Well if this AiG article is anything to go by then that would be a big job:
To give some idea of the trend of values, the speed of light was 391,966 km/sec. at AD 1 according to the curve. If we accept the short Biblical chronology of 1,656 years from Creation to the Flood, the curve predicts a value at the time of the Flood (2384 BC) of 1,621,908 km/sec. (The Velocity of Light and the Age of the Universe | Answers in Genesis)
1,621,908km/s! That’s 5.5 times the current speed of light. That’s our sun burning 5.5 times hotter and brighter (Assuming, I’ve not bungled the physics). I hope Noah had sun screen…
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
22
One would have to wonder about the decay of naturally occurring radioactive isotopes, such as the 40K found in every human being. There might even be stable atomic nuclei that become unstable if physical constants are changing like this.
Wouldn’t that be about 30.25 times (5.5 squared) hotter, not merely 5.5? Energy = Mass times the square of the sped of light?
(Oh… but then there’s the inverse square of the radiation over distance, so perhaps it might just have been only 5.5 times the radiative effect. Or something like that. My brain hurts…)
…for all the difference it makes to your point, anyway. 5.5 times … 30 times … that’s all well within YEC error bars, right?
[Ahh – I see @David_Lee beat me to it … No the inverse square law would still just be working on the changed quantity - if it’s ‘K’ times brighter at the source, it’s ‘K’ times brighter everywhere.]
Science progresses by searching outwards. Mostly this is by adding to what is already known, not by fundamentally changing it.
Occasionally, but only occasionally, a well-established understanding (or “theory”) needs to be revised. Classic examples include:
the “ultraviolet catastrophe” in the early 1900s (and it was work related to this, rather than to his more famous relativity, that earned Einstein a Nobel prize)
deep-seated changes in the understanding of gravity and space-time, also in the first quarter of the 20th century
But this is rare. Usually science is about filling in the gaps and about expanding beyond the edges.
It is quite possible to come up with new ideas. But these ideas are usually to explain data that otherwise don’t yet fit established models. Here’s an example. In geophysics, the idea of the “deep mantle plume” developed in the 1970s as part of plate tectonics and is a good fit to the data in certain areas such as the Hawaii chain. It also does a good job of explaining other areas of volcanic activity. But more recently some scientists propose an alternative model of “shallow lithospheric melting” that seems to be a better fit for some volcanic regions. This is an active, live debate. But crucially, this debate, which is lively within the community, is conducted on the basis of real evidence. “We propose this new model for at least some areas (e.g. Iceland, possibly Yellowstone) because it provides a better fit for the observed data.”
So how does that relate to YEC? Real science is based on an already deep understanding of the real science-so-far, and on real data which needs to be fitted into that real science. Peer-review is about arguing and debating all of that, from an already deep knowledge of, and sympathy with, the existing body of knowledge and understanding. But that doesn’t seem to be the case with YEC, which is about starting from a philosophical human opinion and trying to fit all the data into it.
Still, if a YEC person or group can genuinely come up with a scientific framework, that can be well-argued and that fits all the existing data in all the relevant fields, their Nobel prize awaits collection…
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
30
Why would such non-disinterested mindless drivel be published in any of them? Why should it be given the time of day on an editor’s desk? Science has more important things to do.
“He never graduated. Science is hard work.” Hmm, so truth is dependent on hard work and a degree? This is fallacious. Truth is truth whether or not the person speaking it has a degree and is not dependent on how hard the person has worked. Even if the devil says something that is true, it is nonetheless true. Now that we are past that —
Setterfield does not deny the laws of physics–that is also not true. His arguments and conclusions may be valid or invalid, but they do not deny the laws of physics. Let’s see if I can summarize his argument about the speed of light:
Zero point energy is the energy that exists in a vacuum at absolute zero, and which is stored energy from the expansion of the universe. Light slows down as it encounters zero point energy. As the universe continues to expand, zero point energy continues to increase, which results in reduction of the speed of light.
So the Plank constant is not a true constant, but rather the Plank constant times zero point energy is the constant. His argument is not that the laws of physics are not at work or have changed.
Further, Setterfield believes that the universe is not the result of the “big bang,” but rather embraces the plasma theory of cosmic origins. There are not a lot of scientists that hold to plasma theory, and I am certainly not anywhere near knowledgeable enough to assess either the big bang or plasma theory.
I freely acknowledge that I don’t know enough to evaluate it myself. From a layman’s standpoint, however, I can easily understand what he is saying, and it is coherent to me. I have talked to several people asking for an assessment of his views. They respond that he is a crank or that he has never requested peer review. I haven’t been able to get anyone to tell me specifically what is wrong with his argument.
And YEC folks would argue that they start with biblical data–not a philosophical human opinion-- rather than trying to shoe horn biblical truth into “scientific” data. And YEC scientists look at real data as well, and come to much different conclusions.
And it is pretty hard to believe that “peer review” is always unbiased. Somehow, that is the one place where everyone is completely honest and the human weaknesses are suppressed? The evidence just doesn’t support this.
So scholars such as John Walton make erudite biblical arguments which are lauded in the BioLogos Forum. But others such as John Lennox point out what he sees as serious problems with Walton’s positions, and his observations make a great deal of sense.
And let me add, if an OEC or a Evolutionary Creationist can genuinely come up with a scientific framework that is well argued and fits ALL the existing data in ALL relevant fields, that will be exceedingly remarkable. Are you claiming that EC is anywhere close to that?
Truth isn’t dependent on hard work and a degree. Finding truth quite often is dependent on hard work. (The degree is just a marker that you’ve put in some of the hard work.)
Science is the methodology that defeats common sense and laymen’s arguments. The notion that “makes sense to me” == “scientifically plausible” is 100% false.
From my layman’s standpoint, I intuitively sense that space is uniform and time is universally constant. But my common sense is 100% wrong, and relativity is right.
From the layman’s standpoint, I intuitively sense that I can predict the future state of a particle given its current state. Quantum mechanics says my common sense reasoning is folly.
From the layman’s standpoint, a photon should only be able to travel through one pinhole at a time. Quantum mechanics says it can travel through two simultaneously (and the experimental evidence proves it).
From Aristotle’s common sense standpoint, denser objects fall faster than lighter objects. A science experiment on the moon showed his common sense was wrong.
This doesn’t sound like an accurate formulation to me. The velocity of light in a vacuum is related to zero-point energy via Maxwell’s Equation AFAICT, but the physics sources I have read do not depict light as “slowing down” due to ZPE.
This is wrong in 2 different ways:
ZPE “appears to be of a constant density everywhere and always” (source). This means that whatever interaction a deep space photon had with ZPE on April 21, 1020, it has with ZPE on April 21, 2020.
The sum of ZPE in the universe is constant. “Observations from many lines of evidence — including the cosmic microwave background, distant sources of light (like supernovae), and the clustering of galaxies in the Universe — all point to the same tiny, non-zero value of the amount of dark energy in the Universe. It appears to be a form of energy inherent to space itself, it appears not to change with time” (source)
There’s a reason for that.
In 1993, theoretical cosmologist Jim Peebles criticized Alfvén–Klein (plasma) cosmology, writing that “there is no way that the results can be consistent with the isotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation and X-ray backgrounds”. In his book he also showed that Alfvén’s models do not predict Hubble’s law, the abundance of light elements, or the existence of the cosmic microwave background. A further difficulty with the ambiplasma model is that matter–antimatter annihilation results in the production of high energy photons, which are not observed in the amounts predicted." (source)
Admittedly, there are some dismissive comments in this thread. However, you have overlooked numerous very specific critiques, Craig:
If Setterfield were right about the speed of light, the earth would have been about 30 times hotter at the time of Noah. Post #28
Setterfield’s hypothesis does not take into account the large error bars on early measurements of the speed of light. Post #20
Setterfield’s data stops 60 years ago, when instruments became sensitive enough to detect any real changes in the speed of light. This, in spite of the fact that plenty of measurements continue to be made with extraordinarily sensitive instruments. Post #20
Setterfield omitted some older data that contradicted his hypothesis. Post #15
Setterfield’s radioactive decay change hypothesis is contradicted by the relative quantities of Pb207 and U235. Post #15
Setterfield’s radioactive decay change hypothesis implies that the earth was 115,000o C on day 6. Post #15
If conservation of energy is correct, Setterfield’s physics imply that the Earth was rotating 5.7 million times per second (non-relativistically) on Day 1. Post #15
No fluctuations in the speed of light have been observed over the past 60 years. Post #10 Note: the universe has continued to expand over the past 60 years at basically the same rate it was expanding the previous 200 years.
As a professional in the field of natural language processing, I can affirm to you that a text, no matter how sacred, does not translate itself. Accurate translation requires an deep understanding of grammars, vocabulary, explicit cultural references, and a tremendous amount of implicit context in which a text is embedded.
Therefore: “I am relying solely on biblical data” is basically the same as “I assume that my context is very close to the original context, if not identical. Therefore I can go straight to the text without giving serious credence to cultural considerations.”
Consequently, the stance can be effectively summarized as follows:
“I am relying on Biblical data plus my own culture’s understanding of context.”
I would be interested in Lennox’s arguments–could you provide a link or two? Bear in mind that Lennox’s expertise is in formal mathematics, not Ancient Near East culture or languages.
In his recently published book, Seven Days that Divide the World, Lennox sets out to prove that Christians can believe in the theories of science and maintain the truth of Scripture.
“I think that sometimes people have been taught there are only two possibilities: Possibility one is that if you are being faithful to Scripture, you have to be a young earth creationist. Otherwise you’re an evolutionist or a theistic evolutionist, and you’re not faithful to Scripture,” he explained to the Christian Post. “I don’t think that is the case … the whole point of the book is to explain that in some detail.”
The review cites Lennox on Genesis (emphasis is mine).
“If the biblical explanations were at the level, say, of twenty-second century science, it would likely be unintelligible to everyone, including scientists today. This could scarcely have been God’s intention. He wished His meaning to be accessible to all.”
Lennox then considers the writings of Old Testament scholars such as John Walton and the late Frank Derek Kidner to express the possibility that the seven days of creation were written as a framework that "might then indicate that there is more to the text than ordered sequence."
Of course not everyone agrees with Walton, @cewoldt. However, I’m not sure why you think Lennox is a strong critic of Walton’s work.
Best,
Chris
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
39
Chris, “The velocity of light in a vacuum is related to zero-point energy via Maxwell’s Equation AFAICT” is that due to the affect, resistance to propagation of an electro-magnetic field, of the constant ZPE’s electric permittivity and magnetic permeability in the vacuum?
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
40
Correct. That’s right. Well done. See if you can work it out. I’ll give you a clue: ignoratio elenchi. That’s your fallacy.
