Global Dumbing - "The rest of the story"

The rest of the story....

I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train

By David Evans

Posted on 5/28/2007

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I devoted six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian government to estimate carbon emissions from land use change and forestry. When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty conclusive, but since then new evidence has weakened that case. I am now skeptical.

In the late 1990s, this was the evidence suggesting that carbon emissions caused global warming:

1. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, proved in a laboratory a century ago.
2. Global warming has been occurring for a century and concentrations of atmospheric carbon have been rising for a century. Correlation is not causation, but in a rough sense it looked like a fit.
3. Ice core data, starting with the first cores from Vostok in 1985, allowed us to measure temperature and atmospheric carbon going back hundreds of thousands of years, through several dramatic global warming and cooling events. To the temporal resolution then available (data points more than a thousand years apart), atmospheric carbon and temperature moved in lockstep: they rose and fell together. Talk about a smoking gun!
4. There were no other credible causes of global warming.

This evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we are absolutely certain when we apparently need to act now? So the idea that carbon emissions were causing global warming passed from the scientific community into the political realm. Research increased, bureaucracies were formed, international committees met, and eventually the Kyoto protocol was signed in 1997 to curb carbon emissions.

"Correlation is not causation, but in a rough sense it looked like a fit."

The political realm in turn fed money back into the scientific community. By the late 1990s, lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too.

I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; there were international conferences full of such people. We had political support, the ear of government, big budgets. We felt fairly important and useful (I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet!

But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence above fell away. Using the same point numbers as above:

2. Better data shows that from 1940 to 1975 the earth cooled while atmospheric carbon increased. That 35 year non-correlation might eventually be explained by global dimming, only discovered in about 2003.
3. The temporal resolution of the ice core data improved. By 2004 we knew that in past warming events, the temperature increases generally started about 800 years before the rises in atmospheric carbon. Causality does not run in the direction I had assumed in 1999 — it runs the opposite way!

It took several hundred years of warming for the oceans to give off more of their carbon. This proves that there is a cause of global warming other than atmospheric carbon. And while it is possible that rising atmospheric carbon in these past warmings then went on to cause more warming ("amplification" of the initial warming), the ice core data neither proves nor disproves this hypothesis.

4. There is now a credible alternative suspect. In October 2006 Henrik Svensmark showed experimentally that cosmic rays cause cloud formation. Clouds have a net cooling effect, but for the last three decades there have been fewer clouds than normal because the sun's magnetic field, which shields us from cosmic rays, has been stronger than usual. So the earth heated up. It's too early to judge what fraction of global warming is caused by cosmic rays.

There is now no observational evidence that global warming is caused by carbon emissions. You would think that in over 20 years of intense investigation we would have found something. For example, greenhouse warming due to carbon emissions should warm the upper atmosphere faster than the lower atmosphere — but until 2006 the data showed the opposite, and thus that the greenhouse effect was not occurring! In 2006 better data allowed that the effect might be occurring, except in the tropics.

The only current "evidence" for blaming carbon emissions are scientific models (and the fact that there are few contradictory observations). Historically, science has not progressed by calculations and models, but by repeatable observations. Some theories held by science authorities have turned out to be spectacularly wrong: heavier-than-air flight is impossible, the sun orbits the earth, etc. For excellent reasons, we have much more confidence in observations by several independent parties than in models produced by a small set of related parties!

Let's return to the interaction between science and politics. By 2000 the political system had responded to the strong scientific case that carbon emissions caused global warming by creating thousands of bureaucratic and science jobs aimed at more research and at curbing carbon emissions.

"Science has not progressed by calculations and models, but by repeatable observations."

But after 2000 the case against carbon emissions gradually got weaker. Future evidence might strengthen or further weaken it. At what stage of the weakening should the science community alert the political system that carbon emissions might not be the main cause of global warming?

None of the new evidence actually says that carbon emissions are definitely not the cause of global warming, there are lots of good science jobs potentially at stake, and if the scientific message wavers then it might be difficult to later recapture the attention of the political system. What has happened is that most research efforts since 1990 have assumed that carbon emissions were the cause, and the alternatives get much less research or political attention.

Unfortunately politics and science have become even more entangled. Climate change has become a partisan political issue, so positions become more entrenched. Politicians and the public prefer simple and less-nuanced messages. At the moment the political climate strongly blames carbon emissions, to the point of silencing critics.

The integrity of the scientific community will win out in the end, following the evidence wherever it leads. But in the meantime, the effect of the political climate is that most people are overestimating the evidence that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming.

I recently bet $6,000 that the rate of global warming would slow in the next two decades. Carbon emissions might be the dominant cause of global warming, but I reckon that probability to be 20% rather than the 90% the IPCC estimates.

I worry that politics could seriously distort the science. Suppose that carbon taxes are widely enacted, but that the rate of global warming increase starts to decline by 2015. The political system might pressure scientists to provide justifications for the taxes.

Imagine the following scenario. Carbon emissions cause some warming, maybe 0.05C/decade. But the current warming rate of 0.20C/decade is mainly due to some natural cause, which in 15 years has run its course and reverses. So by 2025 global temperatures start dropping. In the meantime, on the basis of models from a small group of climate scientists but with no observational evidence (because the small warming due to carbon emissions is masked by the larger natural warming), the world has dutifully paid an enormous cost to curb carbon emissions.

Politicians, expressing the anger and apparent futility of all the unnecessary poverty and effort, lead the lynching of the high priests with their opaque models. Ironically, because carbon emissions are raising the temperature baseline around which natural variability occurs, carbon emissions might need curbing after all. Maybe. The current situation is characterized by a lack of observational evidence, so no one knows yet.

Some people take strong rhetorical positions on global warming. But the cause of global warming is not just another political issue, subject to endless debate and distortions. The cause of global warming is an issue that falls into the realm of science, because it is falsifiable. No amount of human posturing will affect what the cause is. It just physically is there, and after sufficient research and time we will know what it is.

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David Evans, a mathematician, and a computer and electrical engineer, is head of Science Speak. Send him mail. Comment on the blog.

The Climate Debate: When Science Serves the State

by N. Joseph Potts

Posted March 2, 2005

Enron: $1 billion writedown of retained earnings, followed by $618 million quarterly loss. 21,000 put out of work in ensuing bankruptcy. CFO Andrew Fastow sentenced to ten years in prison. Jeff Skilling and Kenneth Lay arrested and charged with federal crimes.

Worldcom: $10 billion inflation of profits through failure to record expenses. CFO Scott Sullivan reduces prison term through plea bargain in which he cooperates with prosecution of former CEO Bernie Ebbers, now on trial.

Arthur Andersen: auditor of Enron and Worldcom loses accounting license in consequence of these and other scandals and is liquidated, putting 65,000 employees worldwide out of work. Sarbanes and Oxley launch Congressional initiative resulting in the eponymous act of Congress to curb future abuses of corporate trust.

United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control (IPCC) sponsors adoption of the Kyoto Protocol by most industrialized nations around the world, with estimated costs of legally binding compliance estimated at over $150 billion per year. The chief promotional artifact in the proceedings, the "hockey stick" historical temperature chart of IPCC Third Scientific Assessment Chapter Lead Author Michael Mann, is shown to be based on a computer program that produces hockey sticks from over 99 percent of ten thousand samples of random noise fed to it. Stephen McIntyre, retired Canadian minerals consultant, demonstrates numerous other defects and distortions in both the data and statistical methodology, ultimately the subject of a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal of February 14 and a follow-up editorial on February 18.

Anyone sent to jail on that last one? That biggest one, by far? No.

Any charges? No, and none anticipated.

Lawsuits? None yet (possible reason: too many plaintiffs).

Any bankruptcies? Certainly not of the IPCC, nor of the tax-funded agencies that paid for the research that culminated in the hockey stick.

What about the auditor? There is no auditor. No audits? No, except for the self-funded undertaking of McIntyre and partner Ross McKitrick, and Dr. Mann has cut them and apparently everyone else off from further information on the mysterious process that "proved" an episode of global warming in the Twentieth Century and pointed to human activity as the guilty party.

Congressional action? Well, the US Senate has declined to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, but that’s about it.

Government investigation? Despite the fact that the US government funded eleven out of the twelve "Funded Proposals" cited in Dr. Mann’s curriculum vitae, it neither conducts audits of the results reported nor requires that information be made available to others for conducting audits at their own expense and initiative.

But the Kyoto Protocol remains in force and legally binding.

Government and science have found each other, and the spawn of this marriage look set to destroy global wealth on a scale that will render the greatest of history’s wars trivial by comparison. The ultimate outrage of all this is that the people who are subjected to the ravages of the wrong-headed policies promoted by these self-seekers are taxed to pay for the production of this junk science to begin with.

Scientists, like the rest of us, have among their number many members of a certain very dangerous group: those who would govern. And like the governing class everywhere, they seek to govern without the encumbrance of having to tolerate dissent from those who pay their salaries and experience the consequences of the policies they emplace.

Indeed, they resist inquiries from the unannointed into the bases of their pronouncements and, while feeding on the tithes exacted from the unwashed, insist on handing their pronouncements down as dicta that may not be questioned. The flavor of this may be discerned palpably in a visit to realclimate.org, a Web site launched early this year by climatologists and other "scientists" (today’s codeword for priest).

This Web site expresses the "frustration" felt by real scientists who have to contend with the inquiries and ignorance of non-scientists who are inflamed by their petty suspicions that they are being oppressed in the name of bogus theories. As well, it provides an eight-point set of standards for article comments (which are required to be "constructive" among other things). In "language your parents could understand," the Web site provides a "Dummies’ Guides" to its subject, and the impression that they truly regard their audience (and parents) as dummies is irresistible.

What the site does not provide in its Links section is a link to the Web site of the opposition, the more-modestly named climateaudit.org, set up about the same time to publicize flaws detected in the data and mathematics of the "hockey stick" found by semi-retired minerals consultant Stephen McIntyre of Toronto. Yes, this site does provide a link to realclimate, and doesn’t seem to qualify comments or commenters. Some of the comments on climateaudit are hostile to articles and comments on the site, while over at realclimate, things are eerily more-harmonious. I’m always grateful when the propagandist’s hand is so easily discerned.

Actually, as described in the Wall Street Journal editorial of February 18, two climatologists, Willie Soon and Sallie L. Baliunas, had the temerity to advance criticism of Mann’s article in 2003. The tsunami of protest from the academy against this suggestion that man may not be warming up his planet after all would have made Trofim Lysenko, the Soviet Union’s quack official geneticist of the 1930s, proud.

The "fact" of global warming is today as entrenched in the government-sponsored academy as ever was Lysenko’s theory that acquired traits, such as selfless devotion to the common good, could be inherited by the children of parents so indoctrinated. In the abject retraction by the journal that carried Soon and Baliunas’s heresy, Climate Research, they announce the resignations of their editor-in-chief and two other editors.

Peer review, the overrated orthodoxy-dominated system by which journal articles are supposedly vetted, has turned into a mechanism for enforcement of the ruling paradigm, if it was ever anything else. Among other things, it did not catch the errors in Mann’s seminal article. But peer review, which is not only unpaid, but highly political as well, has as a matter of practice never entailed what McIntyre calls an "audit" of the data and mathematics involved in developing the conclusions arrived at in an article.

Because of this, not only do journals not make a practice of publishing the data and algorithms behind the development of the conclusions, but peer reviewers virtually never have occasion to request the information either. A few exceptions such as the journals of the American Economic Association, have begun to appear.

Michael Crichton, whose current novel State of Fear describes a vast hoax perpetrated on a fearful world by rogue climatologists, is predictably excoriated on realclimate. Crichton stands to make a very large amount of money from acting on the skeptical side of this controversy.

But the greatest credit must go to the unpaid Stephen McIntyre and his partner in this quest, Ross McKitrick. They are the ones who first blurted out: "The professor has no clothes!"

N. Joseph Potts studies economics at his home in South Florida.

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By the way, I have sent a query to a scientist acquaintance concerning some recent specific dendrochronology questions....stay tuned!

Creation versus Evolution - Basics continued

I just loved this comment: "For those keeping score, that's
Science: 1x10^2346789 Creationism: 0."

This is a real kool-aid drinker here. I am not so foolish as to think that only Creation Science is actual science, but for some reason this person thinks that Creationism is against science. Perhaps this is because this person doesn't understand science. In pure form, science is unconcerned with worldview and that is certainly true in operational mode.

Being a creationist or an evolutionist usually makes no difference when it comes to science, that is, operational science in which systems and operations that are observable and testable today are studied in order to make discoveries that benefit mankind. It only makes a difference when grant dollars are being passed out for historical science research, really, or in matters of historical (or origins) science itself.

I have stated that I do believe that a lot of money is being thrown at attempts to prove that evolution has occurred and evolution-related issues and I do believe that money and time is wasted.

Incidently, since creation science has an answer to the advent of the Universe and the beginning of life itself, maybe right now it is creationism 2, atheistic evolutionism 0. But we go on...

The complexity of living beings - I find it either pathetic or hilarious that the SETI project is underway. The folks who are scanning the skies for SETI are looking for any evidence of intelligent patterns in the noise and light that are coming from outside of the Earth. Here is the statement of purpose for the SETI Institute.

The mission of the SETI Institute is to explore, understand and explain the origin, nature and prevalence of life in the universe.

The SETI Institute is a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to scientific research, education and public outreach.

Founded in 1984, the Institute today employs over 100 scientists, educators and support staff. Research at the Institute is anchored by two centers. Dr. Jill Tarter leads the Center for SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Research as Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI. Dr. Frank Drake is the Director for the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe

Sponsorship

Institute projects have been sponsored by:

• NASA Ames Research Center
• NASA Headquarters
• National Science Foundation
• Department of Energy
• US Geological Survey
• Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
• International Astronomical Union
• Argonne National Laboratory
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
• David & Lucile Packard Foundation
• Paul G. Allen Foundation
• Gordon and Betty Moore
• Universities Space Research Association (USRA)
• Pacific Science Center
• Foundation for Microbiology
• Sun Microsystems
• Hewlett Packard Company
• William and Rosemary Hewlett
• Bernard M. Oliver
• And many others

The Institute welcomes support from private foundations or other groups/individuals interested in SETI. Each funded effort (135 separate multi-year projects funded since 1984) is supervised by a principal investigator who is responsible to the Board of Trustees for the conduct of the activity.

Organization Status

The SETI Institute is a nonprofit corporation founded in 1984 (California Corporation #1261957). The Institute is a scientific and educational organization governed by the provisions of Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, and the Institute's Federal identification number for reporting and tax purposes is 94-2951356.

All contributions to the Institute will be used to further the goals described above and are deductible to the donor for both State and Federal income tax purposes.

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I could go on about the hundreds, yes, thousands of home computers giving processing time to the SETI project and all of the money dedicated to looking for ET. The Phoenix Project gets sky-scanning time to look for intelligent signals from the skies. But whether or not you support this search, I ask you this: If intelligent code coming from outer space means a non-human intelligence, then why isn't this same point of view in use when studying the makeup of life itself????

Would SETI recognize an intelligent message if they saw one?

One would think that to establish that any signal from space came from an intelligent source, it would need to contain coded information. (Any language system is coded information.) This would be a sign of intelligence because it always takes (greater) information to produce information, and ultimately information is the result of intelligence. Many years ago, the very first radio signal was received from space. It was called LGM-1. A regularly repeating blip had evolutionary astronomers very excited. Co-discoverer Jocelyn Bell-Burnell said:

‘One of the ideas that we facetiously entertained was that it might be little green men [emphasis added]—a civilization outside in space somewhere trying to communicate with us.’⁸

LGM-1 actually stood for ‘Little Green Men-1’, which gives you some indication of what they were expecting to find. However, the radio signal was from nothing more than a pulsar, a very dense celestial object, probably formed from a star that has undergone gravitational collapse. As it rapidly rotates, it emits regular ‘pulses’ of radio waves. (In contrast to the complex DNA code, or the writing on this page, a repeating signal actually has a very low level of information.)

The SETI Project, Falling “Floppy Discs,” and A Major Missed Implication by Kyle Butt, M.A.

SETI is the acronym that stands for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. For some time prior to 1981, the Federal Government pumped millions of dollars into the construction of high-tech satellites overseen by NASA that were designed to scan the skies in an effort to detect messages, codes, signals, or signs from intelligent life forms on other planets. In 1981, however, federal funding for this program ceased, but this roadblock in the search for alien intelligence did not stop the program. Currently, the Planetary Society stands as the major player in the SETI project. Thousands of volunteers all over the world have put their desktop computers to work, equipped with a program that filters information and radio signals from satellites. These computers are looking for patterns in signals that would suggest the existence of intelligence in outer space. Such prestigious institutions as Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley have joined the search. In the past, renowned scientists like Carl Sagan adamantly pushed for the funding and expansion of the SETI project (McDonough, 2004).

What, then, are these scientists and volunteers hoping to find in the data collected from their satellites, observation equipment, and computer analyses? They are hoping to find patterns or codes in radio or laser signals that contain some type of communication from an extraterrestrial intelligence. On the Planetary Society’s Web site, under the heading of Frequently Asked Questions, the question is posed: “How could we possibly understand signals from another civilization?” The answer given to this question is:

Even though we and an alien civilization would not have a language in common, there are ways to communicate that should be understandable to intelligent beings. Mathematics, physics, chemistry, and astronomy contain fundamental laws that provide a common “language” throughout the universe. Television pictures are a way of communicating that do not even require a common language to understand (“Frequently Asked Questions...,” 2001).

We can see that mathematical patterns, codes, languages, algorithms, and various other “fundamental laws” would be accepted as evidence that some type of intelligence did exist. The premise that can be surmised from the SETI program is that intelligence could be recognized and distinguished from non-intelligent, natural explanations; the required criteria for this recognition being some type of code, mathematical sequence, physical patterns, etc.

Suppose we were to send a man to the moon, and tiny floppy discs started falling to the moon’s surface. Upon inspection of these discs, the astronaut discovers they contain intricately coded information. Suppose further that he is able to decipher this code. Upon doing so, he discovers that the instructions contained in the code, if followed precisely, would produce a machine that could convert sunlight and minerals into food edible by humans and animals. Such an amazing find would receive world-wide recognition to say the least. And there would be no doubt that these discs had originated from an advanced intelligence. Yet, this hypothetical lunar scenario has a terrestrial equivalent.

In his book, The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins purports to show how life in this Universe could have evolved over millions of years. He claims to present information that shows that complicated life forms such as humans could have arisen from non-living substances by tiny, gradual steps over eons of time. In chapter five, he begins a discussion on DNA, and attempts to explain how such amazing codes of information could have arisen through natural processes. In his introduction to that chapter, however, he makes a startling admission that, to the honest reader, is impossible to explain in terms of naturalistic evolution. He discusses a willow tree that sits in his garden, shedding its “cottony” seeds through the air, to the ground and the passing water in the canal. In his discussion of the seeds, he explains that each seed contains DNA that, if allowed to grow, will produce another willow tree. He then explains briefly some of the coding capabilities of DNA and the instructions found in it for growth. Referring to these seeds and the DNA they contain, he makes the following statement: “It is raining instructions out there; it’s raining programs; it’s raining tree-growing, fluff-spreading, algorithms. That is not a metaphor, it is the plain truth. It couldn’t be any plainer if it were raining floppy discs” (1996, p. 111).

It is ironic, is it not, that the very coded mathematical information that, if found on the Moon, would be hailed as proof for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, when found on the Earth, is viewed by many as the product of a mindless, multi-million-year random process. How is it that such prestigious academic institutions such as Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley spend thousands of man hours and millions of dollars searching the skies for mathematical codes, radio signal patterns, etc.? And yet when they find such patterns, in biological, terrestrial organisms, they attribute them to non-intelligence. The logical implication in this situation continues to be missed by many of the major players in the scientific community: if complex coded information is found anywhere in the Universe, it proves that it was put there by a superior intelligence. If such is not the case, why waste time scanning the skies for these patterns? Dawkins’ book attempts to explain away this implication when it comes to coded information found on Earth, but it fails completely. Such an obvious, logical implication cannot be explained away. In truth, the coded information found in the DNA of living organisms points overwhelming to the fact that these organisms were design by an intelligent Being.

REFERENCES

Dawkins, Richard (1996), The Blind Watchmaker, (New York, NY: W.H. Norton and Co.).

“Frequently Asked Questions About the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence,” (2001), [On-line], URL: http://www.planetary.org/html/UPDATES/seti/SETIFAQS.html

McDonough, Thomas (2004), “Two Decades of SETI,” [On-line], URL: http://www.planetary.org/html/UPDATES/seti/seti-history.html.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that everything is running downhill in the Universe, from energy to entropy. Different scientists and organizations state this in differing ways but all agree with the above statement.

Rooms tend to get messy. Tires wear out and eventually flatten. Faces get wrinkly. Pictures fade. We see the Second Law in operation all around us.

"All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it." Dr. Lee Spetner.

Evolution, which has not been observed, must go directly against the Second Law. It is a random process, not driven by any intelligence. Yet, at the very core of living beings there is DNA, a remarkably complex system which is the very definition of design.

Astonishing DNA complexity uncovered

by Alex Williams

When the Human Genome Project published its first draft of the human genome in 2003, they already knew certain things in advance. These included:

• Coding segments (genes that coded for proteins) were a minor component of the total amount of DNA in each cell. It was embarrassing to find that we have only about as many genes as mice (about 25,000) which constitute only about 3% of the entire genome.
• this means that probably the whole genome is used by the cell and there is no such thing as ‘junk DNA’
  The non-coding sections (i.e. the remaining 97%) were nearly all of unknown function. Many called it ‘junk DNA’; they thought it was the miscopied and mutation-riddled left-overs abandoned by our ancestors over millions of years. Molecular taxonomists routinely use this ‘junk DNA’ as a ‘molecular clock’—a silent record of mutations that have been undisturbed by natural selection for millions of years because it does not do anything. They have constructed elaborate evolutionary histories for all different kinds of life from it.
• Genes were known to be functional segments of DNA (exons) interspersed with non-functional segments (introns) of unknown purpose. When the gene is copied (transcribed into RNA) and then translated into protein the introns are spliced out and the exons are joined up to produce the functional gene.
• Copying (transcription) of the gene began at a specially marked START position, and ended at a special STOP sign.
• Gene switches (the molecules involved are collectively called transcription factors) were located on the chromosome adjacent to the START end of the gene.
• Transcription proceeds one way, from the START end to the STOP end.
• Genes were scattered throughout the chromosomes, somewhat like beads on a string, although some areas were gene-rich and others gene-poor.

• Photo sxc.hu

  

  Because of evolutionary notions of our origin, our DNA was supposed to be mostly ‘junk’, leftovers of our animal ancestry. This has proven to be yet another evolutionary impediment to scientific progress.

  DNA is a double helix molecule, somewhat like a coiled zipper. Each strand of the DNA zipper is the complement of the other—as on a clothing zipper, one side has a lump that fits into a cavity on the other strand. Only one side of the DNA ‘zipper’ (called the ‘sense’ strand) makes the correct protein sequence. The complementary strand is called the ‘anti-sense’ strand. The sense strand is like an electrical extension cord where the ‘female’ end is safe to leave open until an appliance is attached, but the protruding ‘male’ end is active and for safety’s sake only works when plugged into a ‘female’ socket. Thus, protein production usually only comes from copying the sense strand, not the anti-sense strand. The anti-sense strand provides a template for copying the sense strand in a way that a photographic negative is used to produce a positive print. Some exceptions to this rule were known (i.e. that in some cases anti-sense strands were used to make protein) but no one expected the whole anti-sense strand to be transcribed.

This whole structure of understanding has now been turned on its head. A project called ENCODE recently reported an intensive study of the transcripts (copies of RNA produced from the DNA) of just 1% of the human genome.^1,2 Their findings include the following inferences:

• About 93% of the genome is transcribed (not 3%, as expected). Further study with more wide-ranging methods may raise this figure to 100%. Because much energy and coordination is required for transcription this means that probably the whole genome is used by the cell and there is no such thing as ‘junk DNA’.
• Exons are not gene-specific but are modules that can be joined to many different RNA transcripts. One exon (i.e. one part of one gene) can be used in combination with up to 33 different genes located on 14 different chromosomes. This means that one exon can specify one part shared in common by many different proteins.
• There is no ‘beads on a string’ linear arrangement of genes, but rather an interleaved structure of overlapping segments, with typically 5, 7, 9 or more transcripts coming from the one ‘gene’.
• Not just one strand, but both strands (sense and anti-sense) of the DNA are fully transcribed.
• Transcription proceeds not just one way but both backwards and forwards.
• Transcription factors can be tens or hundreds of thousands of base-pairs away from the gene that they control, even on different chromosomes.
• There is not just one START site, but many, in each particular gene region.
• There is not just one transcription triggering (switching) system for each region, but many.

The authors conclude:

These results are so astonishing, so shocking, that it is going to take an awful lot more work to untangle what is really going on in cells.

‘An interleaved genomic organization poses important mechanistic challenges for the cell. One involves the [use of] the same DNA molecules for multiple functions. The overlap of functionally important sequence motifs must be resolved in time and space for this organization to work properly. Another challenge is the need to compartmentalize RNA or mask RNAs that could potentially form long double-stranded regions, to prevent RNA-RNA interactions that could prompt apoptosis [programmed cell death].’

This concern for the safety of so many RNA molecules being produced in such a small space is well-founded. RNA is a long single-strand molecule not unlike a long piece of sticky-tape—it will stick to any nearby surface, including itself! Unless properly coordinated, it will all scrunch up into a sticky mess.

These results are so astonishing, so shocking, that it is going to take an awful lot more work to untangle what is really going on in cells. And the molecular taxonomists, who have been drawing up evolutionary histories (‘phylogenies’) for everything, are going to have to undo all their years of ‘junk DNA’-based historical reconstructions and wait for the full implications to emerge before they try again. One of the supposedly ‘knock-down’ arguments that humans have a common ancestor with chimpanzees is shared ‘non-functional’ DNA coding. That argument just got thrown out the window.

Related articles

• ‘Vestigial’ Organs Questions and Answers

References

1. Birney, E., et. al., Identification and analysis of functional elements in 1% of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project, Nature 447: 799–816, 2007.
2. Philipp Kapranov, P., Willingham, A.T. and Gingeras, T.R., Genome-wide transcription and the implications for genomic organization, Nature Reviews Genetics 8: 413–423, 2007.
   

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Concerning the complexity of life, these few words barely scratch the surface. Let me share the words of Dr. Gary Bates of the Creation Research Institute:

1) Scientists have never observed chemicals forming themselves into complex DNA molecules, the blueprint for life. DNA molecules do not produce new genetic information, they reproduce it. DNA appears to be designed, and information science demonstrates that information must be fully present in the beginning.

2) Mutations and natural selection reduce pre-existing information. There is no evidence of organisms evolving upward (including mankind - technological increase is not biological evolution).

3) All life in the fossil record appears abruptly and fully formed; the chains of transitional series hoped for the the evolutionists since Darwin are conspicuous by their general absence.

In terms of the complexity of life, the creation model makes a great deal of sense. DNA is a design function of life, created by the Designer, the Creator God, that functions as the blueprint for all living things. DNA and countless other instances of the incredible complexity of life, unknown to scientists in the day of Darwin, show us that life has been designed. The atheistic evolutionist must turn a blind eye to this somehow.

In my own life, the complexity of life helped cement for me the decision to abandon evolution and embrace creation. Both sides must have faith to believe their positions but it seems to me that such faith in an atheistic evolutionist is stretched to the breaking point in this instance.

Creationism 3, atheistic evolutionism 0.

Creation versus Evolution - Basics revisited

Here at this blog I post articles by others and essays by, well, me. I began this blog as a commentary blog on religion and science and politics, primarily. It appears that the creation versus evolution question has come to dominate the blog, at least at the present time. It seems like a good time to review some basic points for the benefit of new readers and to remind veteran readers.

1) Point of view, or worldview - I have a specific worldview, the set of assumptions through which I see and interpret the world. Think of a worldview as a set of eyeglasses, perhaps, through which everything you see is filtered. I have one, you have one and everybody has one, including every scientist in the world.

My worldview includes a belief in a Creator God who created the world. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and I consider myself a Christian. I am a conservative politically. I am a sports nut. I love nature and literature and music and science. I enjoy working with teenagers and volunteer my time to do so, as does my wife and one of my adult children.

Some people have difficulty with this concept, believing that their particular worldview is simply The Truth = unassailable fact. Hey, I believe that my worldview is correct but I am able to see that it is my opinion. Sadly, some folks just don't get it...No, a naturalistic atheistic evolutionist worldview is not fact, it is opinion.

2)Operational Science - operational science is the nuts-and-bolts of science. The scientific method is a staple of operational science, in which:

*a problem or question is addressed with a hypothesis
*a test is devised that tests the hypothesis
*if successful, the test is repeated several times and ways to see if the results are consistent
*if still successful, now we have a valid theory
*if the theory withstands further testing and is accepted by the scientific community as consistently true, it becomes a law.

Operational science deals with any question pertaining to matters of the here and now. Organisms and elements that can be accessed can be perused and tested. Systems that are in place and operations that are in existence now can be observed.

For instance, when our garden Hostas began to show signs of being eaten, we were glad that there were already a few theories of sluggology in place. According to previous tests, the likely culprit for our problem was the garden slug and previous tests had shown that, if we put out a pan of beer, the slugs would prefer the beer to the Hosta and crawl in only to drown.

We did find that our test, as expected, fit the theory to a "T". Slugs crawled in and they didn't crawl out. However, we also discovered that baby toads also liked the beer and we did modify the experiment by placing a kind of chicken wire over the pan so that slugs could enter but toads could not.

Our experiment supported that particular theory of sluggology concerning slugs and beer. It did solve the problem of the Hostas. It may be that, with this particular kind of Hosta and beer and slug, it could be determined someday to be a Law of Sluggology.

Yeah, the above was a little bit tongue in cheek. But it illustrates an important point, that the science that helps cure diseases and send people into space and makes engines more efficient is operational science - the science of rubber meeting road.

Operational science is happening in labs all over the globe. The idea of whether evolution may or may not be true or not doesn't enter in to operational science. It is important to emphasize that, in operational science, experimentation can yield results that can serve to more or less "prove" or "disprove" a hypothesis.

3) Historical Science - Historical science, which includes the study of origins, is not quite so neat. You can and will bring presuppositions into a lab to do an experiment in the realm of operational science, but the experiment will yield results that either support or do not support your presuppositions. In the case of historical science, experiments and observations are generally unavailable. One must take evidence found today to apply to yesterday and therefore the presupposition you bring to the problem will determine the conclusion you reach based on the evidence you view. You cannot prove or disprove your point but can only try to apply logic to intuit what must have been.

Sadly, the world doesn't understand this and many people believe that evolution, which is not even a testable theory, is a proven fact. Evolutionists have done a great job of marketing their viewpoint completely apart from the evidences available. But when you look behind the curtain of the Great and Terrible Oz of evolution, you see a little man of supposition where proven fact was believed to reside.

Evolution is not fact, it is not even a theory, it is a supposition. No one has ever proved or demonstrated evolution in action ever, at any time.

Creation is also a supposition. It cannot be tested and it cannot be proven and it has not been observed.

So please understand that in the realm of historical science, particularly in the world of creation science versus evolution science, it is all about the interpretation of evidence, period. One must simply decide for oneself which model fits the evidence best in one's own opinion.

~~~~~~~

The Big Things First - The big questions about who we are and how we got here cannot be answered in terms of proofs. So we can only look at evidences and decide, according to logic and in accordance with our worldviews, what makes sense.

Where did everything come from?

"Edward Tryon, Nature Magazine, 1973: "I offer the modest proposal that our Universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time."

Atheistic Evolution says that everything came from a natural cause. However, no cause is discernible so we need an "uncaused cause." The answer from this camp? The Big Bang. One of the latest versions of this Bang is Guth's Grand Guess, an inflation model of the aforementioned Bang. Guth himself says, "The Universe burst into something from absolutely nothing - zero, nada. And as it got bigger, it became filled with even more stuff that came from absolutely nowhere." April 2002 issue, Discover Magazine.

What follows is all the instances that scientists have observed in which something comes from nothing:
*
*
*
Still there? Yep, no evidence. However, there is the First Law of Thermodynamics:

First Law of Thermodynamics

The first law of thermodynamics is often called the Law of Conservation of Energy. This law suggests that energy can be transferred from one system to another in many forms. Also, it can not be created or destroyed. Thus, the total amount of energy available in the Universe is constant. Einstein's famous equation (written below) describes the relationship between energy and matter:

E = mc²

In the equation above, energy (E) is equal to matter (m) times the square of a constant (c). Einstein suggested that energy and matter are interchangeable. His equation also suggests that the quantity of energy and matter in the Universe is fixed.

So, what we see in the Universe today is that nothing is being either created or destroyed. The Big Bang is, so to speak, against the Law because such an event is never observed.

Biblical Creationism - Says that everything was created by God in a six day period of time, including time itself.

Genesis 1:1 - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

Creationists believe that an Eternal God created the Universe and everything in it. God is the cause of all existence. I personally see this explanation as far more logical and reasonable than "it just happened, even though it cannot happen."

There are all sorts of ways to look at all the evidences. The various Bang suppositions change on a regular basis. The likelihood is that the explanation you are willing to believe is the one that matches up with your worldview. The atheistic evolutionist would argue that it is illogical to argue that a supernatural being simply created matter from nothing. But then that same person will accept the idea of matter creating itself from nothing instead.

The Bible stands as evidence for God as the Creator of all things. If you accept that the Bible is the Word of God, then you have your answer. Big if, as we all know.

Where did life come from?

The atheistic evolutionist will say that somehow life generated from non-life. However there is another law involved here, the Law of Biogenesis:

Law of biogenesis. The law which states, life arises only from existing life. Formulated after many years of extensive observation and experimentation. The ancient greeks believed that living things could originate from nonliving matter (abiogenesis) and that the goddess Gea could make life arise spontaneously from stones. aristotle disagreed, but still believed that creatures could arise from dissimilar organisms or from soil (an early form of evolution theory). variations of this concept of spontaneous generation still existed as late as the 17th century, but towards the end of the 17th century a series of observations, experiments, and arguments began that eventually discredited such ideas. This advance in scientific understanding was met with much opposition, with personal beliefs and individual predjudices often obscuring the facts. Francesco Redi, an Italian physician, proved as early as 1668 that higher forms of life could not originate spontaneously, but proponents of abiogenesis claimed that this did not apply to microbes and continued to hold that these could arise spontaneously. attempts to disprove the spontaneous generation of life from non-life continued in the early 1800s with observations and experiments by Franz Schulze and Theodor Schwann.

In 1864 louis pasteur finally announced the results of his scientific experiments. In a series of neat experiments, pasteur proved conclusively that only pre-existing microbes could give rise to other microbes (biogenesis). thus dr. louis pasteur finally overcame the longstanding belief in spontaneous generation of life. even so (regardless of the evidence) the belief that life could spontaneously arise from non-life (abiogenesis) was still stubbornly held on to by some, including thomas Huxley ('Darwin's Bulldog').

however, the law of biogenesis is now well established and it is generally accepted by scientists that abiogenesis has no scientific validity. The medical profession and food industry rely totally on the validity of the law of biogenesis for hygiene, sterilisation and food preservation.

“There is no publication in the scientific literature—in prestigious journals, specialty journals, or books—that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur or even might have occurred. There are assertions that such evolution occurred, but absolutely none are supported by pertinent experiments or calculations.” Michael Behe in Darwin's Black Box.

Abiogenesis is also against the law, as it were. Yet it is the keystone of the atheistic evolutionists' point of view, for if life didn't just happen by chance, there had to be a Creator and certainly an atheist cannot abide the thought of a creator!

One way to get around the fact that abiogenesis has never been observed and seems to be impossible here on earth is panspermia, the idea that life began elsewhere and then was transported here.

Did Life Come from Another World?

New research indicates that microorganisms could have survived a journey from Mars to Earth

By David Warmflash and Benjamin Weiss

"Most scientists have long assumed that life on Earth is a homegrown phenomenon. According to the conventional hypothesis, the earliest living cells emerged as a result of chemical evolution on our planet billions of years ago in a process called abiogenesis. The alternative possibility--that living cells or their precursors arrived from space--strikes many people as science fiction. Developments over the past decade, however, have given new credibility to the idea that Earth's biosphere could have arisen from an extraterrestrial seed...."

Yes, in this way atheistic evolutionists move the problem to somewhere else in unobserved space at some unobserved time. Oddly enough, there have recently been two fields of scientific study established, being astrobiology and exobiology. The cynic in me says that such fields were developed to help NASA receive funding and keep the dollars flowing into the SETI project.

At any rate, here are the instances of extraterrestrial life that have been observed by scientists:
*
*
*
Yes, there are no instances. But how about the number of times that life has been observed to come from non-life here on earth?
*
*
*
Again, there are none.

Creationists believe that God created all life, as recounted in Genesis chapter one. The Bible has an explanation for the source of all life, God.

~~~~~~~

Those who are determined to keep God out of the discussion are doing so based upon their worldview and not because it is good science. Virtually every field of science was established by a Creationist. Sir Isaac Newton would be the most influential founder of physics and Galileo Galilei would be included in the discussion, Sir Francis Bacon was the founder of the scientific method. Here is a chart from 50 Nobel Laureates and Other Great Scientists Who Believe in God. Notice how most of these 16-21st century fathers of science were believers in a Creator God. IV

Isaac Newton	Founder of Classical Physics and Infinitesimal Calculus	Anglican (rejected Trinitarianism, i.e., Athanasianism; believed in the Arianism of the Primitive Church)
Galileo Galilei	Founder of Experimental Physics	Catholic
Nicolaus Copernicus	Founder of Heliocentric Cosmology	Catholic (priest)
Johannes Kepler	Founder of Physical Astronomy and Modern Optics	Lutheran
Francis Bacon	Founder of the Scientific Inductive Method	Anglican
René Descartes	Founder of Analytical Geometry and Modern Philosophy	Catholic
Blaise Pascal	Founder of Hydrostatics, Hydrodynamics, and the Theory of Probabilities	Jansenist
Michael Faraday	Founder of Electronics and Electro-Magnetics	Sandemanian
James Clerk Maxwell	Founder of Statistical Thermodynamics	Presbyterian; Anglican; Baptist
Lord Kelvin	Founder of Thermodynamics and Energetics	Anglican
Robert Boyle	Founder of Modern Chemistry	Anglican
William Harvey	Founder of Modern Medicine	Anglican (nominal)
John Ray	Founder of Modern Biology and Natural History	Calvinist (denomination?)
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz	German Mathematician and Philosopher, Founder of Infinitesimal Calculus	Lutheran
Charles Darwin	Founder of the Theory of Evolution	Anglican (nominal); Unitarian
Ernst Haeckel	German Biologist, the Most Influential Evolutionist in Continental Europe
Thomas H. Huxley	English Biologist and Evolutionist, Famous As "Darwin's Bulldog"
Joseph J. Thomson	Nobel Laureate in Physics, Discoverer of the Electron, Founder of Atomic Physics	Anglican
Louis Pasteur	Founder of Microbiology and Immunology	Catholic

Darwin, Haeckel and Huxley kind of stand out as sore thumbs in this list, eh?


Then there is the father of modern rocket science, Werner Von Braun, who said, "I find it...difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe." from Ann Lamont's 21 Great Scientists Who Believed The Bible.

Dimitrov's online book also contains a list of 20th century Nobel Laureates in the sciences...

Albert Einstein	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Jewish
Max Planck	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Protestant
Erwin Schrodinger	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Catholic
Werner Heisenberg	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Lutheran
Robert Millikan	Nobel Laureate in Physics	probably Congregationalist
Charles Hard Townes	Nobel Laureate in Physics	United Church of Christ (raised Baptist)
Arthur Schawlow	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Methodist
William D. Phillips	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Methodist
William H. Bragg	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Anglican
Guglielmo Marconi	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Catholic and Anglican
Arthur Compton	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Presbyterian
Arno Penzias	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Jewish
Nevill Mott	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Anglican
Isidor Isaac Rabi	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Jewish
Abdus Salam	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Muslim
Antony Hewish	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Christian (denomination?)
Joseph H. Taylor, Jr.	Nobel Laureate in Physics	Quaker
Alexis Carrel	Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology	Catholic
John Eccles	Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology	Catholic
Joseph Murray	Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology	Catholic
Ernst Chain	Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology	Jewish
George Wald	Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology	Jewish
Ronald Ross	Nobel Laureate in Medicine and Physiology	Christian (denomination?)
Derek Barton	Nobel Laureate in Chemistry	Christian (denomination?)
Christian Anfinsen	Nobel Laureate in Chemistry	Jewish
Walter Kohn	Nobel Laureate in Chemistry	Jewish
Richard Smalley	Nobel Laureate in Chemistry	Christian (denomination?)

Now as it happens some scientists who associate themselves with a faith are not classic creationists, such as Einstein. Einstein did believe in God, but was unsure what form God was to be encountered and exactly how much He was involved in things at present.

Do you believe in creation or evolution? I suggest very strongly that it is your worldview that drives your belief. One reason that I post this blog is because I do believe that worldviews can be changed with strong evidences and logic. I am one who came all the way from classic evolutionist to creationist after I decided that I needed to look carefully at the evidence and think for myself.

The evolution versus creation debate begins with origins. Where did the Universe come from? Where did life come from? The atheistic evolutionist can only say that he believes by faith that they somehow just happened.

Next, we'll look at some questions that come immediately after the first two very obvious questions. By the way, if you are an evolutionist and want to argue that the first two points are not even about evolution, sorry, I just don't buy it. You have to have a Universe and you have to have living organisms in order to begin even discussing evolution and if those who believe in evolution want to concede that God created the Universe and then created life, then, frankly, what do we need evolution for anyway? The next logical step is to concede that God made life as we know it today and that evolution is not worth discussion.

The Biblical Law - question and answer

Commenters often claim I ignore their questions. I did answer this one, but it has come up again so I want to put it in the form of a post and make it abundantly clear: The commenter is in black, I am in blue and the Bible is in red.

My question was:"Could you give us a rundown on which laws no longer apply, and which do, because of Jesus getting himself killed? You say the "ceremonial" stuff is out, but there's a lot of "stoning" for what appears to be non-ceremonial action/thought."Unless you are saying all the laws are out since Jesus got nailed, I'm still waiting for the answer. And waiting, and waiting, and.....

The Law as given by God to Moses, both on the stone tablets and by further inspiration, is specified in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The Law was part of a theocracy in which God Himself was the head and was represented by Moses and the Priesthood. Whereas the Law was given to the Jews, they were also given a choice: would they accept the Law and the God of the Law as their authority? They agreed to this.

Exodus 24:3 & 4 - When Moses went and told the people all the LORD's words and laws, they responded with one voice, "Everything the LORD has said we will do." Moses then wrote down everything the LORD had said.

Thus we have what is known as a covenant arrangement, along the lines of a contract in today's terms. (I find no codicil in here about needing a temple to perform sacrifices, as there was not yet a temple, so my question to Jews today remains unanswered.) The covenant was between God and man. The people of Israel stood in for mankind as a whole, because they were the last remnant of people on earth who still worshipped to any extent the Creator God. By the way, even though the Law was given to the Jews, a non-Jew could come in to the congregation by belief and action and be one of God's people as well, just as Rahab did for one example.

Of course, people being people the Jews as a whole didn't do a very good job of keeping the Law and would, as a nation, stray. In fact, much of the Old Testament is an account of a nation that strayed from God, and came back, and strayed, and came back and so on.

The Law was for a people but also for individual people. No matter what the state of the people of Israel, individuals could be obedient or not as they would. Thus, even when the nation itself was in rebellion to God, there would be an Isaiah or a Jeremiah or an Elijah calling them back to God.

But no one man could keep the law perfectly and God knew this. He inspired Paul to write on this subject rather clearly in discussing Abraham, one of the fathers of the faith and a Patriarch in the line of the Jews. Well, The Patriarch in fact.

Romans 4: 1-3 - What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."

Even Abraham was unable to do nothing but good. His "works" could not save him. The Jews could do their best to keep the Law, but they would fail and be required to give sacrifices and repent. In doing this, they were not actually atoning for their sins but they were believing and obeying their God. Thus, righteousness was 'credited' to them. The sacrifices were 'types' representing the One True Sacrifice to come, Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 10: 1-7 - The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, 'Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, O God.' "

Jesus came as a fulfillment of the Law, the answer to the question of sin and redemption and presented himself to the Jewish people as their Messiah. But the ruling scribes and pharisees of that time did not want to lose their position and power and rejected the idea of Christ. They wanted a Messiah who would set up an earthly kingdom, deposing the Romans and thus taking over the world (and putting those same scribes and pharisees in places of even greater authority). They wanted a Messiah who gave them earthly things. But Jesus came to do much more than that and many Jews heard and became followers of Christ. Frankly, you could just as easily call Christian believers "Jews" and require those calling themselves Jews now to simply identify themselves as Hebrews. Because at the time of Christ there was a split between Jews who accepted the Christ and those who rejected Him.

Romans 2:29 - No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.

By that verse, I am a Jew and glad of it! In any event, when Christ died on the cross the atonement was begun and once He rose again and ascended to Heaven it was completed. Several things took place:

1) The temple veil was ripped in half from the top down, God's way of saying that He would no longer have a presence in the Temple and that the Holy of Holies was no longer there...and thus invalidating further sacrifices.

2) The theocracy of a people ruled by God, which had become a practical mockery by this time, was over. God had presented a new covenant between Himself and mankind, through Jesus, and once again this covenant was by choice.

3) Those who rejected (and reject) Christ are therefore still accountable to the Old Covenant. So when I say the ceremonial laws passed away, I am referring to the sacrifices and offerings which prefigured Christ. Christ has come and there is no longer a need to prefigure Him, obviously. When I say the Law was nailed to the cross I also mean that, for Christians, we are now to be led by the Spirit of God within us and guided by the principles of the Bible. The Law was fulfilled in Christ and we who have accepted Christ as Savior will not be judged by the Law. But rejectors of Christ are technically still under the Law so for you who will not accept Christ, all of it still applies to you and by that Law you will be judged by the Creator God after your life in this form is over.

4) Within the generation living when Christ was crucified (as he predicted specifically) the Temple was torn down stone-by-stone and the (now useless) sacrifices were ended completely.

5) The question of sin was now answered in Christ, who fulfilled the Law completely, paid the penalty for those who could not fulfill that same law, and then rose from the dead as the first of many who would live eternally with Him by accepting His sacrifice and receiving his Spirit.

II Corinthians 3:6 - He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Oh, as for the Jews finding a nailed messiah laughable, well, the non acceptance of your nailed messiah speaks for itself. Interpret their scriptures as you will, they read them quite differently.

Psalms 22:16 - Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet.

Yep, nothing clear about that...in fact even though it is in poetic language (Psalms being songs to be sung rather than prose to be simply read), Psalms 22 is quite specific at times about the crucified Christ, albeit being written several centuries earlier. For instance:

Psalms 22: 7 & 8 - All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads:
"He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him."

Now compare to the testimony of the actual event in approximately AD 33:

Mark 15:29-32 - And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, “Aha! You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself, and come down from the cross!” Likewise the chief priests also, mocking among themselves with the scribes, said, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. Let the Christ, the King of Israel, descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe.”Even those who were crucified with Him reviled Him.

or

Matthew 27:41-43 - Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

Which makes ya wonder. Shouldn't God make these things a little clearer? After all we're talking eternal damnation here!

It is crystal clear. It is abundantly clear. Jesus spent three years proclaiming it, and his disciples and followers have continued to pass on the message ever since. It is proclaimed clearly and continuously in the Bible. Here are a few of the numerous passages that directly speak on this subject.

John 14:6 - Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 3:16-18 - "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

Matthew 1:21 - She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

Luke 19:10 - For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

Mark 16: 15 & 16 - He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

Acts 4:10-12 - Then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is " 'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

Romans 5:1-11 - Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

I Timothy 1:3-5 - This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

No secrets here - Jesus' mission was predicted in the Old Testament, He proclaimed it while He lived, He fulfilled it in dying and resurrecting, his disciples have published it continually thereafter. There is no confusion at all, what there is, however, is choice.

Choose to accept Christ, or choose to reject Him. No mystery, no secret, and it is on you to decide.

Why did the Ice Core man get 'Iced'?

The ice-core man

Lawrence Solomon, Financial PostPublished: Friday, May 04, 2007

Once upon a time, and for millennia before then, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were low and stable. Then came the industrial revolution and CO2 levels began to rise. The more man industrialized, the more that CO2 -- and the temperature -- rose. In the last half century, with industrialization at unprecedented levels, CO2 reached levels unprecedented in the human history. This is the story of global warming.

This story is a fable, says Zbigniew Jaworowski, past chairman of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, a participant or chairman of some 20 Advisory Groups of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Environmental Program, and current chair of the Scientific Committee of the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection in Warsaw.

Hmm, a "just-so story?" Evolutionists eat those for breakfast and spit them out in triplicate for lunch. No big surprise here.

Dr. Jaworowski agrees that CO2 levels rose in the last half century. Starting in 1958, direct, real-time measurements of CO2 have been systematically taken at a state-of-the-art measuring station in Hawaii. These measurements, considered the world's most reliable, are a good basis for science by bodies like the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the agency that is co-ordinating the worldwide effort to stop global warming.

But the UN does not rely on direct real-time measurements for the period prior to 1958. "The IPCC relies on icecore data -- on air that has been trapped for hundreds or thousands of years deep below the surface," Dr. Jaworowski explains. "These ice cores are a foundation of the global warming hypothesis, but the foundation is groundless -- the IPCC has based its global-warming hypothesis on arbitrary assumptions and these assumptions, it is now clear, are false."

OF course the IPCC is operating on assumptions and it those assumptions that predetermine what they will conclude. No big surprise here....

Ice, the IPCC believes, precisely preserves the ancient air, allowing for a precise reconstruction of the ancient atmosphere. For this to be true, no component of the trapped air can escape from the ice. Neither can the ice ever become liquid. Neither can the various gases within air ever combine or separate.

This perfectly closed system, frozen in time, is a fantasy. "Liquid water is common in polar snow and ice, even at temperatures as low as -72C," Dr. Jaworowski explains, "and we also know that in cold water, CO2 is 70 times more soluble than nitrogen and 30 times more soluble than oxygen, guaranteeing that the proportions of the various gases that remain in the trapped, ancient air will change. Moreover, under the extreme pressure that deep ice is subjected to -- 320 bars, or more than 300 times normal atmospheric pressure -- high levels of CO2 get squeezed out of ancient air."

Because of these various properties in ancient air, one would expect that, over time, ice cores that started off with high levels of CO2 would become depleted of excess CO2, leaving a fairly uniform base level of CO2 behind. In fact, this is exactly what the ice cores show.

"According to the ice-core samples, CO2 levels vary little over time," Dr. Jaworowski sates. "The ice core data from the Taylor Dome in Antarctica shows almost no change in the level of atmospheric CO2 over the last 7,000 to 8,000 years -- it varied between 260 parts per million and 264 parts per million.

"Yet other indicators of past CO2 levels, such as fossil leaf stomata, show that CO2 levels over the past 7,000 to 8,000 years varied by more than 50 parts per million, between 270 and 326 parts per million. We also know that there have been great fluctuations in temperature over that time period -- the Little Age just 500 years ago, for example. If the icecore record was reliable, and CO2 levels reflected temperatures, why wouldn't the ice-core data have shown CO2 levels to fall during the Little Ice Age? "

I would point Dr. Jaworowski to evidences that his 7-8,000 years is more likely to be 4-5,000 years, as per previous posts I have made. But not to quibble, we go on...

Dr. Jaworowski has devoted much of his professional life to the study of the composition of the atmosphere, as part of his work to understand the consequences of radioactive fallout from nuclear-weapons testing and nuclear reactor accidents. After taking numerous ice samples over the course of a dozen field trips to glaciers in six continents, and studying how contaminants travel through ice over time, he came to realize how fraught with error ice-core samples were in reconstructing the atmosphere. The Chernobyl accident, whose contaminants he studied in the 1990s in a Scandinavian glacier, provided the most illumination.

"This ice contained extremely high radioactivity of cesium-137 from the Chernobyl fallout, more than a thousand times higher than that found in any glacier from nuclear-weapons fallout, and more than 100 times higher than found elsewhere from the Chernobyl fallout," he explained. "This unique contamination of glacier ice revealed how particulate contaminants migrated, and also made sense of other discoveries I made during my other glacier expeditions. It convinced me that ice is not a closed system, suitable for an exact reconstruction of the composition of the past atmosphere."

Yes, and this is another reason that there are so many interpretations of ice core data, because ice almost has a life of its own and is not at all a closed system.

Because of the high importance of this realization, in 1994 Dr. Jaworowski, together with a team from the Norwegian Institute for Energy Technics, proposed a research project on the reliability of trace-gas determinations in the polar ice. The prospective sponsors of the research refused to fund it, claiming the research would be "immoral" if it served to undermine the foundations of climate research.

"Immoral." To discover that global warming is not happening. Wow. Talk about taking on the persona of a toddler hiding his eyes so he doesn't have to see something unpleasant! This is science????!!!

The refusal did not come as a surprise. Several years earlier, in a peer-reviewed article published by the Norwegian Polar Institute, Dr. Jaworowski criticized the methods by which CO2 levels were ascertained from ice cores, and cast doubt on the global-warming hypothesis. The institute's director, while agreeing to publish his article, also warned Dr. Jaworowski that "this is not the way one gets research projects." Once published, the institute came under fire, especially since the report soon sold out and was reprinted. Said one prominent critic, "this paper puts the Norsk Polarinstitutt in disrepute." Although none of the critics faulted Dr. Jaworowski's science, the institute nevertheless fired him to maintain its access to funding.

Sadly, global warming whistle-blowers have no recourse but to get fired and go away. Notice that in this case the doctor's institute did reluctantly publish his paper before eventually firing him. More often than not, such institutions ignore a paper like this and will not even publish it. I have to give them a little credit for that much.

Is there an alternative to ice-core samples, which are but proxies from which assumptions about the historical composition of the atmosphere can be made? "Yes, there are several other proxies, and they lead to different findings about CO2," Dr. Jaworowski states. "But we don't need to rely on proxies at all.

"Scientists from numerous disciplines have been examining CO2 since the beginning of the 19th century, and they have left behind a record of tens of thousands of direct, real-time measurements. These measurements tell a far different story about CO2 -- they demonstrate, for example, that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have fluctuated greatly, and that several times in the past 200 years CO2 concentrations have exceeded today's levels.

"The IPCC rejects these direct measurements, some taken by Nobel Prize winners. They prefer the view of CO2 as seen through ice."

Why is that, do you suppose? Well, if not believing in global warming is "immoral", then global warming must be some kind of religious belief for the IPCC rather than a scientific endeavor. Those who don't agree with them, "deniers", are heretics.

LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com

- - - - Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute and Consumer Policy Institute, divisions of Energy Probe Research Foundation.

CV OF A DENIER:
Zbigniew Jaworowski is chairman of the Scientific Council of the Central Laboratory for Radiological Protection in Warsaw, where he has held various posts since 1973. He was a principal investigator of three research projects of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and of four research projects of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The author of four books and 300 scientific papers, he has held posts with the Centre d'Etude Nucleaires near Paris; the Biophysical Group of the Institute of Physics, University of Oslo; the Norwegian Polar Research Institute and the National Institute for Polar Research in Tokyo.

© National Post 2007

So why did the Ice Core man get iced? Because he preferred to seek truth rather than march in lockstep with the purveyors of the "global warming just-so stories" and his evidence was so damaging to their beliefs they had to make sure to fire him and try to "make the bad man go away" rather than to consider what he proposed fit the available evidences. They didn't want to know. They don't want to know. This is true in the case of global warming, just as it is true in the case of evolution. In both cases, the majority will just try to drown out the opposition with a flood of verbiage and hostility, redirecting the focus off of the actual evidences.

More on Global Dumbing

The ridiculous, absurd, laughable junk science of "global warming" continues to dominate the news. Here are some ripostes right into the sides of such nonsense! I will begin with three portions of a well-done series that was begun as an exposure of Global Warming Deniers and became a warning against the Global Warming propagandists instead.

They call this a consensus?

Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post

Published: Saturday, June 02, 2007

"Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled."

S o said Al Gore ... in 1992. Amazingly, he made his claims despite much evidence of their falsity. A Gallup poll at the time reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred; 30% weren't sure; and only 17% believed global warming had begun. Even a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of climatologists didn't think a runaway greenhouse effect was imminent; only 36% thought it possible and a mere 13% thought it probable.

Today, Al Gore is making the same claims of a scientific consensus, as do the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and hundreds of government agencies and environmental groups around the world. But the claims of a scientific consensus remain unsubstantiated. They have only become louder and more frequent.

The loudest guy in an argument isn't always right, he's just trying to overwhelm reason with volume!

Forget warming - beware the new ice age

Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post

Published: Friday, June 15, 2007

In the 1970s, leading scientists claimed that the world was threatened by an era of global cooling.

Based on what we've learned this decade, says George Kukla, those scientists - and he was among them -- had it right. The world is about to enter another Ice Age.

Dr. Kukla, in 1972 a member of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences and a pioneer in the field of astronomical forcing, became a central figure in convincing the United States government to take the dangers of climate change seriously. In January of that year, he and another geologist, Robert Matthews of Brown University, convened what would become a historic conference of top European and American investigators in Providence, R.I. The working conference's theme: "The Present Interglacial: How and When will it End?"

Later that year, Drs. Kukla and Matthews highlighted the dangers of global cooling in Science magazine and, because of the urgency of the matter, in December they also alerted President Richard Nixon in a joint letter. The conference had reached a consensus, their letter stated, that "a global deterioration of climate, by order of magnitude larger than any hitherto experienced by civilized mankind, is a very real possibility and indeed may be due very soon. The cooling has natural cause and falls within the rank of processes which produced the last ice age."

The White House reacted swiftly to the letter, which described "substantially lowered food production" and "extreme weather anomalies," such as killer frosts and floods, as well as a warning that the Soviet Union might already be in the lead in preparing for the climate disturbances to come. By February 1973, the State Department had established a Panel on the Present Interglacial, which advised Drs. Kukla and Matthews that it "was seized of the matter."

Soon, numerous other government agencies were drawn in -- the issue was seen to be of paramount importance -- and by 1974, a federal government report, A United States Climate Program, cited evidence of the gathering storm, including:

"A killing winter freeze, followed by a severe summer heat wave in the United States.

"Drought in the Soviet Union producing a 12% shortfall in their grain production in 1972, forcing the country to purchase grain abroad, which in turn reduced world grain reserves and helped drive up food prices.

"Collapse of the Peruvian anchovy harvest in late 1972 and early 1973, related to fluctuations in the Pacific Ocean currents and atmospheric circulation, impacted world supplies of fertilizer, the soybean market and prices of other protein feed stocks.

"The anomalously low precipitation in the U.S. Pacific Northwest during the winter of 1972-73 depleted water-reservoir storage by an amount equivalent to an amount of water required to generate more than 7% of the electric energy for the region."

By 1975, the first of numerous bills, such as the "National Climate Program Act of 1975," was introduced to establish a co-ordinated national program of climate research, monitoring, prediction and contingency-planning analysis. Much congressional testimony spoke of the inadequacy of climate research and the need for preparedness. Meanwhile, the failure of the Soviet Union's wheat crop (and a subsequent high-profile U.S. wheat deal), the severe winter of 1976-77 and El Nino's influence on climate became dinner-table talk, heightening the government's desire to predict the climate. In September, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed the National Climate Program Act into law, in aid of predicting future climate and combating global cooling. That act has now been enlisted in the effort to counter global warming.

Ironic, isn't it? The earth cycles warm and hot and so do the propagandists....and the only emissions that are actually dangerous to us are the tons of hot air emitting from the GW propagandists who wish to dampen the world's economy and hinder the development of Third World countries with their chicken little demands.

Read the sunspots

The mud at the bottom of B.C. fjords reveals that solar output drives climate change - and that we should prepare now for dangerous global cooling

R. TIMOTHY PATTERSON, Financial Post

Published: Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Politicians and environmentalists these days convey the impression that climate-change research is an exceptionally dull field with little left to discover. We are assured by everyone from David Suzuki to Al Gore to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that "the science is settled." At the recent G8 summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel even attempted to convince world leaders to play God by restricting carbon-dioxide emissions to a level that would magically limit the rise in world temperatures to 2C.

Read the Post's series on Climate Change: The Deniers

Forget warming, beware the new ice age

View Larger Image

(See hardcopy for Chart/Graph)

Andrew Barr, National Post

They call this a consensus?

Dire forecasts aren't new

The fact that science is many years away from properly understanding global climate doesn't seem to bother our leaders at all. Inviting testimony only from those who don't question political orthodoxy on the issue, parliamentarians are charging ahead with the impossible and expensive goal of "stopping global climate change." Liberal MP Ralph Goodale's June 11 House of Commons assertion that Parliament should have "a real good discussion about the potential for carbon capture and sequestration in dealing with carbon dioxide, which has tremendous potential for improving the climate, not only here in Canada but around the world," would be humorous were he, and even the current government, not deadly serious about devoting vast resources to this hopeless crusade.

Climate stability has never been a feature of planet Earth. The only constant about climate is change; it changes continually and, at times, quite rapidly. Many times in the past, temperatures were far higher than today, and occasionally, temperatures were colder. As recently as 6,000 years ago, it was about 3C warmer than now. Ten thousand years ago, while the world was coming out of the thou-sand-year-long "Younger Dryas" cold episode, temperatures rose as much as 6C in a decade -- 100 times faster than the past century's 0.6C warming that has so upset environmentalists.

Climate-change research is now literally exploding with new findings. Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the field has had more research than in all previous years combined and the discoveries are completely shattering the myths. For example, I and the first-class scientists I work with are consistently finding excellent correlations between the regular fluctuations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate. This is not surprising. The sun and the stars are the ultimate source of all energy on the planet.

My interest in the current climate-change debate was triggered in 1998, when I was funded by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council strategic project grant to determine if there were regular cycles in West Coast fish productivity. As a result of wide swings in the populations of anchovies, herring and other commercially important West Coast fish stock, fisheries managers were having a very difficult time establishing appropriate fishing quotas. One season there would be abundant stock and broad harvesting would be acceptable; the very next year the fisheries would collapse. No one really knew why or how to predict the future health of this crucially important resource.

Although climate was suspected to play a significant role in marine productivity, only since the beginning of the 20th century have accurate fishing and temperature records been kept in this region of the northeast Pacific. We needed indicators of fish productivity over thousands of years to see whether there were recurring cycles in populations and what phenomena may be driving the changes.

My research team began to collect and analyze core samples from the bottom of deep Western Canadian fjords. The regions in which we chose to conduct our research, Effingham Inlet on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, and in 2001, sounds in the Belize-Seymour Inlet complex on the mainland coast of British Columbia, were perfect for this sort of work. The topography of these fjords is such that they contain deep basins that are subject to little water transfer from the open ocean and so water near the bottom is relatively stagnant and very low in oxygen content. As a consequence, the floors of these basins are mostly lifeless and sediment layers build up year after year, undisturbed over millennia.

Using various coring technologies, we have been able to collect more than 5,000 years' worth of mud in these basins, with the oldest layers coming from a depth of about 11 metres below the fjord floor. Clearly visible in our mud cores are annual changes that record the different seasons: corresponding to the cool, rainy winter seasons, we see dark layers composed mostly of dirt washed into the fjord from the land; in the warm summer months we see abundant fossilized fish scales and diatoms (the most common form of phytoplankton, or single-celled ocean plants) that have fallen to the fjord floor from nutrient-rich surface waters. In years when warm summers dominated climate in the region, we clearly see far thicker layers of diatoms and fish scales than we do in cooler years. Ours is one of the highest-quality climate records available anywhere today and in it we see obvious confirmation that natural climate change can be dramatic. For example, in the middle of a 62-year slice of the record at about 4,400 years ago, there was a shift in climate in only a couple of seasons from warm, dry and sunny conditions to one that was mostly cold and rainy for several decades.

Using computers to conduct what is referred to as a "time series analysis" on the colouration and thickness of the annual layers, we have discovered repeated cycles in marine productivity in this, a region larger than Europe. Specifically, we find a very strong and consistent 11-year cycle throughout the whole record in the sediments and diatom remains. This correlates closely to the well-known 11-year "Schwabe" sunspot cycle, during which the output of the sun varies by about 0.1%. Sunspots, violent storms on the surface of the sun, have the effect of increasing solar output, so, by counting the spots visible on the surface of our star, we have an indirect measure of its varying brightness. Such records have been kept for many centuries and match very well with the changes in marine productivity we are observing.

In the sediment, diatom and fish-scale records, we also see longer period cycles, all correlating closely with other well-known regular solar variations. In particular, we see marine productivity cycles that match well with the sun's 75-90-year "Gleissberg Cycle," the 200-500-year "Suess Cycle" and the 1,100-1,500-year "Bond Cycle." The strength of these cycles is seen to vary over time, fading in and out over the millennia. The variation in the sun's brightness over these longer cycles may be many times greater in magnitude than that measured over the short Schwabe cycle and so are seen to impact marine productivity even more significantly.

Our finding of a direct correlation between variations in the brightness of the sun and earthly climate indicators (called "proxies") is not unique. Hundreds of other studies, using proxies from tree rings in Russia's Kola Peninsula to water levels of the Nile, show exactly the same thing: The sun appears to drive climate change.

However, there was a problem. Despite this clear and repeated correlation, the measured variations in incoming solar energy were, on their own, not sufficient to cause the climate changes we have observed in our proxies. In addition, even though the sun is brighter now than at any time in the past 8,000 years, the increase in direct solar input is not calculated to be sufficient to cause the past century's modest warming on its own. There had to be an amplifier of some sort for the sun to be a primary driver of climate change.

Indeed, that is precisely what has been discovered. In a series of groundbreaking scientific papers starting in 2002, Veizer, Shaviv, Carslaw, and most recently Svensmark et al., have collectively demonstrated that as the output of the sun varies, and with it, our star's protective solar wind, varying amounts of galactic cosmic rays from deep space are able to enter our solar system and penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. These cosmic rays enhance cloud formation which, overall, has a cooling effect on the planet. When the sun's energy output is greater, not only does the Earth warm slightly due to direct solar heating, but the stronger solar wind generated during these "high sun" periods blocks many of the cosmic rays from entering our atmosphere. Cloud cover decreases and the Earth warms still more.

The opposite occurs when the sun is less bright. More cosmic rays are able to get through to Earth's atmosphere, more clouds form, and the planet cools more than would otherwise be the case due to direct solar effects alone. This is precisely what happened from the middle of the 17th century into the early 18th century, when the solar energy input to our atmosphere, as indicated by the number of sunspots, was at a minimum and the planet was stuck in the Little Ice Age. These new findings suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. By comparison, CO2 variations show little correlation with our planet's climate on long, medium and even short time scales.

In some fields the science is indeed "settled." For example, plate tectonics, once highly controversial, is now so well-established that we rarely see papers on the subject at all. But the science of global climate change is still in its infancy, with many thousands of papers published every year. In a 2003 poll conducted by German environmental researchers Dennis Bray and Hans von Storch, two-thirds of more than 530 climate scientists from 27 countries surveyed did not believe that "the current state of scientific knowledge is developed well enough to allow for a reasonable assessment of the effects of greenhouse gases." About half of those polled stated that the science of climate change was not sufficiently settled to pass the issue over to policymakers at all.

Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us.

Meantime, we need to continue research into this, the most complex field of science ever tackled, and immediately halt wasted expenditures on the King Canute-like task of "stopping climate change."

R. Timothy Patterson is professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University.

A YEC creationist such as myself would say that secular scientists are thrown off when reading ice cores and mud cores by the effects of the Noahic world-wide flood and once they go back past 4,000 years they begin missing the mark. No matter, both YEC and secular scientists can look at the last 4,000 years and see climactic changes driven by the sun, apart from any "carbon footprints" made by man or beast.

This is a hilarious version of the "Emperor's New Clothes" in which every politician is forced to put on his naked warming suit or be accused of being a "denier" and unscientific. I agree with Dennis Miller. Not only is it foolish to spend millions of dollars to avoid "Manhattan going underwater", we could form a commission and spend millions of dollars to try to make the oceans rise and put Manhattan under water and we'd fail miserably.

The planet warms up and then it cools down. There are delicate checks and balances in place concerning sun spots and cloud cover and the salinity of the oceans and the amount of fresh water caught in glaciers and land-locked lakes. If we are in for a warming phase, lets enjoy it, plant more crops, experience milder winters and batten down for a few more hurricanes. Because it will all change and we'll eventually see the Thames frozen over in winter again and snow cover for Thanksgiving and so on.

I'll close with this segment of a discussion on MSNBC last year that sums it up for me nicely:

Scarborough and Stossel Slam Al Gore and Global Warming

Posted by Noel Sheppard on June 29, 2006 - 10:08.

ABC’s John Stossel was a guest on MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country” Wednesday, and it is quite safe to say that he’s not buying into any of the recent alarmism concerning global warming. As a result, he and host Joe Scarborough had a lot of fun at Al Gore’s expense (video link to follow).

Scarborough began: “…for Al Gore and Bill Clinton to say it`s causing flooding and causing hurricanes and it may have caused Hurricane Katrina, that`s just ridiculous, isn`t it. There is no proof of that, is there?”

Stossel responded:

“No. And the serious scientists scoff at that. The warmer water can encourage hurricanes, but they run in cycles. But the alarmists always want you to think it`s man`s fault so you will turn your life over to them and they can tell you what to do.”

Scarborough responded: “I remember being warned in Florida five years ago about the next cycle, that from 1900 to 1945, we didn`t have a lot of hurricanes. We had a lot of hurricanes and it slowed down for the next 60 years and they said there is a time where the water will heat up again and yet the A.P, other news agencies seem to give Al Gore a free pass.”

Scarborough then hit the nail right on the head:

“A lot of my friends will be angry with me and say Scarborough, you are denying that global warming exists. I am not denying that at all, but why is it that we live in a country where somebody like Al Gore and a political elite in Washington, DC and New York and L.A. can go out and say this is the fact. If we don`t turn things around in 10 years, we are going to boil the icecaps are going to flood, Manhattan is going to be under water and Florida is going to be under water. You cannot find scientists who believe that.”

Stossel accurately and comically responded:

“They are much more skeptical, but the alarmists always get the news. I`ve covered this over the years. Killer bees were going to get us, SARS, anthrax, mad cow disease, saccharin, Nutrasweet, scares one after the other. Cell phones are going to give you brain cancer. Everyone was convinced about that. We just like to be scared. It`s why we go to horror movies and now we believe Al Gore and global warming.”

At the end of the discussion, which eventually included Tyson Slocum of “Public Citizen,” Stossel got the last word:

“Let me just say that this, at bottom is a hatred of capitalism and a hatred of industrial production. Yes, it`s true, we produce more carbon dioxide, but we are also the cleanest country in the world. As we get wealthier, the air gets cleaner and we can afford to do things that maybe some day if the globe is warming we have to make adjustments, it`s our wealth that will allow us to save the world. If we let these socialists control our lives, we will be worse off.”

More about radiocarbon dating and tree ring dating

Here is more about dating and dendrochronology. Again, whereas the tree rings constitute evidence, the way in which they may be used for dating purposes is not. Scientists disagree about how to "read" the rings in association with radiocarbon dating and other methods. Those who believe in long ages prefer longer ages but certainly we can point out major problems with their scientific methods. Below is a good overview: Dating in Archaeology: Radiocarbon & Tree-Ring Dating by Trevor Major, M.Sc., M.A.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a two-part series on “Dating in Archaeology.”]

Over the last few decades, archaeology has come into its own as a scientific endeavor. Gone are the romantic images of gentlemen in pith helmets carting off treasures to the museums and estates of Europe. Gone, too, is the idea that archaeologists are always on the side of the Bible believer. Modern interpretations frequently challenge biblical accounts. Further, dates generated by new techniques are often at odds with the timing of events given by Scripture.

The purpose of this first article is to discuss problems with radiocarbon and tree-ring dating (or dendrochronology), which are the two most common direct dating techniques in archaeology. Problems with relative dating by interpretation of material culture—arrowheads, pottery, tools—will be the subject of the next article.

RADIOCARBON DATING

In the 1940s, researchers began to study the effect of cosmic radiation on the upper atmosphere. They found that it could transform common nitrogen-14 (14N) into a radioactive isotope of carbon called carbon-14 (14C), or radiocarbon. Both radioactive and nonradioactive (12C,13C) forms of carbon can react with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, which becomes part of the atmosphere. From here it can enter plants by respiration, animals by feeding, and the oceans by exchange with the atmosphere (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The part of radiocarbon in the carbon cycle

Early in these studies, Willard F. Libby and his coworkers realized that they could use this process as a tool for dating objects containing carbon. Take, for instance, a piece of charcoal from an ancient campsite. While the wood was alive and growing, it was taking in carbon dioxide. Its ratio of common carbon-12 to radioactive carbon-14 closely matched the ratio in the surrounding air. But after that ancient camper cut it for firewood, it no longer took in carbon dioxide. The carbon-14 slowly decayed, while the amount of carbon-12 stayed the same. Theoretically, if we know the ratio of these two isotopes, and the decay rate, we can calculate the radiocarbon age of the charcoal. The decay rate for carbon-14, expressed as a half-life, is 5730 years (e.g., if our sample contains 1 gram of carbon-14 now, 5730 years ago it contained 2 grams).

Libby’s initial results seemed very successful, and in 1960 he received the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his development of this important new technique.

Measurement Limits

Until the last few years, laboratories measured carbon-14 content indirectly by extracting all the carbon from a sample and then counting its radioactive emissions. Unfortunately, many of these systems required relatively large samples to obtain accurate results. Archaeologists faced the dilemma of either preserving or dating their precious finds. The application of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) to carbon isotope analysis has changed this picture dramatically. An AMS system has the advantage of counting individual carbon-14 atoms.

Laboratories using the decay-measuring method claim they can analyze several grams of carbon with a typical accuracy of ±40-150 years, and a maximum range of 30-40,000 years. AMS labs claim they can measure several milligrams of carbon with a typical accuracy of ±80-400 years, and a maximum range of 40,000 years (Taylor, 1987, Table 4.1; see also Aitken, 1990, Table 4.1). However, being able to measure tiny amounts of carbon-14 is not the same as proving that objects are thousands-of-years old.

Radiocarbon Assumptions and Problems

Like other radiometric methods, radiocarbon dating faces technical problems and operates under some questionable assumptions.

1. Perhaps the most critical assumption of radiocarbon dating is that the rates of carbon-14 production and decay are in a state of balance or equilibrium, and have been so for millions of years. If this were true, the carbon-12/carbon-14 ratio in living organisms will be the same as the ratio in an organism that lived thousands of years ago. However, we have reason to think that this is not true, as we will see in a later section.
   
   
2. Radiocarbon dating assumes a constant decay rate for the breakdown of carbon-14. At present, we have no firm evidence for any systematic change in this rate.
   
   
3. Contamination by groundwater, soil, or foreign matter is always a potential problem. However, people working with radiocarbon dating feel confident that good sample collection can overcome this problem.
   
   
4. Some organisms may exclude the heavier carbon-14 isotopes preferentially, making them look too old (e.g., living shellfish that have a radiocarbon “age” of several hundred years). Comparison of carbon-12 and carbon-14 with the stable isotope carbon-13 is supposed to correct this problem (see Aitken, 1990, pp. 62-64). Environmental factors, such as forest fires and volcanic eruptions, which increase the local concentrations of carbon dioxide, may also have an effect on the carbon-14/carbon-12 ratio.
   
   
5. Looming over all these assumptions is the idea that cross-checking with other archaeological information will confirm whether the radiocarbon date is “reasonable.” This introduces the specter of subjectivity.

TREE-RING DATING

The radiocarbon method has a less convenient, but senior partner in the form of tree-ring dating. This venerable science began in the early part of the twentieth century when A.E. Douglass was looking for a way to investigate the historical relationship between solar activity and climate. He noticed variations in the width of annual growth rings in yellow pine trees growing around Flagstaff, Arizona. The year-to-year variations were the result of changes in rainfall, while the larger patterns were perhaps the result of some longer-term trend. Douglass used a cross-identification system to match patterns in trees of the same age. He later extended his work to the giant redwoods of California. Eventually he had a chronology going back more than three thousand years.

In the mid-1920s, Douglass began to apply tree rings to dating in archaeology. His idea was to match ring patterns in the timbers of Native American structures, with the ring patterns in yellow pines. This is a relatively simple matter if the ruins are only a few hundred years old. But if they predate the living trees, then it is necessary to use indirect methods. Douglass bridged the gap by overlapping patterns of successively older timbers. This classic technique is called cross dating.

Researchers have since applied Douglass’ pioneering techniques to other species, including living and dead specimens of the bristlecone pine. From this longest-living of all trees, they have constructed a chronology going back almost ten thousand years.

Supposedly, tree rings produce “real” dates. For example, say we wanted to date a piece of German oak furniture. We could try to match a pattern of rings on the furniture, with a pattern of rings in living oaks from a forest near to where it was made. Using our tree-ring chronology for German oaks, we might get a date of A.D. 1651. This represents the year when the tree was cut and, presumably, gives a good estimate of the furniture’s age. In contrast, if we applied radiocarbon dating, all we could say is that the piece dates to sometime in the seventeenth century.

Problems with Tree-Ring Dating

The most questionable assumption in dendrochronology is the rate of ring formation. General principles of biology and climate suggest that trees add only one ring each year. Individual bristlecone pines, which grow very slowly in arid, high altitude areas of western North America, will sometimes skip a year of growth. This might make a tree appear younger than it really is, but dendrochronologists fill in the missing information by comparing rings from other trees.

However, trees would appear too old if they grew more than one ring per year. Most dendrochronologists, drawing on an influential study by LaMarche and Harlan (1973), believe that bristlecone pines do indeed add only one ring per year. Yet not all scientists accept this study. According to Harold Gladwin (1978), the growth patterns of the bristlecone trees are too erratic for dating. Lammerts (1983) found extra rings after studying the development of bristlecone saplings. He suggested that the existing chronology should be compressed from 7,100 to 5,600 years.

Other problems relate to the analysis of growth-ring patterns. Baillie warns:

As with conventional jig-saws, some people are better at pattern recognition than others and, if the analogy is not too brutal, there are those who recognise the problems, and those who might try to force the pieces together. It has to be remembered that there is only one correct pattern: each tree has grown only once and ultimately its ring pattern can only fit at one place in time. Simply because two pieces look alike does not necessarily mean that they fit together (1982, p. 23).

Computers can provide an important tool for some of this analysis. But researchers must still judge the statistical significance of an apparent match. Also, they must consider variables like local climate and aging, which affect the width of the rings.

THE ASSUMPTION OF EQUILIBRIUM

The stories of these two dating methods converged when researchers realized that they did not always give the same answer. Despite Libby’s hopes, radiocarbon dating never could provide an independent measure of age because it contains a critical flaw.

To calculate the radiocarbon age of a specimen, we need to compare the carbon-12/carbon-14 ratio now, with the carbon-12/carbon-14 ratio at the time of death. However, we do not know the ratio at the time of death, which means we have to make an assumption. Modern radiocarbon dating assumes that the carbon-14/carbon-12 ratio in living organisms is the same now as it was in ancient organisms before they died. In other words, the system of carbon-14 production and decay is said to be in a state of balance or equilibrium. Yet this assumption is questionable, even for an old Earth.

The problem is akin to a burning candle (cf. Chittick, 1970, p. 66). Without stretching the analogy too far, let us imagine that the wax represents carbon-14. We could take a ruler and measure the length of the remaining candle. We could even measure the rate at which the candle is burning down. But how can we know when the candle was lit? We simply cannot answer this question without knowing the original length of candle. Perhaps we could make a guess from a nearby unlit candle, but it would only ever be a guess.

In the old-Earth model, the process of making carbon-14 began billions of years ago. The evolving atmosphere filled rapidly with carbon-14, but this rate slowed as carbon-14 found its way into the oceans and the biosphere. Eventually, the carbon-14 would break down into nitrogen-14, thus completing the cycle. Geologists freely admit that this process has not always been in equilibrium, but they maintain that this will not affect the radiocarbon method in any practical way.

The first signs of trouble with this assumption surfaced in Libby’s early work. He settled on a specific decay rate (SDR) of 15.3 atoms per minute per gram of total carbon in the specimen, and a specific production rate (SPR) of 18.8 atoms per minute per gram of carbon in the Earth’s active carbon inventory. Libby never seriously questioned the discrepancy between these two numbers. He felt that his method was accurate, and that the numbers were close enough. But during the 1950s, researchers started to notice a regular disagreement between radiocarbon and “well-established” archaeological dates. As Aitken comments: “In retrospect it seems to have been unduly optimistic to assume that the modern values were the true starting values for all time past” (1990, p. 66).

These problems encouraged a systematic study in which researchers used the radiocarbon method to date tree rings. Two levels of error emerged. One was a small-scale, short-term variation that can make a given radiocarbon date appear up to four hundred years older or younger than expected (Taylor, 1987, Figure 2.11). Much of this error may be the result of sunspot activity, which in turn affects solar radiation and the production of carbon-14.

A second error comes from an S-shaped, long-term trend (Figure 2). One bend of the curve peaks in the middle of the first millennium A.D. Radiocarbon ages during this period overestimate dendrochronological ages by up to a hundred years. The curve switches direction around 500 B.C., when radiocarbon ages begin to underestimate supposed dendrochronological ages. The discrepancy grows as we go back in time, so that by the fifth millennium B.C., radiocarbon dates are too recent by 800 years.

Figure 2. Major trend in the plot of dendrochronology vs. radiocarbon dates. Dates above dashed zero line overestimate tree-ring ages; dates below underestimate tree-ring ages (after Taylor, 1987, Figure 2.8).

No one can explain this major trend adequately on the assumptions of an old Earth or an equilibrium system. Common suggestions include changes in the Earth’s magnetic field, or climatic changes following the last ice age, or a combination of both (Aitken, 1990, p. 67). Despite the unknowns, researchers continue to “calibrate” their radiocarbon dates by dendrochronology.

NONEQUILIBRIUM RADIOCARBON DATING

Several creationists believe that the radiocarbon method may still be of some use, but only if we recognize that the Bible and nature record an instantaneous Creation and a cataclysmic Flood. Not only are these the most significant events to have ever affected the physical world, but they occurred over a relatively short time span of only a few thousand years.

In a world with such a history we would expect nonequilibrium conditions. Production of carbon-14 began only 6,000 years ago—the approximate time of Creation. Roughly 1,500 years later, the Flood upset the entire carbon cycle. As the discrepancy between SPR and SDR shows, the Earth is still in the process of attaining equilibrium. Further, we know from the radiocarbon dating of tree rings that as we go back in time, we find less and less carbon-14. If there was less carbon-14 in the past, then there has been less decay in our samples than the equilibrium model assumes. And if there has been less decay, then the samples are not as old as they may seem.

The nonequlibrium approach attempts to apply this information to radiocarbon dating. But like the equilibrium method, it must still rely on certain assumptions. Robert Whitelaw’s (1970) version, for example, assumes that cosmic radiation and atomic decay have remained constant since the Creation. He proposes that the SDR has risen steadily since the Creation, and that the burial of almost all plants and animals in the Flood brought an initially high SPR down to current levels. Whitelaw also sets the Creation at roughly 7,000 years ago, and the Flood at roughly 5,000 years ago. Table 1 shows the effect of his corrections on equilibrium ages.

Problems with Nonequilibrium Dating

According to equilibrium radiocarbon dating, the Egyptian “Old Kingdom” period began approximately 4,100 years ago (Finegan, 1979, p. 404). Whitelaw’s scheme lowers this age by 600 years (to c. 1550 B.C.), which puts Moses and the Exodus at the time of the great pyramid builders such as Djoser and Cheops. Clearly, this upsets the established Egyptian chronology. It means, for instance, that Thutmose III cannot be the pharaoh of the Exodus. However, we need more than a few corrected radiocarbon dates to embark on an overdue reorganization of early Egyptian dynasties. Our most reliable account of the oppression and departure of the Israelites is the Bible, and it mentions neither pyramids, nor the names of Egyptian kings.

The difficulties do not end here. Occasionally we find a radiocarbon date that confirms biblical history. For example, Bryant G. Wood cites a radiocarbon date of 1410 B.C. ±40 years to support a biblically consistent account of Jericho’s fall (1990, 16[2]:53; see also Jackson, 1990). Using Whitelaw’s method, this date adjusts to sometime in the late eighth to early ninth century B.C. This leaves us with an unsavory choice: either we can accept the date, but debate its archaeological context; or we can reject the date outright, suggesting the sample was contaminated or the measurement flawed.

Finally, Whitelaw’s model puts any published age greater than 6,000 years into the pre-Flood era (Table 1). However, this may not work in every case. For instance, a baby mammoth named Dima was recovered from the frozen tundra of Siberia, and seems to belong to the post-Flood era. Conventional radiocarbon dating gives it an age of 27,000 years, which by Whitelaw’s model adjusts to the first few hundred years after the Creation. Yet it is hard to imagine how a baby mammoth from the time of Adam could find its way into the post-Flood world.

Whitelaw's Nonequilibrium Age	Published Equilibrium Age
1,000	1,115
1,500	1,730
2,000	2,310
2,500	2,900
3,000	3,500
3,500	4,110
4,000	4,725
4,500	5,350
(Flood) 5,000	5,990
5,500	8,860
6,000	12,530
6,500	19,100
7,000	Infinite
Table 1: Relationships between corrected and published ages of specimens in years since death (Whitelaw, 1970, p. 65)

SUMMARY

Radiocarbon dating assumes that the carbon-12/carbon-14 ratio has stayed the same for at least the last hundred thousand years or so. However, the difference between production and decay rates, and the systematic discrepancy between radiocarbon and tree-ring dates, refute this assumption. Instead, the evidence for change is entirely consistent with a recent Creation and catastrophic Flood.

Some creationists have used this information to model a biblically consistent version of the radiocarbon method. While commending them for their effort, we should not be surprised at their lack of success, for this reason: they must still presume to know the starting conditions. This is the critical assumption on which all “absolute” dating methods must fail, whether they are used by evolutionists or creationists.

Similarly, we should not accept the claims for dendrochronology at face value. Bristlecones may add more than one growth ring per year, and the “art” of cross dating living and dead trees may be a considerable source of error.

Both radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology face technical problems, and are loaded with uniformitarian and old Earth ideas. They assume that nature works today the same as it has worked for millions of years, yet the facts do not support this contention. Neither method should give us cause to abandon the facts of biblical history.

REFERENCES

Aitken, M.J. (1990), Science-Based Dating in Archaeology (New York: Longman).

Baillie, M.G.L. (1982), Tree-Ring Dating and Archaeology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

Chittick, Donald E. (1970), “Dating the Earth and Fossils,” Symposium on Creation II, ed. Donald W. Patten, et al. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), pp. 57-74.

Finegan, Jack (1979), Archaeological History of the Ancient Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview Press).

Gladwin, Harold S. (1978), “Dendrochronology, Radiocarbon, and Bristlecones,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, 15:24-26, June.

Jackson, Wayne (1990), “The Saga of Ancient Jericho,” Reason & Revelation, 10:17-19, April.

LaMarche, V.C., Jr. and T.P. Harlan (1973), “Accuracy of Tree Ring Dating of Bristlecone Pine For Calibration of the Radiocarbon Time Scale,” Journal of Geophysical Research, 78:8849-8858.

Lammerts, Walter E. (1983), “Are the Bristlecone Pine Trees Really So Old?,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, 20:108-115, September.

Taylor, R.E. (1987), Radiocarbon Dating: An Archaeological Perspective (Orlando, FL: Academic Press).

Whitelaw, Robert L. (1970), “Time, Life, and History in the Light of 15,000 Radiocarbon Dates,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, 7:56-71.

Wood, Bryant G. (1990), “Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho?—A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence,” Biblical Archaeology Review, 16[2]:44-58, March/April.

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Global (non)Warming - a view from down-under

High price for load of hot air

WITH understandable reluctance, Prime Minister John Howard recently donned the political hair-shirt of a carbon trading system.

On the same day, NASA chief Michael Griffin commented in a US radio interview that "I am not sure that it is fair to say that (global warming) is a problem that we must wrestle with".

NASA is an agency that knows a thing or two about climate change. As Griffin added: "We study global climate change, that is in our authorisation, we think we do it rather well.

"I'm proud of that, but NASA is not an agency chartered to, quote, battle climate change."

Such a clear statement that science accomplishment should carry primacy over policy advice is both welcome and overdue.

Nonetheless, there is something worrying about one of Griffin's other statements, which said that "I have no doubt . . . that a trend of global warming exists".

Griffin seems to be referring to human-caused global warming, but irrespective of that his opinion is unsupported by the evidence.

The salient facts are these. First, the accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998. Oddly, this eight-year-long temperature stasis has occurred despite an increase over the same period of 15 parts per million (or 4 per cent) in atmospheric CO2.

Second, lower atmosphere satellite-based temperature measurements, if corrected for non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events and large volcanic eruptions, show little if any global warming since 1979, a period over which atmospheric CO2 has increased by 55 ppm (17 per cent).

Third, there are strong indications from solar studies that Earth's current temperature stasis will be followed by climatic cooling over the next few decades.

How then is it possible for Griffin to assert so boldly that human-caused global warming is happening?

Well, he is in good company for similar statements have been made recently by several Western heads of state at the G8 summit meeting. For instance, German Chancellor Angela Merkel asserts climate change (i.e. global warming) "is also essentially caused by humankind".

In fact, there is every doubt whether any global warming at all is occurring at the moment, let alone human-caused warming.

For leading politicians to be asserting to the contrary indicates something is very wrong with their chain of scientific advice, for they are clearly being deceived. That this should be the case is an international political scandal of high order which, in turn, raises the question of where their advice is coming from.

In Australia, the advice trail leads from government agencies such as the CSIRO and the Australian Greenhouse Office through to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations.

As leading economist David Henderson has pointed out, it is extremely dangerous for an unelected and unaccountable body like the IPCC to have a monopoly on climate policy advice to governments. And even more so because, at heart, the IPCC is a political and not a scientific agency.

Australia does not ask the World Bank to set its annual budget and neither should it allow the notoriously alarmist IPCC to set its climate policy.

It is past time for those who have deceived governments and misled the public regarding dangerous human-caused global warming to be called to account. Aided by hysterical posturing by green NGOs, their actions have led to the cornering of government on the issue and the likely implementation of futile emission policies that will impose direct extra costs on every household and enterprise in Australia to no identifiable benefit.

Not only do humans not dominate Earth's current temperature trend but the likelihood is that further large sums of public money are shortly going to be committed to, theoretically, combat warming when cooling is the more likely short-term climatic eventuality.

In one of the more expensive ironies of history, the expenditure of more than $US50 billion ($60 billion) on research into global warming since 1990 has failed to demonstrate any human-caused climate trend, let alone a dangerous one.

Yet that expenditure will pale into insignificance compared with the squandering of money that is going to accompany the introduction of a carbon trading or taxation system.

The costs of thus expiating comfortable middle class angst are, of course, going to be imposed preferentially upon the poor and underprivileged.

• Professor Bob Carter is an environmental scientist at James Cook University who studies ancient climate change

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Sad to see so much time and money spent on a non-issue. Fake science, promoted by a guy who just seems unable to live away from the limelight.

Can Tree Rings be used for dating?

Tree ring dating (dendrochronology)

Tree ring dating (dendrochronology) has been used in an attempt to extend the calibration of carbon-14 dating earlier than historical records allow, but this depends on temporal placement of fragments of wood (from long-dead trees) using carbon-14 dating.

by Don Batten, Ph.D.

Tree ring dating (dendrochronology) has been used in an attempt to extend the calibration of carbon-14 dating earlier than historical records allow. The oldest living trees, such as the Bristlecone Pines (Pinus longaeva) of the White Mountains of Eastern California, were dated in 1957 by counting tree rings at 4,723 years old. This would mean they pre-dated the Flood which occurred around 4,350 years ago, taking a straightforward approach to Biblical chronology.

However, when the interpretation of scientific data contradicts the true history of the world as revealed in the Bible, then it’s the interpretation of the data that is at fault. It’s important to remember that we have limited data, and new discoveries have often overturned previous ‘hard facts’.

Recent research on seasonal effects on tree rings in other trees in the same genus, the plantation pine Pinus radiata, has revealed that up to five rings per year can be produced and extra rings are often indistinguishable, even under the microscope, from annual rings. As a tree physiologist I would say that evidence of false rings in any woody tree species would cast doubt on claims that any particular species has never in the past produced false rings. Evidence from within the same genus surely counts much more strongly against such a notion. Creationists have shown that the Biblical kind is usually larger than the ‘species’ and in many cases even larger than the ’genus’ — see my article Ligers and wholphins? What next?.

Considering that the immediate post-Flood world would have been wetter with less contrasting seasons until the Ice Age waned (see Q&A: Ice Age), many extra growth rings would have been produced in the Bristlecone pines (even though extra rings are not produced today because of the seasonal extremes). Taking this into account would bring the age of the oldest living Bristlecone Pine into the post-Flood era.

Claimed older tree ring chronologies depend on the cross-matching of tree ring patterns of pieces of dead wood found near living trees. This procedure depends on temporal placement of fragments of wood using carbon-14 (¹⁴C) dating, assuming straight-line extrapolation backwards of the carbon dating. Having placed the fragment of wood approximately using the ¹⁴C data, a matching tree-ring pattern is sought with wood that has a part with overlapping ¹⁴C age and that also extends to a younger age. A tree ring pattern that matches is found close to where the carbon ‘dates’ are the same. And so the tree-ring sequence is extended from the living trees backwards.

Now superficially this sounds fairly reasonable. However, it is a circular process. It assumes that it is approximately correct to linearly extrapolate the carbon ‘clock’ backwards. There are good reasons for doubting this. The closer one gets back to the Flood the more inaccurate the linear extrapolation of the carbon clock would become, perhaps radically so. Conventional carbon-14 dating assumes that the system has been in equilibrium for tens or hundreds of thousands of years, and that ¹⁴C is thoroughly mixed in the atmosphere. However, the Flood buried large quantities of organic matter containing the common carbon isotope, ¹²C, so the ¹⁴C/¹²C ratio would rise after the Flood, because ¹⁴C is produced from nitrogen, not carbon. These factors mean that early post-Flood wood would look older than it really is and the ‘carbon clock’ is not linear in this period (see The Creation Answers Book, chapter 4).

The biggest problem with the process is that ring patterns are not unique. There are many points in a given sequence where a sequence from a new piece of wood match well (note that even two trees growing next to each other will not have identical growth ring patterns). Yamaguchi¹ recognized that ring pattern matches are not unique. The best match (using statistical tests) is often rejected in favour of a less exact match because the best match is deemed to be ‘incorrect’ (particularly if it is too far away from the carbon-14 ‘age’). So the carbon ‘date’ is used to constrain just which match is acceptable. Consequently, the calibration is a circular process and the tree ring chronology extension is also a circular process that is dependent on assumptions about the carbon dating system.²

The extended tree ring chronologies are far from absolute, in spite of the popular hype. To illustrate this we only have to consider the publication and subsequent withdrawal of two European tree-ring chronologies. According to David Rohl,³ the Sweet Track chronology from Southwest England was ‘re-measured’ when it did not agree with the published dendrochronology from Northern Ireland (Belfast). Also, the construction of a detailed sequence from southern Germany was abandoned in deference to the Belfast chronology, even though the authors of the German study had been confident of its accuracy until the Belfast one was published. It is clear that dendrochronology is not a clear-cut, objective dating method despite the extravagant claims of some of its advocates.

Conclusion

Extended tree ring chronology is not an independent confirmation/calibration of carbon dating earlier than historically validated dates, as has been claimed.

References

1. Yamaguchi, D.K., Interpretation of cross-correlation between tree-ring series. Tree Ring Bulletin 46:47–54, 1986.
2. Newgrosh, B., Living with radiocarbon dates: a response to Mike Baillie. Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum 5:59–67, 1992.
3. Rohl, David, A Test of Time, Arrow Books, London, Appendix C, 1996.
   

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I want to mention that there are plenty of other treatises on tree ring dating and they all mention one important point - trees can produce multiple rings in one year's time, just as ice can produce several layers within one season. Therefore, merely counting the rings (or the ice layers) and then simplistically announcing an age for the tree or ages for the layers is very dumbed-down science indeed!

My teenaged daughter knows that if she turns the key on the car, it starts, and if she puts it in gear and presses on the gas pedal, it goes! She has no idea of the inner workings of the automobile. We know, in fact, that there are transmissions and gears, there are controlled explosions and pistons and valves and rings and cams and electric impulses and all sorts of operations involved in a four-cycle internal combustion engine and automatic transmission doing the job of making a car move down the road.

Counting tree rings and then assigning that number as an age for that tree is as simplistic and ignorant as claiming that an automobile is powered by a key and a foot.

Were believers required to murder???

Lava comments:

Sorry to drag this back up, but you moved past the EAE so quickly I didn't have time to think about it.

You said: Now, I grant you that the EAE is not required to murder anyone. As stated in the previous post, he may wish to avoid being apprehended and punished by society or he may simply not wish to murder someone else. You also talk a good deal about Christian values and morals and that they are the basis for many countries' legal systems.

But, Radar, aren't you and the rest of the countries that base their morals/values/laws off the bible really picking and choosing which morals/values/laws you like. If this is truly the word of god, shouldn't we be following everything?

Leviticus alone lays down many "rules" that aren't followed. Why?

~~~~~~~

Good question! The laws found in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy were the laws given by God to the children of Israel as they entered into Canaan. Murder, incest, adultery, child sacrifice, sex with animals, prostitution-as-sacrament, all sorts of such behavior was common to the people who inhabited the area. God didn't want such behavior to continue. We believe that up unto that time there was a generally accepted code of behavior passed down from Adam through Noah through Abraham and so on. But God chose to give the Law very specifically to Moses at this time, to make sure the behavior of His people was appropriate. When you look at these laws, they were largely meant to either uphold the Ten Commandments, keep law and order among the people or keep them healthy. For instance, the dietary laws make a lot of sense for people with no access to refrigeration and a dependence on fire to cook meats. Incest laws had become necessary with the devolution of the human gene pool. Marriage between siblings was necessary in the beginning of mankind and common even up until the time of the giving of these laws. We know now that intermarriage between siblings and often even first cousins and other close relatives can bring on birth defects.

~~~~~~~

Back to Lava, quoting from the Book of Leviticus:

Both parties in adultery shall be executed. 20:10 ("And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.")

"For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death." 20:9

20:15 And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast.

21:9 And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.

23:30 And whatsoever soul it be that doeth any work in that same day, the same soul will I destroy from among his people.

Radar, as someone who takes the bible literally, do you think we should be killing people for adultery, beastiality, cursing their parents, working on Sundays...? Is there some sort of metaphor I am missing?

Again, you said the "EAE is not required to murder anyone". Are christians required to murder people if the bible is to be read literally?

~~~~~~~~

(The Sabbath was/is Saturday, not Sunday, by the way...)

Keep in mind that these laws were being given, not just as religious instructions, but part of a form of government. God was the acknowledged head of the Children of Israel, with Moses and Aaron and the priests as both religious and civil leaders. Therefore we have both moral proclamations and legal statutes being given at the same time.

Anyone put to death by these statutes had to be found guilty by a form of trial and executed under the law. No murder was done in this circumstance. Keep in mind also that the commandment; "Thou shalt not kill" should be literally translated as "thou shalt not murder." It was determined by God that some offenses were "hanging offenses" worthy of execution.

Don't miss that much of these books focus on all the sacrifices and offerings required of the Children of Israel to make an atonement for sin. In fact, these were ceremonial and God accepted the sacrifices as symbolic of a real atonement that would someday come. Jesus Christ made that atonement, was, in fact, that atonement. By fulfilling the Law, Christ then ended the Law as the standard by which the Jews and all believers would have to live.

Galatians 3:1-14 illustrates this: 1You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard?

Paul is writing by inspiration of God and here is reminding believers that the Law is no longer the standard for believers...

3Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? 4Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? 5Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

So the law was "nailed to the cross" and no longer in effect judicially.

6Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."^[a] 7Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. 8The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: "All nations will be blessed through you."^[b] 9So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

10All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."^[c]

This is why God tore the incredibly thick veil that covered the Holy of Holies in the Temple from the top down when Christ was crucified, for He wanted the Jews to understand that the old sacrificial laws were gone, the Law was fulfilled and now faith in Christ was the only way to God. This is why Jesus predicted that the Temple would be destroyed as a judgment of God (Matthew 24) and why John spent much of the book of Revelations predicting the same thing. This is why, in AD 70, the Romans tore the Temple down completely and killed almost the entire Jewish population of Jerusalem. The Law was fulfilled in Christ and now believers are to be led by the Spirit of God and not the letter of the Law found in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

11Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."^[d] 12The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, "The man who does these things will live by them."^[e] 13Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."^[f] 14He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

There is plenty of teaching of this in the New Testament. Here is an excerpt from Romans chapter 8:

1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,^[a] 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. 3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature,^[b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.^[c] And so he condemned sin in sinful man,^[d] 4in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

5Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful man^[e] is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind^[f] is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

9You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.

The attempt to obey laws and sacrifice animals was God's plan for mankind before Christ. Those who did so with a whole heart were considered to be God's children by God. Those who did so hypocritically or for show were the same guys that Jesus had the harshest words for during His ministry. But the desire to love God wasn't enough, God needed to make a way to deal with sin, which was fulfilled in Jesus. He legally fulfilled the Law for us, then took our penalty for failing, then rose from the dead as the firstfruits of all of us who will live on in eternity thereafter. Not only do we get legally declared as forgiven, when we accept Christ he makes an actual change in us, by filling us with the Spirit of God.

Now, you may not understand some of this and certainly I didn't either. But when I decided I believed God and did accept Christ, I was amazed that I actually felt a change inside. I was filled with a great peace way beyond what I had ever known. I have also found myself wanting to be a Godly man ever since. I have to fight with my sinful desires, but I do prefer to beat them now rather than agree with them.

Martin Luther was inspired to lead man away from ritual worship with no spiritual component and lead the Protestant movement because of this phrase: "The righteous will live by faith." Now Christians are called upon to live by faith and not the letter of the law.

With respect to the judicial system, which is a different subject altogether, our country has laws based upon the Ten Commandments and the principles of law set forth in the Pentateuch. You do realize that it was God that required two or more witnesses in a trial setting and required some kind of judge to determine the meting out of punishment rather than rule by mob. If anyone is put to death in this country by the government, it is an execution determined by the law. Sadly, we have strayed from a Biblical viewpoint in some areas and child sacrifice is practiced legally today. Some call it abortion and I call it murder. But that is another topic, isn't it?

PS- I should mention that while the Law is "nailed to the cross" for those who accept Christ, it remains the standard by which non-believers will be judged. Anyone who denies Christ and chooses not to accept His gift will then be judged by God according to the Law. Unfortunately, no one other than Christ could keep the Law, so....

Also, I am amazed that there are still practicing Jews. Jesus was a Jew, all his followers were Jews and most of the early Christians were Jews. God made it clear that both Jew and Gentile were able to be saved but that the old religion was gone. The temple veil was ripped in two. The Temple was torn down and thrown away. Yet, there are many who call themselves Jews who follow some of the Law in part? I wish that all who call themselves Jews would come to Christ, but I cannot understand how one could logically believe that one could be an "Orthodox Jew" without Temple sacrifices?

About that variable speed of light?

Commenters have suggested that the idea that the speed of light might be decaying is a ridiculous idea. No one with the intellect and imagination of an Einstein has spoken up, however, since those on the cutting edge of Physics understand that what is known today remains no more than a general understanding of the underlying truth within that field of study. That the speed of light is an absolute constant is still up in the air, as it were:

Speed of light slowing down after all?

Famous physicist makes headlines

by Carl Wieland

First published online 9 August 2002

Headlines in several newspapers around the world have publicized a paper in Nature by a team of scientists (including the famous physicist Paul Davies) who (according to these reports) claim that ‘light has been slowing down since the creation of the universe’.¹

In view of the potential significance of the whole ‘light slowing down’ issue to creationists, it is worth reviewing it briefly here.

Well over a decade ago, CMI’s Creation magazine published very supportive articles concerning a theory by South Australian creationist Barry Setterfield, that the speed of light (‘c’) had slowed down or ‘decayed’ progressively since creation.

In one fell swoop, this theory, called ‘c decay’² (CDK) had the potential to supply two profound answers vitally important for a Biblical worldview.

The distant starlight problem

One was, if stars are really well over 6000 light years away, how could light have had time to travel from them to Earth? Two logically possible answers have serious problems:

1. God created the starlight on its way: this suffers grievously from the fact that starlight also carries information about distant cosmic events. The created-in-transit theory means that the information would be ‘phony’, recording events which never happened, hence deceptive.

2. The distances are deceptive: but despite some anomalies in redshift/distance correlations (see Galaxy-Quasar ‘Connection’ Defies Explanation), it’s just not possible for all stars and galaxies to be within a 6000-light-year radius—we would all fry!

But if light were billions of times faster at the beginning, and slowed down in transit, there would be no more problem.

Radiometric dates

Since most nuclear processes are mathematically related to the speed of light, a faster ‘c’ might well mean a faster rate of radioactive decay, thus explaining much of the evidence used to justify the billions of years of geological hypothesizing. In fact, top-flight creationist researchers involved with the RATE (Radioactive Isotopes and the Age of the Earth) project have found powerful evidence of speeded-up decay in the past (see their book (right). CDK might offer a mechanism.

CDK—the history of the idea

Barry Setterfield collated data of measurements of c spanning a period of about 300 years. He claimed that rather than fluctuating around both sides of the present value as measurements became more accurate, they had progressively declined from a point significantly higher than today’s value. He proposed that this decline had been exponential in nature, i.e. very rapid early on, gradually easing to stabilize at today's value for c, just a few decades ago.³

He and Trevor Norman, a mathematician from Flinders University in South Australia, published a monograph⁴ (still stocked by this ministry for the assistance of potential researchers) outlining this, and answering several arguments raised against the theory. The monograph also showed how, over the past years, the measurements of the value of various constants (e.g. electron mass, Planck’s constant (h)) were varying progressively, if ever so slightly, in a ‘directional’ fashion consistent with the direction predicted by their mathematical linkage with ‘c’.

With such a bombshell, there were, not surprisingly, substantial efforts at scientific assessment and criticism. The critiques were not only from those motivated to undermine Biblical cosmology, but from leading creationist physicists. Criticism (‘iron sharpening iron’ as Proverbs 27:17 puts it) is meant to be a healthy process enhancing the search for truth in science.

The criticisms centered around two issues: the first was the validity of the statistical data itself, particularly the reliability of some of the earlier measurements of c given their large uncertainties, and the other was the consequences we should find in the present world if c has declined. This is an immensely complex area; for one thing, when c changes, so do other things, which can become mind-boggling to sort out, even for the experts.

One of the attacks concerned Einstein’s special relativity, E = mc² and the like. (If c is a billion times greater in the past, then E would be a billion billion times greater, so would not a campfire be like an atom bomb, and so on?) Critics at the time used this to mock CDK, but Setterfield answered that rest mass itself is inversely proportional to c², so that energy is still conserved. He also claimed that there is experimental evidence that the charge to mass ratio of an electron has been decreasing (supporting his claim that mass has increased as c² has decreased). But as usual, the skeptics, along with ‘progressive creationist’ (long-age) astronomer and ardent ‘big bang’ advocate, Dr Hugh Ross,⁵ kept repeating this claim as if Setterfield hadn’t thought of this and answered it. Whether one agrees with his answer or not, it was improper to ignore it (or perhaps his critics, lacking any qualifications in physics, didn’t understand it).

Critics of CDK said that accepting it would mean one would have to discard Einstein, despite all the evidence for his theory. Setterfield said (and it seems to me correctly) that all that special relativity claims in this matter is that c is constant at any point in time with respect to the observer, it does not involve any magic, canonical value for c. In other words, the actual value of c could change with time, so long as that change was consistent throughout the entire universe.⁶

Others dismissed CDK by claiming that if c had changed, the fine-structure constant (FSC, symbol α) should be different as measured using light from distant stars than from those nearby, but that this was not so.⁴ However, Setterfield’s particular theory predicted that the FSC would remain constant.⁷

A word of caution

But, intriguingly, it now turns out that the fine-structure constant is in fact slightly different in light from distant stars compared to nearby ones. In fact, this is the very reason that physicists of the stature of Davies are now prepared to challenge the assumption that light speed has always been constant. And in addition to being different from the prediction of the Setterfield theory, this research by itself does not support c-decay theory of the magnitude that Setterfield proposed. The change is billions of times too small. In fact, the newspaper hype surrounding Davies’ theory, and the quotes attributed to him, hardly seem to be justified by the Nature article itself, which is rather speculative. NB, although Setterfield predicted constant α, given the small change and tentative nature of this new discovery, by itself it is not conclusive evidence against the Setterfield theory either. See an earlier CMI response to reports of a change in a, Have fundamental constants changed, and what would it prove?

Unfortunately, despite being urged to continue to answer critics and further develop his theory within the refereed technical creationist literature, Setterfield effectively withdrew from that forum some years ago, though not from individual promotion and development of the idea, e.g. on the Web.

Well known creationist physicist, Dr Russell Humphreys (now with ICR), has long given credit to Setterfield’s challenging hypothesis for stimulating the development of his own cosmology, which seeks to answer the same question about starlight, and which is currently in favour among many creationist astronomers (see How can we see distant stars in a young Universe?). Humphreys says that he tried for over a year to find a way to get CDK to ‘work’ mathematically, but gave up when it seemed to him that so many things were changing in concert that it would be hard to detect a change in c from observations.

It’s also important to note, as we have often warned, that newspaper reports are often very different from the original paper. The actual Nature article, as shown by its accurate title, was about how the theory of black-hole thermodynamics might determine which is correct out of two possible explanations for previous work that claimed that FSC might have increased slightly and slowly over billions of years. The details are summarized in the box below. In conclusion, the authors (who are also prepared to accept that their interpretation of the data may be wrong) still believe in billions of years, and would reject the relatively rapid change in c that Setterfield proposed since they are talking about <0.001%>

To be fair to the journalists, Davies has long been something of a publicity seeker. So he possibly didn’t mind at all that his actually quite non-descript paper was being publicized (it was actually less than a full page in total length in the ‘Brief Communications’ section, and didn’t rate a mention as a feature item), even for something peripheral to the paper.

Other c-decay ideas

Still, it is fascinating to see vindication for at least the possibility that c has changed. Whether this decline (if real) has only just ceased recently, as Setterfield proposed, or happened earlier (perhaps in a ‘one-step’ fashion), or is still going on, is another question.

Physicist Keith Wanser, a young-universe creationist and full Professor of Physics at California State University, Fullerton, told Creation magazine in 1999 that he was open to the idea of changing c (see God and the Electron⁸). He said:

‘I don’t go along with Barry’s statements on this; he’s well-meaning but in my opinion he’s made a lot of rash assumptions ... and there’s a misunderstanding [of many of the consequences of changing c].’

But Wanser, also said:

‘there are other reasons to believe that the speed of light is changing, or has changed in the past, that have nothing to do with the Setterfield theory.’

The interview also quoted a 1999 New Scientist cover story two years ago, which also proposed the ‘heresy’ of c-decay.⁹ (More recent New Scientist articles have reported on how it seems to be acceptable to propose c-decay to try to solve another well-known difficulty of the big bang theory, called the horizon problem. That is, the cosmic microwave radiation indicates that space is the same temperature everywhere, indicating a common influence. But no connection between distant regions would be possible, even in the assumed time since the alleged ‘big bang’, because of the ‘horizon’ of the finite speed of light. As an ad hoc solution to this problem, Alan Guth proposed that the universe once underwent a period of very rapid growth, called ‘inflation’. But now it seems that even this has its own horizon problem. So now some physicists have proposed that the speed of light was much faster in the past, which would allow the ‘horizon’ to be much further away and thus accommodate the universe's thermal equilibrium.¹⁰ Note that these other proposals even have c much faster than in the Setterfield concept.)

Whether Setterfield is truly vindicated remains to be seen; the process would be greatly helped by further scientific debate of the actual issues in Journal of Creation or the CRSQ. In the absence of such involvement by skilled proponents of the theory, CMI cannot take a strong stand. In fact, in our publications over the last few years, we have tended to strongly favour Humphreys’ relativistic white hole cosmology, though always pointing out, along with Humphreys himself, that it was just one alternative model, and not ‘absolute truth’.

It is clear, though, that the issue is so complex, that one or two pronouncements of ‘certainty’ by a physicist or two, whether creationist or evolutionist, should not be taken as the death knell of the notion or any aspects of it—nor as final proof of it.

The irony of bias

It is truly ironic to look back at the time when some creationists were actively putting forward CDK as a profoundly important hypothesis. The anticreationists, both the anti-theists and their compromising churchian allies, launched their attacks with glee. Skeptics around the world seldom failed to have audiences in fits of laughter at the ‘ridiculous’ notion that what they labeled as a ‘certain cornerstone of modern physics’, the alleged constancy through time of the value of c, was wrong. No matter what comes of his notion as a whole, no matter even whether c has actually changed or not, in that sense at least, thanks to Paul Davies, Setterfield (and those, like ourselves, who supported his pioneering efforts) has already had the last laugh.

The real issue

Christians worried about the ‘starlight travel-time’ issue have seen a number of theories put forward to try to solve it, including CDK. For instance, the relativistic white-hole cosmology (see video, right) and even the two different conventions of calculated v. observed time.¹¹ Which of these is right? Maybe none. I often say to enquirers, after outlining the encouraging advances made by some of these ideas, something like the following:

‘I don’t know for sure how God did it, but I know that I for one would hate to stand in front of the Creator of the Universe at a future point and say:

”Lord, I couldn’t believe your plain words about origins, just because I couldn’t figure out, with my pea-sized intelligence, how you managed to pull off the trick of making a universe that was both very young and very large.”’

I believe we need to understand, as most physicists really do, how immensely little is yet known about such major issues. What if Humphreys is right, for instance, and the answer lies in the general relativistic distortion (by gravity) of time itself in an expanded (by God who ‘stretched out the heavens’ as Scripture says repeatedly) bounded universe? Would not the world have laughed if such notions (as time running differently under different gravity influences, for instance) had first been put forward by modern Bible-believers? They would have been seen as ad hoc inventions, but they have been experimentally tested.

This ‘secular CDK’ announcement, by one of the biggest names in physics, should really be an antidote to the confident arrogance of long-age big-bangers. So should the recent landmark Journal of Creation paper by Humphreys showing observationally that we are in fact close to the centre of a bounded universe (download PDF file Our galaxy is the centre of the universe, ‘quantized’ red shifts Show).

People need to be aware just how abstract, shaky and prone to revision the findings of modern cosmology really are. To quote Prof. Wanser again:

‘The sad thing is that the public is so overawed by these things [big bang and long-age cosmologies], just because there is complex maths involved. They don’t realize how much philosophical speculation and imagination is injected along with the maths—these are really stories that are made up.’¹²

All in all, it’s an exciting time to be a Genesis creationist. But then, it’s always been an exciting time to take God at His Word.

What was Davies’ paper really about? The gist of it is: Already known: the fine structure constant α = 2πe2/hc, where e is the electronic charge and h is Planck’s Constant. Last year, there was a claim that α is increasing over time [as CMI reported in Have fundamental constants changed, and what would it prove?]. So this increase in α could be due to increasing e or decreasing c (CDK). But as mentioned, this conflicts with Setterfield’s model that has α invariant with varying C because it’s h that varies inversely to c. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is in force. The entropy of a black hole increases with area of its event horizon (that’s if the standard formula applies with either varying c or e). Therefore the area cannot decrease unless the black hole’s environment has a corresponding entropy increase. The key point of this theoretical ‘brief communication’: an increase in e would mean a reduction of a black hole’s area, which would seem to violate the Second Law under the current formula. Increasing e could also lead to an increase of a black hole’s electric charge above a threshold value where the event horizon disappears and we are left with a naked singularity, and this would violate what’s known as the cosmic censorship hypothesis. Davies et al. conclude: Our arguments, although only suggestive, indicate that theories in which e increases with time are at risk of violating both the second law and the cosmic censorship hypothesis. But a decrease in c over time would lead to an increase in a black hole’s area, which is in line with the Second Law. So by a process of elimination based on this theory about black hole thermodynamics (not on any new data), a tiny decrease of c is the right explanation for the tiny increase that was previously claimed for α over time.

Addendum: Nuclear physicist Dr Russell Humphreys comments:

‘The article on the [CMI] Web site is well balanced. Paul Davies’ Nature article itself falls far short of the hype, which is much ado about nearly nothing. General Relativity has had a variable speed of light ever since 1917. For the past six years, the physics journals have had a steady trickle of variable-c theories, including some by Davies. His latest article is only peripherally about a variable c. So why all the fuss?’

Creationist dissertation on starlight travel problem

It seems that some of my commenters have little respect for creation science or creation scientists. I suspect that is a matter of prejudice rather than any reasoning process. But no matter, I am going to be posting some creation science articles by scientists that present evidences and good reasoning applied to said evidences.

Dr. Hartnett does a good job of going over some of the possibilities I mentioned in an earlier post
concerning the problem of starlight. The question is about the apparent long age of the Universe based upon the known speed of light and the distance required for the light to travel from stars to Earth. While God could create the light from the source to Earth at one moment, why would this created starlight show events that must not actually have happened? Would God be deceptive to do this? Or is there another answer to the quandry?

A new cosmology: solution to the starlight travel time problem by John G. Hartnett Summary Solutions proposed for the starlight-travel-time problem in creationist cosmology fall within one of five categories. Probably only two of the categories hold any hope of a solution. Any solution must be self-consistent and the type of solution adopted affects which astronomical arguments can be used as valid evidence for a young universe. A new cosmological model, of the same class as Humphreys’ white-hole cosmology, is presented, which fits the observational evidence from the cosmos. As has been often repeated in creationist literature, the starlight-travel-time problem is particularly important to solve. The problem is simply that in the time available since creation (about 6,000 years) there has not been enough time for light to get to Earth from even the nearest neighbour galaxies (1.5 to 3 million years travel time at constant speed of light c) let alone the most distant galaxies (billions of years travel time at constant c). How then do we see them and how did Adam see them? One common solution that has been presented, and continues to appear, is that the speed of light was enormously faster around Creation Week and has slowed down since (c-decay1). A good example of this may be found in a book by Burgess,2 which has recently been reviewed. The review describes a rapid aging process for stars and a faster speed of light. The universe was accelerated like fast-forwarding a videotape, and after all the light information reached the Earth the rates were reduced to what we now measure. The problem with this model is that the stars would disappear from view as the light slowed down, subsequently taking millions and billions of years to get to Earth. Also, such light arriving at the Earth would show enormous observable blueshifts.3 It doesn’t. A more ingenious mechanism is needed to overcome such obvious objections. In a recent letter to the editor,4 R.E. Kofahl describes an appealing scenario of the heavens being stretched out and the speed of light being up to 600 billion times the present value. Again this presents the same problem: once the speed of light slowed down, how do we now see the stars? The stars provide us with information in the starlight that we see. If the speed of light had been enormously faster in the past we should be able to detect that in the starlight. Unless a plausible mechanism can be demonstrated, that doesn’t lead to absurd physical implications, these types of scenarios will always fail. As an argument against the validity of long ages in the universe and for recent creation, it is not uncommon for creationist authors to point out some astrophysical feature (e.g. the high dispersion velocities of stars in galaxies)5 that is inconsistent with the assumed long ages in big bang cosmology. The authors then use this as evidence for short ages (i.e. 6,000 years) in the cosmos, consistent with a creationist view. But surely that type of argument is only valid in the framework of the creationist model adopted. You can’t have a Humphreys’ type model,6 with time running faster in the cosmos than on Earth and as a result billions of years pass, and use the short age argument together. Within the framework of the adopted model, for example, there may still be insufficient time for the observed spirals to wind up. In the big bang conjecture all galaxies in the universe formed at the same epoch only a billion years after the big bang, which is alleged to have occurred 12–18 billion years ago. So the question may still be asked, ‘why are there still spirals?’ Why haven’t they all wound up?7 This would still be a cogent creationist argument. Self-consistency is essential or we have no argument. The whole underlying problem may be a reluctance by creationist cosmologists to break with the idea that time is absolute and that it has always flowed at a constant rate all throughout the universe. Humphreys’ white-hole model6 made such a break and has generally been well received by creationists. Probably this is because his model involves accelerated time increments happening in the cosmos during 24-hour periods on Earth. It needs to be made very clear that in the cosmos billions of years of ordinary Earth time may have passed, while only 6 x 24-hour days passed on Earth. But a valid mechanism describing how this happened has yet to be discovered. The Humphreys’ model uses an ‘economy’ of miracles and as a result relies heavily on a particular solution of Einstein’s field equations from general relativity to explain the mechanics of the cosmos. In terms of apologetic value, this approach is very appealing but observationally there are difficulties.8 Also, it is important to remember that God was not bound to any laws of physics until the end of the Creation Week. After it ended, the Word says ‘He rested’. Maybe the solution to the starlight travel time problem is in this fact that the conservation laws we observe today were not yet all operating. Wherein lies the solution? There are five possible areas of explanation, in my opinion, all consistent with the text of Genesis, that still maintain the 6 x 24-hour literal days. They are, That the language of Genesis is phenomenological language (describing appearance). In this case, stars were made millions and billions of years before Day 4, but in such a manner that the light from all stars, no matter how far away, all arrived at the Earth on Day 4 and so would have been seen first at that moment. This is then a reference frame time-stamping events from that moment they are seen on Earth. Newton’s time convention9 describes this idea. The long-term survival of this model, in my opinion, lies with scriptural interpretation, for example, whether the phenomenological view is consistent with Ex. 20:9,11, which reads, ‘Six days you shall labour, and do all your work: For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day ... ’. The emphasized word ‘all’ seems to restrict the work being done before to the Creation Week period where 6 days pass on Earth. The phenomenological interpretation puts the actual physical creation of the stars before the six days begin and is ‘seen’ as happening on Day 4 on Earth. Note that Newton’s physical interpretation is questionable and I have elaborated on this in published correspondence.10 That clocks in the cosmos in the past have run at much higher rates than clocks on Earth. Especially during Creation Week, clocks of the exact same type on the edge of the universe ran something like 1013 times faster than clocks on Earth and therefore light from such regions had plenty of time to get to Earth in a matter of days, not millions or billions of years. The Burgess model2 is of this type.11 This hypothesis is not as simple as it first seems and the light coming from the cosmos carries information that makes the model testable. We can compare clock rates on Earth today with clock rates in sources on galaxies in the cosmos and we should still see a difference. However, I contend that there are no observations that support this hypothesis. In fact, observational evidence suggests the contrary. Light from those sources that have faster clock rates should be blueshifted3 compared to Earth clocks. It is not. That clocks on Earth in the past have run at much slower rates than clocks in the cosmos. Especially during Creation Week clocks of the exact same type on Earth ran about 1013 times slower than clocks at the edge of the universe and therefore light from the edge of the universe had plenty of time to get to Earth in a matter of days as recorded by Earth clocks, not millions or billions of years. Humphreys’ model6 is of this type. The perception of time to someone on the Earth looking at astronomical clocks, during this period, would be that they are running very fast. The hypothesis is simpler than number 2 and not equivalent.12 It is important to realise that this description requires that the universe have a preferred frame of reference. There is evidence that this is the case and it appears the Earth is actually near the centre of the universe.13 The language of Genesis puts the Earth in a reference frame that is special, in the centre of God’s will and plan. A new model of this type is suggested below. That the speed of light was enormously faster in the past, of the order 1011c to 1012c. This may have been the case during Creation Week and then the light slowed enormously to the present value. Again this model is testable, especially with astronomical observations, such as measurements of the fine structure constant. This hypothesis has been advanced in the past by creationists Setterfield and Norman,1 who placed considerable weight on the precision of a few historical astronomical determinations of the speed of light. The idea is currently in vogue in the secular community,14 but they are not dealing with timescales on Earth of only 6,000 years. The observational evidence available to us today clearly precludes this model.15 It is absolutely not viable, unless there is and has been a complicated balance of changes in many ‘so-called’ constants over observable history. But Occam’s razor16 would tell us that this is not the case. Another model in this category is the Harris model.17 It starts with an infinite speed of light at creation. Then, after the Fall, it changes to the current value as a function of time and linear distance from Earth. Like an expanding bubble spreading out through the universe, the speed of light drops from an infinite value to the current value at the surface of the bubble. One problem with this model may be the massive blueshifts resulting from a change of infinite to finite speed of light. Also the fine structure of the atomic spectra must change from a stage of no fine structure to the current state as the bubble passes. This would be observable in starlight. It isn’t. Mystery and miracles! This last option I have to include because the Creator God revealed in the Bible is a God of miracles. It is probably true that if we were looking a miracle in the face we might try to reason a naturalistic mechanism for it. God does intervene in the physical world and during those times the laws of physics are obviously ‘put on hold’ (or rather, added to). However, I don’t believe God commits fraud. Creating a beam of light from source to observer so that the observer appears to see current information must also mean there is a whole stream of information in the beam that is false. But the question may be asked whether God created the light from the stars just outside the solar system that carries current and accurate information from those stars? Yes, He could have, but when it is a miracle it is usually understood and/or revealed. For example, when supernova 1987A exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud, did it explode 200,000 years ago or in 1987? God could have miraculously translated the light across 200,000 light-years distance of space instantly (as if the photons passed through a wormhole) and then just outside the solar system let it move at the speed c. This hypothesis is untestable and seems implausible. Humphreys’ white-hole cosmology Humphreys’ white-hole cosmology (HWC)6,18,19 model is an excellent attempt to address this important question in creationist cosmology. However it seems to suffer from a few deficiencies.8,20 In this model, all the matter of the universe expanded out through a ‘white hole’ during Creation Week to form the cosmos. At the same time space expanded with the matter, moving by virtue of that expansion. Due to gravitational time dilation, clocks on Earth near the centre of this spherically-symmetric, bounded and finite distribution of matter ran slower than clocks throughout the cosmos. The farther out one looks the faster clocks would appear to run compared to Earth clocks. But because Earth clocks are, at least initially, deep in a gravitational well, they are running slow and the clocks in the cosmos are less affected by gravity and run fast. Let’s say for clocks free from gravity that they run at a normal rate, the same as most clocks run today on or near the Earth. (Let’s not concern ourselves with small corrections due to relative motion or gravitational potential near Earth). If this picture was still the state of the universe that we see today, then starlight would be blueshifted (a gravitational effect) and that blueshift would be greater at greater distances from the Earth. This is not what is observed. We, in fact, see redshifts that are small in magnitude compared to the required magnitudes for the needed blueshifts.8 The HWC model however also involves a ‘timeless’ Euclidean zone where the time coordinate in the general relativity spacetime metric becomes spacelike during the expansion stage. This timeless region collapses as material expands out through the ‘white hole’ and eventually it disappears as it reaches Earth. As addressed in another paper,8 this too has its problems both in its mathematical description and conceptually, as there is insufficient time-dilation locally (between nearby galaxies at least). As a result there remains a difficulty in explaining how light from nearby galaxies would get to Earth in 6,000 years or less. A new model I propose a new model of type 3. During Creation Week, all clocks on Earth, at least up to Day 4, ran at about 10–13 times the rate of astronomical clocks. Actually the rate is a parameter of the model. All astronomical clocks in the cosmos run at the same rate that we would measure any normal clock today. They have always done so except under special circumstances where they might have been affected by gravity. During this time the rotation speed of the newly created Earth was about 10–13 times the current rotation speed as measured by astronomical clocks, but normal by Earth clocks. By the close of Day 4 the clock rates on Earth rapidly speeded up to the same rate as the astronomical clocks. All of this was maintained under God’s creative power before He allowed the laws of physics to operate ‘on their own’ at the end of Creation Week. An ‘observer’ on Earth at this time looking at the heavens would have seen apparently accelerated motions. Conversely, an ‘observer’ outside our solar system would observe apparently very slow advance of time on Earth clocks. In fact, only in an extra-solar system frame of reference would Earth clocks appear to be running slow. This effect would allow millions and billions of years to pass in the cosmos, while only a few 24-hour days pass on Earth. Hence the light from the most distant stars traveling at the normal speed, c, would have plenty of time to get to Earth. Of course, I am not suggesting there were any such observers, except the Creator, but He doesn’t live within time. The question might be raised as to the spatial region of this special frame around the Earth where clocks run slower up to or during Day 4 of creation. To be consistent with Scripture it doesn’t necessarily need to include the whole solar system. However, it may have, because light from anywhere in the solar system can reach Earth within about 8 hours. If the special frame was confined to the solar system, we could call it ‘young’.21 If the special frame was confined to the Earth only, we could call the solar system ‘old’.22 The difference would make the model testable. However, to be self-consistent with other evidence that makes the solar system appear ‘young’,23 I would place the boundary of the special frame at least outside the solar system. So then this is consistent with my Young Solar System (YSS) model.8 Further investigation is required though to see if this is consistent with other age estimators within our region of space. Of course the stars were made on Day 4. In order for Adam to see light from the nearest stars (other than the sun), on Day 6, it is necessary that the edge of the special Earth frame not extend much beyond Pluto. Therefore due to the massive time dilation effect, during Creation Week, Adam would have been able to see starlight on Earth coming from the visible stars of at least our own galaxy. The light coming from supernova 1987A travelled most of its journey through a portion of Day 4 of Creation Week, when the Earth clock rates were very slow. It arrived at the Earth in 1987, some 200,000 astronomical years24 after it departed. This model is simple in design and makes no unusual predictions about past events. It is similar to Humphreys’ model with some important differences. Time after the end of Day 4 is linear in the whole universe and may be understood in the normal commonsense way. Time during Creation Week up to Day 4 is highly non-linear but only on Earth (and possibly the surrounding solar system), and nowhere else throughout the cosmos. (Note: the HWC model employs different rates of clocks and different passage of time in the cosmos in a highly non-linear fashion, which should be detectable from Earth today.) In my model, the general matter distribution of the stars and galaxies in the universe is the universal frame of all reference clocks. Generally these astronomical clocks have ticked at the same rate. Clocks on Earth since Day 4 also have ticked at the same rate as these universal clocks. Only clocks on Earth up to the close of Day 4 ticked much slower compared to the universal reference clocks. The model does not employ any general relativistic effects as does HWC but it doesn’t impose any implausible conditions either. The Creation Week period, by definition, is not expected to be a period where natural law explanations apply. There are a few points about this model that should be stated here: It has low apologetic value, because in terms of extra-solar system observations it makes no unusual predictions. In terms of locally elapsed time since creation, this model does imply that objects within the solar system are much younger than objects outside it. Therefore, even though further investigation needs to be undertaken, there is some evidence for a young sun25 but it may also be argued that God created the sun mature26 as it was especially important for life on Earth. There is the question of where and what type of boundary should be postulated that once enclosed the ‘slow’ zone. Was it a sharp or gradual transition to ‘astronomical’ clock rates, and what observational consequences might be expected? Calculations Let’s do a few simple calculations. Let us suppose that the relative rate of clocks on Earth compared to astronomical clocks during Creation Week was (1) where t0 represents time on Earth and t represents time in the cosmos (same for all clocks everywhere except on Earth). By integrating over the 24 hours of Day 4 (assuming = 0.003 years approximately), we can calculate the time available in the cosmos for a photon to travel to Earth. It follows from (1), (2) There is more than sufficient time during Creation Week. And since light now arriving on Earth left the stars some time during Creation Week, it had plenty of astronomical years to nearly get to Earth. The rest of the journey has been made in the 6,000 years since creation. No accelerated speeds have been assumed, just the constant speed of light that has been repeatably measured for the past 300 years. It is not necessary to suppose that light from all stars in the universe arrived by the close of Creation Week, but at a minimum from our own Milky Way galaxy and maybe farther out to the Virgo Cluster of the order of 70 million light years. The specific dilation rate in (1) is an adjustable parameter of the model, which would determine the extent to how far starlight travelled during Day 4. Expansion of the cosmos The issue of whether or not the universe rapidly expanded during the Creation Week is not crucial to this model; however it seems the scriptures demand it. Verses like Job 9:8, 37:18; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 40:22, 42:5, 44:24, etc., may have their fulfilment in an expansion scenario. Since the model provides plenty of astronomical time during Days 1 to 4 on Earth, God could have stretched the heavens out to the billion light-years scales in this period of time, while forming the stars and galaxies on Day 4. And light travelling at constant c still would have gotten to Earth in little time as measured by Earth clocks. A mature creation that is seen as an expanding universe27 may also be part of the description. Conclusion The amount and passage of time in the cosmos is pertinent to the creationist because we need to interpret the evidence within a self-consistent framework of the model we adopt. Therefore in a model of type 1 or type 3, which incorporate astronomical time, explanations of the rotation curves in galaxies,28 the Tully-Fisher law29 or the apparent excess of mass inferred from the dynamics of equilibrium clusters of galaxies become an issue to creationist cosmology. A new model, of a type similar to Humphreys’, has been described that allows billions of years to pass in the cosmos but only 24 hours on Earth during Day 4. In this model, the laws of physics are suspended while creation is in progress and enormous time dilation occurs between Earth clocks and astronomical clocks. This solves the light-travel-time problem faced by creationist cosmology and makes all astronomical evidence fit the Genesis account. No non-physical requirements are placed on the model. References Norman, T. and Setterfield, B., The atomic constants, light and time, SRI International Invited Research Report, Menlo Park, 1986. Burgess, S., He Made the Stars Also, Day One Publications, Surrey, 2001. Recently reviewed in CRSQ 39:39, 2002. If the speed of light was much greater in the past, either the frequencies were higher due to higher excitation energies of the sources or the received wavelengths are shortened by the Doppler effect. In either case, referenced against standard sources on Earth, such light would appear blueshifted. Kofahl, R.E., Letter to the Editor: Speculation concerning God’s ‘big bang’, CRSQ 39:64, 2002. Bernitt, R., Fast stars challenge big bang origin for dwarf galaxies, TJ 14(3):5–7, 2000. Humphreys, D. R., Starlight and Time, Master Books, Colorado Springs, 1994. Astronomers no longer believe ellipticals wound up from earlier spiral forms because most have little angular motion. They are more like motionless blobs. However, in the time available to a spiral galaxy since the big bang it could have wound around about 500 times. Hartnett, J. G., Look-back time in our galactic neighbourhood leads to a new cosmogony, TJ 17(1):73–79, 2003. Newton, R., Distant starlight and Genesis: conventions of time measurement, TJ 15(1):80–85, 2001. Hartnett, J.G., Distant starlight and Genesis: is ‘observed time’ a physical reality? Letters, TJ 16(3):65–68, 2002. It may be more accurately classified as a hybrid between my categories 2 and 4. But it does have a strong element of this type 2. Consider the clock rates at emission and reception. In category 2 at emission, clocks in the distant cosmos were running faster than Earth clocks now run at reception. In category 3 at emission, clocks in the distant cosmos were running at the same rate as Earth clocks now run at reception. Only during a few days of Creation Week were Earth clocks running slower on receiving the light. Humphreys, D.R., Our galaxy is the centre of the universe, ‘quantized’ red shifts show, TJ 16(2):95–104, 2002. Cho, A., Light may have slowed down, Newscientist.com, www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99991158, 2001. Hartnett, J.G., Is there any evidence for a change in c? Implications for creationist cosmology, TJ 16(3):89–94, 2002. Occam, William of Occam (or Ockham) (1284–1347) was an English philosopher and theologian. His work on knowledge, logic and scientific inquiry played a major role in the transition from medieval to modern thought. He based scientific knowledge on experience and self-evident truths, and on logical propositions resulting from those two sources. In his writings, Occam stressed the Aristotelian principle that entities must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary. This principle became known as Occam’s (or Ockham’s) Razor or the law of parsimony. A problem should be stated in its basic and simplest terms. In science, the simplest theory that fits the facts of a problem is the one that should be selected. www.2think.org/occams_razor.shtml. Harris, D.M., A solution to seeing stars, CRSQ 15(2):112–115, 1978. Humphreys, D.R., New vistas of space and time, TJ 12(2):195–212, 1998. Humphreys, D.R., More on vistas, TJ 13(1):55, 1999. Worraker, W.J., Look-back time in Humphreys’ cosmology, TJ 15(2):46–47, 2001. ‘Young’ means that the age by Earth clocks is <> ‘Old’ means the age by Earth clocks is of the order of millions or billions of years. E.g. the abundance of short-period comets. Astronomical years measure time applicable to astronomical objects. The ordinary years we measure on Earth now are also identical and have been since the end of Day 4 of Creation Week. Davies, K., Evidence for a young Sun, ICR Impact 26:1–4, 1996. Note that even though the question of the neutrino emission has been answered (see Newton, R., ‘Missing’ neutrinos found! No longer an ‘age’ indicator, TJ 16(3):123–125, 2002) the questions Davies discusses relating to the oscillation periods are still outstanding. Faulkner, D., The young faint sun paradox and the age of the solar system, ICR Impact 300:1–3, 1998. A non-static universe seems to be an inevitable conclusion considering gravity to be only an attractive force. Worraker, B. J., MOND over dark matter? TJ 16(3):11–14, 2002. Tully-Fisher law: observed luminosity of spiral galaxies varies as the fourth power of their rotational velocities.

Is creation science good science?

I thought this commentary back-and-forth between Dr. Johnathan Sarfati and a science teacher would be a nice companion piece to the back-and-forth ongoing here:

Creation science does not meet the standards for secular publications?24 June 2006

This feedback comes from Jeffrey Orman, a high-school physics teacher and self-described evangelical Christian from Ontario, Canada. He questions some of our astrophysical claims, but his main problem is the old canard of lack of publication in secular journals and the misunderstanding of the role of the paradigm in interpreting data. Dr Jonathan Sarfati responds point-by-point.

‘there is evidence that the dwarf companion of Sirius formed from a red giant in just 1,000 years.

Donald B. DeYoung doesn’t provide evidence that Sirius B was a red giant. Certainly this would be recorded in history. What is the source of this evidence?

When someone—no matter what kinds of degrees, qualifications, prestige, or honors he has—is quoted to support a proposition, it does not imply that the proposition is true. To imply otherwise is a common fallacy called the ‘argument from authority.’ What should matter is not who agrees with one of your points but rather what evidence you can provide that supports it. [Website deleted as per feedback rules].‘

“ Obsession with lack of publication in secular journals is mainly a device for avoiding dealing with the strong creationist arguments that should stand or fall on their own merits. ”

One must wonder about a professing evangelical Christian who uses an essentially atheistic site for his authority. Mr Orman has not understood the fallacy of argument from authority (argumentum ad verecundiam), something we leave to the evolutionists—see The fallacy of arguing from authority. And for more, see my article on logic.

In short, we were not saying, ‘believe Dr DeYoung because he is a Ph.D physicist.’ In reality, the article you object to comes from a book, Astronomy and the Bible. The blurb on our store states:

The book’s convenient question-and-answer format makes it practical in the classroom and ideal for homeschooling.

So it was unreasonable to expect a dissertation on all ‘110 questions on astronomy and the universe’ for a book aimed at high school students. One must judge a book by its intended audience.

To answer your question, Dr DeYoung’s evidence was based on historical records, e.g. Ptolemy’s Almagest describes Sirius as red, as well as legendary writers such as Homer. The astronomer Thomas Jefferson Jackson See (1866–1962), of the United States Naval Observatory, collated ‘Historical Researches Indicating a Change in the Color of Sirius Between the Epochs of Ptolemy, 138, and of Al Sûfi, 980, A. D.’, 1927. This seems to indicate that there was a very bright red star very near Sirius’ position. Note that a red main sequence star could not explain these historical observations because they have about 10–5 of Sirius’ luminosity.
“ In theory, theory and practice agree; in practice, they don’t! ”



It seems that the main reason that evolutionists reject the historical statements is their a priori belief that the transition from red giant to white dwarf must take millions of years. But as your fellow Canadian Dr Emil Silvestru is fond of quoting, ‘In theory, theory and practice agree; in practice, they don’t!’ However, observational evidence has shown that stars can change far more rapidly. The following comes from my book Refuting Compromise, pp. 166–7:
Rapid ‘stellar evolution’

Creationists don’t necessarily disagree with ‘stellar’ evolution, because, unlike biological evolution, it does not involve the claim that naturalistic processes generate new information. But we would not agree with most of the theories of stellar origins, or the timescales. In fact, there is much observational evidence that stars can change very quickly:

Sakurai’s Object: this was discovered in the constellation of Sagittarius by the Japanese amateur astronomer Yukio Sakurai, in February 1996.1

In 1994, this star was most likely a white dwarf in the centre of a planetary nebula, with a diameter about the same as Earth’s, though enormously denser. But a team of astronomers, including Bengt Gustafsson at McDonald Observatory in Texas and Martin Asplund, of the Uppsala Observatory in Sweden, have observed it change to a bright yellow giant. This was about 70 million km in diameter, 80 times wider than the sun. This means the diameter has increased by a factor of 8,000, and the volume by a factor of over 500,000 million. The astronomers expressed great surprise at the rapidity at which this change had occurred.2

But this wasn’t the end of it. In 1998, it had expanded even further, to a red supergiant with a diameter of 210 million km, 150 times that of the sun. But as fast as it grew, it shrank, releasing much debris. By 2002 the star itself was invisible even to the most powerful optical telescopes, although it is detectable in the infrared, which shines through the dust.1

Sakurai’s Object is an example of what evolutionary astronomers call a ‘born-again’ star. They presume that all white dwarfs are collapsed remnants of stars that have burnt (by nuclear fusion) nearly all their hydrogen and helium fuel. But when first formed, they should have an outer layer of hydrogen unused by fusion, although this is sometimes not observed. So one model proposes that instabilities might reignite fusion of unused helium. These would be so violent that the resulting convection would drag hydrogen into the core. In turn, already-existing metals would be dredged up from the core, and more would be generated from the intense nuclear reactions.1

This seems to broadly explain Sakurai’s Object. Astronomers analyzing the star’s spectrum could see only the surface, and they observed the hydrogen drop by 80%, and heavy elements such as lithium, zinc, strontium and yttrium appear.1

However, the speed was 50 times greater than what the theory predicted in the 1980s, as Asplund says:

‘There were predictions that born-again giants would evolve quickly, but most people thought the timescale would be 10 to 100 years, not a mere few months.3

Don Pollaco, an astronomer at Queen’s University, Belfast, agreed:

‘The timescales are just crazy.’3

This is a good lesson that there is still much to learn about stellar evolution. Astronomers have not observed stars changing over millions of years, but now they have observed them changing over months!

H-R Diagram

Hertzsprung–Russell Diagram presented by Richard Powell. This is a logarithmic plot of the luminosity of stars against their colour. However, this plot of real observational evidence says absolutely nothing about how quickly stars change from one type into another.

FG Sagittae: this star has changed from being a blue star (with a temperature of 12,000 K) to a yellow star (temperature 5,000 K) in only 36 years of observation.4

Similarly the physics of a white hole to explain the time for light travel has been ‘screwed up’. A white hole is not so simple as [CMI] claims it is.

I don’t know how simple we claim it to be, and it will take more than your bald assertions of being ‘screwed up’ to prove it. Gravitational time dilation has been proven by atomic clocks, and secular relativity experts agree that near a black hole, time is very much slowed.

It is also accepted that the equations of general relativity are time-symmetric, i.e. that for every solution there is a mathematically valid ‘mirror’ solution where the time flows backward rather than forward. So if a black hole is a valid solution, and this is not disputed by relativity theorists, then so is a white hole. That is, whereas a black hole sucks in matter and the event horizon expands (the Schwartzschild Radius is proportional to the mass), a white hole expels matter and its event horizon shrinks.

The only difference is that there is a known naturalistic explanation for the formation of black holes—the collapse of massive stellar remnants (above the Tolman­­–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit of about 3–5 solar masses); but none for white holes. But if a white hole were created, then it would behave as we suggest. Try refuting Starlight Wars instead of making unsupported assertions.

Why does John Woodmorappe … claim to be a scientist (eg. no relevant Ph.D and not on staff) see: [Website deleted as per feedback rules]

He has a relevant Masters degree (geology) and two relevant bachelor’s degrees (biology and geology). He is most likely more qualified than the typical high-school physics teacher.

see: [Website deleted as per feedback rules]

It’s pointless to cite an online encyclopedia that almost anyone can edit.

his major work is on the feasibility of the Ark, more of a biological exploit than geology.

He has a degree in biology. Furthermore, he thoroughly documents his arguments with primary sources, showing for example that applied low-tech farming techniques made it possible for Noah to have taken care of the animals. I thoroughly recommend it. Have you actually read it?

There are many articles by scientists on your web site, but what percentage of these articles have withstood peer-review?

Most of them! Journal of Creation is formally peer-reviewed, and even the Creation magazine articles are reviewed by several Ph.D. scientists.

Most come from books, which could just as easily contain fiction.

Actually, most cite primary sources. So it is up to you to demonstrate that they contain fiction instead of simply poisoning the well.

TJ [now Journal of Creation] is not an open forum journal.

What journal is an open forum journal? Secular journals censor challenges to naturalism, so they are not open. See Do Creationists Publish in Notable Refereed Journals? (as you should have done according to our feedback rules about checking our site content first). Creationists can publish only if they hide their creationist conclusions. This is reasonable, since the main difference between creationists and evolutionists is not the data but its interpretation—see Evolution & creation, science & religion, facts & bias and Presuppositionalism vs evidentialism. We have also shown that many papers by evolutionists have outstanding presentation of data but a completely vacuous evolutionary ‘explanation’, e.g. chameleons, powerful-toothed Giant Rat-kangaroo and double-sieve enzymes. We have also documented that biologists make no use of evolution in their practical research.

If we as Christians do not follow these ‘rules of Science’ in publishing our work, then we are worse than the speculative evolutionists, that is how pre-Christians would view it.

What rules of science are they? You mean the presuppositions required for science to work, that are deducible from Scripture but not from atheism? The rules that enabled most branches of modern science to be founded by creationists? Or is it more like The rules of the game: As the ‘rules’ of science are now defined, creation is forbidden as a conclusion—even if true.

If God did creation the way you say, then it should stand up to the scrutiny of examination.

It does. But if people are determined to accept only materialistic explanations regardless of how absurd, and reject a designer a priori, then the problem is not inability to stand up to scrutiny but the unwillingness to scrutinize it.

Let’s get publishing without error.

Maybe you could demonstrate any error-free publishing as an example?

[Website deleted according to feedback rules]

For someone claiming to be an evangelical Christian, it is strange that Mr Orman again cites an overtly atheistic website. Similarly strange that he should lecture us on science, yet cite a site by a non-scientist.

I am an evangelical Christian and a general science, physics teacher and dept. head at Listowel District Sec. School.

However, one has to wonder whether what Mr Orman means by ‘evangelical Christian’ is the commonly accepted meaning. That is, one who accepts the Bible as inerrant and authoritative. As a corollary, the famous 20th century preacher Dr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said that an evangelical must accept ‘Creation, not evolution’, ‘the fact of the historical fall of the first man, and that it happened in the way described in the third chapter of Genesis,’ and ‘ assert the fact of the flood.’

My concern is that creation science is not meeting the standards and this is why they aren’t published.

Then prove it! Obsession with lack of publication in secular journals is mainly a device for avoiding dealing with the strong creationist arguments that should stand or fall on their own merits.

Sure there is some discrimination involved too,

Aye, there’s the rub. What is the point in even trying to submit to the establishment journals when they have explicitly stated that they will not publish creationist, or even Intelligent Design, papers. We have already explained the hypocrisy of this.

but let’s get the ‘science’ up to par so there is no excuse for them (the secular journals).

There is an excuse—the stipulative definition of science as naturalism! But I agree that we need to do good science—and peer-reviewed journals like Journal of Creation encourage this.

Jeffrey Orman

Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D.

CMI–Australia


References

1. Muir, H., Back from the dead, New Scientist177(2384):28–31, 1 March 2003.
2. New Scientist154(2085):17, 7 June 1997; referring to Astronomy & Astrophysics321:L17, 1997.

3. Cited in Muir, Ref. 60, p. 31.

4. New Scientist, pp. 28–41, 14 September 1991.

Why I almost quit doing this....

You know, I did quit blogging regularly for awhile and nearly quit altogether. It happens that a real-life situation caused us a great deal of grief and trouble. The old saying that "no good deed goes unpunished" applies. I think we would still do it over again because the cause was just and the need was great. I found myself stretched way too far for awhile, though.

I do get discouraged when I get comments back that indicate that the reader really didn't pay attention to the posts or else refuses to acknowledge them. Let's look at a response like that, from a commenter I enjoy hearing from but who seems stuck somehow:

I was beginning to think you were stuck under something heavy.

Yep, I was. Out now, though.

"I really don't remember what particular point we were stuck on in the Creation debate now. Perhaps commenters will remind me?"

Yeah, I asked for it, didn't I?

If by this you mean the number of points you've abandoned when you could no longer support your stance, the list is really quite long and it would take too much out of my day to compile them all. Your blog does have a good archiving feature in the left sidebar, where you can find all these.

Aha, I am charged with crimes! Let's examine some of them:

For the moment, here is a brief rundown of recent open questions:

1. You recently used evidence of ice cores going back something like 800,000 years and tree rings going back over 10,000 years in order to back up a certain position on global warming that would be insupportable given only the written records of the last two centuries that are available to us.

Not true. I used arguments about data from the last approximately 4500 years to make those points.

When I drew your attention to the fact that this was incompatible with your YEC beliefs, you pretended to misunderstand the problem for a while, but then endeavored to show how ice cores and tree rings actually indicate a young Earth.

So you posted an opening argument that did not show such a thing about ice cores. The "opening argument" was not followed by any subsequent argument.

It is you that has misunderstood. I didn't use data from beyond about 4500 years, as I have stated and shown several times. But go ahead and revisit the "opening argument" and you will see that the article was a firm statement that refutes the idea that ice cores "prove" an old age. I didn't follow up on the opening argument because 1) no one gave any evidence in response other than "is not!" and, 2) I was going to go on about tree rings once that happened. But it hasn't happened.

Are you going to finish this argument, or are you content to admit that ice cores and tree rings indicate a world older than 6,000 years?

I posted a nice, long post that blows holes in any 800,000 year conclusions and I will be content to say that ice cores can be shown to reflect a world that is 6,000 years old based on the evidence. No one has countered my post yet.

2. Your larger argument about global warming - that it doesn't matter because there have been climate cycles in the past (a position that by itself you cannot support with the amount of scientific evidence that your worldview requires you to ignore or refute) – doesn't add up, because it does not logically mean that these cycles will continue indefinitely into the future, certainly not if any factors affecting the climate change. It is like saying that a Tsunami could never happen because we see the tide go in and out every day.

Please....I used evidences from the last 4500 years and those evidences are pretty convincing. It is like saying that if the have gone in and out for the last 4500 years, then if the tide is in right now it will soon go out again....because the evidence indicates that it always does. Just as the evidence indicates that warming is followed by cooling is followed by warming is followed by cooling...


3. The folks at ICR debunked the argument you posted about the speed of light changing. I posted both an excerpt from and a link to their argument.

I posted links as well. "Debunked" is a strong word, since those who suspect a change in the speed of light are in the process of researching this. I said that the speed of light does change, demonstrably, in differing conditions and that it may have decayed from the time of Creation. I really cannot say whether anyone has come close to proving this, or that it is actually true and neither can you.


Do you think the ICR is part of a secular conspiracy?

No, I believe they are very conservative and won't consider this a topic of discussion without further data being presented that makes it more of a possibility.

Do you still maintain that the speed of light is changing, and if so, on what basis?

I merely presented it as a possibility to be considered. There is another good possibility that the Earth was created on the cusp of a relativistic event horizon associated with a White Hole. I will post on this particular matter soon. I am just saying, there are several ideas that are more plausible than, gee, there was this big bang and something came out of nothing....


There's probably more that are also recent, and a whole slew from last year, but this should serve for now to continue the conversation.

About the content of this particular post:

1. "I speak like I belong to God, act like it, vote like it, think like it."

Is it considered a Christian virtue to continue to spread fallacies even after they are pointed out to you?

Well, what fallacies? I've refuted your charges above and seem to be fallacy-free at the moment.

2. "They often talk a good game, yet they live by a hodge-podge of both humanistic and Christian rules."

There is significant overlap between how a good Christian and a good humanist conduct their lives (indeed, there are both Christian and secular humanists). Unfortunately, you don't seem to know what 'humanism' is and you leap to some rash conclusions because of it. It would be very helpful if you could read up on the subject, of course with the proper degree of tolerance that one would expect from an observing Christian.

I've "read up" as you would say on the subject of Humanism. The modern Humanist draws from the Renaissance and the Darwin-Nietzsche schools of thought. I have no doubt whatever that there are many Humanists who are "good people" as men judge goodness. A Humanist doesn't have to be a detriment to his community and in fact may be a great asset to it! He is, however, certainly a great danger to himself, for if he successfully deludes himself into believing his own philosophy he will be subject to harsh judgement by his Maker later on. All Humanists believe that it is mankind that is responsible for its own salvation and moral standards and so on...it is man-centric rather than God-centric.

The Christian point of view is to say that no one is good enough to meet the standard of "good" and that right and wrong are absolutes determined by the Creator of us all. A Christian must acknowledge his inability to be his own salvation and submit to God by admittance and repentance. If we humble ourselves before God and accept salvation through Christ, we are then changed and are better able to live Godly lives because of the Spirit of God that then lives within us. Being human, we will still fail at times. But a Christian acknowledges his Maker, the rules of his Maker and seeks to please his Maker while he lives on this earth.

My posts on the EAE have been meant to highlight the fringe, the absurd and the remarkably evil in order to point out that the basis for Humanist thought comes from the desire to eliminate God from all consideration. I have also reasonably pointed out that, whereas a sociopath may be a menace to society, he is in perfect harmony with a pure atheistic and evolutionist viewpoint, for he sees no intrinsic value in others and acknowledges no absolute standards of right and wrong. In fact, the EAE can argue that there is no such thing as right and wrong.

I almost quit blogging because I was tired and unsure if it did even one bit of good. But I am refreshed and ready to continue on! I will keep shouting from ethernet rooftops!

The Ethical Atheistic Humanist: Murder is not mandatory

I was encouraged to look up a dictionary definistion of Humanism. Of course, there is more than one brand of Humanism, depending upon whether you are a Renaissance type, a German Movement type, A fringy like Peter Singer, an atheist, an agnostic and so on and so on. Rather than go there, I would like to present beliefs that an atheistic Humanist would be likely to hold.

1) No God. The Universe happened by chance, it wasn't created by a higher power. It was simply a Big Bang, not a Big God, that was the Initial Cause of all.

2) No absolutes. The Humanist doesn't believe any higher power has determined right and wrong and puts this ultimately in the hands of men. The end result is that each man or woman is the ultimate lawmaker for themselves. This means that there really is no sin, for who is to determine what sin would be?

3) The physical world is real, but it is the only reality we can observe. There is no room for the supernatural or any other existence other than what we can taste, see, hear, smell and touch.

4) Since man came from chance accidents and mutations and so on, via an evolutionary trail, he is simply an animal. He is the highest of animals, but he has no special worth or purpose.

5) There is therefore no particular reason to live, other than to seek pleasures. Otherwise, an evolutionary urge to pass on one's genes could be argued and not much else.

6) There is no need for salvation, for there is no afterlife and no judgment to avoid.

7) Darwin's Origin of Species is the most important/significant book in the history of mankind.

Now, I grant you that the EAE is not required to murder anyone. As stated in the previous post, he may wish to avoid being apprehended and punished by society or he may simply not wish to murder someone else. But does he recognize any moral imperative to avoid murder, or rape, or theft? Humanists will give you wishy-washy answers about a seeking for the common good, the desire to make a better society and so on. But why? How does that fit in with evolutionary thought, the survival of the fittest? If you seek pleasures above all, how does helping the guy next door accomplish this? If you wish to be number one, how can helping the neighbor up to your level fit in with that desire? If you want your genes to be passed on, wouldn't you seek to eliminate or hinder the competition rather than help them? I cannot fathom the logic of a compassionate EAE, since it is not in keeping with the precepts of evolution.

No, I think rather that the Christian ethic underlies the morality of the Western World and in fact most of the world. God's influence has cause altruistic concepts to be adopted and certainly the Biblical morality is the basis for the legal system of countries like Great Britain and the United States. Biblical morality is so intrinsic to modern society that it is often not apprehended. Unfortunately, it gets attacked and eroded with time when Christian influences are not strong.

The pure EAE only cares for those who give him some kind of pleasure and fulfillment. He has no reason to be concerned about others. He fits into the system in order to avoid troubles, or else moves on the outskirts of the system and schemes to get away with ungodly acts by subterfuge. I've yet to see any good arguments to contradict my observations!

If you are a Bible Believer....

Take the quiz! I wondered how I would do and took it and, hey, I did pretty good!

You know the Bible 100%!

 

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

By the way, if you really know the Bible, you'll spot the answer that is actually wrong. I gave them the answer they wanted (since the actual answer was not listed among the multiple choices) but the discerning Bible Brain will spot the error. Leave a comment with the mistake if you spot it!

A town where God was not allowed (or, an EAE paradise)

Apologetics Press :: Bible Bullets

Atheism and Liberal, Missouri by Eric Lyons, M.Min. Printer version | Email this article

In the summer of 1880, George H. Walser founded the town of Liberal in southwest Missouri. Named after the Liberal League in Lamar, Missouri (to which the town’s organizer belonged), Walser’s objective was “to found a town without a church, [w]here unbelievers could bring up their children without religious training,” and where Christians were not allowed (Thompson, 1895; Becker, 1895). “His idea was to build up a town that should exclusively be the home of Infidels...a town that should have neither God, Hell, Church, nor Saloon” (Brand, 1895). Some of the early inhabitants of Liberal even encouraged other infidels to move to their town by publishing an advertisement which boasted that Liberal “is the only town of its size in the United States without a priest, preacher, church, saloon, God, Jesus, hell or devil” (Keller, 1885, p. 5). Walser and his “freethinking” associates were openly optimistic about their new town. Excitement was in the air, and atheism was at its core. They believed that their godless town of “sober, trustworthy and industrious” individuals would thrive for years on end. But, as one young resident of that town, Bessie Thompson, wrote about Liberal in 1895, “...like all other unworthy causes, it had its day and passed away.” Bessie did not mean that the actual town of Liberal ceased to exist, but that the idea of having a “good, godless” city is a contradiction in terms. A town built upon “trustworthy” atheistic ideals eventually will reek of the rotten, immoral fruits of infidelity. Such fruits were witnessed and reported firsthand by Clark Braden in 1885.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Saturday, May 2, 1885

Braden was an experienced preacher, debater, and author. In his lifetime, he presented more than 3,000 lectures, and held more than 130 regular debates—eighteen of which were with the Mormons (Carpenter, 1909, pp. 324-325). In 1872, Braden even challenged the renowned agnostic Robert Ingersoll to debate, to which Ingersoll reportedly responded, “I am not such a fool as to debate. He would wear me out” (Haynes, 1915, pp. 481-482). Although Braden was despised by some, his skills in writing and public speaking were widely known and acknowledged. In February 1885, Clark Braden introduced himself to the townspeople of Liberal (Keller, 1885, p. 5; Moore, 1963, p. 38), and soon thereafter he wrote about what he had seen.

In an article that appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on May 2, 1885, titled “An Infidel Experiment,” Braden reported the following.

The boast about the sobriety of the town is false. But few of the infidels are total abstainers. Liquor can be obtained at three different places in this town of 300 inhabitants. More drunken infidels can be seen in a year in Liberal than drunken Christians among one hundred times as many church members during the same time. Swearing is the common form of speech in Liberal, and nearly every inhabitant, old and young, swears habitually. Girls and boys swear on the streets, playground, and at home. Fully half of the females will swear, and a large number swear habitually.... Lack of reverence for parents and of obedience to them is the rule. There are more grass widows, grass widowers and people living together, who have former companions living, than in any other town of ten times the population.... A good portion of the few books that are read are of the class that decency keeps under lock and key....

These infidels...can spend for dances and shows ten times as much as they spend on their liberalism. These dances are corrupting the youth of the surrounding country with infidelity and immorality. There is no lack of loose women at these dances.

Since Liberal was started there has not been an average of one birth per year of infidel parents. Feticide is universal. The physicians of the place say that a large portion of their practice has been trying to save females from consequences of feticide. In no town is slander more prevalent, or the charges more vile. If one were to accept what the inhabitants say of each other, he would conclude that there is a hell, including all Liberal, and that its inhabitants are the devils (as quoted in Keller, 1885, p. 5).

According to Braden, “[s]uch are the facts concerning this infidel paradise.... Every one who has visited Liberal, and knows the facts, knows that such is the case” (p. 5).

As one can imagine, Braden’s comments did not sit well with some of the townspeople of Liberal. In fact, a few days after Braden’s observations appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he was arrested for criminal libel and tried on May 18, 1885. According to Braden, “After the prosecution had presented their evidence, the case was submitted to the jury without any rebutting evidence by the defence (sic), and the jury speedily brought in a verdict of ‘No cause for action’ ” (as quoted in Mouton, n.d., pp. 36-37). Unfortunately for Braden, however, the controversy was not over. On the following day (May 19, 1885), a civil suit was filed by one of the townsmen—S.C. Thayer, a hotel operator in Liberal. The petition for damages of $25,000 alleged that Clark Braden and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published an article in which they had made false, malicious, and libelous statements against the National Hotel in Liberal, managed by Mr. Thayer. He claimed that Braden’s remarks, published in the St. Louise Post-Dispatch on May 2, 1885, “greatly and irreparably injured and ruined” his business (Thayer v. Braden). However, when the prosecution learned that the defense was thoroughly prepared to prove that Liberal was a den of infamy, and that its hotels were little more than houses of prostitution, the suit was dismissed on September 17, 1886 by the plaintiff at his own cost (Thayer v. Braden). Braden was exonerated in everything he had written. Indeed, the details Braden originally reported about Liberal, Missouri, on May 2, 1885 were found to be completely factual.

It took only a few short years for Liberal’s unattractiveness and inconsistency to be exposed: People cannot exclude God from the equation, and expect to remain a “sober, trustworthy” town. Godlessness equals unruliness, which in turn makes a repugnant, immoral people. The town of Liberal was a failure. Only five years after its establishment, Braden indicated that “[n]ine-tenths of those now in town would leave if they could sell their property. More property has been lost by locating in the town than has been made in it.... Hundreds have been deceived and injured and ruined financially” (Keller, p. 5). Apparently, “doing business with the devil” did not pay the kind of dividends George Walser (the town’s founder) and the early inhabitants of Liberal desired. It appears that even committed atheists found living in Liberal in the early days intolerable. Truly, as has been observed in the past, “An infidel surrounded by Christians may spout his infidelity and be able to endure it, but a whole town of atheists is too horrible to contemplate.” It is one thing to espouse a desire to live in a place where there is no God, but it is an entirely different thing for such a place actually to exist. For it to become a reality is more than the atheist can handle. Adolf Hitler took atheism to its logical conclusion in Nazi Germany, and created a world that even most atheists detested. Although atheists want no part of living according to the standards set out by Jesus and His apostles in the New Testament, the real fruits of evolutionary atheism also are too horrible for them to contemplate.

Although the town of Liberal still exists today (with a population of about 800 people), it is not the same town it was in 1895. At present, at least seven religious groups associated with Christianity exist within this city that once banned Christianity and all that it represents. Numerous other churches meet in the surrounding areas. According to one of the religious leaders in the town, “a survey of Liberal recently indicated that 50% of the people are actively involved with some church” (Abbott, 2003)—a far cry from where Liberal began.

There is no doubt that the moral, legal, and educational systems of Liberal, Missouri, in the twenty-first century are the fruits of biblical teaching, not atheism. When Christianity and all of the ideals that the New Testament teaches are effectively put into action, people will value human life, honor their parents, respect their neighbors, and live within the moral guidelines given by God in the Bible. A city comprised of faithful Christians would be mostly void of such horrors as sexually transmitted diseases, murder, drunken fathers who beat their wives and children, drunk drivers who turn automobiles into lethal weapons, and heartache caused by such things as divorce, adultery, and covetousness. (Only those who broke God’s commandments intended for man’s benefit would cause undesirable fruit to be reaped.)

On the other hand, when atheism and all of its tenets are taken to their logical conclusion, people will reap some of the same miserable fruit once harvested by the early citizens of Liberal, Missouri (and sadly, some of the same fruit being reaped by many cities in the world today). Men and women will attempt to cover up sexual sins by aborting babies, children will disrespect their parents, students will “run wild” at home and in school because of the lack of discipline, and “sexual freedom” (which leads to sexually transmitted diseases) will be valued, whereas human life will be devalued. Such are the fruits of atheism: a society in which everyone does that which is right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6)—a society in which no sensible person wants to live.

REFERENCES

Abbott, Phil (2003), Christian Church, Liberal, Missouri, telephone conversation, April 7.

Barnes, Pamela (2003), St. Louis Post-Dispatch, telephone conversation, March 12.

Becker, Hathe (1895), “Liberal,” Liberal Enterprise, December 5,12, [On-line], URL: http://lyndonirwin.com/libhist1.htm.

Brand, Ida (1895), “Liberal,” Liberal Enterprise, December 5,12, [On-line], URL: http://lyndonirwin.com/libhist1.htm.

Carpenter, L.L. (1909), “The President’s Address,” in Centennial Convention Report, ed. W.R. Warren, (Cincinnati, OH: Standard Publishing Company), pp. 317-332. [On-line], URL: http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/wwarren/ccr/CCR15B.HTM.

Haynes, Nathaniel S. (1915), History of the Disciples of Christ in Illinois 1819-1914 (Cincinnati, OH: Standard Publishing Company), [On-line], URL: http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/nhaynes/hdcib/braden01.htm, 1996.

Keller, Samuel (1885), “An Infidel Experiment,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Special Correspondence with Clark Braden, May 2, p. 5.

Moore, J.P. (1963), This Strange Town—Liberal, Missouri (Liberal, MO: The Liberal News).

Mouton, Boyce (no date), George H. Walser and Liberal, Missouri: An Historical Overview.

Thayer, S.C. v. Clark Braden

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Thanks to my better half for finding this article and sharing it with me! I wanted to add this article to my previous post and then take the discussion along from there...

The Ethical Atheistic Evolutionist

If you truly believe in evolution, and you are an atheist, then you are probably not being true to your core worldview. I could be wrong, but I'm not, as the song goes. Why do I say this? Because most people with such a worldview mix large helpings of Christian mores and morals into their lifestyles. Let me explain, but first allow me to help myself to an acronym, EAE, to save my fingers from additional work going forward.

The average EAE, as an atheist, doesn't believe in God and therefore doesn't accept rules laid down by God in the Bible. This is a conundrum for him, since society in general is based on quite a few of the Biblical injunctives and so if he is to remain free in society (not being jailed) then such laws must be obeyed. However, as a believer in evolution, survival of the fittest and all that, he sees life as an accident with no intrinsic meaning or value other than to simply please oneself. Other people are meaningless to him except as they please him somehow. Laws of the land are a nuisance, but he will either obey them to remain free or cleverly get around them as he is able. In short, the EAE finds himself adhering to many Biblical laws in order to maintain his freedom, while seeing no value in those laws otherwise.

Some EAE simply try to believe, and convince others, that Biblical morality was actually thought up by men and have nothing to do with a God. There are those who devote a great deal of time to promotion of evolution and humanism and atheism at the expense of belief in God, like Richard Dawkins (who recently published The God Delusion). Hank Hanegraaf of Christian Research Institute recently cited a few current EAE who are actively seeking to eliminate Christianity:

1) Sam Harris, a devoted atheist, wrote that "Science must destroy Christianity."
2) Bill Maher, liberal talkshow host, said that Christians have a "neurological disorder."
3) Comedians Penn and Teller ridicule the Bible as "expletive deleted."

So, some EAE preach against Christianity and some want their name to live on after themselves. This is something that pleases them. It therefore fits into their worldview to an extent. But people who are not actively promoting or living the EAE philosophy, like Maher and Harris and Dawkins, are pikers! They talk the talk, but do they walk the walk, really?

Look at me, a Christian! I give both time and money to the cause of Christ, serving in the local church, supporting missions, posting blogs and having conversations with others concerning both my faith and my worldview. Unlike Christ Himself, I don't do these things perfectly but they are thematic to my life. I am living in accordance with my worldview.

Some of the most famous preachers against God are more talk than action. They believe things written by Karl Marx and Charles Darwin but don't carry the thoughts out very far. But there are those who have...

Adolf Hitler is a great example of an EAE who dared to live his beliefs. He considered evolution to be true and wanted "his" race to be the winner, in fact, was quite sure that the Aryans would eventually dominate humanity. His goal was to hasten the process and see his name go down in history as the great Fuhrer and Leader who led the Aryans to the pinnacle. Naturally, inferiors such as the Jews had to be eliminated or enslaved. Actual Christians had to be eliminated or enslaved. Hitler's only religion was humanism and his only god was himself. He dared to live out his beliefs.

Jeffery Dahmer is another EAE Hall-of-Famer.

‘If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing…’

Jeffrey Dahmer, in an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC, Nov. 29, 1994. Believing as he did, he didn't try to keep his impulses in check...

"I was completely swept along with my own compulsion. I don't know how else to put it. It didn't satisfy me completely so maybe I was thinking another one will. Maybe this one will, and the numbers started growing and growing and just got out of control, as you can see. "

Dahmer, the serial killer/cannibal, was living out his worldly philosophy. He didn't care about rules or regulations and gave no consideration to God or morality, he simply decided to do what he wanted to do and believed himself capable of getting away with it. He would later say, in retrospect:

"If I'd been thinking rationally I would have stopped. I wasn't thinking rationally because it just increased and increased. It was almost like I wanted to get to a point where it was out of my control and there was no return. I mean, I was very careful for years and years, you know. Very careful, very careful about making sure that nothing incriminating remained, but these last few months, they just went nuts… It just seemed like it went into a frenzy this last month. Everything really came crashing down. The whole thing started falling down around my head… That was the last week I was going to be in that apartment building. I was going to have to move out and find somewhere to put all my possessions. Should I get a chest and put what I wanted to keep in that, and get rid of the rest? Or should I put an end to this, try to stop this and find a better direction for my life? That's what was going through my mind that last week."

Dahmer became miserable upon being caught. He lamented his fate and spoke freely of the things he'd done, almost as if he'd been an observer rather than the active participant.

"Yes, I do have remorse, but I'm not even sure myself whether it is as profound as it should be. I've always wondered myself why I don't feel more remorse."

But of course, his remorse is centered upon one thing, being captured and facing consequences. Dahmer's remorse, such as it was, centered upon himself and not on those he had killed and tortured and desecrated. Thus, he remained true to his belief system even after capture.

We see the result of the selfish heart illustrated in the book, Lord of the Flies. Away from the influences of society and Godly instruction, the natural man (or boys, in this case) allow their own desires to run roughshod over others to the point of murder.

But the most dedicated and pure of EAE don't simply allow themselves to be ruled by their beliefs and emotions, but are proactive in living them out. I give you Leopold and Loeb, who decided to kill young Bobby Franks simply because they could, because they believed themselves to be superior beings and they believed that they would get away with it. Clarence Darrow, their attorney, had them plead guilty to the crime once caught, but pleaded with the judge to spare them with the following words:

"I say to you seriously that the parents of Dicky Loeb are more responsible than he, and yet few boys had better parents." and, "I know that one of two things happened to this boy; that this terrible crime was inherent in his organism and came from some ancestor, or that it came through his education and his training after he was born."and also, "I do not know what remote ancestor may have sent down the seed that corrupted him, and I do not know through how many ancestors it may have passed until it reached Dicky Loeb. All I know is, it is true, and there is not a biologist in the world who will not say I am right."

Both Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were followers of the Nietszche school of thought and considered themselves to be "supermen" not answerable to society at large. Nietzsche (known as "the child of Darwin") preached that evolution would inevitably lead to the development of the "superman" who would be above all laws, a law unto himself. Thus, like Hitler, they lived out their beliefs...and, like Hitler, would discover that consequences would come to them despite their personal philosophy.

~

I would argue that the majority of EAE adherents are living out a lie. They don't truly act upon their beliefs, instead living half-in and half-out of a lifestyle that has its roots in Biblical morality. They do so to get along, to avoid making waves, etc, etc. They obey the laws of the land, may well be generally kind to others (in order to receive the praise/admiration/acceptance of their peers) and may well participate in Godly traditions such as marriage and parenthood. I am glad that they do so! We don't need any more Hitlers or Dahmers. But I will also say that the average EAE hasn't truly considered the belief system they claim as their own. For in the purest form, the EAE is amoral, anarchistic and destructive. Hitler was a great EAE.

But how can I say someone like Dahmer is ethical??? Wikipedia:

Ethics (via Latin ethica from the Ancient Greek ἠθική [φιλοσοφία] "moral philosophy", from the adjective of ἤθος ēthos "custom, habit"), a major branch of philosophy, is the study of values and customs of a person or group. It covers the analysis and employment of concepts such as right and wrong, good and evil, and responsibility. It is divided into three primary areas: meta-ethics (the study of the concept of ethics), normative ethics (the study of how to determine ethical values), and applied ethics (the study of the use of ethical values).

Because "ethics" to an atheistic evolutionist, a humanist, are quite different from the ethics of the traditionalist. The EAE doesn't recognize any authority behind the concepts of "right and wrong" and may even deny that "right and wrong" even exist. Perhaps I would be better served using the term, "Integrity" instead. Hitler had integrity of belief and actions, he was what he was and he did as he believed. He practiced what he preached.

If you disagree with my thoughts, I want to ask you a question, two, in fact: "Is there such a thing as right and wrong? If so, by what authority have they been proclaimed?"

~


I am curious to see what the responses may be. Myself, I certainly believe what is written in the Bible, specifically, Galatians 6:7&8:

"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life."

There is a higher authority, there are absolutes, there is a reason for living and a Creator who created with purpose and plan. Those who understand this and live accordingly tend to support a better world now even as they work to attain another world beyond this plane of existence. Those who do not often are a detriment to society and to themselves. That's my story...rebuttal, anyone?

Why do I do this, anyway?

...So as blogging resumes, I first had to ask myself why I wanted to do this? The answer was that doing this blog is in keeping with my worldview. I am a Christian, became at a later age after I had become both a husband and a father. Perhaps I would have been a missionary if things had gone differently? In any event, I am true to my worldview as a Christian. I provide for my family and teach them Biblical ways. I live those Biblical ways in front of them so they might follow my example. I give both time and money to the cause of Christ. I tell others about my faith. I believe in what the Bible says and make the effort to adhere to those precepts found within. I do so imperfectly at times, yet I do make a renewed effort each day and hour to do my best to be what I am, a Christian.

What does this mean? It means that I am like many others, nothing special, but my life sometimes reveals the difference. I didn't have relations with my wife until we were married. I remain faithful to her. I speak like I belong to God, act like it, vote like it, think like it. This blog is another way for me to share my Christian faith and worldview with others. Therefore I have come back! I am being true to who I am.

I don't believe most atheistic evolutionists are true to their cause, by the way. They often talk a good game, yet they live by a hodge-podge of both humanistic and Christian rules. It makes me wonder, really, what a true atheistic evolutionist ought to be. I suppose I should blog on that next, since I really don't remember what particular point we were stuck on in the Creation debate now. Perhaps commenters will remind me? Meanwhile, stay tuned for my post about the Ethical Atheistic Evolutionist!

Back from traveling! Back into the fray!

Guys, I am back from traveling and have a renewed interest in blogging. If I ever go more than a week without publishing (barring vacations or storm disasters) then I will retire from this blog! I now have a new focus and a new vision concerning my posts here.

We are now back from the Worldview Superconference, which was very enlightening! I have been charged up by the conference and by people who I met there. First, I'd like to thank Shannon and Matthew, two young people from 96, South Carolina, with whom we sat during the majority of the sessions. Guys, we enjoyed your companionship! There were many others, like Jared and Jarod and Cindy and her family. Good times!

One highlight was getting a chance to speak with Jonathan Safarti, who is a noted Creation Scientist with multiple degrees and peer-reviewed papers by the dozen. He played chess against 30 other players in one sitting and beat them all late one night and then the next night took on 10 players blindfolded and beat them all as well! Talk about multi-tracking! Brilliant guy who is with Creation Ministries International and a very pleasant one with which to converse, along with his wife. I also enjoyed chatting with Gary Bates of CMI.

I happened to be talking with one of the American Vision board members, Tom Ertl, and the topic of baseball came up. Nearby was Jeff Ventrella of the Alliance Defense Fund. It turned out that both guys were rabid baseball fans and immediately we began talking baseball, you know, topics like the starting lineup for the 1968 Tigers or guys with stange batting stances or who played first base for the 1958 Milwaukee Braves. Here we are in the bookstore, at a conference devoted to the biggest issues of our times and we are trading trivia questions about ballplayers! Hey guys, I'm coming back next year so we can't forget planning a junket to an Asheville game!

We are indebted to Gary DeMar and Jared V. and everyone else at American Vision who put together such a great conference!

Debbie got a chance to present her question concerning Daniel 9:27 to bible-brains Hank Hanegraaf and Gary DeMar. She's been in communication with some translators about that verse as well. I still think she'll wind up with a credit in the new NIV translation when it is published. But the important thing is making sure God's Word continues to be translated correctly. God makes no mistakes, but fallible translators are another story!

On the way home, our plane was declared dead and our baggage lost. We had to go home via Dallas, Texas and dragged in very late and very tired. Nevertheless, several days of challenging presentations and lively conversations have empowered both of us to carry on!