The way I look at it, if all came from the samething, something that exploded. Then all things should have the same time markers.

Example: Bang! Everything begins and came from it. So comming from the bang, it should all date back to it. So science says the earth is only a few billion years old, but the universe, and some of the things in it, date much older. So unless the dating methods are off, we did not come from the one thing that exploded. For what it was made of, should be in everything that exists. But have we found anything on earth that dates as old as 13-20 billion years old?

But, does God's word explain different ages of things that were created in one day?

First we start with Adam and Eve. Were they created as babies, or fully formed and grown? To have an appearance of age, but without the actual time of age.

So when God created, did He also make his creation have the appearance of age, without the actual time of age?

Genesis 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

How can you create generations in one day (have to read the verse a few times to get it)? Unless you are giving the appearance of age without the actual time of age. So like Adam and Eve, God's creation was made the same way. But why?

First we will start with the creation of man for better understanding. Both creation of man and woman were where they were of age to take care of themselves. Why? So that they could survive, and everything could work.

So why was the universe made with different appearences of age? Each thing has a certain balance to work with another. The sun being a certain apperance of age so it don't burn the earth up, or freeze it. The earth being a certain apperance of age to best support life. And all of the rest of the creation to be in appearance of certain ages so that all could work together.

God being eternal, could acheive this. For if God can create man with the appearance of age, why not everything else?

Well, an all-powerful god certainly could create a world with the appearance of age. (He could also have created the earth 30 seconds ago, with the appearance of age, and the appearance of memories in all of us).

But the bible doesn't say god made the world that way. If you are a biblical literalist, it's just conjecture. If you're a scientist, it's an unfounded assertion that cannot be tested in any way.

But I have to wonder why a loving god would do that. Why would he try to fool us?

So are you saying we live in a matrix?


It is because God is not explainable. To assert your view upon the spiritual, and make the assumptions that you do. And to project it being wrong. You would have to have knowledge through knowing something about the spiritual and eternal realm. Do you?


Would God fool us? LOL, No, it is we who fool ourselves by trying to explain God by naturalistic means.

These are classic answers given for things that are unexplainable. I have heard them several times by several people. The last on I have heard about a 100 times.

God is beyond science. Why? because He is eternal, and science knows nothing about the eternal. And if they did, then they would have all the answers. For I believe that the eternal part of God has the explaination to all that science can only theorize about.

But if one is basing their ideas about the formation of the universe and life on a literal interpretation of the bible, then they have to go by what the bible says. The bible doesn't say the earth was created with the appearance of age, and I think it's a big stretch to interpret it that way.

And if you're going to go into big stretches of interpretation, then why not interpret the creation story as a metaphor, a parable, etc? Where, and why, do you draw the line with "interpretation"?

I think the "appearance of age" argument is logically inconsistent with the "literal bible" argument.

Could you please explain the meaning of this verse?

Genesis 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

How do you get several generations in one day?

from websters:

generation: the process of bringing into being.

Since several things were "generated", the plural "generations" is used.

That seems to be consistent with the rest of the sentence.

Since this part of Gen 2 is "supposed" to be just sort of a quick summary of Gen 1, then the word "generations" is referring back to "the way I told you things were made back in Gen 1".


As to the "day", I guess that's a metaphorical day, meaning something like "in the time of" because it says IN the day, not ON the day. (Gen 1 also says the earth and heavens were created on separate days).

So my "translation" of that line would be:

"these are the processes that were used to bring the heavens and the earth into being, when they were created, in the times when god made them".

Of course, the word "generations" is already someone else's interpretation of what was said in the original hebrew/greek text, so as to what this passage is really saying...?

Generations:


descendants, results, proceedings, generations, genealogies
account of men and their descendants
genealogical list of one's descendants
one's contemporaries
course of history (of creation etc)
begetting or account of heaven (metaph)

But the question is would God give Adam scars for injuries he never acquired? Would he make fossils of animals that never lived? Why does the isotopic makeup of the rock correlate with radioactive decay? Why do we see so many meteor impacts, any one of which would have wiped out the human race? There is the appearance of age and then there is the appearance of a history that never happened. Those are two different things.

I'm not quite sure I know what your speaking of. But if it's the taking of the rib to make Eve. God has healng power as well. In fact, the rib is the only bone that can regenerate itself as long as it membrane is left intact.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i4/ribs.asp
In fact, when bone replacement is done, some surgeons will use the rib bone because of this. I believe God left the rib to do this to show His power to heal. LOL, that's funny. How do you get a fossil from something that never existed (never lived would be the same as never existed)? Just because the bible does not mention certain animals, does not mean they were not there. Besides, I know you are refering to dinos, why only refer to them when there are several animals not mentioned in the bible? If God can create Adam and Eve with the appearance of age without the time of age, why not this also? Make a rock appear older in age, but yet younger in time. Do you know why God did this? Think about it. If God created all that we see, and in working order that we see and observe, there were probably certain things that had to be done in order to make all things work together as they do.

Example: Lets say the earth and the sun were the same age. The sun was probably stronger back in the age of what the earth is right now. So to stick a sun out there in space that is the same age as the earth would burn it up. So God took a sun, made it have the appearance of age (with all age markers etc...), so that it would work with current creation. For if everything was not of different ages apperances (not actual time age), would it work together as we observe today?

And I'm still waiting for someone to expalin why everything does have different time markers when it all supposetly came from the same rock that exploded. For if the earth truly came from the supposed rock that exploded during the big bang, there should be time markers here on earth that would be tracable back to the original matter that exploded. But yet has anyone found it? Actually, this is science spectulation. Example: Can you tell me the size of a meteor it would take to wipe out life?

Example: What would be the size and speed travel limit of a meteor that could strike the earth and not wipe out life? What would be the upper limit of one that would wipe out life?

If you can't answers these questions, with observable facts, then the question itself becomes speculation on your part.
Are you so sure? That statement you made actually gives the possibility of the statement in the O.P. (original post). Age without history of things that never happened. Like Adam and Eve never had been babies. All things in our universe dating differently (even though they all supposetly came from the samething, the big bang rock). etc....

Current cosmology has no physical matter during the first few seconds of the big bang, very roughly it’s:

Expansion,
Light/heat,
Subatomic particles & gravity,
Hydrogen,
Hydrogen clumps,
First generation suns,
Heavy elements synthesised in first generation suns,
First generation suns go supernova, seeding the universe with heavy elements,
Solar systems.

Each element has unique properties thus different ‘markers’.

I am not referring to the scar left from removing the rib.

Look at your hands. If you are like me, there are a few scars here and there. This gives your hands the appearance of a history, not of age per se. You know where those scars came from, each one has a story. Would Adam have scars on his body that have no history, just for an "appearance of age".

At the same time, would God give the Earth scars that represent things that never happened? Would God give the earth over 100 observable meteor craters greater than 1 km in diameter? How many of those 100+ meteor impacts are recorded in the Bible? Or even in human history for the last 6,000 years?

Would God create light from a star that never existed? We see supernova occuring at greater than 6,000 light years away. That means that the light from the pre-supernova star never existed. Would God do this?






Totally agree, but would God create fake fossils to give the Earth an appearance of age?



Actually, the Karoo formation would be a better example. If all of those fossils were alive right now, and if those fossils from that formation represented 1% of all life to ever live, then there would be 2,100 rabbit sized animals per acre of land. There is simply not enough room for all of fossil species to have lived in the last 6,000 years.



Why do the rocks have to look "older"? This is what I am talking about. Why did God have to add argon to rocks that were deeper in the geologic record? This is creating a non-existent history, not an appearance of age. It is adding a history of radioactive decay that never happened.



How does adding argon to rocks and making over 100 meteor craters of greater than 1 km in diameter fit into this?




There was no matter right after the Big Bang. Matter formed afterwards as energy condensed.

Next, only igneous rocks (ie rocks that solidified after being completely melted) can be reliably dated. Through this we can find the markers of when our solar system formed by dating the first rocks to solidify, meteors.



There was one 5 miles in diameter that wiped out 90% of species on Earth. It left a crater that was over 100 miles in diameter. I think that one could have easily done it. "Smaller" strikes would have darkened the sky world wide. Secondly, meteor strikes create tektites which can be easily dated using modern radiometric methodologies so we know that they have been spread throughout Earth's supposedly "faked" history.



First, answer my question to see if we are on the same page.

Would God give Adam scars from injuries that Adam never suffered?

If not, then why would he do it for the Earth and the rest of the universe?

Are you speaking of the lines left in the hand due to how the skin creases? Or are you speaking of some type of palm reading (history told through divination), which is witchcraft?

I think you better clarify this. Because if it's some sort of witchcraft your trying to push here, you will be banned for it.

OK, I'll accept your meaning of "generations".

In which case, it seems to me that the phrase "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth" is still referring back to Gen 1, and is making an analogy to the individual days of creation as "generations". The line says "THESE are....", so it must be referring back to something that was already said. And (as i said before) the use of "IN the day" rather than "ON the day" means something like "in the time of"

Once again, I don't see how you interpret any of this as indicating "created with the appearance of age". Seems to me you are resorting to conjecture/assumptions/guesses that are just not indicated by the text.

BTW, I don't know Method at all, but I'm pretty sure he is not referring to witchcraft, given his worldview.

Actually, that was from a bible program I have. I think it was from strong's definitions. There are several books in this program, can't remember which one I got this one from.

And about method. It's up to him to clarify the meaning.

And about world view. We are finding alot of members not being truthful in this area. So I take it with a grain of salt on what's claimed. I look at how they post, and what they say to determine what they claim.

Still don't see where the "appearance of age" interpretation comes from.

Were you just throwing this idea out for discussion, or is it an interpretation that you subscribe to?

Well first you have to understand that YEC believes the reference to day in Genesis is 24 hours. Then you take the verse that says: Genesis 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

Which more or less says that generations of heaven and earth were created in the "day" (one day) that God made the earth and the heavens. So how do you make generations (look of old) in one day? Unless you have an ability to control time through living in eternity. For if eternity were the same, then we would be able to see it and test it.

Are there not theories of different time deminsions, but yet not provable? Einstein’s theories of general and special relativity can be used to actually prove that time travel is possible. Einstein’s theories predict that the faster a spacecraft moves, the slower time ticks inside of it. This is called time dilation.
Here's a neat website with even a java script program showing how time dilation might work.
http://www.walter-fendt.de/ph11e/timedilation.htm

So if time dilation works through speed, what if eternity acheives a speed where time no longer exists? Where a being like God, who has the power to create, could create in 6 days because of this control over time. What we see as impossible, God could do by just speaking it into existance. And this would include the age needed for each object to work with the other.

Here are some more links:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/tdil.html
http://www.fourmilab.ch/cship/timedial.html
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~jw/time.html

For we would not know the laws or limitations of this until we are able to acheive it.
There are even tests going on to prove time dilation at low speeds.
http://www.btinternet.com/~j.doyle/SR/sr4/sr4.htm

Here are some animations of what it would look like.
http://www.anu.edu.au/Physics/Searle/Obsolete/Seminar.html

I am not trying to spread witchcraft. Let's take my right pinky finger, for example. It has two scars the lateral sides. I got these scars when someone threw some scaffolding onto the side of a truck where I had my hand resting. Those scars have a history. As everyone gets older we all amass a few scars here and there, and those scars represent a history of what has happened to our body.

The question is whether or not God would give Adam these types of scars even though Adam never suffered the injuries to leave those scars. This would be giving Adam the appearance of having a history of injuries. The Earth DOES have these scars in the form of large meteor impacts. Not only that, but the ratio of isotopes in rocks gives the rocks a history of radioactive decay. These features are not required for the earth to function, or for a needed appearance of age. These are scars that give the appearance of a long history, a history that you claim that God faked.

This is a double standard. Scientists make unfounded assertions all the time, especially in regard to biological and astronomical evolution. Case in point the big bang. If it wasn't conjecture, it wouldn't be so easy to find secular scientists who say it's conjecture:

www.cosmologystatement.org

Do you agree your argument is completely reliant on on the assumption of constant radioactive decay? If radioactive clocks can be reset by some global catastrophe, as plenty of evolutionists acknowledge is possible, it completely invalidates your argument.

Fred

Wrong. The Big Bang, evolution, and most other scientific theories are supported by evidence (the background radiation in the universe, for example, for the Big Bang). In some cases the evidence may not be very strong, and the theories may have many holes in them, or even be wrong.

But even the weakest accepted theories have some evidence behind them, and some predictive power. "The appearance of age argument" has NO hard evidence for it. It is 100% conjecture, totally untestable.

By the way, I think you should reread your link. It doesn't say the Big Bang is "conjecture"; not even close. What it says is that those particular scientists think the theory may be wrong, and that other potential theories deserve more research.

Sounds like good old-fashioned scientific debate going on there. That's the way science works.

Time dilation is a support for what eternity could be like. For you not being able to address this, then make an assumption it's wrong, you would have to prove it wrong with evidence against it. Can you? And if not, it becomes a possibility whether you like what it's supports or not. So your assumption to what is wrong, really has no evidence to prove what you claim. And time dilation gives mine the possiblity.



Truth be told, I get the impression that the only reason you fight this so hard without even applying time dilation, or even wanting to discuss it. Shows the bias in not wanting creation or YEC to ever gain an inch in the scientific world. And the more I see this attitude, the more I believe it's an athiest only club.

Question: Why would Adam and Eve need age scars when they were created in a perfect garden as perfect beings until sin? I think your grasping at straws.

Then, why was the earth created with those scars giving it the appearance of great age?

So you agree, God would not give Adam scars for injuries that he never suffered.

The question then becomes why would God give the Earth, the Moon, and other things in the universe these same types of scars? If the universe is only 6,000 years old why do we have evidence of two galaxies interacting millions of years? Why do we have craters from meteor impacts that never occured? Why do we have exploding stars, stars that would not have existed 6,000 years ago? The universe has more than the appearance of age, it has the appearance of a real history. Did God fake this history to try and fool us?

Sorry- I'm not trying to dodge the idea of time dilation; I understand that it is one of the implications of relativity theory. As an object approaches the speed of light, "time" for the object "moves" slower than time for a stationary observer.

For example, take a spaceship that leaves the earth and travels at the speed of light. When the spaceship returns, a thousand years may have passed on earth, while the astronauts would have only aged a year.

This is what you mean by time dilation, am I correct?

And as for how this fits in with the "appearance of age" idea, I take it that your position is that time dilation has...compressed? (for lack of a better word) billions of years into part of the 6,000 year age of the earth?

I'll respond to your "time dilation" ideas once I'm sure we are on the same page about whats going on.

Of course, and those decay rates have been studied inside and out, both through atomic theory and observation.

Atomic theory: Physicists are able to calculate the theoretical half life of any radioactive isotope. In fact, the half life for exotic isotopes has been predicted before the half lives have even been measured. The half life of an isotope is as fundamental as it's mass, number of electrons, and other characteristics.

Observation: There are two solid pieces of evidence that point towards constant half lives. First, there is supernova 1987A. This supernova allowed us to measure two things: the constancy of the speed of light and the constancy of radioactive half lives. The supernova occured approx 170,000 light years away which was measured using trigonometry. From http://home.entouch.net/dmd/age.htm



The second piece of observational evidence is natural nuclear reactors. These occur where water infiltrates areas with high uranium content. Just like the nuclear reactors set up by men, these natural reactors create heat and decay products. By studying the concentration of daughter products we can determine that radioactive decay rates HAD to be constant for the last 2 billion years, at least in the case of the Oklo reactor in Africa. You can read all about it here: http://www.virtualtravelog.net/entries/200...l_reactors.html

And from wikipedia (http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Radiometric_dating_falsely_assumes_rates_are_constant)



The evidence is there to support constant radioactive decay and the constancy of the speed of light. Where is your evidence that it has changed in the past?




If the radioactive clocks within rocks were reset then everything would test as young. This can happen if rocks are reheated, for example. In fact, we are able to measure how long ago the dinosaur killing meteor struck because it created tektites. Tektites are globules of glass that were created when melted quartz was hurled into the atmosphere. This releases all fo the internal argon and resets the K/Ar clock. Because the tektites still possess radioactive potassium, argon again begins to accumulate and allows us to date the meteor impact. This meteor struck in the Gulf of Mexico and the tektites can be found in a large area encompassing the Carribean Islands, Mexico, and even Texas. We also find these same tektites on the moon from the meteors that struck there. However, as expected, the tektites on the moon are larger because of the reduced gravity.

The only assumption I will make about the earth having scars, is that the meteor hits may have been part of what caused the flood. For it did say that the fountains of the deep were "broken up". What broke them? For it would take something of this magnitude to do this.

I really don't see a way for meteors to start a global flood that covers the entire earth. Mega-tsunamis, yes; world covered for a year, no.

The one that has been studied the most extensively is the 5 mile diameter meteor that ended the "age of the dinosaur" about 65 million years ago. Just as a fun aside, if the meteor was indeed 5 miles in diameter (which all the evidence points to), then at the moment that the meteor touched the earth it was the tallest mountain in existence, for that brief microsecond. This is how large this meteor was. Besides the crater, tektites, and shocked quartz, it also left a layer of iridium (a very rare element on earth but common in meteorites) across the whole world. I don't see how this could occur if the world were being flooded. This takes world wide transport of the dust created by the meteor and then fine particle sedimentation across the entire world. A world wide flood would dilute this layer or destroy it completely.

Then you also have the problem of where all of the water went. Currently, underground water accounts for only 1% of the worlds water, both salt and fresh.

But you do get kudos for tackling the problem instead of ignoring it. I think we are now on the same page which should make for a better discussion.

Instead of taking this into another direction with talking about the flood. I will start another thread on the flood. Where the water came from, and where it went.

You argument, then, is that since the elements that made the earth were made at the big bang, why don't we date things to 13 billion years ago? Well, the things we date weren't around then. I'm no expert, but I believe they date things using radioactive materials that were formed during the formation of the earth, from things that were 'formed' billions of years ago.

To be accurate, new elements are created in supernovas. Secondly, radiometric dating is a measurement of when the rock crystallized, not when the elements in the rock were formed.

Not we, silly. The earth should. We should be able to core down several feet, not alot like thousands of feet, and find things that date that old, like the rest of the universe.

Also, are there not things that can affect radioactive materials over the millions and billions of years that can also affect it's age dating. I am sure it is not an exact science.

Thanks, that was kind of what I was driving at



I don't think it is an exact science, but there are a lots and lots and lots of seperate datings that point to the same ball park. The question is...is it possible for the radioactive materials to have been affected over the past 6,000 years that could affect its age dating to give us billions of years?

The answer is yes, its possible - but nobody has actually been able to come up with a fully viable answer as to how it would be both possible to happen and not wipe out life on earth without evoking an omnipotent being.

And that is why it takes faith. You see, you have choosen to have faith in only what you can see or test (It takes faith because not everything seeable is provable). I have choosen to have faith in the unseeable. Just because both go by certain rules in order to work, and neither really can work together, does it really make one cancel out the other? There are also things that science says exists but are unseeable as well. So in that aspect, so of what is believed can be said to go along the same path.

You look at my evidence and see only things that support something you believe does not exist. So regardless of what I say, or show. Until the creator becomes a possiblity that is more than the possibility you currently believe in your mind. The evidence will never hold water. And all that is in that catagory will be catagorized with it as where you would put certain evidence like this, and those who would bring this to light. So what is done is not by choice, it is done by the nature of what we choose to believe. Our belief, regardless of what it is, becomes our evidence filter because we allow it to. And this is where actual science starts looking like something so many claim it is not.

Science has nothing to do with faith; it is all about the most reasonable interpretation of the evidence.

Scientists have not determined the age of the earth to be 4.5 billion years because they had some pre-concieved notion that it had to be that old. They have arrived at that conclusion because that is what the evidence supports.

Science is extremely open to new ideas and interpretations of evidence. Alfred Wegener first proposed the idea of continental drift in 1915. It was widely derided by geologists at the time, because it went against all the conventional knowledge about the earth. But by the 1960's, so much evidence had accumulated that Wegener's idea- now called the Theory of Plate Tectonics- is universally accepted.

Scientific ideas are driven by evidence. that is where it differs from faith.




Yes, it does. The scientific method trumps biblical proclamations about how the world was made/works.

Try to find oil assuming the sedimentary record was formed by the biblical flood. Try to send a rocket to mars based on the geocentrist view of the bible.

And as has been said a million times before, science says nothing about whether god/gods exist; it only concerns itself with how the world we can see works.



If/when the evidence actually points to the biblical (or some other religions) version of earth history, science will eventually accept it. Right now, the evidence does not point to a creator.



Science rightly considers only what can be observed or tested in some way; that's the way the scientific method works. The scientific method has created virtually all the technological advances that we take for granted.

At some point in history, virtually everything (disease, earthquakes, the weather...) was thought to be the result of actions by god/gods. Science has been able to explain and understand these phenomena in terms of natural laws and processes. No god/gods required.

Where do you draw the line at where the scientific method should no longer be applied?

Fundamentalist christians want the line to be drawn where science conflicts with the bible.

But since fundamentalist christians cannot demonstrate that christianity is any more the "true" religion than animism, budhism, shintoism, etc., why shouldn't we also "stop" the scientific method at points where it disagrees with those religions?

That's great. I'm all up for people having faith in the unseen, the untestable, the intangible. By all means do so. If it really irks that there is evidence the earth is billions of years old then its fine to explain away the evidence in the name of faith.

Its when, instead of just saying 'Evolution and my faith are contradictory, therefore I have to believe evolution is wrong', people say 'Evolution is wrong because of x', when x is just an unproven hypothesis or misleading propaganda. So by all means, help others keep their faith by telling them that science sounds compelling but it doesn't have all the answers...and there are still gaps for God. No problem.

Its using bad science to 'prove' good science wrong that irks me. Don't get me wrong though, uniformatarianism should be examined for truth (in fact it has, and it held true so far).

After all, there is no proof that there was gravity here yesterday, and there is no proof that gravity will be here tomorrow.

No we shouldn't. Let's take Ar/Ar dating for an example. This dating methodology can test for the amount of argon that was present in the rock WHEN IT CRYSTALIZED. What happens is that the crystals within the rock force the argon out into the interstitial spaces between the crystals. When the rock is heated the argon in these spaces leaks out first. However, the potassium within the crystals slowly decays into argon, trapping the argon within the crystals. This argon takes a lot more heat to release. By slowly heating the rock you can measure the argon produced through radioactive decay after the rock solidified and how much argon was present when the rock was formed. This method allows one to date when a lava flow occured (ie when the lava solidified). If you find a lava flow above and below a sediment layer you know that the sediment was laid down between the ages of the two lava flows.

These methodologies date rocks by measuring when the rock became "closed". Molten rock is considered to be open, as isotopes can move freely within the fluid. During the birth of our solar system all of the solids were liquid due to the amount of initial heat from the new sun. As things cooled they solidified. This makes non-planetary asteroids the oldest rocks in the solar system, and they consistently date to 4.5 billion years, the age of our solar system. The rocks on the earth are continually remelted due to tectonic activity so it is very rare to find rock that dates to the birth of the solar system.



Such as?

And to get back to the OP, there is also another problem with the "appearance of age" idea. The problem is extinct radionuclides (click here). These are radionuclides that have short half lives, around 50 milllion years or less. You simply can not find these radionuclides anywhere in the solar system even though we have strong evidence that they once existed. Again, this is evidence of a history, not the appearance of age.

As a side note, http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html is a great site that outlines the evidence for an old earth and it is written by a Christian.

This right here shows a flaw in dating.

Question:
1) How long does it take a planet to cool off?
2) Why are some planets and moons still very hot? Some are so far away from the sun, as a heat source, there is to keep it from cooling off.
3) And how did the closest planets to the sun become cooler quicker than some planets or moons, further away?
4) How do planets stay in orbit for billions of years when we can't even keep satelites in orbit with correction for just a few years? Does not the planets and the sun's gravity change over billions of years?

This quote from: http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_plan.html#planorbit


Gravity pulls on an object equally. It does not pull on one side more to make something spin faster, or to keep it spinning. Knowing this, gravity would actually slow up the spin of planets, as well as orbit speed.

Since creationist use these known facts to prove their points about creation. Scientists have gone as far as to make false assumptions to counter this. I find this article amusing: http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/01/01/leap.second.ap/

Even talk origins would disagree: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE011.html

What I find funny is that every scientific source seems to have it's own view about the spin slowing or not. Or by how much. No one can seem to agree on one thing that should be simple to test. Which tells me that the assumption are just that. And the actual fact we may never know. So who do you believe when everyone seems to have their own view? Maybe the right answer is everyones. After all, there are no absolutes.

Care to provide some examples?


Taken from this site:



That's just geostationary orbits, but I'm sure the same principle applies to other satellites.



Absolutely right. This is why the moon is locked to the earth so we only see one side of it. You'll note a similar effect happening with other planets.



False assumptions? I didn't see any false assumptions going on here. It looks like we discovered that the earth's spin is slowing. We test a rate, but that rate is subject to many variables which might mean it doesn't go at that exact rate constantly. When it doesn't follow the rate precisely, it is explained that there are variables which could cause it, but we have no way of knowing which one has affected it by how much.

The second one tackles the "the Earth's spin is slowing down...if it has been doing so for millions of years, it would have stopped by now" argument. It simply states, that the rate of slowing down is so slow (and the rate might be higher now than then), that it isn't a problem.




Quite right, there are no absolutes. There may be some dispute over the exact rates of slowing, but I've not heard of any scientific source claiming the earth's spin isn't slowing.

So was gravity different back in time to where it was some how, actually making the earth spin ( a force pulling it in it's spin direction) instead of slowing it down? I'd like to see proof of that. There is not any? Hmmm. But some how, back in time, what happens today, and could probably be consider a physical law of gravity, did not apply?

So if this is true, somebody should have worked out the timeline of when the earth's spin never slowed, then be able to show when it did start slowing down. No proof of that either? Hmmm. So I guess we will just go on the "assumption" that the gravitational pull back then had to be different from now, and the earth slowed down and sped up in spin when ever it felt the need to do so. And that all the other planets did the same for billions of years.


Added: In my opinon, if the earth took this long (billions of years) to slow to what it is now, the rate of the spin slowing down would not even be measureable.

Let's do the math.Let's take just one billion yaers ago, and we will say that there was no need for leap years because the spin of the earth was perfect as far as we do time today.
What is a leap year?
1) Every year divisible by 4 is a leap year.
2) But every year divisible by 100 is NOT a leap year
3) Unless the year is also divisible by 400, then it is still a leap year.

To make the math easy, we will do the first one without the other two. Also we could add in what science has determined about the age of the earth (4.5 billion years). Anyone care to take a stab at the math for this? Or maybe someone could come up with an equation of number that could be divided into 1 billion and 4.5 billion so we can compare? My math is rusty in this area, so I would not know where to start.

I don't follow. Gravity didn't need to be different back in time. It was due to gravity that the mass that became the solar system came together...that mass happened to have spin (that is to say all the parts of the future solar system that came together weren't uniformly distributed so when they came together they began to swirl and spin). The Sun's gravity didn't make the Earth spin, it was a property the solar system had before it could be called the solar system.

The Sun (and I believe the moon) are working on slowing the spin of Earth down.

1 & 2, Basically the bigger the planet/moon the more heat is retained. (But there will be difference between gas giants and rocky worlds). Most large planets I would think are still very hot in the core. Surface temperature is much dependant upon the atmosphere (if any), Venus for example is extremely hot due a very dense atmosphere, which itself is postulated to be caused by the proximity to the sun and the planet went into ‘thermal run-away’.

3. Again each planet thermal equilibrium is much dependant upon it’s mass and composition.

4. Planets stay in orbit as there is nothing to slow them down (basic Newtonian physics). A change in orbital speed, say due to a collision with a sizable meteor will result in that planet changing it’s orbit further in or out from the sun (a new equilibrium is found). Artificial satellites come back to earth mainly due to the fact that they are not in a high enough orbit to escape the small (but not negligible) remnants of the earth’s atmosphere. Air friction is a small but continuous force.

Venus, though no longer has errupting volcanos. But, one of the moons of Jupiter does have this. And they are very active. Even though very much further from the heat source of the sun.

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast04oct99_1.htm

Io - is this an example of a planet/moon that hasn't cooled off yet? The surface temperature is -150 degrees C (-238 F) (from the NASA source you provided). I'd call that cooled off. Yes, it has a very hot core that has led to volcanic activity, but how does this differ from Earth?

The innermost moon of Jupiter, IO, has volcanic activity caused by the tidal friction of being so close to Jupiter, basically the moon is repeatedly squeezed as it orbits (due to the complex gravitational interaction of the other Galilean moons, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto(sp)). The heat is generated from the core out and is not reliant on the Sun. Plus I don’t think the eruptions on IO are lava, but sulphurous compounds (but don’t quote me on that).

IO is not alone with this phenomena, Triton the large moon of Neptune has volcanic eruption that appear to be composed of soot and gas (but they are cold eruptions) and if memory serves it is also suspected that tidal friction as the driving force.

Thanks Chance - do you have a source for that? It sounds quite interesting.

If the inner core is constantly being expelled because of the tidal friction science claims causes this. Should not the core be cooled off? And the moon become an ice moon? It's been billions of years correct? And even the surface has cooled like science says it has. So how long can the core remain hot while expelling itself for billions of years to the surface?

Also, if this tidal friction were so great upon this moon to cause an internal heat source, do you not think that this extreme gravity posed upon this moon would have torn it up (made it into pieces instead of solid moon) after billions of years? Plus, how much liquid inner core can be expelled onto the surface before there's none left? Then the moon being hollow on the inside, it would probably callaspe in on itself because of the tidal friction you speak of.

Well...lets not jump ahead of ourselves too much here. We don't know a great deal about these moons, so lets start somewhere we are more familiar with Earth.

Earth has a molten core that has not cooled off after billions of years. This is not because the sun warms us up - we radiate most of the sun's energy back into space, the earth's surface is about 13 degrees C IIRC. The temperature at the earth's core is considerably hotter than this, the sun is not keeping the core hot, if the sun was giving us enough energy to maintain this temperature we'd be very dead.

So, you don't have to talk about Io just yet...



From what I have come to understand of this phenomena the energy comes from the other moons, as well as Jupiter, squeezing and stretching it. Despite the optimistic tone of this website I don't think the process is yet fully modelled due to the difficulty in taking measurements.

So it all becomes an assumption, correct? That presented here as fact.

What are you portraying as an assumption? There are some things which are less strongly supported than others. We can only guess at a probable interior structure of Io based on its characteristics, as we've never drilled there. However, we have spent centuries studying Io, and have lots of data. We just don't have as complete a knowledge about Jupiter's moons as we do Earth (and I could be wrong here by the way - maybe I am underestimating what we know about Io). Remember about science never presenting absolutes? It applies here too.

Now, you have made an assumption ie., "If Io was billions of years old, it wouldn't be volcanic - it would have cooled off". You have been provided with the knowledge of the mechanism of tidal forces doing work on Io causing it to remain molten on the near surface. By all means, refute this hypothesis or develop a better one that explains all the phenemona. Instead of considering Io, a much more studied example of a hot planetary core was suggested - Earth. If I am following your logic correctly, the Earth should also have cooled off after billions of years. Right?