"Forget about all the science" <-- young earth creationist religious ideology in action. Oh boy, another troll who never even intends to discuss the topic or anything relevant to the topic. Pretty humble indeed. [yawn]

— Todd Greene

It's always amazing to me how I can ask a young earth creationist a straight question, and then - after considerable persistent effort on my part - I finally get what seems like a straight answer. And yet should anyone actually attribute a non-ambiguous interpretation (i.e., an actual answer) to what the young earth creationist stated, then the young earth creationist snips away all the quotes and ignores what was stated and then pretends that I "would rather argue against what I didn't say, than what I said." YECs do this kind of thing so much that I have to wonder, do young earth creationists take formal training classes on "How to Be Ambiguous and Effectively Obfuscate Discussion"?

Here was the exchange that Jim conveniently ignores:

In response to what Jim stated here, I then wrote,

But then Jim replies,

Which is fine by me that Jim has decided that the stellar explosion SN1987A really happened. And why didn't he just say that in the first place?? But, oh, those young earth creationists do love their ambiguities and equivocations, it's so hard to tear them away from that to just give a straight answer to a straight question.

So now Jim the young earth creationist and apparent age advocate has a serious problem. He admits to agreeing that the stellar explosion really did happen and is not just an illusion in the sky created by a Prankster God. Which was exactly my point to begin with (if you don't think so, go back and check my previous posts). Recall that it is the apparent age advocates who say that God created a world that has only "apparently" been around for billions of years, even while they say God created the world only about 6,000 (or maybe up to 10,000 or so) years ago. Yet with SN1987A we have an observation of a stellar explosion that took place approximately 168,000 years ago. So apparent age advocates can either be consistent with their own apparent age argument and deny the reality of the astronomical observation, OR if they admit that the stellar explosion is real then they must step away from their apparent age argument and in doing so they are admitting that the apparent age argument that they were making is actually irrelevant to subject we're talking about in the first place, which is that the astronomical observations shows that the Universe has been around substantially longer than just 6,000 (or 10,000) years.

So now we have to thank Jim for acknowledging that his apparent age argument doesn't even apply to the scientific data we're talking about.

Thank you, Jim!

— Todd Greene

(P.S.: Notice that I have carefully now attributed the OTHER answer to Jim, since he disavowed the apparent age answer. Will Jim backpedal from this answer too, choosing instead to live in ambiguity and admitting that he really chooses to refuse to answer at all, while yet pretending that he has provided an answer? We shall see.)

In light (actually, in the darkness) of these remarks by Clifton, it needs to be stated quite explicitly here that Clifton is lying about me lying. This is another one of those things that Clifton just loves to do.

Certainly we have problems with apparent age advocates being inconsistent about their own dogma and contradicting each other on what it means, but it's a matter of public record that over the decades apparent age advocates have argued that God created all kinds of fake things (like fake stellar explosions, or fake impact craters, or fake volcanic necks, or fake fossils in fake geologic strata). Clifton purposely ignores the history of the apparent age argument, deceitfully pretends that it's coming up *de novo* in discussion right now and thus has no historical or conceptual context, and then lies that I have lied about the apparent age concept. Make no mistake about it, the liar here - and quite blatant about it - is Clifton Healy.

— Todd Greene

Clifton describes me as being a "Pseudo-intellectual."

Interestingly enough, to be a pseudo-intellectual you have to (1) pretend to be an intellectual, while demonstrating (2) that you have problems when it comes to clearly understanding intellectual concepts.

Unlike Clifton, I have never pretended to be an intellectual, so that counts me out of the pseudo-intellectual category right there. And since Clifton can almost never state anything clearly or get anything straight, as we have observed over and over and over again, we know who the real pseudo-intellectual around here is!

— Todd Greene

Clifton the Master Obfuscator does so love his straw men. I get into discussion of the apparent age concept specifically because a young earth creationist uses the popular young earth creationist apparent age argument as an argument for why astronomers think that the Universe has been around far longer than just 6,000 years. Clifton then turns around and lies about me not considering some aspect about scientific consideration of the empirical data itself, merely because I've been discussing aspects of the apparent age concept raised by an apparent age advocate. Typical Cliftonism.

In fact, there are three basic young earth creationist arguments about SN1987A having happened either in a 6,000 year old Universe, or in a Universe that's ancient even while it is the Earth that is only about 6,000 years old. Every one of them is bogus. I've been WAITING for young earth creationists to bring up any of them in this discussion.

— Todd Greene

Yes, I admit that it takes no effort to ignore the substance of Clifton's criticisms, precisely because they don't have any. [chuckle] In fact, I'm always amazed at how many words Clifton writes while never providing any substance at all! [chuckle] His word count-to-substance ratio is surely the highest of any discussion participant here. [applause]

"Claims about the age of the universe are necessarily based on non-observed data" <-- as any true young earth creationist would say ("there's no empirical data of the antiquity of the universe"). Of course, that's total nonsense, which is typical for our Master Obfuscator.

— Todd Greene

Hi, Jim.

I stated you were ambiguous precisely because you were. And I had to ask you the question "Did the stellar explosion SN1987A really happen, or is it an illusion that God created?" a number of times before you would even address it, and then when you did it turns out that your answer was just an ambiguous statement that did not clearly answer the question. I have to be argumentative with you young earth creationists precisely because of the argumentative nature of young earth creationist rhetoric. Word games is all young earth creationism has. In reality, young earth creationism went out over 200 years ago. By the middle of the 19th century the Christian community in general "made its peace" with another empirically-related religious dogma going down in flames (as the geocentrism dogma had gone down 150 years previously). Except there was always a fundamentalist-oriented holdout. (Of course, this was in the days before the term "fundamentalist" was invented, since that is an early 20th century term. A historical digression: The term "fundamentalist" started with *The Fundamentals* published in the early 20th century, and the main religious doctrine associated with that was a firm adherence to the doctrine of biblical infallibility and a strong concept of biblical inspiration. Interestingly enough, however, the articles in *The Fundamentals* about the Bible and science acknowledged the fact of the antiquity of the world, and even allowed for the possibility of evolution by common descent as a process guided by God while rejecting Darwinian. But later development of usage of the term "fundamentalist" came to refer to people who tended to denigrate scholarship in general and science in particular, and young earth creationists naturally fell into this category.)

Asking about navels is not being argumentative. The most popular publication advocating the apparent age argument (in the face of geological science even at that time) was the book by Philip Henry Gosse in the 19th century titled Omphalos (Greek for "navel").

Anyway, the truth of the matter is that I have had to be very persistent in getting you to address this question in a clear manner, and yet even while you express irritation with my use of the word "backpedal" we continue to see you doing it, as the next statement by you demonstrates again.

You have implied that you agree with me that the stellar explosion SN1987A really happened (which you could have just stated straight out right after I asked you the question for the first time; but in fact you have never provided such a straight answer; I've had to tease it out of you). Saying that the stellar explosion really happened is NOT an apparent age argument. The apparent age argument is that the explosion is just an illusion - only "apparent" but not real. To say that the explosion really happened is to acknowledge that the apparent age argument does not apply to this scientific data we're talking about. (Don't worry too much, this is certainly not the first time I've had to explain simple conceptual implications to young earth creationists of their own statements.)

As I have already explained in this post, as well as in previous posts, it's not a rabbit trail nor a subversion at all. These are concepts that are directly relevant to the apparent age argument. I find it rather curious that you would attempt to mischaracterize discussion of the conceptual elements of your apparent age argument as a subversion.

I have already addressed this very specifically, with Clifton. In fact, the empirical evidence would show that Adam was not 30 years old. *Unless you're an apparent age advocate of the Gosse variety*, in which case your argument entails the idea that God created Adam with a fake navel and the fake wear-and-tear on his body that a person who actually lived 30 years would possess (which I exemplify with my reference to the "scar on his left knee," but there are all kinds of examples of such wear-and-tear, such as on the teeth). As I have already pointed out a number of times, at first it's always hard to tell with any particular apparent age advocate just what they go with, precisely because apparent age advocates differ with each other and contradict each other on critical points like these - in addition to the fact that a lot of apparent age advocates are not consistent in their application of their own argument.

In the case of SN1987A we have a stellar explosion for which all of the relevant empirical data shows that it took place approximately 168,000 years ago. Either the data is fake (an illusion created by God), or it is real, in which case you have a serious problem of a clear and obvious example in the real world from astronomy that falsifies your young earth creationism dogma.

Clifton earlier misrepresented me to be ignoring the possibility that the data has simply been misinterpreted. Of course, elsewhere in this discussion forum I had discussed just such a thing, but I notice that Clifton has intentionally refrained from correcting his mischaracterization. If a young earth creationist seriously thinks there is a misinterpretation occurring, then his job is precisely to be about the business of explaining exactly what the misinterpretation is and to point out the relevant data and explain how astronomers and astrophysicists are misinterpreting that data. If the young earth creationist cannot do that, then his claim that it's all just a huge misinterpretation is nothing more than the typical young earth creationist tactic of blowing smoke.

— Todd Greene

Hi, Rick.

Of course, you wouldn't really know because you decided to forget all about science. Besides, I haven't been discussing the subject of the Big Bang, and it's not even the topic of this discussion thread.

Geeze, how many distortions can you come up with in one paragraph?

First of all, read the title of the discussion thread: "Astronomical observation is observation of the past." That's a fact. And the fact is that we *observe* events and processes that took place in the Universe *before* 6,000 years ago. We observe things from 7,000 years ago. We observe things from 10,000 years ago. We observe things from 20,000 years ago. We observe things from 168,000 years ago. And so on.

Second, some proposed Big Bang 14 billion years ago is simply not the topic of this discussion thread. The topic of this discussion thread is astronomical observation of events and processes that took place *any time before 6,000 years ago*.

Third, "eliminating the creator" is not the subject of this discussion thread, nor is it the intent of the subject being discussed. The purpose is to simply point out the fact that the young earth creationist notion that the Universe did not exist more than 6,000 years ago (or even 10,000 years ago) is a false idea about the world. We know it's false because the empirical data demonstrates that it's false.

Fourth, you use the false argument that the scientific data is irrelevant. If it's truly irrelevant, then why are young earth creationists like you trying to pooh-pooh the data all of the time, and trying to denigrate people for studying about the data and taking it seriously? And you haven't even tried to really even deal with the actual data, so your opinion is worthless.

In other words, something that is totally irrelevant to the scientific data that demonstrates that your young earth creationism dogma is false. Yet again your statement demonstrates that you actually ignore the science.

Red herring. This has absolutely nothing to do with the subject.

This is all a complete red herring that has absolutely nothing to do with the subject being discussed.

Yada, yada, yada - again, just more of nothing relevant to the topic.

There is zero that is relevant to the astronomical science we've been discussing. I would, however, add this point: Most Christians around the world think your young earth creationism dogma is false. In the context of the actual topic of this discussion thread, I find it pretty curious that all of this rhetoric you chose to spend the time throwing out here is stated using the pretension that Christians who are not young earth creationists don't even exist. Pretty poor way to engage in a discussion - even an irrelevant one - by basing everything you state on a blatantly false premise.

— Todd Greene

It's funny to watch Clifton kick in his conceptual equivocation machine to pretend that a person with a navel and a person without a navel look exactly the same, or that a person's teeth that are new look exactly the same as that person's teeth after say, 20 years of usage. ROTFL! Clifton has people only eating accidentally! ROTFL! Clifton has people only having navels accidentally! ROTFL! Obviously, Clifton tactics are to make words mean whatever he feels like he wants them to mean at the time, which means as far as he's concerned they don't really mean anything at all. Over the last few weeks, I have come to realize that this is just SOP for Clifton.

This is a totally bogus statement. Clifton obviously has no clue what he's talking about here in regard to the science. I'm actually very surprised to see him demonstrate this so obviously. Clifton may disagree with the implications of the empirical data, but that's not what he's claiming here. His claim, is that no relevant empirical data exists, and that claim is totally bogus.

Clifton is totally wrong here. I actually find it pretty amazing that a self-proclaimed logic expert doesn't even realize the meaning of the fact that in astronomy we observe past events and processes. IN ASTRONOMY WE OBSERVE PAST EVENTS AND PROCESSES. Think about that for more than two or three seconds. Since we're observing the past we do in fact have directly relevant information from the past about the past, and this point obviously went way over the logic expert's head! [chuckle]

THUS does Clifton demonstrate that in logic and science he is not really capable of putting 2 and 2 together. [chuckle]

So preaches Clifton based on his ignoring the fact that in astronomy we observe the past.

This is Clifton's argument by sheer power of assertion. [chuckle]

This is Clifton engaged in his usual manner of changing words to mean whatever he wants them to mean at the time. Either that, or Clifton has no clue what the word "possibility" means. And this is your resident "logic expert"! Wow! [chuckle]

Here is Clifton's argument by assertion again. He hasn't pointed out any "assumptions," let alone explain any logical flaws in these alleged assumptions. But the fact that Clifton argues by using virtual particles of potential substance that he never actually gets around to producing won't stop him from continuing to make up and pretend all kinds of things that just ain't so.

— Todd Greene

I have to state that I find it rather curious that a man who claims to not be a young earth creationist is yet found to *diligently* engage in the practice of presenting and arguing in support of all manner of false arguments that have been standard operating rhetoric by young earth creationists for many decades (as well as spending considerable time working hard to distort and misrepresent information presented by critics of young earth creationism). Clifton claims to be an old earth creationist, yet at the same time he routinely argues in support of young earth creationism using bogus young earth creationist arguments that have been discredited for decades. What's up with that? [raised eyebrow] Methinks something's a little fishy about this.

— Todd Greene

Typical Healy - reduced to arbitrarily ignoring every criticism stated and to throwing out purely irrelevant *ad hominem* remarks! [Party time!]

And this is the self-proclaimed logic expert! ROTFL!

— Todd Greene

Ah yes, Clifton equivocates about almost *everything*. Silly me, I actually forgot! Spank me with a wet noodle.

Clifton wrote, "...it is probably clear that I lean toward an OEC position...." Our Expert Equivocator in action! [chuckle]

Notice that Clifton blatantly *lied* that I was lying, having many times told me that he was not a young earth creationist and that he was not an evolutionist (which means the old earth creationist position by default). Notice that Clifton did not say, "After burying you with equivocation, you got the nuance wrong, allow me to clarify that I lean toward the old earth creationist position, but I'm just not sure it's the correct position, I think young earth creationism might be right after all." After all, Clifton almost never uses that little thing in discourse we call "clarification." I think he thinks clarification is one of the seven sins or closely related to one of them. Clifton loves his equivocations and obfuscation, and lives in them in discussion. It's really quite sad.

I on the other hand will clarify my statement that Clifton is an old earth creationist to the more correct statement that it is probably clear that Clifton leans toward an old earth creationist position. Maybe. Then again, maybe not. With Clifton our Expert Equivocator you just never know! [chuckle]

— Todd Greene

[Note: Did you notice, by the way, that Clifton's statement was in a completely different discussion thread? My reference to what Clifton had "many times told me" was to comments he had made to me in a "Seeking 'David'" discussion thread where we had been engaging in discussion before this Astronomy discussion thread.]

Yet another substanceless purely *ad hominem* post, in a long line of them, by our inimitable Master Obfuscator, Clifton Healy.

— Todd Greene

[Editor's note: There are some additional irrelevant posts by Clifton filled with his typical *ad hominem* remarks just like this one that you're not even seeing in this after-the-fact record of my posts because I never quoted them to make any response.]

Here it is early on the morning of Dec. 15th for me, and I'm seeing from the current poll numbers that 4 out of 13 people here (that's 31%, or a little less than one-third) don't even realize such very, very simple facts as the fact that we observe the Sun as it was 8 minutes in the past, or that the signals we get from the Mars rovers come from a little bit more than 3 minutes to almost 22-1/2 minutes in the past (depending on where Earth and Mars are relative to each other in their orbits around the Sun), or that the signals we get from the Cassini probe around Saturn right now come from about 70 minutes ago (in 6 months we'll be getting them from about 82 minutes in the past), or that the light we get from the *nearest* star (other than the Sun) is from about 4 years in the past. It is this kind of dismal lack of knowledge, which seems to be terribly widespread in certain groups, of simple basic things in science (not just in astronomy) that drives the rhetorical engine of young earth creationism, and it's a very sad thing. (And there's also the quite common lack of Christian humility with people arguing quite obstinately for all kinds of scientific nonsense on the basis of false ideas that are based on such a dismal lack of knowledge of the subjects they're arguing about.)

Now here's something to think about on this: The stellar explosion SN1987A took place in the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy (LMC), and the LMC is the third closest known galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy (the Canis Major galaxy is the closest, and the Sagittarius galaxy is the second closest; all of these are satellite galaxies of the Milky Way). The closest edge of the LMC is somewhat over 150,000 light-years away (i.e., we're observing the light from those stars from more than 150,000 years ago). The distance to the SN1987A is determined geometrically (remember trigonometry, for those of you who've actually had it), at about 168,000 light-years from Earth, inside the LMC.

Got all that? Okay, now think about this: There are literally *billions* of galaxies in our Universe (Sagan was not exaggerating), and the LMC at 160,000 light-years is the third closest galaxy, meaning that we're observing these billions of galaxies from farther in the past than the LMC, meaning that 168,000 years is just a drop in the bucket.

When it comes to astronomical observation, young earth creationism isn't just known to be wrong, it's known to be a long outdated religious dogma - and those who advocate the idea that the Bible teaches that the Universe did not exist more than just 6,000 years ago are directly implying that the Bible teaches what is known to be wrong.

Which means that young earth creationists are actually part of the Worldwide Atheist Conspiracy! [chuckle]

— Todd Greene

Note: The poll I'm referring to was as follows at the time I made the post above:

Question: Astronomy observes past events and processes.

Now look at this, the fact that we observe *anything* from the past - such as the fact that we observe the Sun from eight minutes ago - proves that "Astronomy observes past events and processes" (the title of the poll and this discussion thread), and yet almost one-third of the people here have answered that astronomy does NOT observe past events and processes. But our brilliant logic expert Clifton Healy blows by all of this with a blizzard of equivocations, obfuscations, and distortions, and pretends that I'm the one who is having problems with logic - and at the very same time this "logic expert" refrains from expressing any criticism at all toward those who have difficulty putting 2 and 2 together (i.e., because of the distances involved with astronomical observation [Sun, Mars, Saturn, stars, etc.], "astronomical observation is observation of the past"). Note that Clifton intimates that they may have purposely chosen to give a FALSE answer because of their fear of the implications, but he can't even bring himself to criticize that.

Note that Clifton himself AGREES WITH that the statement "astronomical observation is observation of the past" is correct, even while he obviously does not realize the implications of the statement. More curiously, Clifton makes statements that show him to actually disagree with some of the implications of the statement "astronomical observation is observation of the past," so - AS USUAL - we find Clifton locked up in an equivocal position of his own making. It's all of the bizarre double standards and bizarre "you can't tell anything at all" equivocations (like when Clifton pretends that a man with a navel and a man without a navel are exactly the same!) that demonstrate the kind of sickness that has seized Clifton's creationist mind.

I'll get into the details of Clifton's self-contradiction in an upcoming post, in which I will discuss aspects of Clifton's erroneous statements about science in particular (for which I'll be spending some time extracting his substantive comments from his profusion of silly remarks).

— Todd Greene

In GCM Forum (12/15/2005 8:58), Clifton Healy makes a comment about my alleged "...insufferably self-important twittish ire."

It is these kinds of *frequent* substanceless false *ad hominem* remarks by which Clifton demonstrates his Christian humility and ethics. ROTFL!

— Todd Greene

Robert, you are totally correct. This is an obvious goof on Clifton's part, but, of course, he'll never admit it. Or if he does admit it he'll follow the typical Healy path of burying his admission in at least several hundred words of equivocation, obfuscation, and false ad hominem remarks!

— Todd Greene

Now, keep in mind that it is precisely this kind of *dealing with the details* discussion that I have been *waiting for* from creationists, and yet only now is Clifton (the "I'm not a young earth creationist" young earth creationism supporter) getting around to even mentioning such relevant details. (What took so long?!?)

I'm happy to report that Clifton is possibly edging ever so equivocally closer to his old earth creationist position, even while he's making false statements from the young earth creationist toolbox.

Clifton acknowledges the fact that *astronomical observation is observation of events and processes that took place in the past*, and he also makes the following fundamental concession: "We can affirm that if the presupposition about the speed of light obtaining 168K years ago is true, then we can affirm that the rationale for asserting that the event(s) we are observing are that old." Thank you, Clifton!

Note, of course, that he's still using that young earth creationist weasel-word "presupposition" which is what keeps tripping him up. Clifton has already acknowledged the very thing that demonstrates that his weasel-word is used falsely by young earth creationists and himself, but he obviously just isn't able to put 2 and 2 together.

In astronomical observation we observe and gather data from events and processes that took place in the past, and we have relevant data from these observations by which we observe that the speed of light in the past was the same (or so very close to the same that we can't tell the difference) as it is now. And this is the critical point that has been flying tens of thousands of light-years over Clifton's head. Astronomers are able to OBSERVE information about what the speed of light was in the past precisely because astronomical observation is observation of events and processes that took place in the past. The fact that the speed of light in the past was the same as it is today is something that astronomers OBSERVE which is precisely why the claim by young earth creationists (and young earth creationist supporters like Clifton) that it's nothing more than an "assumption" or "presupposition" is a FALSE CLAIM.

We should also keep in mind that this discussion cannot be equivocated away by small differences. Young earth creationists need the speed of light to have been *millions of times faster* in the recent past than it is now. Not only do young earth creationists not have any data to support this notion, but the observational data unequivocally shows that their idea is wrong (and shows that the speed of light was the same).

Observational information that demonstrates this is of two different kinds:

(1) Process cycles (such as radioactive decay rates or pulsar orbits) are observed to be what we expect them to be for a constant speed of light (i.e., there is no slow-motion effect as would be the case if the young earth creationist claim was correct). This is discussed in detail here:

The Distance to Supernova SN1987A and the Speed of Light
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-add.html#A6

(2) The fine structure constant (also referred to in physics as alpha is observed to have been the same (or very, very close to the same, within a tiny fraction of one percent) for billions of years. Any radical change in the speed of light would cause changes in the ratios in the light frequency spectrum, and what is observed is that the spectral line ratios have been the same for billions of years into the past, which totally contradicts what we should observe if the young earth creationism claim of a radical change in the speed of light in the recent past was the case. This is discussed in detail here:

"Inconstant Constants"
by John D. Barrow and John K. Webb
(Scientific American, June 2005 issue)
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=0005BFE6-2965-128A-A96583414B7F0000

So all of Clifton's rhetoric about astronomers and others who accept the fact of the antiquity of the Universe making some kind of unwarranted "logical leap" ("presupposition," "assumption") is just another example of the false nonsense rhetoric that young earth creationists love to use in discussions of these subjects based on their own personal ignorance of the relevant science: "No empirical data" (even though there's empirical data all over the place), "just a uniformitarian assumption" (even though the "uniformity" in question is actually based on observational data that shows it to be the case, and "logical leap" (where the conclusion is based on logical consideration of relevant observation data). Typical Healyisms, typical young earth creationist rhetoric. And it's this kind of nonsense sniping from the... well, I was going to say "sidelines," but young earth creationists aren't even in the ballpark so that would be granting them too much credit [chuckle]... that demonstrates why no one in professional science takes young earth creationists seriously.

— Todd Greene

Notice that Clifton the "logic expert" purposely refrains from acknowledging his obvious factual error. Motivated by his Christian ethics, no doubt. It's also terribly funny seeing the smack-meister himself express complaints about alleged smack. [chuckle]

— Todd Greene

Robert, I have to disagree with you on this one. Someone who would seriously argue that there's no difference between a man with a navel and a man without a navel would not make a good apologist for much of anything.

Chuckling,
Todd Greene