Feedback for November 2001

This is a highly artificial, laboratory environment, that cannot be duplicated by nature in any known manner. It is well known that light slows down when it propagates through any medium. it is also well known that this slowing down is a function of wavelength, in that different wavelengths of light slow at differernt amounts (in the two experiments above the slowed light was strictly monochromatic, in laser beams of fixed wavelength). In general, light slows down less, in less dense media. Therefore, in the near vacuum of space, one would expect little if any detectable slowing. There are no astrophysical analogs to a dense Bose-Einstein condensate, which light might encounter on its travel through space, and there is certainly no analog for the "coupling" laser that is required (and must be active along the entire path of propagation), which must also be precisely tuned to the optical characteristics of the gas used to slow the light. I cannot imagine any way that these experiments could be applicable to light propagating through space, and the age of the universe.

There is also observational evidence that no similar but unknown effect has been cast upon the speed of light in the cosmos. All such effects require light of different wavelengths to slow by differing amounts, therefore causing the average speed of light through the cosmos to be wavelength dependent. This appears not to be the case, as reported by B.E. Schaefer, Severe Limits on Variations of the Speed of Light with Frequency, Physical Review Letters 82(25): 4964-4966, June 21, 1999.

There are many such challenges that circulate among creationists; all are cleverly worded so as to avoid any possibility of having the challenge met. Of all of the monetary challenges of this sort I have seen, Hovind's is the most blatantly unmeetable. To begin with, he defines "empirical" as "relying or based solely on experiment and observation rather than theory". And rather than defining evolution as biologists define it, he adds several superfluous and even irrelevant statements to the definition. He ends up with the following definition of evolution:

1. Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves. 2. Matter created life by itself. 3. Early life forms learned to reproduce themselves. 4. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms

It is clearly impossible to offer empirical evidence - that is an expirement or observation - that shows that "time, space and matter came into existence by themselves" or that "matter created itself out of nothing". The event is over and cannot be observed, nor can the creation of matter be reproduced in a laboratory expirement. Historical science rests on inference, not direct observation. To make things worse, Hovind sets up an incredibly absurd standard by which to judge such evidence even if it could be offered. He says that in order to collect the $250,000, one must "prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the process of evolution (option 3 below) is the only possible way the observed phenomena could have come into existence." He reinforces this in his challenge when he states, "As in any fair court of law, the accuser must also rule out any other possible explanations." So not only must one show evidence for this invalid definition of evolution, one must prove that this is the ONLY POSSIBLE way it could have happened. I would suggest that there is no statement that could be made about any historical event whatsoever that could even hypothetically meet such an inflated and nonsensical standard of proof. Gravity cannot be shown to be the "only possible" way that the planets stay in their orbits - it is of course possible that they are held in their orbits by angels, devils or invisible orange leprauchans. There is ALWAYS a hypothetical alternative that can be offered to any proposition. Lastly, he provides no details on who the "committee of trained scientists" are that would judge this pointless effort should someone be foolish enough to take him up on it. In short, Hovind's money is quite safe - he designed the challenge to insure that this would be the case. I would gladly make a one million dollar challenge to Mr. Hovind if he could prove ANY historical claim within the boundaries of such criteria.

Ed Brayton

Radiometric Dating and the Geological Time Scale: Circular Reasoning or Reliable Tools?

However, a better example might be the solid firmament referred to in, among other passages, Gen. 7:11, 8:2; Psalm 104:2; Isaiah 34:4, 40:22, 64:1. If the Bible is literal, then the sky must be solid.

Likewise cosmological evolution. The long term evolution of the universe, the formation of cosmological structures, is a necessary and unavoidable consequence of the second law of thermodynamics (the low entropy structures transfer large amounts of excess entropy to their environments). The first law of thermodynamics only appears to be violated by the primoridial event of the Big Bang, but in fact it is not necessarily so. We do not know (nor do we even think) that the universe ws created from "nothing". Rather, the Big Bang simply represents a moment in the history of the cosmos, beyond which we cannot yet see. So there is also no reason to believe that the universe came into existence without a cause, be it "natural" or otherwise.

Hey, i was just looking around and i found that your info was interesting! I just have a few questions:

How do you create live matter out dead matter?

Pass the 'dead' matter through a plant or bacterium. They will turn 'dead matter' into new plants or bacteria. Now how did 'dead matter' turn into 'live matter' in the first place? Nobody knows for sure. There are some ideas how this may have happened naturally but neither these ideas nor supernatural explanations have been observed to work yet.

If you put an ape into a cage from the time it was born to the time of its death, would it turn human? If scientist have found eveidence about most everything have you found the missing link in dna from the ape, and if not why not?

Comparisons of chimp and human DNA show about a 2-3% level of divergence. In protein sequences these difference shrink to about 1% or less. Somewhere in that relatively small difference is most of what it takes to differentiate between a human and chimp organism. Actually, there are probably relatively few 'key' mutations that separate the two species.

How does natural selection support Evolution?

Natural selection is thought to be one of the underlying factors behind change.

If the big bang is the reason why this earth exists, arn't exploions soppse to destroy things, not create them?

Explosions like the Big Bang and supernova produce many of the elements necessary for the formation of planets and life.

When i was born deaf and the doctors said that my hearing would get worse or stay the same how come i can hear perfectly now?

A lot about biology and medicine remains unknown.

Who are you and what is your purpose here on earth? Can you proove there is not a God?

Evolution does not mean that "purpose" and "God" do not exist.

What force moves the seasons,

Changes in the axial tilt of the earth with respect the sun. This causes some parts of the earth to receive different amounts of sunlight over the course of a year. This is also why the the hours of daylight are longer during summer in the northern hemisphere and shorter during the winters.

can you see the force that moves the tide in and out,

No, only the effects of the force.

can you see the air molecules that we breath in and out?

With the naked eye, sometimes on a cold day. Spectrophotometers that monitor wavelengths of light outside the visible range can detect (see) these molecules.

Why do we have everthing we need on earth to help us live?

We have everything needed for now. However, judging from the record of the past extinctions of other species, it is possible that the earth may run out some things we find necessary to live. If we didn't have everything necessary to help us live we probably wouldn't have evolved to become what we are and we certainly wouldn't be here now.

Are you afraid that if there is a God, that you would have to be accountable or surrender to the supernaturnal being?

Evolution does not mean that "purpose", "God", or "accountability" do not exist. Biological evolution is a physical mechanism, not a moral or spiritual guide.

and what does ad and bc stand for?

"ad" can be short for 'advertisement'. In tennis, it means 'advantage' as in 'ad in' and 'ad out'. In dates, it stands for 'anno domini'. "bc" could be the abbreviation for 'British Columbia' or 'before Christ'.

If fossils take a long time to to be pemerable and take a long time to fossilize, how come mount st. helens erupted but than about four years later the trees have become fossilized? [...]

"Fossilization" is a very general term. The trees in Mount St. Helen are not fossilized in the same sense as trees in the Petrified Forest National Park of Arizona and trilobites in rock. The samples at Mount St. Helen have just begun the process.

More broadly, the modern arguments against modern creationism are more to the point. See The Talk.Origins Archive.

Highly recommended, as a gripping and illuminating read, is The Beak of the Finch : A Story of Evolution in Our Time (a Pulitzer prize winner) by Jonathan Weiner (Vintage books, 1995) and also Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches, by Peter R. Grant and, Jonathan Weiner (Princeton Uni Press, 1999).

The research described in these books is not of the ancient past. It is based on twenty years direct and carefully measured observation of evolution in action, proceeding at very rapid rates. From the amazon web site:

Rosemary and Peter Grant and those assisting them have spend twenty years on Daphne Major, an island in the Galapagos studying natural selection. They recognize each individual bird on the island, when there are four hundred at the time of the author's visit, or when there are over a thousand. They have observed about twenty generations of finches -- continuously.

Jonathan Weiner follows these scientists as they watch Darwin's finches and come up with a new understanding of life itself.

For anyone who has not already read these books or knows of this research -- do yourself a favour and read them. They will transform the way you think about life and evolution.

The best analogy to the type of reasoning we use in determining common descent is a criminal trial. The jurors have not seen the crime take place, but that doesn't mean that they merely decide guilt or innocence on "faith". They weigh the evidence and they use deductive reasoning, which is exactly what scientists do.

As far as the evidence that supports evoluion, it is found in a number of fields of science. The exceptionless order of appearance of plant and animal life in the fossil record cannot be explained except by evolution. That explanation is then confirmed by evidence in a number of other fields, including biogeography, population genetics, comparative anatomy, and so forth. I suggest you actually read the FAQs on this site, they comprise an enormous amount of information discussing the evidence for evolution.

Even the claim that behaving like animals promotes immorality is baseless. Humans have evolved to be social animals, so their success depends upon them behaving and getting along socially. "Behaving like animals" means, in our case, acting towards other people with kindness and respect. (Incidentally, evolution does not say we evolved from monkeys, and the fact that we are animals remains true whether we were created or evolved.)

But ideals don't mean nearly as much as actual practice. Here again, evolution comes out innocent. Almost all the crimes that evolution is blamed for have been around long before the theory of evolution, making the claim that evolution caused them ludicrous. And nobody has shown any actual statistical connection between any of them and evolutionary belief. I suspect the same cannot be said of creationism.

If problems like abortion and drug abuse are to be lessened, it will be through objective consideration of the many social factors that affect them. People like Ken Ham, who use such issues to demonize people they disagree with, only get in the way of real solutions.

Personally, I cannot turn to creationism over evolution because creationism goes against too many of my values. Foremost, I value honesty, including honestly admitting the implications of what I see. The sciences encourage such honesty, while creationism discourages it. Ham's style of creationism requires a belief that all other religions, not to mention most people's version of Christianity, are wrong. I cannot accept religious bigotry on such a scale. I keep seeing claims of certainty in creationism (such as the ICR tenets), and certainty is incompatible with my need for humility. And creationism requires that I accept that God acts a certain way based on human interpretations. If I were to become a creationist, I would have to abandon faith in God and worship people instead.

Finally, I will note that Ken Ham can't be a very good creationist. He seems to disagree with Bible passages such as Matthew 7:1 and Luke 6:37 about not judging. If he treats those parts of the Bible as wrong, how can you trust him on anything else in the Bible?

Rather, the Big Bang is better thought of as analogous to the rapid expansion of a balloon (think of a balloon in a pressure tank when the pressure is released). The expansion forces cooling which forces condensation (water vapor will form clouds and ice, for instance). Under such conditions, the expansion coupled with gravity will, in fact, necessarily result in the unavoidable formation of stars, planets, and planetary systems such as our own. The formation of order is a necessary consequence of the rapid expansion of the Big Bang.

Note that from Fig 1, that around 4500 years ago, the amount of C14 present was only about half that of 1950AD. This would cause an error of about 5700 years. Hence, if the book of Genesis is accurate, the flood would yield a radiocarbon date of 4500+5700 years. 10200 years bp.

Floods can't be dated with radiocarbon. A flood is an event. You might be able to date an artifact buried by a flood, and hence date the flood, but if you want this to stand as an accurate radiocarbon date for the Genesis flood, you'll have to find such an artifact. For that matter, you'll have to find the deposits from that flood.

You further state:

Ofcourse geologists say that the flood is fantasy. But atleast they admit that during the great ice age which occurred 10000 years ago, ice covered the earth. If the bible had recorded that ice covered the earth, I'm sure geologists would say, "No, there is no reason why the earth should have cooled down to such low temperatures, it could only be water."

This belies an incredible ignorance of geology, and is quite an insult to geologists. It might interest you to know that the primary man responsible for our knowledge of ice ages was Louis Aggasiz. He was a Christian and a creationist who wrote extensively against evolution. At any rate, your argument is basically that the biblical flood was really the ice age that ended about 10,000 years ago and that scientists are just saying it was ice rather than a flood because they're against the bible. This is pure poppycock. Do you really think that floods and glaciers leave behind the same types of evidence? We've seen floods, they occur all the time. We see what kinds of deposits they leave behind. Shockingly, they leave behind subaqueous sediments - sediments deposited in water. Imagine that. We've also seen glaciation. There are still lots and lots of glaciers in the northern latitudes. As they move they leave behind entirely different types of evidence, like loess and other wind borne deposits, and of course incredible jagged gouging of the earth under them. A first year geology student can give you a huge list of differences between glacial and flood deposits. This is not because they are all part of some conspiracy to deny the bible, it's because we've observed such deposition and can therefore identify them.

Extinction and the formation of fossils are more consistent with a catastrophe like Noah's flood than they are with Uniformitarianism, because only very unusual circumstances (like mud slides) would cause animals to be buried before they could be eaten or rot away.

This is false. First, whether an animal was eaten or not would not normally affect whether the skeleton could fossilize, since scavengers would eat the meat and not the bones.

Second, fossilization does not require mudslides, though that is one way it can happen. Most fossilization, in fact, takes place in marine environments (we have far more fossils of marine animals than terrestrial animals) where the anoxic environment preserves the skeleton until sub-aqueous sedimentation covers it up. Skeletons are often also preserved because an animal is trapped in a hole, fissure or cave opening, or in something like a tar pit. Often times skeletons ARE preserved by flood sediments, we see this quite often, but not on a global scale all at once. In order for the young earth creationist position that page espouses to be correct, virtually all fossils and species must have lived and died simultaneously, which is absurd and impossible to maintain in light of a vast range of evidence.

Third, the fact that Russell Humphries says that there are proofs that the earth is only a few thousand years old does not mean that such proofs are true. In fact, each of the proofs that he and other YECs list is debunked in numerous places in the Talk.Origins archive. Feel free to read them.

Example #2:

To estimate the age of volcanic rocks, you have to assume that when the rock was formed there was a certain ratio of radioactive chemicals to other chemicals that are the byproduct of radioactive decay. The assumption that none of the parent chemical was added or lost except due to radioactive decay can't be verified, and the assumption that all of the decay byproducts only came from the parent chemical in the rock or that nothing was lost can't be verified either.

This is also false in most cases. First, we don't have to assume that decay rates were constant. The decay rates of radioisotopes have been tested and tested time and again, under every possible condition including changes in pressure and heat and the largest change ever measured was less than 1% (again, all of this information is available in the archive if you just bother to read the FAQs). This is expirementally verified, not an assumption. Furthermore, we know that if decay rates HAD been significantly faster in the recent past the resulting release of radiation that quickly would literally sterilize the planet of life. Radiodecay = release of radiation into the atmosphere. If the decay rates were fast enough in the past few thousand years to release 4.5 billion years worth of radiation, the earth would still be molten.

Second, we don't have to assume a ratio of mother/daughter elements in the rock at the time it was formed in most cases. The most common dating technique is K/Ar dating. We don't have to assume that there was no Argon40 at the time the lava cooled because we know that Argon40 cannot be trapped by the rock matrix until it cools to a specific temperature (like all noble gasses). Therefore we know that there was no Argon40 present in a lava flow until the rock formed and cooled.

Third, the example of using recent lava flows to perform radiometric dating on is irrelevant. You cannot date recent flows accurately because the amount of daughter product present is too small to get an accurate measurement. It's like using a hammer to fix a television set - use the wrong tool for the job and you get bad results.

Example #3:

Another scientist filed down the tooth of a pig and persuaded fellow scientists that this single item was evidence for a human ancestor he called Nebraska man.

There is not a single word of that sentence that is true. Osborn did not "file down the tooth" at all, it was found as is. There was absolutely no fraud involved in this whatsoever. Not only did he not claim it was a human ancestor, he went out of his way to say he didn't think it was. And when he revisited the site 2 years later and found the rest of the skeleton, he recognized his error in classification and immediately retracted it. This is an example of good science - he had a find, he made a preliminary classification, he returned for more research and promptly reported his findings. Once again, all of this is available in the archive, which has a search engine that works quite well.

There are lots of other errors as well, but that will do for now.

Try to argue against that Mr. "18-year-old-high-school-senior-with-a-severe- reading-comprehension-problem-that-makes-him-mistakenly-believe-this-site-is- about-flat-earth-theory-and-not-about-evolution-as-is-so-clearly-stated-on- practically-every-page"

P.S. Get a real job!

Been there, done that, and now seriously worried that the 40+% of my income taken for taxes will only get bigger because the class of 2002 will be such a bunch of no-account, dull-witted slackers (such as the self-nominated author of the above comment) that employment won't be an option for most. My guess is that McDonalds will need to put pictures of the food on the cash register buttons and scan the money automatically before they can hire this year's graduates. If there ever was a more appropriate feedstock for soylent green production than the less-than-stellar Mr. "high school senior", I'm not aware of it.

I test out higher than that, I have two science degrees in the bag and a third on the way, but I don't seem to have the same difficulties in accepting evolutionary biology that you do. I can't claim to have no religious view; I'm a United Methodist.

Any time that you want to get down to the empirics rather than simply engage in polemics, post something to the talk.origins newsgroup.

Wesley

"I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it."

"Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seems to me to be empty and devoid of meaning."

Having said that, I'm not sure what your point was. Even if Einstein did believe in a soul that survived death, what would be the point? That we should believe it because he did? That is illogical.

The copyright to Darwin's books lapsed many years ago, although copyright to the facsimile editions brought out rests with the libraries that hold the editions that were imaged by the publishers. In that case the copyright is held by agreement with the publishers.

"Darwinian theory" is not a thing that can be copyrighted. So if you wish to pay royalites, send them to me.

They met a boojum. :-)

Ah, well, we did experience what you might call "technical difficulties". We have the text of certain messages and responses in July and August, but the data concerning who entered which message, and which message responds to which other message got messed up. The system was taken down for the month of September. In October we were able to get it working again. There is automatic backup of the critical data which occurs every six hours now, so if our gremlin strikes again, we should lose at most six hours worth of feedback messages rather a month at a time. That's the plan, anyway.

Wesley

Your comment on selection "de-selecting" the least fit is very apt. I like it; and it is actually a reasonable insight into selection. You are also right that it does not change genetic structures. That is why evolution requires mutation as well as selection. One process introduces variety, the other prunes away the least fit. Sometimes the variety introduced is more fit that the norm, for a given environment: in this case the variation is, I would say, selected for by natural selection.

But then you go off the rails again. We can actually induce mutation in a laboratory. But there is usually no need. Quite enough mutations occur naturally for lab experiments to use resulting variation in experimental demonstration of the process of evolution.

With respect to Richard Milton, it is rather illuminating (and very amusing) to read the debate he had with Jim Foley, author of the fossil hominids FAQ. Read Milton's book, by all means; but also read some of the critiques. Milton is not particularly competant when it comes to understanding what he claims to refute.

Here is a link to Milton's own web site. Here is a link to a review of Shattering the Myths of Darwinism.

That the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens deposited a tremendous amount of ash and loose volcanic debris around the area is undisputed. In fact, you can see some pictures of the area yourself from a field trip by the University of Washington's Department of Earth and Space Sciences. The hiking trail in Loowit and Sheep Canyon is described in Hike through wildflowers as "dry and ashy."

The website for the Mount St. Helens National Volcano Monument contains a great deal of information about the mountain, the eruption, and the recovery of flora and fauna in the region. Furthermore, the United States Geological Survey has information on the eruption itself and many great pictures of the site.

Simply put, "is" statments do not translate well to "ought" statements. These are orthogonal systems. That "influential philosophers" of the past century have drawn from Darwin to sustain ethical judgements and remain influential suggests to me that no profession is immune from pockets of uncritical thought.

I'm not quite sure how the pros or cons of scientific objectivism plays into this debate... at least not logically. I know it's popular in some circles to debate objectivism and the utility of science but I don't see how that impacts discussions of ethical or moral systems. So I guess I'm curious too, about how these ethical formulations are at once derived from observations of the past history of life and at the same time critical of the process of observation. Perhaps the best question to ask these oracles of non-objective thought is: "How do you know that you know what you're talking about?"

I agree that some in the conservative Christian community would do better to enter a fairly recent century (either of the past two would be helpful in some cases) -- Basically, there are times when we all could. However, I don't think "arguing in the name of objective scientific evidence" places anyone at a specific disadvantage. In theory, at least, this suggests that everyone is at least reading off the same "page". Arguing that Christianity is incumbent on the literal truth of Genesis is another matter, however. That approach suggests that there is a single, self-evident, indisputable interpretation of scripture and that it is in strict opposition to current scientific thought. Ultimately, that becomes a theological, not a scientific or philosophical, question.

But if the Earth is now producing about 10⁶ atoms/cm²/sec, then it only needs to lose helium at the same rate to establish equilibrium. Milton's 10¹⁶ atoms/cm²/sec is insane, many orders of magnitude larger than required. Where did he come up with a number like that?

Aside from that, we already know that creationists usually ignore the loss of ionized helium along magnetic field lines, does Milton ignore it too? The evidence from observation & models shows that the loss rate is, as a matter of fact, in equilibrium with the production rate (Helium Escape from the Terrestrial Atmosphere - The Ion Outflow Mechanism, O. Liesvendsen & M.H. Rees, Jouranl of Geophysical Research - Space Physics 101(A2): 2435-2443, February 1, 1996)

I would say that Milton's argument looks a tad shakey.

A) Hmmm, what the hell are you talking about? The posted feedback on the archive is full of anti-evolutionist nonsense (your message made it). Or perhaps you mean "feedback contrary to evolutionary thinking" posted unopposed. You're right there isn't much of that, by design.

B) Evolution (via natural selection) is not a purely chance (accidental) process (assuming that is what your question about things being "created by accident" is getting at). Variation is more or less random, but selection is non-random, non-accidental.

C) The factual status of evolution does not logically lead to the conclusion that certain sub-groups of any given species are inherently inferior or superior in some objective sense to other sub-groups of that species. So no, if evolution is correct it does not mean that the "black man" is inferior to the "white man".

D) Evolution is not "born out of need" at all, and if you had even the most tenuous grasp of evolutionary biology you would know that evolution has nothing to do with organisms instructing their offspring (outside of passing on genetic traits during reproduction) to do anything. Apparently you don't have evolution as "figured out" as you think.

E) You should not assume that because someone accepts evolution that they are not theists, or even Christians, who have already found (at least in their opinion) the "truth of God's word". Just because they see the "truth of God's word" differently from you doesn't mean they don't see it.