate, which has been shown time and time again to be true.

This is not an ambiguous statement. It is a statement of fact.

Perhaps by someone who does not know the difference between velocity and speed. Nobody argues that the velocity of light is a constant.

Actually, nearly every physicist makes that argument.

Standard candles are used to determine the distance to astronomical objects such as stars and galaxies.

Yup.

They are measured in parsecs and also in LIGHT YEARS. The distance, based on these measurements, from one end to the other of our own galaxy is 100,000 light years, which means it takes light 100,000 years to reach from one end to the other.

Based on the round-trip speed of light. We have no way of knowing how long it takes light to reach one end from the other on a one-way journey. I am sorry, that is just a fact.

The problem with that argument is that it assumes that the origin and destination are in different reference frames. Even considering the silly idea that they are in different references frames, you cannot get a 10,000 year old universe, much less, a 6,000 year old universe by ANY measure you can make.

This measurement alone refutes your Bedouin timeline by an order of magnitude.

No, it does not.

Nearly every physicist on the planet and 100 years of experimentation and observation says that you are wrong.

The KNOWN age of the universe, based on these measurements is 13.7 billion years.

c[/i], which we have no way of knowing. You cannot claim we know something if it depends on something that is by definition unknowable.

See above.

]No sir, I am not. The distance that light travels in a year is used as a ruler to determine not only the size of the universe, but its age.

Only if you assume it travels towards us at c, which there is no way to demonstrate that it does.

There is no reason to assume otherwise. Moreover, the fact that in every experiment to measure the speed of light, there has been no measureable shift in frequency is strong evidence of the isotropic nature of light.

You would have to be very poorly educated (or willfully ignorant) not to be able to solve for time from the units of measure used in these equations (such as m/s, or light year).

How poorly educated would a person have to be not to know the difference between velocity and speed? Just curious. Those are units, not equations by the way.

Non-sequitur. The velocity of light is measured in m/s or light years. All geometric equations measure something (not all solutions have units of measure, however, since they can be cancelled out). Solving for m gives you distance, dude. This is 6th grade math.

As for your last statement, above, I have yet to see you demonstrate how you get a 10,000 year old universe out of evidence for a 13.7 billion year old universe. I know why you haven't, but I want to hear it from you.

Do you even bother reading what is posted on here? I am beginning to doubt that you actually do.

Indeed I do. And my statement stands. I have yet to see you demonstrate how you get a 10,000 year old universe out of evidence for a 13.7 billion year old universe. I know why you haven't, but I want to hear it from you.

I got a response! Seems that I had it backwards, apparently the one-way speed of light affects time dilation. They sent me a response that Dr. Lisle had to a similar experiment, but in this experiment distance is the variable and clock transport speed is the constant. I think his response does clear things up though, under ASC clocks would tick at different rates when moving different directions relative to the observer.

“Hi [My Name], thank you for contacting Answers in Genesis

In regards to your synchronizing clocks question, Dr. Lisle, before he left AiG for ICR in December 2011 wrote a response, which I will include below:

“It's a good thought experiment. And many similar ones have been thought of. But they all have a subtle flaw. In this case, it is assumed that the clocks will experience equal time dilation if they are moved at equal speeds but in opposite directions. That is only true if the speed of light is isotropic, because time dilation depends upon the speed of light. So, if the speed of light is different in different directions, then the clocks will experience different time dilations, even if they are moved at the same speed.
Also, a signal sent from the central position will travel at different speeds in the two directions if the speed of light is different in different directions. So, the clocks will not necessarily be synchronized when a signal is sent from the original central position.
-Dr. Jason Lisle”




Sincerely,


Troy Lacey
Answers in Genesis
PO Box 510
Hebron, KY 41048”

There are several problems with Lisle's explanation. first, NASA and many others have conducted experiments in time dilation and have found in all instances that the clocks were off be equal but opposite amounts, indicating that the velocity of light is, indeed, isotropic. Secondly, he conveniently ignore the fact that no frequency shift has ever been detected in any measurement of the speed of light. And finally:

http://atheistforums.org/newreply.php?ti...yto=565333

his explanation for how distant starlight is compatible with a 6 day creation only a few thousand years ago is very, very weak. It essentially consists of immediately throwing out the conventional science just because it conflicts with scripture and then proposing that "creation was supernatural, therefore cannot be understood scientifically".[7] Most of Lisle's points just begin with the claim that the Bible must be true, cannot change and so can explain everything[8] and he's no stranger to wall-bangingly circular logic.[9] It shouldn't need to be stated that this is the opposite of what a good scientist should do. So, while he may be a published and qualified scientist, the remarks he makes regarding creationism aren't actually very scientific - indeed, for AiG to use him as a leading scientist is practically a sham, as it leads their audiences to think that his ideas - which aren't really his ideas, just the same old tired arguments - automatically have credibility due to his real PhD. Although he has done research with genuine merit into the sun's heliosphere, Lisle has yet to perform, let alone publish, credible work into starlight or creationism.

[Statler Waldorf]

Can you give us an example?

Seriously? You have never seen atheists on here say, “The Universe can’t be 6,000 years old because we can see stars that are millions of miles away!”? I have, in fact you tried to pull this argument in your last post.

while others believe it is 10,000 years old.

Names?

The fact remains that there is no scientific evidence to back up any of these claims.

We have deductive reasons for believing it is that old and secondly the fact that you personally are unaware of the evidence does not do anything to demonstrate such evidence in fact does not exist.

However, an object that is 13 billion light years away means that the light we see from that object left on its journey to us 13 billion years ago, and that means that the universe in which it was formed cannot be less than 13 billion years old.

That’s false, as we have demonstrated numerous times in this thread the light from such stars can reach observers on Earth instantaneously; so you are in fact witnessing stellar events in real time.

None of which have withstood scientific scrutiny. Next.

Baseless assertion, next.

That WOULD be stupid, but that isn't how it works.

I know, I am not the one who made an appeal to consensus.

Scientific facts determine what the consensus is. And the consensus is that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, while the Earth is at least 4.56 billion years old. That consensus is based on the scientifically determined facts.

This is fallacious yet again. You’re invoking a circular argument; it’s a scientific fact that Earth is billions of years old because the majority of scientists believe that is the case and the majority of scientists believe that is the case because it’s a scientific fact. It was not a scientific fact that the Universe was eternal in the 1920s when the consensus supported Steady State Theory. The consensus is often wrong in science, therefore merely appealing to it is fallacious.

I'll assume you're talking about Galilean principle of relativity whereby the velocities transform by pure addition.

No, I am talking about the definitions of the terms velocity and speed. The two-way speed of light in a vacuum is constant, the velocity is not a constant. This is why people stop replying to you, you do not actually listen to what is being posted.

---

To talk about the differences between speed and velocity, let's talk about how they are defined.
Speed can be defined as the distance traveled divided by the total time taken. So, speed = distance/time.
While velocity can be defined as the displacement divided by the total time taken. So, velocity = displacement/time.

Now, let's imagine a person who ran around a circular park and returned to the same spot that he started from. The person would have covered a certain amount of distance around the circular park in a certain amount of time. If the person ran really fast, he would have used up less time to run around the park, and thus he would have a high speed. But if he ran really slowly, he would have used up more time to run around the park, and thus he would have a low speed. This part seems rather intuitive for now.

But, let's move on to velocity. Because the person ran back to his starting position, he would have zero displacement. Displacement is the difference in distance between the starting and final position. So, since displacement is zero in this case, we can say that the running man has an average velocity of zero!

So speed depends on distance traveled, while velocity depends on the displacement.

I'd also like to point out that speed is just a number (e.g. 10m/s or 24km/hr). However, when we talk about velocity, we usually have to describe the direction as well (e.g. 10m/s northwards or 24km/hr eastwards). It's because the velocity changes when the direction changes that the velocity can average to zero even though it isn't zero at any particular time.

---

[Emphasis added by SW]

http://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=19188

The point is that velocity of light corresponds to zero Minkowski length and so light moves at a constant velocity in every inertial frame. This is the famous Einstein's postulate, which has been shown time and time again to be true.

You’re talking about speed not velocity. How has it been shown to be true? It is impossible to prove the one-way speed of light is a constant in all directions, we have provided numerous sources that support that.

Actually, nearly every physicist makes that argument.

Show me one who specifically says the velocity of light in a vacuum is a constant.

[quote]

[quote] The problem with that argument is that it assumes that the origin and destination are in different reference frames.

No, they’d be in the same one relative to the observer.

Even considering the silly idea that they are in different references frames, you cannot get a 10,000 year old universe, much less, a 6,000 year old universe by ANY measure you can make.

Sure we can.

Nearly every physicist on the planet and 100 years of experimentation and observation says that you are wrong.

Fallacious appeal to popularity again. What experiments and observations are you referring to?

I’ll save you the time…

“Experiments that attempted to directly probe the one-way speed of light independent of synchronization have been proposed, but none has succeeded in doing so.”- Wikipedia

“If you wanted to measure the speed of light in one beam going from A to B you'd need two clocks that are perfectly synchronized. This is, however, impossible because of issues with even defining time in the context of relativity.”- RationalWiki

“Basically, all any conceivable experiment can do is provide you with the round-trip speed of light between two points. If you think that an experiment measures the one-way speed of light, it is because you are making assumptions about what 'synchronized clocks' mean.”- RationalWiki

“"It is only possible to verify experimentally that the two-way speed of light (for example, from a source to a mirror and back again) is frame-independent, because it is impossible to measure the one-way speed of light (for example, from a source to a distant detector) without some convention as to how clocks at the source and at the detector should be synchronized.”- Wikipedia

See above.

Yes, see above.

There is no reason to assume otherwise.

There is no reason to assume that it does either.

Moreover, the fact that in every experiment to measure the speed of light, there has been no measureable shift in frequency is strong evidence of the isotropic nature of light.

No it’s not. Everything we observe would be identical using either convention.

Non-sequitur. The velocity of light is measured in m/s or light years.

No, that’s the speed of light. Velocity requires a directional component as well.

Solving for m gives you distance, dude. This is 6th grade math.

Nobody is disputing the distance…dude.

Indeed I do. And my statement stands. I have yet to see you demonstrate how you get a 10,000 year old universe out of evidence for a 13.7 billion year old universe. I know why you haven't, but I want to hear it from you.

What evidence are you even referring to? You have provided nothing suggesting the Universe is that old. Things are far away in the Universe, so what?

There are several problems with Lisle's explanation.

This ought to be good…

first, NASA and many others have conducted experiments in time dilation and have found in all instances that the clocks were off be equal but opposite amounts, indicating that the velocity of light is, indeed, isotropic.

These experiments (that you conveniently do not link to) assume the speed of light is isotropic it does not demonstrate that it in fact is.

Secondly, he conveniently ignore the fact that no frequency shift has ever been detected in any measurement of the speed of light.

This would not be expected because a coordinate transformation cannot introduce any real forces by definition.

And finally:

his explanation for how distant starlight is compatible with a 6 day creation only a few thousand years ago is very, very weak.

Opinion.

It essentially consists of immediately throwing out the conventional science just because it conflicts with scripture and then proposing that "creation was supernatural, therefore cannot be understood scientifically".[7] Most of Lisle's points just begin with the claim that the Bible must be true, cannot change and so can explain everything[8] and he's no stranger to wall-bangingly circular logic.[9] It shouldn't need to be stated that this is the opposite of what a good scientist should do. So, while he may be a published and qualified scientist, the remarks he makes regarding creationism aren't actually very scientific - indeed, for AiG to use him as a leading scientist is practically a sham, as it leads their audiences to think that his ideas - which aren't really his ideas, just the same old tired arguments - automatically have credibility due to his real PhD. Although he has done research with genuine merit into the sun's heliosphere, Lisle has yet to perform, let alone publish, credible work into starlight or creationism.

The link did not work so I cannot figure out who you are quoting here. However, the fact that it is all merely some poster’s opinion means it does not prove anything anyways.