If that's the best you can do then I rest my case.... Dr. Humphrey's has developed a White Hole Cosmology that demonstrates how the universe could be only 6000 years old, and have stars, and such that appear to billions of light years away.

The problem here is that there are things that are interpreted to come up with certain results. The interpretations are based on assumptions, and that takes them out of the realm of emperical science. Sure the measurements that cosmologists make can be reapeated, i.e. they are observable, but the interpretations, are not measurements, They are philosophical choices....

Terry

When dealing with Dr. Humphrey's it pays to check his mathematics as indeed has the U. S. Naval Academy (which has a prestigious Astronomy division). http://www.serve.com/herrmann/hump.htm

Extract,






http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologeti...ling.shtml?main

the source above quotes that dr. Humphreys admits his own model is flawed an has more or less abandoned it (references provided in the link).

Extract

This view is largly acknowledged by the ICR at http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=resear...esearchp_df_r01

Extract





IMO Dr. Humphreys works the following way, “find a mathematical solution to fit the YEC time line” I do believe he does not use current evidence to support his work (By that I mean the big bang has such evidence as, the expanding universe (measurable), back ground microwave radiation (measurable) etc). If anyone disagrees, I would be interested in knowing what evidence Dr Humphrey has to support his idea.

Chance,

If you want to start a thread about Dr. Humphrey's model fine, but that is not the point to this thread.

The main point that Dr. Humphrey's points out, even if his theory is wrong, is that there are assumptions behind the idea that the universe is old. Its not emperical data that speaks for itself, it must be interpreted.

Also; I think its rather specious to claim that the Naval Academy has critiqued his work, and claims that is math is wrong, because some professor in the Math Dept concludes:

.

The tennor of your comment(that his math needs to be checked, as if he's incompetant) brings to mind the mathematically challenged critque from talkorigins about his magnetic field predictions, which do actually work from emperical data. I would like to not go down that road again.

Terry

apologies, I did indeed assume that was the point.



I would disagree with this point. After reading "Revolutions in the Earth" by Baxter, the story of James Hutton. Wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hutton

James Hutton’s conclusion that the earth was old and not young was only because of empirical data, i.e. the geological strata, no preconceived assumptions. The prevailing theory at the time was the young earth, then called “Neptunist theory”.

Given that mans history (Middle East, European) has for the greater part been, young earth (based on biblical references), I find it strange how anyone could think that old earth assumptions were required! And what are they?

Geological strata are emperical data, but how they formed is based on an assumption. If you want to show that the formation took place over millions of years, you would need millions of years to perform each experiment.

It has been emerically shown that strata can form very fast, and do not require millions of years. You can read about that again here:



Rapid stratification

Please do not wonder off on the article itself...

IMO, this is a very important point to what is generally discussed here at all. The inability to distinguish between what is emperically observed data, and what is extrapolated is what has caused many people to make false claims that science has shown things it has not shown.

Generally speaking, what you can really say, is that scientists believe this, or they believe that. However; all of that just amounts to a statement of beliefs, and not scientific evidence.

Terry

This is only true in the sense that under the orchestration of an omnipotent God, obviously, anything is possible. God could have created folded and eroded mountains, mountains of sediment rocks, lifted conglomerate rocks, isotope traces, etc, etc, etc, at the wave of His hand.

IF, on the other hand, we are to assume that the world acts at least generally to the rules we have come to know as the laws of nature, then it is utterly impossible that Earth is not vastly more ancient than biblical timescales allow it to be.

The only "speculation" in this is the assumption that the laws of nature apply, and that "speculation" is supported by the fact that nobody has, as of yet, been able to show as much as a single verifiable incidence where they don't.

Hans

Exactly what laws are you talking about?

The one that rock strata form over millions of years? That's already been emperically demonstated to not necessarily be the case.

The law that says radio isotopes have always decayed at the same rate? That's also been emperically shown to not necessarily have always been the case. And if I'm not mistaken, while I know nothing about string theory, it does have a factor that allows decay rates to possibly change in it.

The law that says 65 million year old bones will not completly permineralize and still contain amino-acids that have not racemized?

The simple fact is that you cannot emperically test the past, and IMO, an objective person will always be very carefull with how they handle that topic. I had a several hour long face-to-face discussion once with an agnostic Ph.D. phycisist some years ago about this topic. While he would not agree with me on most things, he admitted that its very risky to take what is observed in the present, and extrapolate backwards in time.

Terry

That argument can equally be applied to young earth, you would need 1000’s years etc.




Of course it can, no geologist would deny that some strata can form quickly.
The question is, is there any reason why strata cannot build slowly? if you cannot provide a reason why, then the only question remaining is how to tell the difference between strata that formed rapidly and strata that formed slowly. Do you agree so far?

So, given that there are two possibilities, neither of which the geologist would know until he examined any particular strata, why would there be any assumptions? Lets say he was blindfolded and taken to Mt St Helens, given a shovel and told to dig, do you think he would come to any other conclusion other than, rapid burial caused by a volcanic eruption?



Re the article from AiG, seems to me they have artificially created a ‘conglomerate’, a naturally occurring phenomena under the right conditions, I am inclined to ask what exactly they think they have proved.

The following is somewhat in chance's defense, but more to thank him for using a good scientific source and to laud this source: "...it pays to check his mathematics as indeed has the U. S. Naval Academy (which has a prestigious Astronomy division).

Chance, were you aware that Dr. Herrmann is a staunch young earth creationist?

(He is a long time member of the Creaetion Research Society)

Fred

I guess I'll have to hide my head in shame...

Terry

No I did not know that Fred. Everyone should applaud any work from any source that is conducted in the true sprit of scientific investigation (if we are indeed focusing on the science).

That the CRS (assuming they endorse Dr. Herrmann) has found fault with work from another creationist and had the guts to say so publicly, should be encouraged, indeed it is the true scientific way.

To Dr Humphrys I say “welcome to science”.

Now you are going overboard, so let's not take this where it shouldn't go. Dr Humphries is one of the brightest scientists I know and has many peer-reviewed publications in both secular and creation journals. He knows far more about science than your comment may lead some to believe (I happen to know he was highly a reputable staff scientist during his long stint at Sandia Labs before retiring). Often papers that pass peer-review don't always get the peer-review they deserve, it happens in the secular journals and it happens in the creation journals.

This also doesn't mean his model is invalidated, but he is having to adjust it. I also have not heard of any fatal blows brought against it. That being said, for the record I really don’t ascribe to his theory. I think it’s definitely possible, and perhaps the best theory proposed so far, I’m just skeptical of it, admittedly mostly on theological grounds (to me it relies on some secular ideas I do not have 100% confidence in, and it seems to imply an old universe).

Sorry for going off-topic, I just wanted to interject the bit about Dr Hermmann. I certainly didnt' want to have to defend Humphries.

Fred

It's not just starlight I have a problem with, thats just one of my favourite examples of how its very easy to find evidence older than 6000 years. If the earth is only 6000 years old, you shouldn't be able to do that.

Just as we shouldn't be able to find evidence of pottery and agriculture that can be dated back further than 4000 BC.



There is quite a lot of things we can agree on in physics without having to invoke god, for example, we can agree that General and Special relativity are useful and provide us with good predictions. From there we can make observations about the world around us, and use science to work out what the most likely explanation for that is. And the only assumption we have to make is that the universe is deterministic and testable.

The remark “welcome to science” was not meant to be (sound) derogatory, indeed if one is going to publish articles in mainstream science or creation science, you should expect/encourage critical review.

I missed this on the first read it always pays to read things more than once!



Radioactive isotopes have always decayed at the same rate. We can test this by looking af far away stars and measuring the decay rates of elements that we can see in the spectra of the star.

What assumptions are involved in that estimation?

We have measureable evidence here on planet earth that indicates they may not have always been the same.

Evidence for a young earth

Terry

You haven't put any evidence on the table. Only speculation from a certain wordview.



You can't test the past. How do you know they are over 6000 years old? Were you there?



I agree completely, but you cannot scientifically test the past. All scientific experiments are performed in the present.

Most likely is in the eye of the beholder....

Terry

Its not speculation. There are many different methods of measuring stellar distances. The parallax method is a precise way of measuring distances and is can be used on earth as well as space for measuring how far away an object is.

But don't take my word for it ask an expert, http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astr...rs/970415c.html

When we can agree on how far away stars are, we can make even more tests in the present. If a star 166 000 ly away shows decay rates of elements that decay at the same rate here on earth, we can be fairly sure that the decay rate of radioactive elements hasn't changed.

I'm sure you could perform the same kind of experiments 50 years from now and still get the same results.

But if you can't test the past, how do you know any history is true? How can you believe the bible for that matter? Or that Jesus even existed? Can you really write something off just because it has passed out of living memory?

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding."

I didn't say this was speculation.



This is what you need to explain....



Means nothing about the past....



I didnt' say it was not possible to learn anything about the past, I said that you cannot test the past with the scientific method.

The Gospels are the written records of the life of Chrsit, just as Genesis is the written record about the creation of the universe, and life. Written record are as good as their authors, and God being absolute veracity, is a trustworthy source about how the origin of life.



Exactly! Where were you?????? If you, nor anyone else was there, then its not a matter of science.

Terry

My apologies. I thought you were disagreeing with my evidence of things that should not be possible on a 6000 year old earth.




Gladly. Check out http://www.aavso.org/vstar/vsots/0301.shtml

The decay of cobalt-56 matches the decay rate here on earth. Even though the event happend 166,000 years ago.



No, you are right, it doesn't, but natural laws do seem to have gone unchanged through out human history wouldn't you agree?



Books that were commanded to be written by God, but actually written by fallible men. Who knows what was lost when Constantine did his little bit of editing? How much more was lost after the protestants got to it?

Quite the opposite; science is very much about the things we cannot observe directly.

(just a side remark)

Hans

That seems rather silly. After 30 years of publishing in peer reviewed journals, only now is he welcomed to science?

Question for other YECs who find his White Hole Cosmology hard to swallow. Why?

The problem I have with White Hole Cosmology is the massive time dilation effects it causes. We should still be able to see the remnants of those today, but they have yet to be found.

Considering 6,000 years have elapsed along with numerous other factors covered in this paper an explanantion is plausible for your concerns. There is also much more data that provides solid support for the basis of his cosmology. Like the effects of general relativity(gravitational distortion of time) which has been observed numerous times, as well as indications of a finite universe.
As already discussed, the details presented in his white hole cosmology may need some correction. However, he has developed an excellent starting point for explaining the starlight issue in terms of a young earth.

I have problems with it more on theological grounds than scientific grounds. Since I am not very well qualified to speak on the science of White Hole cosmology, I look at that theological side, and IMO it doesn’t fit well. For example, Humphries cosmology seems to imply an old universe, and it relies on some secular ideas (see 1 Cor 3:19). Also, he claims in the paper you cited that there was “a spherical zone around the centre in
which time did not exist”. Nowhere in the Bible will you find a concept where time did not exist, such an idea can only at best be inferred from the Bible. But the Bible seems to contradict this idea. For example. Many Christians believe time does not exist in heaven, yet how do they explain this verse:

“When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” Rev 8:1

What also needs some explainin’: given the verse above, should we expect to find any women in heaven?

Fred

I have already been chastised for this remark, to which I clarified in Post 14.

The remark “welcome to science” was not meant to be (sound) derogatory, indeed if one is going to publish articles in mainstream science or creation science, you should expect/encourage critical review.

Come on Fredward! It's hardly the same context, there is certainly a difference between the "foolishness" mentioned in 1 Corinthians and accepting some components of modern science that have absolutely nothing to do with questioning your faith. Some people take issue with him relying on redshift as an indicator of distance to the stars because that is to similar to the big bang. Seems a little extreme.


Where in the paper is that quote? I think the concept, which has been mentioned elsewhere, is that time stands still. Not that the concept of time did not exist.
How do we see stars in a young universe


Again I believe the quote is referring to the concept that time stands still not that it is non-existent. Also the verse is probably putting the events in terms we can understand. "...About half an hour" puts the situation in time for humans. Also, how can heaven be eternal if it is bound by the concept of time?

A great read, but still doesn't put to bed any of the problems that have already been cited for this particular model of cosmology. It makes far too many predictions that can be falsified by observation.





It's right there under "1. CONNER AND PAGE MISS THE CENTRAL ISSUE"


How can heaven not be eternal if it isn't bounded by time? I don't want my entire existance in heaven to happen in an instant!

Don’t get me wrong, I am not claiming that discoveries or knowledge from the secular world cannot possibly be valid, I am instead saying that they should be viewed with great caution, especially if it doesn't have a clean fit with scripture (also see Psalms 118:8).



It depends on what you mean by “time”. What I mean by time is the passing from past, present, to future. BTW, the idea of timelessness in heaven was a teaching in Greek Pagan philosophy, so again 1 Cor 3:19 comes to mind. For more on this controversial subject, see this thread:

http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/forum/in...wtopic=489&st=0

Fred

Very well, but nothing he says disagrees with scripture in my view. Just to follow up on what I said earlier here is a piece from the section you mentioned.
This zone was deep inside the
event horizon and not connected to it. I demonstrate the
existence of the timeless zone in sections 3 through 6 by
analysing the mathematical foundation of my theory, a
space-time metric published in 1961 by theoretical physicist
Oskar Klein.6 According to the Klein metric, as the
expansion proceeded, the timeless zone shrank until it
disappeared at the centre. As section 9 will make clear,
objects at the centre (such as the Earth) emerged from the
timeless zone last of all, thus becoming the youngest things
in the Universe.
He's saying that the effects created by the time dialation would cause time to stand still. There's nohting there that contradicts scripture.

I think I agree if I am understanding you correctly. It is apparent that we will probably live in heaven with a setting of past, present, and future. However, the concept of gauging things by days and months and so on does not exist because heaven is eternal. If time applies to heaven in the context I just referred to (finite periods of time) then heaven is not eternal. Surely you don't accept that idea?

I'm quite happy to believe in a timeless heaven where time exists. I expect almost everyone that ever lived to be there, and I'm quite looking forward to finding out exactly what it is that immortal souls spend the entire of eternity doing

I of course agree heaven is eternal. However, I don't agree that having a certain gauge to measure the passing of time, such as days, months, or seconds, somehow invalidates heaven being eternal. I just don't see the connection. Is it wrong for me to say that 100 million years from now we will still be in heaven, maybe still musing about this very thing?

Fred

I don't think you'll be looking at your watch, waiting for 5:30 while your in heaven.

Unless you're meeting someone ^_~

In 100 million years you're right, you will be. But once there you won't measure it that way. You'll just be there.


I disagree. There is an entire section on the objection you raised about not seeing the effects of time dialation.