NOT SCIENTIFIC?
Jerry D.
McDonald
I didn't admit to being wrong about the date that SN 1987A exploded. Read what I said: "He assured me that I am in error on why the gas rings were not detected." I am still convinced of a young earth and universe. The only thing I have admitted error about was why the gas rings had not been detected. I am in the process of writing an article on SN 1987A and will put it on my website when I am finished. http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=iM4wO-I-Sz4
Which he took from a Youtube comment I had made on Todd Greene's video "Creationists Delusion: Evolution Isn't Science," and I felt it essential to let the reader know what this quotation was about. (1) I am not a scientist and especially one trained in astronomy, but I do know how to read. In the book Astronomy Today by Chaisson & McMillian, in their discussion of SN 1987A,
I asked Todd Greene, on the comments section of his youtube video, why astronomers didn't pick up the glowing red/yellow ring before the explosion if it had been there for 40,000 years. All I could get out of Greene was that the star wasn't studied that much, but I pointed out that the star had been catalogued as sk 69o 202 decades before the explosion. Greene could not give me a satisfactory response, so I included this information in my original article. I then sent the article to Dr. Russell Humphreys and astronomer Danny Faulkner. Mr. Faulkner explained to me that the reason that it had not been detected is because it had not yet been ignited until the star went supernova. Well, this made sense, so I changed the article and left that part out. However, on Todd Greene's youtube comments list I made the statement that Mr. Faulkner had corrected me about why astronomers didn't pick up the gas ring and Mr. Greene thanked me for my correction. He then replied with the following statement:"Theory predicts that the expanding remnant of SN 1987A is now on the verge of being resolvable by optical telescopes. The accompanying photographs show the barely resolvable remnant (at the right) surrounded by a much larger shell of glowing gas (in yellow). Scientists reason that the progenitor of the supernova expelled this shell during its red-giant phase, some 40,000 before the explosion" (p. 563).
The response you read at the beginning of Rick's article (and this one as well) is in response to the above statement. I encourage you to go to the Youtube comment section provided by the link and see how Todd Greene evaded the questions that I asked for at least 2 days. I could not get a proper response from an atheist, and it took a young earth creationist who is an astronomer to give me a satisfactory answer to my questions. The only thing that I can figure out is that Todd did not know the answer to my questions, not that this proves when the star exploded, but it is interesting to note that someone who claims that it exploded 168,000 years ago, and who took astronomy in college (which he claims led him into atheism) could not give a satisfactory answer to a simple question and it took a YEC (as we are affectionately called) to give me the answer. I wanted the reader to have this information because Mr. Hartzog used one quotation leaving the reader to wonder what he was talking about. Now you know! Now lets get into looking at Mr. Hartzog's response to my article.Jerry, I appreciate you acknowledging that what I have been correct in what I've been telling you all along about your comments being wrong and irrelevant. Therefore, just as I've been telling you, you have yet to deal with the fact that SN1987A exploded about 168,000 years ago - which falsifies young earth creationism. And none of this is relevant to the video of this comments page. http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=iM4wO-I-Sz4
One thing to keep in mind is that NOTHING Jerry McDonald has posted in Todd's "Comments" section, and nothing that McDonald has posted in the "Comments" section of his own YouTube video, has been even remotely relevant to showing us why "evolution isn't science". SN 1987A certainly doesn't have anything to do with it.
Mr. Hartzog, like his colleague Todd Greene (and others as well) doesn't seem to understand that there are seven phases of evolution. I have pointed this out to Mr. Greene on more than one occasion, but he still doesn't seem to get it. According to Chaisson & McMillian (both of which are evolutionists) wrote the following two statements:
"Life in the Universe
With this human-centered view clearly evident, Figure 28:1 identifies seven major evolutionary phases that have contributed to development of life on our planet: particulate, galactic, stellar, planetary, chemical, biological (bold mine jdm), and cultural evolution. Matter formed from energy in the early universe, then cooled and clumped to form galaxies and stars. Within in galaxies, generation after generation of stars formed and died, seeding the interstellar medium with heavy elements so that, when our Sun formed billions of years after the first star blazed, the rocky planet Earth formed along with it. Eventually on Earth, life appeared and slowly evolved into the diverse environment we see today. Together, these evolutionary phases represent the grand sweep of cosmic evolution--the continuous transformation of matter and energy that has led to the appearance of life on our planet" (Astronomy Today, p. 760).
Then on page 765 of the same book we read:
"The fossil record leaves no doubt that biological organisms have changed over time--all scientists accept the reality of biological evolution. As conditions on Earth shifted and Earth's surface evolved, those organisms that could best take advantage of their new surroundings succeeded and thrived--often at the expense of organisms that could not make the necessary adjustments and consequently became extinct" (Ibid, p. 765).
It is easily noted that
Chaisson & McMillian both say that biological evolution is but one phase of
"cosmic" evolution. Stellar evolution, and planetary evolution are two other
phases and they are part of the same evolutionary doctrine that biological evolution is.
Greene & Company (Hartzog included) don't want to admit this because
then they would be forced to deal with all of the pitfalls of
evolution beginning with the "Big Bang" theory. While the comments on
Greene's comment section (or on my own) had nothing to do
with biological evolution they had everything to do with
stellar evolution. Greene advertised several books on his
video as proving evolution; one of which was the book The Age of the
Earth, by G. Brent Darlymple which is a book on geology. When Greene
and I were planning on debating the issue of the age of the universe and
the earth I bought that book upon his recommendation. When he found
out he argued that the book didn't prove evolution that it had nothing
to do with evolution because evolution has nothing to do with
geology. I asked him why he advertised it as proving evolution and his
response was that it was a lazy oversight, but he was not going to remove
it that he would make another video explaining this lazy oversight (a video that
we are still waiting for I might add). So I guess Todd is just too lazy to
remove a lazy oversight and thereby perpetuates something that he says is
not true, namely that Darlymple's book The Age of the
Earth promotes and proves evolution. Biological evolution is not
the only kind of evolution that we have. There is such an
animal as stellar evolution and this is the category or
phase under which the discussion of SN 1987A falls. I am sorry that
Greene & Company cannot understand this much about it, but such is not my
fault. Greene is the one with the college education, not me. I only
attended a two year course in a preacher's training school, but it seems
that I know more about evolution than Greene does. No, Greene
understands that there are seven phases of evolution and that biological
evolution is but one of them. He argues that evolution has nothing to do
with geology, and for once I would agree with him, but then he states that the
fossil record proves evolution, and (unless I am way off base) the fossil record
is a part of geology. I don't think I am off base here unless Chaisson
& McMillian are off as well because they stated "the fossil record leaves no
doubt that biological organisms have changed over time--all scientists accept
the reality of biological evolution" (Ibid).
Now while SN 1987A
does not directly deal with biological evolution, it does deal with stellar
evolution which is another one of those seven phases of evolution. Nowhere
on Mr. Greene's video does he single out "biological evolution." He simply
says "evolution," and when you use the word "evolution" without giving specifics
it is generally taken that you are talking about all of evolution beginning with
the Big Bang theory. If you go to the comments section of Mr. Greene's
video you will see that I did deal with evolution and that I showed the
relevance that SN 1987A had to the video. It deals with stellar
evolution, and Todd just uses the word "evolution." Mr. Greene's
problem came in when I started buying books written by evolutionary scientists
to use against him. He realized that I was buying some of the books that
he advertised on both his video and his website. He had to admit that
Chaisson & McMillian were professional astronomers, there was no way that he
could deny that, but they teach that SN 1987A does deal with evolution; stellar
evolution, which indirectly will lead to biological evolution. As far as
my own Youtube video is concerned, it deals pretty much
with the same material as my video is in direct response to Greene's
video.
Mr. Hartzog continues...
But Jerry McDonald promised us that he was working on a "scientific" explanation to the problem of how, if the Universe is only 6,000 years old, we can see the light from SN 1987A, 168,000 light-years away.
What Jerry has now posted to his website is itself light-years away from being any kind of scientific explanation, but I think it is a very fitting demonstration of Jerry McDonald's incompetence to make any judgments as to what is science and what is not science.
Of course
he doesn't think that my explanation is scientific. He says that
this is a very fitting demonstration of my incompetence to make any
judgments as to what is science and what is not. All right, maybe
he would like to show us why my explanation is not scientific. Is it because
time dilation is not scientific? Notice what he says about time
dilation?
Faulkner mentions time dilation, Humphreys agrees with it, and Jerry is so incompetent that he thinks that means what Humphreys is saying makes any sense. Well, it doesn't. Time dilation is a relativistic effect related to gravity and/or velocity, i.e., when it is observed it is observed for a *reason*. There is no *reason* for Humphreys to call on time dilation as one of the effects of the Flood -- if he wants to just claim outlandish miracles as the reason we can see distant starlight, just call it a miracle, withdraw from the creation-science game, and let that be that.
The actual order of who came up with the time dilation in my article is different from what Mr. Hartzog tells us. He says "Faulkner mentions time dilation, Humphreys agrees with it...." Actually it was Dr. Humphreys who first mentioned time dilation on the CRSnet. Someone had asked whether time dilation was a theory or if it was factual. Mr. Faulkner responded with his post that it is an observable fact, and Dr. Humphreys added to that when he wrote about the GPS systems in our vehicles. It might not hurt Mr. Hartzog to purchase a copy of Dr. Humphreys book Starlight and Time and read up on what Dr. Humphreys says about time dilation:
"Gravity Distorts Time
Let me first briefly outline where I am heading. The theory utilizes Einstein's theory of relativity, which is the best theory of gravity we have today. General relativity (GR) has been well-established experimentally, and is the physics framework for all modern cosmologies. According to GR, gravity affects time. Clocks at a low altitude should tick more slowly than clocks at a high altitude--and observations confirm this effect, which some call gravitational time dilation. (Not to be confused with the better-known 'velocity' time dilation in Einstein's special relativity theory.)" (Starlight and Time, p. 11).
So it doesn't
make
any sense when Dr. Humphreys made the following statement?
Time dilation is well-verified by experiments, and now it is a part of some technology. For example (and counter to some urban myths), the Global,Positioning System (GPS) navigational satellites have to very carefully account for both gravitational time dilation and velocity time dilation in order to provide accurate position information to us on the ground. Otherwise your Magellan GPS (if you have one) might guide you into North Carolina instead of to the grocery store across town :o) Russ" (CRSNET@RHETICUS.CUW.EDU Supernova 1987a and Time Dilation, Mon, 12 Nov 2007 13:55:28 -0700).
No, that made perfect sense! What didn't make sense to Mr. Hartzog was Dr. Humphreys' application to time dilation during the Genesis flood (otherwise known as the Noahic flood). To Mr. Hartzog there has to be a natural explanation for everything. There has to be an empirical answer for everything. This is why he said
Humphreys ignores the fact that there must be a *continuum* of space-time between events. Humphreys doesn't seem to be aware that what he tells Jerry acknowledges that the Universe has been in existence for millions and billions of years, while the Earth has (supposedly) been enclosed in some kind of unconnected space-time envelope. And the *mechanism* for this space-time envelope, *apparently*, is "supernatural" -- meaning there is NO SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION for it!
Mr. Hartzog claims to be part of the Worldwide Church of
Latitudinarianism, I am not really sure what that is because the word
Latitudinarianism means "not insistent on strict conformity to a particular
doctrine or standard...tolerant of variations of religious opinion or doctrine"
(Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, p.
703). Now while I am not really sure what this church is, it seems that it
is supposedly tolerant of other religious opinions or doctrines. Maybe
this is the church that Ann Coulter writes about in her book The Church of
Liberalism, but that seems to be
a church for atheists, something like the Unitarian Church. At any rate, I have often
wondered, in the brief time I have known Mr. Hartzog, if he believes in
any thing that deals with the supernatural. Does he believe in the supernatural, or
does he believe only in what he can see, hear, smell, touch,
and or taste? I wonder how he would explain the existence of a conscience since
he cannot see it, hear it, smell it, touch it or taste it? Where
is his scientific explanation for a conscience? I often wonder how he would be able to
explain concepts such as love and hate as you cannot see them, hear them, touch
them, smell them, or taste them?
He ridicules me for speaking of
the supernatural and says that there is no scientific explanation for
it. Well, there is no scientific explanation for many things. I don't know
of a scientific explanation for gravity. We know that it works, we
can observe something falling and hitting the floor. We can observe the
GPS satellites having to very carefully account for both gravitational and
velocity time dilation in order to get you to where you need to go. But I
don't know if anyone knows why gravity will make clocks tick slower on earth than
they do above the earth. We know it happens, but do we have a scientific
explanation beyond gravity for it happening that way? Science can only
explain so much. For example science cannot explain any part of Darwinian
Evolution. This evolution cannot be verified because it is not
testable. You can't observe it going on with any of your five empirical
senses. Of course evolutionists claim that you can but when you ask for
specific examples the best they can do is to come up with things like you can
put two different breeds of cattle together and get a hybrid, but the fact is
what they give birth to is still a cow. It isn't a money or a cat, or even
a human; it is a cow. Corn always yields corn, beans always yields beans
and so on. There is scientific evidence for that, but where is the
scientific evidence for say two cattle of different breeds giving birth to
something that is at least part non-cow? Oh, they say, the change is so
gradual that you could walk right up to it and never notice the change! O,
ok, then how do you know it is changing? In order for macro-evolution to
be observable you are going to have to notice (at some time during the process)
where some offspring is part cow and part something that is not a cow, otherwise
it is not scientifically provable or explainable. You have to be able to
observe it for it to be scientifically testable. This is why the
evolutionist says that there is no difference between macro-evolution and
micro-evolution, but this is about as absurd as saying that there is no
difference between a cow and a monkey. The only things that the cow and
the monkey have in common is the fact that they both live, they both breathe and
they are both mammals, and the only thing that macro-evolution has in common
with micro-evolution is that they both involve changing. However,
micro-evolution is restricted to small changes within a kind while
macro-evolution, supposedly, has no such restrictions, that these changes can
occur between kinds. Now micro-evolution is scientifically observable, but
macro-evolution isn't. Yet, it seems that Mr. Hartzog will accept
macro-evolution as factual and scientific even though there is NO scientific
evidence available nor has there ever been any such evidence available. No
one has ever seen a missing link (the crossover from ape to human)!
History only goes back so far! Writing only goes back so far! 6,000
to 10,000 years at the most is as far as we can find writing, paintings
ect.,. If humans (cavemen) dwelt on this earth 3 million years ago, where
is the scientific evidence for it. Radiocarbon dating? I don't think
so! What about radioisotope dating? Again, I don't think so!
Both of these can only go so far and the rest has to be decided on
assumption.
Now I have said all
that to say this, Mr. Hartzog argues that Dr. Humphreys makes assumptions and
that I am so incompetent that I swallow it because Dr. Humphreys cannot show
scientific evidence that this happened during the flood. According to
Hartzog this is all just my "mis"interpretation of the Genesis record.
It is hardly "bias" to assume that the laws of physics have remained the same throughout the time and space of the Universe. There is absolutely no evidence which would lead one to suppose otherwise. Furthermore, the estimate of when the gas ring was expelled is not based on the speed of light at all.
Jerry continues:In their mind there is no other explanation. When creationists try to get them to see that there are alternatives they sneer at us and say that we are unscientific.There is no evidence that suggests any other explanation is needed. There is no evidence that the speed of light has changed since the explosion took place. The "alternatives" that Jerry wants are not based on any evidence either, other than the young-earthers' interpretation of Genesis. So yes, the reason Jerry wants a different explanation is a completely UNSCIENTIFIC reason, and the explanation he offers us here is completely UNSCIENTIFIC as well. Call it sneering if you want to, but young-earth creation-science is not science.
Humphreys ignores the fact that there must be a *continuum* of space-time between events. Humphreys doesn't seem to be aware that what he tells Jerry acknowledges that the Universe has been in existence for millions and billions of years, while the Earth has (supposedly) been enclosed in some kind of unconnected space-time envelope. And the *mechanism* for this space-time envelope, *apparently*, is "supernatural" -- meaning there is NO SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION for it!
"During the year Noah's clocks recorded he was aboard the ark, the light from the explosion traveled most of the 160,000 light-years of distance to us. After Noah got out of the ark, the photons carrying the image of the explosion were about 4300 light-years away from the earth. The visible-light photons (gamma rays and neutrinos were also detected) carrying the image of the explosion finally arrived here in January 1987" (CRSNET@RHETICUS.CUW.EDU Supernova 1987a and Time Dilation, Sat. 10, Nov. 2007, 18:16:02-0700 ).
Then in a later post he wrote:
"The yellow triangular region at the left above the "4th Day Timeless Zone" represents the 2nd time dilation event during the year of the Genesis flood that I spent a few slides on at the workshop. I also discussed it in some detail in my two November 3 posts here, "Re: Accelerated Nuclear Decay and Astronomy" and "Flood time dilation, Biblically." The blue line shows the trajectory of photons reaching earth after the flood.
You asked, 'Are you arguing for a great change in the speed of light at the time of the flood ... to get light here quickly?' --- Yes in the speed of light as measured by Noah's clocks. The speed of light (or anything else) depends on whose clocks you use. As measured by clocks outside the yellow time dilation region, no. By stationary clocks all along the trajectory of the photons reaching us after the flood, the photon speed would be the same boring old 186,000 miles per second.
In this scheme, nearby stars would go on nearly vertical paths through the yellow time dilation region. Stars in the Magellanic clouds might do so also, depending on how far out I put the apex of the yellow triangle. But the Andromeda galaxy's nearly vertical path would be outside the time dilation region. It would experience roughly 500 Myr of rotation and winding-up from the time it emerged out of the 4th day timeless zone to the time it emitted the photons we now see from it.
If the apex of the yellow zone extends beyond the Magellanic clouds, then the star that became Supernova 1987a would have exploded after emerging from the top side of the yellow zone. Light from the explosion would follow the blue line in my graph. Noah would have still been aboard the ark, and his clocks would have been ticking slower than clocks outside that zone. If at that time he could have (somehow) observed the photons from SN1987a, he would have clocked them zooming in at much faster than 186,000 miles per second" (CRSNET@RHETICUS.CUW.EDU Supernova 1987a and Time Dilation, Sun, 11 Nov 2007 16:51:07 -0700).
"Early on the fourth day, God coalesces the clusters of atoms into stars and thermonuclear fusion ignites in them. The newly-formed stars find themselves grouped together in galaxies and clusters of galaxies. As the fourth day proceeds on earth, the more distant stars age billions of years, while their light also has the same billions of years to travel to earth. While the light is on its way, space continues to expand, relativistically stretching out the light waves (Appendix C) and shifting the wavelengths toward the red side of the spectrum. Stars which are now farthest away have the greatest redshift, because the waves have been stretched the most. This progressive redshift is exactly what is observed" (Starlight and Time, pp. 37,38).
God caused these stars to age to the point that when Adam and Eve first looked at the night sky (after they were created on day six) they could observe starlight. These days were not long eons of time, but were six 24 hour days here on earth, but the stars aged (on day four) billions of earth years in one 24 hour day. If Mr. Hartzog has any problem with time dilation he need only remember that even Dr. Stephen Hawking upholds time dilation in his book A Brief History of Time in his discussion of the astronaut falling into a black hole.
In addition to this, depending on where Humphreys ARBITRARILY decides to draw the boundaries of his slo-time envelope, it may be IN DIRECT CONTRADICTION to Humphreys' claim that there are not enough supernova remnants, or otherwise leave Humphreys trying to explain why there appear to be about as many supernova remnants in one galaxy as there are in the next one.
Dr. Humphreys did not ARBITRARILY decide anything. He gave a plausible, scientific explanation of what happened during the flood. Mr. Hartzog thinks that the flood only affected the earth, but it didn't. The scriptures tell us that the "windows of heaven opened up." When the windows of heaven opened up this means that the interstellar space was open and the light from distant stars would be able to travel at a much faster speed than normal during that year. Mr. Hartzog states that this explantion "may be IN DIRECT CONTRADICTION" to Dr. Humphrey's claim that there are not enough supernova remnants. In what way are they in DIRECT CONTRADICTION? Before I write anything else about DIRECT CONTRADICTIONS I will wait for Mr. Hartzog's response
This is a criticism of "young-earth creation-science" I have made before: every time they propose an explanation for something it contradicts a dozen other of their "explanations". They have no coherent model universe in which things fit together in the way they do in the Universe as we know it explained by the results of actual legitimate scientific investigation.
I want Mr. Hartzog to show where this explanation contradicts anything that Dr. Humphreys has said. Let him show that a contradiction does indeed exist and we will deal with it. He doesn't like scientific explanations for things such as this because he wants to be able to parrot off the same old rhetoric that creationists cannot make any scientific arguments for a young universe and earth. Hartzog finally writes
Time dilation is a relativistic effect related to gravity and/or velocity, i.e., when it is observed it is observed for a *reason*. There is no *reason* for Humphreys to call on time dilation as one of the effects of the Flood -- if he wants to just claim outlandish miracles as the reason we can see distant starlight, just call it a miracle, withdraw from the creation-science game, and let that be that.
"A last biblical problem is with how the waters of the Genesis flood ceased:Also the fountains of the deep and floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rains from the sly was restrained--Genesis 8:2Notice the account doesn't say the waters from above stopped themselves because there were none left to collapse. Instead it implies there were still some waters available, and that they had to be stopped by closing the floodgates of the sky (literally 'the windows of the heavesn'). In line with this, Malachi 3:10 implies that the 'windows of the heavens,' whatever they are, still exist" (Starlight and Time, p. 62).
