Good question, but it wonât land you at 6000 years. Milkshakes have spiral patterns on top. âŚ
Note that not all spiral galaxies are moving away - Andromeda and Triangulum are obvious examples, and the Large Magellanic Cloud has a trace of spiral structure, But the vast majority of spirals and others are moving away.
In principle, something could have a beginning but no end or an end but no beginning. Our universe has a beginning in the Big Bang. Whether thereâs something physical preceding it or any other universes has received much popular speculation but seems to be scientifically unverifiable. As to an end for our universe, that depends on what is considered an âendâ. Depending on whether protons decay, the universe would eventually end up as either cold, dark, scattered subatomic particles or cold, dark, scattered iron atoms; both of those also assume that dark matter and dark energy donât do anything different in the long term and no large-scale quantum effects. As the system approaches complete thermal equilibrium, no more work would happen, but it would exist. Of course, extrapolation from known physical laws does not tell us what might happen due to God intervening in some way.
Again, the basic problems with the âwhy are there spiral armsâ? question are
- The answer has been given repeatedly. It is easy to find. But young-earth advocates do not stop invoking arguments that are well-known to be false - there is a serious neglect of the responsibility to not bear false witness by verifying a claim before repeating it. (The average person might understandably repeat such a claim, thinking that the professional young-earth advocate they got it from had done his work honestly.)
- When the flaws in the argument are explained, the response usually to jump to some other issue. Rather than seriously considering the implications of the fact that the argument is clearly bogus, the approach is to keep trying other arguments, and never pay any attention to how many bad arguments there have been. As a result, the arguer often circles back to the same arguments - the approach is trying to overwhelm with multiple questions, not to actually find out whether each arguments is valid, so the refutations go in one ear and out the other.
- The approach is hypocritical. Any supposed problem for an old earth is treated as a valid reason to hold to a young earth; no problems for a young earth ever need to be considered.
Exhibit A of such a delinquent cosmological argument was âTHE MISSING NEUTRINO PROBLEMâ. YEC made much hay of a discrepancy in the detected count of solar neutrinos. The object was to prove the sun could not have shone for billions of years by offering gravitational collapse instead of nuclear fusion as the means of generating heat, which would not be sufficient to power the Sun that long.
Improvement in detection resolved the problem and validated mainstream physical theories, and that was that for that whole creationist line of attack. They promptly left the field, stating that while the new results allowed the Sun to be old, they did not prove the Sun to be old. Hello galactic spiral arms.
Here is the thing. Even before the missing neutrinos were found, the YEC argument against fusion did not at all stand up. First off, most of the solar neutrinos were always detected. The ânot missingâ solar neutrinos could only have arisen from fusion, so that had to be occurring. YEC simply ignored that aspect. Furthermore, simple equations of state demanded that the interior conditions of the sun would yield fusion. Decades of thermonuclear weaponry entailed that this science be routine. There was never any serious prospect that the Sun was powered by anything other than fusion. So why the YEC dalliance? It made for exploitive rhetoric at the time, targeted not to fellow scientists but rather to scientifically naĂŻve adherents. The was never any âmea culpaâ from any YEC proponents for the misrepresentations along the way. Thatâs the way they roll.
I chose my profile icon because it shows two galaxies which have plainly interacted for millions of years. There are hundreds of such gravitationally interacting galaxies available to a google search, such as @jammycakes posted. Such streams of stars and gas would take far longer to form than allowed under YEC. There are visible bands of blue stars which are triggered from the shock waves of colliding gas, contrary to Jason Lisleâs baseless assertion that the existence of blue stars are evidence of a young universe. Nothing in the sky above or ground below supports a young universe, and the reason YEC advances so many nonsensical arguments is that there are no good arguments to be had.
Well-stated. This is quibbling but while there does seem to have been a big bang, it seems to me that the best thought now is that there might have been something prior to the big bang, in this universe exactly and not from another but semantics weigh heavily here. The multiverse might be a system of interconnected pathways that allow for the transmission of energy from one âplaceâ to another.
I am not sure that this gets us to three different Spider-men though, nor to this idea that all of our actions are repeated with a twist in some other reality.
I love the what about X?-game.
Okay, I will play. If there was indeed a big bang, then why does essentially all of the universe lie in one plane instead of being spherical? Why has matter clumped since it would seem that in a void, that matter would be distributed evenly in all areas, barring some sort of chaotic feature of the universe.
With a Creatrix, we can assume that the answer is because God created things that way, which is easy. But the Bible seems to me, to fundamentally be the story of a Creatrix looking for someone to love and to whom to impart knowledge. I am uncertain as to whether these things need be logically linked and I do not believe that they do, meaning yes, the Bible is a love story, not a scientific manual.
I find it best to steer clear of the entire issue related to intelligent design. Even if it is true via the watchmaker idea, it doesnât mean that our Divinity was in fact the entity that created the universe. Might not a Goddess be created, instead of âbeingâ and why would this cheapen our relationship with such a Person.
Since particle physics got going. Other options were plausible longer ago.
Granted. I meant there was never [ over the period that missing neutrinos was the unsolved problem exploited by YEC] any serious prospect that the Sun was powered by anything other than fusion. Further, gravitational collapse is what generates the ignition conditions, so that plays a role.
This was an instance of the typical YEC leap that if any aspect of something is unknown, everything associated is discredited.
It wasnât improvement in detection that solved the missing solar neutrino problem. It was the demonstration that neutrinos have mass, and can therefore oscillate between lepton families, that explained the shortage of neutrinos. And yes, YECs simply dropped that argument down the memory hole.
Understood, but I thought that the Sudbury observatory was upgraded to detect all flavors, and that validated the mass.
The Walrus asked the Carpenter that.
Sorry, I didnât realize you were talking about the observation of multiple neutrino flavors. One could argue that the solar neutrino problem was solved a year before SNOâs (Sudburyâs) results based on evidence for neutrino mass from Super-Kamiokande, but that would be quibbling. Your point is valid either way.
The lack of transitional whale fossils was another YEC argument that disappeared without comment when reality intervened.
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