The Mars-List Discussion on Creationism (Part 11)

The Mars-List Discussion on Creationism
(Part 11)

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(This page created 2/25/01. Table of contents coming soon.)

Part 11

From:
Subject:
Date:

Todd S. Greene
Re: SN1987A Barry Stetterfield reply to T.G.
12/17/00 1:36 PM

Hi, Steve.

Please note my criticisms very carefully, since you apparently missed the specifics of my original comments. Before getting into these, I do wish to say this to you: I appreciate the fact that you have at least put forth some time and effort to dig into some details.

Here is the original exchange:

•••• Steve Rudd, 10/28/00 1:17 PM ••••
Todd, are you not aware that the decay of light speed is one the hottest topics debated in the scientific journals? Because of the big bang requires a faster speed of light in the past...

•••• Todd Greene, 10/29/00 5:37 PM ••••
Produce your citations. In fact, your claims are false. I state forthrightly right here, Steve, that you do not possess a single reference of any astronomer at all that discusses lightspeed decay in the context of a young universe. Your attempt to represent discussions about the Big Bang as being somehow associated with a universe only 10,000 years old (or less) are entirely bogus.

[snip]

Let us grant - just for the sake of discussion - that in the first few seconds after the Big Bang - which if such an event is realistic, took place over 10 billion years ago - the speed of light underwent a decay due to some manner of phase transition. This would have absolutely no relevance whatsoever to SN1987A, nor to the magnitude cycles of Cepheid variable stars in the Andromeda galaxy, nor to a supernova in a galaxy 2 billion light-years from earth.

Additionally, I note here, for the record, that you have completely ignored the "slow motion" effect that is implied by the YEC lightspeed decay idea, and you have ignored the fact that astronomers observe a uniform lightspeed everywhere they look and do not observe this predicted "slow motion" effect anywhere. Why did you completely ignore the empirical information that discredits your YEC lightspeed decay idea?

Here is the exchange on this as it continued:

•••• Steve Rudd, 10/30/00 11:54 AM ••••
Todd, I believe you must now stand corrected:

"Numerous papers have been published in support of CDK, it was initially discussed and promoted by the Stanford Research Institute, and it has been discussed with little criticism at the prestigious Batelle Institute after Lambert Dolphin gave a lecture. In view of these presentations, Evered's claim that there is virtually no evidence in support of the theory requires considerable flexibility of mind." ... "In the CEN Technical Journal, volume 5, number 2 (1991) there were no less than six papers on CDK -- two against, four for-- covering 29 pages. In the following issue, CEN Technical Journal, volume 6, number I (1992)," MALCOLM BOWDEN

http://ldolphin.org/bowden/centj.html

[snip]

In addition to this I will send later actual citations, but the above is enough to prove you wrong.

•••• Todd Greene, 10/30/00 11:40 PM ••••
Here is what I stated, again: You do not possess a single reference of any astronomer at all that discusses lightspeed decay in the context of a young universe. You have not yet cited any astronomy reports or studies by astronomers. Some YEC sitting in an armchair typing up a paper and having it published in a YEC magazine does not qualify him as an astronomer. I am telling you and everyone else here that no astronomer has published anything in any peer-reviewed journal of astronomical science that shows either an astrophysical model of lightspeed decay or presents any evidence of lightspeed decay, in the context of a young universe. Such does not exist. Your claim that "the decay of light speed is one the hottest topics debated in the scientific journals" is completely bogus. I stand by my statements 100%.

For further information, I happen to be aware of two astronomical reports by astronomers in the professional literature that discusses some conjectural ideas regarding the possibility of lightspeed having fluctuated immediately after the Big Bang. However, this is neither here nor there with respect to SN1987A, to the Andromeda galaxy, to supernovae billions of light-years away in distant galaxies, nor in fact with respect to anything in the past approximately 13 billion years which has following the Big Bang (assuming a Big Bang, which is what the fluctuating lightspeed conjectures are based on). Therefore, those two reports don't help you in the least.

Sorry, Steve, but what I stated at the end of October is accurate. Your description of "the decay of light speed is one of the hottest topics debated in the scientific journals" is completely false. It's an extremely esoteric and very rare topic in the scientific journals. Additionally, and more importantly, despite your claim, you still have not produced a single reference of any astronomer at all who discusses lightspeed decay in the context of a young universe. I continue to stand firmly by my criticisms of your statements about this, because my criticisms are completely accurate.

By the way, I notice that Setterfield is continuing to promote his error that "c has been measured as decreasing." His error on this has been pointed out by YECs themselves. From the Institute for Creationist Research (ICR) is the article titled "Has The Speed of Light Decayed?" by Gerald E. Aardsma. (See http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-179.htm.) Setterfield's lightspeed decay idea has also been disclaimed by the following young earth creationists: D. Russell Humphreys, R. H. Brown, M. G. Evered, and R. D. Holt. (Evered, in particular, has dissected the idea in a number of articles in the YEC magazine Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal.)

Setterfield ignored the error bars that went along with the data points. Also, Setterfield "fudged" (and, no, I am NOT saying this to imply intentional deception) the 1675 data point, and the 1675 data point is the only one that has much significance for Setterfield deriving his exponential curve. It is also the case that even if you were to grant Setterfield that particular data point, he makes some additional artificial (arbitrary) assumptions to get his particular exponential curve.

Incidentally, Setterfield is not an astronomer.

Sincerely, and regards,
Todd S. Greene

See "SN1987A and The Antiquity of the Universe"

He who speaks the truth gives honest evidence....

— Proverbs 12:17

•••• Steve Rudd, 12/17/00 12:42 PM ••••
Subject: SN1987A Barry Stetterfield reply to T.G.

Steve Rudd here with a reply from Barry Stetterfield who answers Todd Greene's arguments last month.

Interesting, that Barry also states that which Todd refused to admit he accused me wrongly about, namely that current science journals are discussing cDK. Remember Todd, I stated recent science journals are discussion cDK and you denied this and demanded proof! When will you come clean?

-----forwarded letter----

Dear Steve,

Thank you for your letter. Let's deal with your points one at a time.

First of all, the idea of cDK being greeted with a sneer is nothing new, but it is interesting that a number of articles have begun appearing in the secular peer-reviewed journals regarding this phenomena. In particular, you might be interested in getting a copy of Physics Review D from January 1999 which contains two articles regarding a possible changing speed of light.

The fact that the creation community is still dragging its feet is a shame when it is apparent that this is a subject which is timely and needs to be closely examined.

Regarding your questions about SN1987A, you will find some response to this already on the net from me at Lambert Dolphin's site here:

http://ldolphin.org/cdkconseq.html

Scroll down the page a bit and you will find it.

Now, regarding Todd Greene's letter. Regarding the previous speed of light, he mentioned that it would have to be at least a million times faster in the past. In the previously mentioned article in Physical Review D, the three scientists involved are talking about initial speeds of light some 10^60 times its current speed, which is far in excess of anything that my work has suggested. Troitskii, in December 1987, had some similar proposals to those made in 1999, but concluded that lightspeed only had to be 10^10 times its current speed to accomplish all that was needed. My work closely agrees with this initial speed estimate as an upper limit. Thus, as you can see, I am on the conservative side in this discussion.

Regarding Adam and Eve and family being, as he termed, 'crispy critters,' one key point has been omitted by him. In all changes of the speed of light, energy is conserved in the process. Therefore, in Einstein's equation E=mc^2, for E to be conserved in the whole process, mass, 'm', must be proportional to 1/c^2. Interestingly, the measurement of atomic masses over the last century agree with this proposition; mass has been measured as increasing while c has been measured as decreasing. All of this is explained fully in the 1987 Report following equation #2. If he had read that report, he would not have made that comment.

Now, the crux of his argument seems to involve the idea that we would be observing some kind of slow motion effect as we look to greater distances in space. This is an erroneous conclusion to the decaying lightspeed argument as mutually cancelling factors conspire to give a complete counteraction of any visible effects which would prove or disprove a slow motion effect.

This includes Doppler shifts. This was partly covered in the above referenced URL regarding the SN1987A question.

I hope this is of some help.

Many Blessings.
BARRY SETTERFIELD

[ TOP ]

Part 11

From:
Subject:
Date:

Todd S. Greene
Re: SN1987A Barry Stetterfield reply to T.G.
12/18/00 8:58 AM

Hi, Steve.

You should have left this dead horse lying and just come clean.

The discussion topic was how SN1987A shows us that the universe has been around for at least about 168,000 years. In criticism of this point, you brought up Setterfield's lightspeed decay idea. I explained how this lightspeed decay idea has already been disproved (re: the discussion about the "slow motion" effects that would be observed, but that are not observed).

You attempted to use 'cDK is discussed in the science journals' as somehow being in support of Setterfield's lightspeed decay idea. I have pointed out repeatedly that lightspeed decay has been discussed only in the context of the Big Bang itself (something like about 14 billion years ago) and has absolutely nothing to do with SN1987A.

Now, as a Christian, you yourself should come clean and acknowledge - honestly - that absolutely none of the few discussions of lightspeed decay in the scientific literature have anything whatsoever to do with Setterfield's idea nor with SN1987A. But since you're a young earth creationist, going on my past experience with YECs I doubt that you'll be willing to be so honest.

By the way, I already answered your question (so why did you ask it yet again?):

•••• Todd Greene, 10/30/00 11:40 PM ••••
Your description of "the decay of light speed is one of the hottest topics debated in the scientific journals" is completely false. It's an extremely esoteric and very rare topic in the scientific journals. Additionally, and more importantly, despite your claim, you still have not produced a single reference of any astronomer at all who discusses lightspeed decay in the context of a young universe. I continue to stand firmly by my criticisms of your statements about this, because my criticisms are completely accurate.

In addition, Steve, why don't you personally contact these astronomers who have published these concepts regarding lightspeed decay (please!), and ask them explicitly if their ideas have any part and parcel of SN1987A, or observed Cepheid variable stars, or of any observed galaxy within 10 billion light-years of earth. They will set you straight, because you have apparently ignored everything I've said on this.

Sincerely,
Todd S. Greene

See "SN1987A and The Antiquity of the Universe"

He who speaks the truth gives honest evidence....

— Proverbs 12:17

•••• Steve Rudd, 12/17/00 2:24 PM ••••

Todd, you should have left this dead horse lying and just come clean. I made the original statement that science journals are discussing cDK. I never said anything about young earth. You already know this.

I brought the discussion up not you. I never defended your statement, I defended my statement, which is correct.

Answer my statement below as true or false:

Todd, are you not aware that the decay of light speed is one the hottest topics debated in the scientific journals? Because of the big bang requires a faster speed of light in the past...

TRUE ___ FALSE ___

If you answer true, you owe me and the list a retraction.

After you reply to this true or false question, and retract, I will answer your post.

[ TOP ]

Part 11

From:
Subject:
Date:

Todd S. Greene
SN1987A and Setterfield's Crackpot Idea
12/19/00 1:08 PM

Hi, Steve Rudd.

Your YEC prejudice is genuinely astounding!

In my previous post to you I stated that

However, due to my experience with the obstinacy of YECs in promoting their own human error, I did not expect you to do this. Sure enough, you have so far refused.

Barry Setterfield's idea is nothing more than a crackpot idea. Setterfield is not an astronomer, and there is not one single person in the professional astronomical community who espouses Setterfield's idea or even thinks that it bears even the slightest connection to reality enough so that it should be looked into any further. I also notice that Setterfield (nor you) ever bothered to deal with the fact that astronomers have never observed the slow motion effect predicted by Setterfield's model, as would have to be observed if it was real, and instead astronomers have observed uniform rates rather than rates that vary by distance according to the slow motion effect. This is an observational fact about the real world that Setterfield has never addressed.

I also specifically asked that "you personally contact these astronomers who have published these concepts regarding lightspeed decay (please!), and ask them explicitly if their ideas have any part and parcel of SN1987A, or observed Cepheid variable stars, or of any observed galaxy within 10 billion light-years of earth."

Of course, since you have demonstrated that you are far more interested in promoting your erroneous human-devised YEC creed than in following your Christian principles with regard to being honest about the truth, I know that you will continue to refuse to contact any professional astronomers, and you will continue to completely ignore the fact that nothing any of these astronomers have speculated about with regard to the possiblity of lightspeed decay during the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago has any relevance whatsoever to what we have been talking about with regard to SN1987A proving that the observed universe shows us that it has been around far, far longer than merely 6,000 years.

See, the true problem, Steve, is that you and everyone else following this topic knows fully well that I have represented this matter truthfully and accurately, and that every professional astronomer on the face of the planet will confirm my representation. And that is why I know that you will continue to blow smoke with these discredited, crackpot ideas, because your demonstrated, blatant YEC prejudice will prevent you from representing this matter truthfully.

I'll even go one step more to help you out, Steve. I believe that I have in my records the email addresses of four professional astronomers, and one acqaintance who recently earned his Ph.D. in astrophysics but is currently doing consulting work in programming a mathematical modeling system in C++. I will dig these out and provide them to you in my next post to you. Then you can easily contact them and see what they have to say about astrophysics models regarding lightspeed, the Big Bang, and Setterfield's crackpot idea.

Golly, Steve, your blatant YEC error on this is just absolutely incredible. The level of blatant promotion of error by YECs that is tolerated by people who "proudly" call themselves Christians is something that never ceases to amaze me. If I was a fellow Christian, your antics on this would shame me terribly.

I am very familiar with how some YECs engage in false representation of what people have or have not said, out-of-context quotes, and shifting the discussion so as to hide the fact that they never addressed the point or were shown to wrong about a point. Your posts of the last couple of days provide a classic example of this. I thank you for providing these wonderful examples of the technique.

Of course, you could take upon yourself the responsibility to genuinely comport yourself like a Christian who is genuinely interested in searching out the truth and learning the relevant details, by contacting the astronomers who actually wrote the articles regarding possible lightspeed decay during the Big Bang event. Let's see what they say, the guys who actually wrote the article, instead of reading the blatant misrepresentation of them by some guy who was discredited almost 20 years ago who yet continues to promote his disproved idea. I don't expect you to contact all of them. Just contact any one of them. Ask him forthrightly, Steve, if any aspect whatsoever of his proposal has any relevance in any way to changing the fact that with SN1987A we have literally observed a stellar explosion event that occurred approximately 168,000 years ago. You know what, Steve? He will confirm what I have already explained to you, and his words will demonstrate that your representation of this matter is completely false. Only in doing that, and representing this matter truthfully, can you possibly redeem your blatant, obstinate promotion of par-for-the-course YEC error on this.

In complete and total sincerity,
Todd S. Greene

See "SN1987A and The Antiquity of the Universe"

He who speaks the truth gives honest evidence....

— Proverbs 12:17

•••• Steve Rudd, 12/19/00 12:03 PM ••••
Todd, this effectively ends your little science hobby. As I knew to be the case all along, a little knowledge can do a lot of damage! Also, not keeping abreast with current developments AND being honest enough to report on current developments AND not letting your bias get the best of your better judgement.

I knew your evidence to discredit Setterfield was outdated, invalid and innaccurate from the start. But as I am unversed in the discussion and not accredited, I thought it could be nice to hear from someone infinitely more qualified than both of us.

Your apology and retraction to the list, myself and Barry Setterfield should be forthcoming. I would also delete most of your website too, get out of science discussions, make both your fathers happier and read the Bible more everyday!

Barry Setterfield wrote me today:

Dear Steve,

Thank you for the note. Greene has evidently not paid much attention to the material several of us spend five years presenting in refutation of the rather tired points he brings up. My statistical work was gone through with the proverbial fine tooth comb by Alan Montgomery, who is a statistician, and he found all to be in order and also wrote material defending my use of the relevant statistics. Montgomery's work has never been refuted.

Aardsma's work, on the other hand, was decried before it was even published by several who saw the work in progress and realized that he was massaging the material I had presented in order to make it look either false or as if I had misrepresented the data.

In recent years the reliance on the older measurements, however, has been supplemented by other material and other data which confirm the indications presented by those old measurements that light speed has slowed universally. The theoretic presentation for laymen was completed a year ago and is up at Lambert Dolphin's website here:

http://ldolphin.org/setterfield/redshift.html

The technical paper which provides both the data and math is being prepared for publication at this point. It expands significantly on the theoretic summary and presents all that is needed to establish the fact that lightspeed has changed through history.

As far as the list of YEC scientists presented by Greene who have disagreed with me in the past, let it suffice to say that I have received a letter of apology and encouragement, privately, from one of them and there have been no other repercussions recently regarding my work from the others. In fact, all of the criticisms from these people came prior to Montgomery's work on my behalf and none have appeared since.

I therefore suggest that your correspondent become more familiar with what he is talking about by keeping up with current material.

Every Blessing.
BARRY

To: Barry Setterfield
From: Steve Rudd
Subject: Re: Greetings to Barry Setterfield!
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 2000 21:12:45 -0500

Hi Barry,

Could you respond to this comment by a guy named Todd Greene: (We have been discussing SN1987A and you have come up)

Todd Greene said:

By the way, I notice that Setterfield is continuing to promote his error that "c has been measured as decreasing." His error on this has been pointed out by YECs themselves. From the Institute for Creationist Research (ICR) is the article titled "Has The Speed of Light Decayed?" by Gerald E. Aardsma. (See http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-179.htm) Setterfield's lightspeed decay idea has also been disclaimed by the following young earth creationists: D. Russell Humphreys, R. H. Brown, M. G. Evered, and R. D. Holt. (Evered, in particular, has dissected the idea in a number of articles in the YEC magazine Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal.)

Steve Rudd

[ TOP ]

Part 11

From:
Subject:
Date:

Todd S. Greene
Re: SN1987A and Setterfield's Crackpot Idea
12/19/00 2:24 PM

Hi, Steve Rudd.

Here are the astronomers I promised to refer you to. Whether or not they will be willing to take the time to discuss this subject, I do not know. That's their business, not mine. I simply am aware of the fact all four of them discuss astronomy issues related to YEC from time to time.

Sverker Johansson
HLK, Physics
University of Jonkoping
lsj@hlk.hj.se

Bill Jefferys
Department of Astronomy
University of Texas
bill@clyde.as.utexas.edu
http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/

Phil Plait
badastro@badastronomy.com
http://www.badastronomy.com

Christopher M. Sharp
(Ph.D. Astrophysics, University of Arizona [Tucson])
csharp@as.arizona.edu
cmsharp01@aol.com
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~csharp/

Here is a graduate student in astrophysics at the Univ. of Chicago who also might be willing to take the time to discuss this subject:

Ryan Scranton
rescrant@midway.uchicago.edu

Here are two other contacts (not astronomers) who have dug into some of the mathematical details showing the fallacies of Setterfield's ideas:

Tom Bridgman
wtbridgman@Radix.Net

Kari Tikkanen
ktikkane@paju.oulu.fi

And, of course, you could contact Hill Roberts, a member of the COC, who happens to be a professional physicist with a specialty in quantum mechanics and laser light. (Of course, I believe that with the same kind of antics you have demonstrated here, you may have "burned up" any "grace time" you might have had with Hill.)

However, we both know that due to your blatant YEC prejudice against the truth, you will not do a thing about contacting genuine astronomers and learning from them too that I have represented this matter truthfully and accurately, but that you will instead obstinately continue to promote your misrepresentation of this.

And I thank you again, very much, for continuing to demonstrate the common YEC tactic of out-of-context quoting. Golly, you can't even quote me right on only a couple of sentences! Here is what I wrote:

The level of blatant promotion of error by YECs that is tolerated by people who "proudly" call themselves Christians is something that never ceases to amaze me. If I was a fellow Christian, your antics on this would shame me terribly.

Your quote of me was quite misleading. Par for the YEC course.

I don't "slur," I just forthrightly point out the truth.

Very sincerely,
Todd S. Greene

See "SN1987A and The Antiquity of the Universe"

He who speaks the truth gives honest evidence....

— Proverbs 12:17

•••• Steve Rudd, 12/19/00 1:14 PM ••••
Todd, IF YOU HAD carefully READ what Setterfield wrote, you would be on your belly right now in repentance. Calling Setterfield a crackpot is a slur. You will live to see the day he gets a Nobel Prize. You have misrepresented both science and Setterfield. Your main reference was 1988! That kind of says it all!

Todd, you are blinded by the devil as your own words prove:

people who "proudly" call themselves Christians is something that never ceases to amaze me. If I was a fellow Christian...

Come back to the Lord Todd.

[ TOP ]

Part 11

From:
Subject:
Date:

Todd S. Greene
Re: SN1987A and Setterfield's Crackpot Idea
12/20/00 9:12 AM

Hi, Steve Rudd.

After my post yesterday to you in which I referred you to a few astronomers and some others you could contact, I realized that I should have mentioned three other astronomers in this context. One of them writes frequently on creationism-related issues. However, I believe that you can only contact by email the last of the three astronomers I list here.

Hugh Ross
Ph.D., Astrophysics
reasons@reasons.org
http://www.reasons.org/

Howard J. Van Till
Ph.D., Physics
Astronomy and Physics Professor
Calvin College (Grand Rapids, MI)
(retired in 1999)

Richard McCray
Ph.D., Astrophysics
Astrophysics Professor, University of Colorado at Boulder
(has expertise regarding SN1987A)
dick@jila.colorado.edu
http://cosmos.colorado.edu/astr1120/

I mention Ross and Van Till because I am aware of the fact that they happen to share your perspective of believing in God, believing in the divinity of Jesus, and believing in the doctrine of biblical inerrancy. With regard to all of the others I have made reference to (yesterday and here), I am not aware of their personal perspectives one way or another, other than I believe that Christopher Sharp is a member of the Episcopal Church. (He immigrated from England a few years ago, and was a member of the Anglican Church there.)

It specifically mentions on Ross' website that he personally does not respond to specific emails, but someone of the staff of his "Reasons To Believe" organization may do so.

Howard Van Till retired from teaching last year, and I'm sure you could write to him c/o Calvin College (where he taught for over 20 years, I believe). However, Van Till has also written two books which specifically address astronomy issues in the context of this discussion:

The Fourth Day: What the Bible and the Heavens Are Telling Us about the Creation (1986)

Science Held Hostage : What's Wrong With Creation Science and Evolutionism (1988)

Of course, Hugh Ross has written a few books about creationism too, and he also addresses several astronomy-related issues in his books.

Sincerely,
Todd S. Greene

See "SN1987A and The Antiquity of the Universe"

He who speaks the truth gives honest evidence....

— Proverbs 12:17

[ TOP ]

Part 11

From:
Subject:

Date:

Todd S. Greene
Ancient Universe — Spacetime Warping, other examples
(or, Reality Lends No Credence to YEC)
1/15/01 11:35 PM

It is not legitimate for YECs to try to portray spacetime warping as some kind of YEC "pie in the sky" loophole that somehow pulls the YEC fat out of the fire of real world testing. Spacetime warping (as predicted according to Einstein's general relativity) is a real feature of the universe that is part of empirical astronomical observation. Unfortunately, these empirical observations have simply added to the factual information by which we know that the universe has been around for millions and billions of years — rather than just 6,000 years.

Among many, many other clear examples of the antiquity of the universe, the stellar explosion SN1987A really did occur about 168,000 years ago, and, no, the explosion that we observed was not in any way affected by spacetime warping such as to make it legitimate to claim that 168,000 years is "apparent" while 6,000 years (or less) is the reality. Such a spacetime distortion of the SN1987A observation simply does not exist. Those who are honest will acknowledge this fact. If this observed event (SN1987A) was really affected by such a drastic warping of spacetime to such an extreme extent as proposed by many YECs, astronomers would observe these huge distortions in spacetime. You see, there are examples of astronomers observing distortions in spacetime (of which I have in previous months provided a few examples), but YEC speculations are simply not part of the reality that we observe.

I make this point as I draw your attention to a few more examples of spacetime distortion observed by astronomers, along with examples of astronomical obvservation of the universe in general, all of which show us the fact that universe is quite ancient.

•	Gravitational Lensing
	http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/galaxies/lensing.html

•	Cluster Cores, Gravitational Lensing, and Cosmology (technical)
	http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/journal/issues/ApJL/v457n1/5367/sc0.html

•	"Cosmic Chords" May Support Prediction of Einstein's Theory
	http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/cosmic-chords.html
	http://www.eps.org/aps/apsnews/0798/079804.html

•	Gravitational red-shift
	http://phyun5.ucr.edu/~wudka/Physics7/Notes_www/node99.html

•	High red-shift supernovae
	http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/lbln-desftfou.html
	http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/oir/Research/supernova/HighZ.html

•	Intergalactic 'pipeline' funnels matter between colliding galaxies
	http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/stsi-ipf010801.html
	http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/2001/02/pr-photos.html

•	The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey
	http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/2dFGRS/

•	Sloan Digital Sky Survey
	http://www.sdss.org/

Regards,
Todd S. Greene

[ TOP ]

Part 11

From:
Subject:
Date:

Todd S. Greene
Re: News: ...Stopping Light
1/19/01 11:04 PM

Hi, Steve.

Just as a clarification on this — I don't think people should get the wrong idea based on the "phenomenological" use, rather than a scientific, technical use, of language.

Physicists have not altered "the speed of light" in any technical sense at all. And this is something that many YECs (who make this kind of incorrect empirical argument) have failed to appreciate. Please look up the term "refraction index," and you'll understand what I'm referring to. The propagation of light through a material (such as, say, the Earth's air, or a substance such as water) is slower than the propagation of light through a vacuum. This is because in a pure vacuum light travels at its genuine speed. Whereas in a material the light is actually hitting the atoms/molecules of the material, being absorbed, and then being re-emitted, thus slowing it down. It just so happens that, for example, Earth's atmosphere does not slow light down significantly from it's speed through a vacuum. What physicists have been experimenting with is various kinds of materials under various kinds of conditions, exploring how to affect the propagation of light, in various ways.

Additionally, the mention of the physicists in Princeton inducing a laser pulse to travel faster than the "conventional" speed of light made nicely dramatic science news at the time, but as we all know, dramatic press reports and the genuine reality of the reported event frequently have a "distinct lack of good correlation." That is so in this particular case. Regarding Dr. Lijun Wang's experiment with light dispersion in a chamber filled with cesium gas, I suggest that you take a look at:

"Trick of the light" by Chris Colin
http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2000/08/03/light/index.html

And please be aware that none of this information has any relevance whatsoever either to showing that light from SN1987A traveled from the stellar explosion to the earth in less than about 168,000 years (not to mention the light from all of the millions of galaxies in the universe that are much, much farther from earth than SN1987A, which was only as far as the second closest galaxy to the earth), nor to providing any substantiation for Barry Setterfield's already discredited ideas.

Incidentally, Hill Roberts, an old earth creationist and member of the Church Of Christ, happens to have professional expertise in the areas of laser light and quantum mechanics. He would be the perfect person with whom to dig into details about such a matter as this.

The truth is the truth. False information should not be propagated.

Finally, thanks for pointing out the science news items that you do. I, for one, find many of them to be worth checking out.

Regards,
Todd S. Greene

•••• Steve Willis, 1/19/01 4:31 PM ••••
Subject: News: ...Stopping Light

Steve Willis here with these various news items:

More strange things done to light. Makes one wonder if maybe light's speed COULD change by a supernatural creator (of course it could):

Physicists Bring Light to a Stop,
Then Send It on Its Way
Friday, January 19, 2001
By Joseph B. Verrengia

Physicists say they have brought light particles to a screeching halt, then revved them up again so that they could continue their journey at a blistering 186,000 miles per second.

The results are the latest in a growing number of experiments that manipulate light, the fastest and most ephemeral form of energy in the universe.

...

The experiments were conducted in separate laboratories in Cambridge, Mass., by groups led by Lene Vestergaard Hau of Harvard and the Rowland Institute of Science and Ronald L. Walsworth and Mikhail D. Lukin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Institute for Astrophysics. The results will be published in upcoming issues of the journals Nature and American Physical Letters.

...

"It's a real first," said Stanford physicist Stephen Harris, who collaborated on a 1999 experiment with Hau that slowed light to 38 mph. "These experiments are beautiful science."

...

In July, physicists in Princeton, N.J., apparently pushed a laser pulse through a vapor of cesium atoms so it traveled faster than the conventional speed of light.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/011901/stoplight.sml

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Part 11

From:
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Date:

Todd S. Greene
Impact Craters on Earth
1/20/01 4:39 PM

[Editorial Note: At this point I simply posted to the mars-list forum my relatively new article "Impact Craters On Earth" at my Essays & Articles Page. So instead of repeating that text here, just click on this link.]

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Part 11

From:
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Date:

Todd S. Greene
Re: News: ...Stopping Light
1/20/01 8:04 PM

Hi, Steve.

Again, I ask of you that you do not mispresent the news item that you presented. Please re-read my previous post, and please look up "refraction index." I myself am not particular concerned about the "phenomenological" language that is used by some of these articles since they are, of course, written by popular journalists writing for a popular audience. I simply voiced a caution with respect to being aware of and careful about the fact that you are dealing with "phenomenological" language rather than a precise, detailed, technical description suited for physicists and engineers.

What I stated in my previous post regarding the news item is correct, and I stand by my statements fully. Perhaps you really should contact Hill Roberts about the matter, if you are so inclined.

Apparently, you believe that you possess data and evidence that shows either (1) the stellar explosion SN1987A never really occurred (i.e., though we have directly observed the event, the event itself never actually happened because our observation of it is merely an illusion), or (2) the light from SN1987A (and from every other galaxy, in the millions of galaxies in the universe farther from the earth than SN1987A) travelled at a speed thousands or millions of times faster in the past than it does today.

Now, if you wish to present this data, please do so. Otherwise you have nothing more than your human speculation.

I fully appreciate your point. What you apparently do not understand is the fact — the fact, Steve — that the data regarding SN1987A, and regarding other stars and other galaxies, shows that universe has been around for hundreds of millions, even billions, of years.

If you wish to state that you refuse to believe the factual data, you certainly have every right to do so. You do not, however, have the right to misrepresent the data, nor do you have the right to misrepresent your own position with respect to the idea that you possess controverting data, because you don't.

That's all I'm saying.

If you have this data that shows that God changed the speed of light in the past (despite the fact that we already possess extensive data from direct observations of the universe showing that the speed of light has not been any different for at least the past few billion years — and that, therefore, God did NOT change the speed of light) then please present your data which shows that God did change the speed of light. Otherwise, you are doing nothing more than subjectively disputing the objective data that we already possess which shows that your subjective opinion is incorrect.

I am absolutely not trying to mean or insulting. I AM trying to be very clear and honest and straightforward with you regarding the facts that are already in our possession.

Thank you,
Todd

P.S.: Since I have noted your interest in astronomy, you might wish to take a look at the latest issue of Scientific American. The January 2001 issue covers some cosmology topics, including the VSL (varying-speed- of-light) theory proposed by Dr. Joao Magueijo, a theoretical physicist at Imperial College in London, England. As I have pointed out in previous posts, there are a few who have proposed, within the context of the Big Bang (which would have occurred many billions of years ago), theories regarding changes in lightspeed (among other physical "constants"). Unfortunately for YEC proponents, none of these theories have anything whatsoever to do with SN1987A — or even with any of the millions of galaxies in the universe that we observe from the earth today. In other words, there is absolutely no serious scientific work of any kind regarding lightspeed decay that has any connection with the YEC idea that the universe with its millions of galaxies have not been in existence for more than about 6,000 years. That whole concept has been completely disproved by the evidence.

•••• Steve Willis, 1/20/01 6:07 PM ••••
Steve Willis here, to Todd, who wrote,

Physicists have not altered "the speed of light" in any technical sense at all. And this is something that many YECs (who make this kind of incorrect empirical argument) have failed to appreciate.

I'm not sure YOU appreciate my point. Let me try again. Say I have a car. It's been designed so it can go one speed, say, 186 miles an hour. I press the very special brake pedal and it does stop. Did I alter the speed of the car? Yes. I may not have changed the design of the car, but I over-rode its design and otherwise normal action and stopped it.

Say I strap a rocket to the car (yes, I know the Urban Myth about the guy who did so and ran into a mountain), like they do C-135 for short runway take-off. The car is going 186 and hour until the rocket ignites and — will it go faster? If I can again over-ride the design and otherwise normal action of the car, it will go faster.

It would appear that scientists have claimed to have stopped and speeded up the normal/natural design of the speed of light. And, THEY are not super-natural. These are things that some of us have considered as POSSIBLE for a number of years. And these scientist must have had SOME inkling of the possibility or they would have never tried to accomplish what seems so unbelievable to you.

I believe the universe has been designed and can be over-ridden by its Designer. I also believe the Designer has actually done so on occasions that baffle us mere mortals.

You fail to appreciate that.

Steve Willis

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