Re: A new anti-evolution argument from True Origins?

"Harlequin" <usenet@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Xns973E69619F7FAusenet123mmcablecom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Daniel Harper <daniel_harper@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
> news:pan.2006.01.01.14.41.56.879401@xxxxxxxxxxxxx:
>
> > I'm now a member of the True Origins Yahoo group, so I get a lot of
> > email from individuals about the site. One of the posters there put up
> > a link to a new article from the True Origins website, and lo and
> > behold, I think I have found an actually new claim that should be
> > addressed in the Index. (At least, I can't find an easy rebuttal
> > there, but I did a couple of keyword searches and that's it.)
> >
> > Here's the article:
> >
> > <http://www.trueorigin.org/old_earth_evo_heart.asp>
> >
> > I'm not going to quote from the article (for it is exceedingly
> > poorly-written and difficult to quote from without including large
> > swaths of needless text) but there are three claims that I feel are
> > new, here, and wanted to point them out.
> >
> > 1. The age of the moon, planets, and other "hard bodies" in the solar
> > system are based on estimates for the age of the Earth.
> >
> > My (relatively uninformed) response: We have taken samples from
> > several solar bodies -- i.e. the Moon, Mars, meteorites -- and dated
> > them with traditional radiometric means, and have found the data
> > matches up quite nicely with a solar system that is approximately 4.5
> > billion years old. I believe some moon rocks have also been found to
> > be somewhat geologically (selelogically? lunalogically) similar to
> > rocks found on Earth, indicating a common origin.
>
> Actually it is closer to the truth (though way over-simplified) to
> say that the Earth was dated from radiometric dating of non-Terrestrial
> rocks. The Age of the Earth FAQ at the Archive shows a Pb-Pb isochron
> for the dating of the Solar System and hense the Earth.
>
> > (If the Flood caused an increase in radioactivity, the flood must have
> > also happened on the moon, then, right?)
>
> And in the meteorites.
>
> > 2. The age of the sun is based on inferences from the age of the
> > Earth.
> >
> > My (again, uninformed) response: The age of the sun can be
> > independently determined by inference with the Hertzsprung-Russell
> > diagram, and by examination of astrophysical models which indicate
> > where in its life-cycle the sun is. Also, I'd imagine that spectral
> > analysis of the composition of the sun (in comparison with spectral
> > analysis of common solar cloud data) would give us an idea as to how
> > long nuclear fusion has been going on in our neighborhood.
>
> The Solar FAQ in the Archive deals with that. Indeed the sun can
> be dated without use of the age of the earth.
>

The most direct method is "solar seismology". The study of small vibrations
of the solar surface allows us to determine the structure of the interior.
By such means, the density, which depends on the He/H abundance of the Sun
as a function of depth, has been determined all the way to the core. The
variation is consistent with the theoretically determined age of the Sun
from standard calculations in astrophysics based on known physics of atomic
nuclei (about 4.56 billion years). It also confirms the theoretical
expectation that the core and envelope of the Sun do not mix nor is the core
mixed. Neat.

>
> > (Note that these two arguments work by inference -- if scientists are
> > mistaken about the age of the Earth because radiometric dating methods
> > don't work, then they're equally wrong about the age of the solar
> > system as a whole. But last I heard, geologists don't tell
> > astrophysicists what to do, and any astronomer that discovered
> > evidence that the sun is six thousand years old would win a Nobel
> > Prize.)
> >
> > 3. The size of the universe is inferred from the age of the universe,
> > which is inferred from the age of the Earth.
> >
> > My (once again, uninformed) response: The article goes to some length
> > whining about "Hubble expansion" and the inferences and assumptions
> > that are made to "make" the universe line up with "evolutionary
> > timescales", but it seems to me that the size of the universe can be
> > independently determined precisely by watching Hubble expansion. I was
> > under the impression that Cepheid variable stars can also be used as
> > indicators of distance, but I cannot remember the details presently.

This is correct. The calibration of cepheid variables is now independently
confirmed from Hipparcos satellite parallaxes. The age of the Universe can
be obtained from the value of the Hubble Constant plus other measurements
that constrain the way it varied since the Big Bang.

>
> Your got it. The age of the universe that the cosmologists get
> it not in any way based on the age of the earth.
>
> > (I'd also like to see how an anti-evolutionist is possibly going to
> > fit all the observed universe into a sphere no more than six thousand
> > light years across, but that's another matter.)
>
> They have a variety of B.S. ways to get around it: speed of
> light being faster in the past, creation of light,
> saying its relatistic time dilation so that 6000 years passed
> on Earth but billions in the distant universe (which has
> a side-effect of making the Solar System privileged spot
> in the cosmos), etc. etc. etc.
>
> Speaking of "True".Origin, they appear to very recently
> posted another reprint from the CRSQ:
>
> http://www.trueorigin.org/trilobites_eyes.asp
>
> Basically claims that the ToE demands that trilobite
> eyes must be unsophisticated since trilobites lived
> so long ago according to "evolutionists" and thus are
> "primative". This too might be a candidate for the "index".
>
> The idea that something in the Cambrian must by
> badly made is simply a strawman that in no way
> reflects on what modern evolutionary biologists
> actually believe. Indeed the CRSQ is equivocating
> how "primative" is used by laymen and how it is
> used in evolutionary biology. Humans are "primative"
> mammals since they have have not evolved blowholes
> and fins. "Primative" makes sense only in the
> context of what taxa are being discussed _and_
> what characteristics are being discussed.
>
> So why is it that trilobites can't have had good eyes?
>
> Here is another bit:
>
> To quote a well-known evolutionist and trilobite expert, 'Trilobites
> had solved a very elegant physical problem and apparently knew about
> Fermat?s principle, Abbe?s sine law, Snell?s laws of refraction and
> the optics of birefringent crystals.." (Levi-Setti, 1993, p 33).
> This, of course, is patently absurd, since arthropods know nothing of
> the laws of optics. It is thus clear that evolution cannot explain
> the presence of these astounding biological lenses.
>
> This is really clueless. Levi-Setti clearly did not mean for
> "apparently knew" to be taken literally in the sense that they
> actually understood physics. This reminds me of the hollow-earthers
> who quoted some flowerly language of an explorer to "prove" their
> case. Ignoring that, the claim that arthropods need to
> understand physics in order to evolve clearly shows that the
> author does not understand the theory of evolution.
>
>
> --
> Anti-spam: replace "usenet@sdc." with "harlequin2@"
>
> "So easily are men the dupes of their own prejudice."
> -- Percival Lowell, _Mars as the Abode of Life_.
> 1908. pp. 153-154.
>



--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)

.

Loading