Ensin DaveScot, nyt...

Salvador Cordova!

scordova

05/02/2008

5:59 pm
SCheesman wrote:

"If Salvador posts some of these to Young Cosmos, I may take up the challenge in a few weeks… "

To interested readers: Dr. Cheesman usually wins the debates he has with me. I’ve had to put forward several retarctions last summer because his math and physics were absolutely correct….

But I don’t think the issue is really about winning debate. We need research and data and testable predictions.

For myself, I’m not yet qualified on important matters in physics. Even one of Abbie Smith’s (ERV’s) acquaintances, a professor at my school, fed me some serious humble pie recently over Maxwell’s equations. I had severe misunderstandings of basic electrodynamics, and at least my detractor was gracious about point out my error: A million thanks to olegt!.

This highlights my dissatisfaction with the current situation. Lots of theology, not enough serious science.

I shouldn’t have to be the one putting forward physical evidence for YEC. Some of the people who are so sure it’s God’s truth could be doing a little more in terms of making their case believable.

We need more:

1. Observation
2. Hypothesis
3. Testing

The age of the Earth is a basic empirical and theoretical question. It doesn’t appear theological discussions will resolve the issue.

And since this thread is about ICR, let me air a little more about the history of how ICR suppressed rival YEC researchers:
History of the Light-Speed Debate

Their math department had checked it [YEC speed of light research] and approved it and it was published with the Stanford Research Institute logo as well. What happened next was like something out of a badly written novel. Gerald Aardsma, a man at another creationist organization [ICR], got wind of the paper and got a copy of it. Having his own ax to grind on the subject of physics, he called the heads of both Flinders and SRI and asked them if they knew that Setterfield and Norman were [gasp] creationists! SRI was undergoing a massive staff change at the time and since the paper had been published by Flinders, they disavowed it and requested their logo be taken off. Flinders University threatened Trevor Norman with his job and informed Barry Setterfield that he was no longer welcome to use any resources there but the library. Aardsma then published a paper criticizing the Norman-Setterfield statistical use of the data. His paper went out under the auspices of a respected creation institution [ICR].

Aardsma worked for the ICR. He deliberately sabotaged the work of someone he disagreed with ethically suspect tactics.

Helen Setterfield writes:

there is a reason why the major creation organizations are holding his work at an arm’s length as well: they are sinking great amounts of money into trying to prove that radiometric dating procedures are fatally flawed. According to what Barry is seeing, however, they are not basically flawed at all: there is a very good reason why such old dates keep appearing in the test results. The rate of decay of radioactive elements is directly related to the speed of light. When the speed of light was higher, decay rates were faster, and the long ages would be expected to show up. As the speed of light slowed down, so the radioactive decay rates slowed down.

Not one mention of possible temporal-spatial variations in Maxwell’s equations in the recent ICR RATE group project. Why?

Certain creationists have been arguing accelerated decay for decades…..no mention in ICR RATE reports of some of the pioneers of the idea of accelerated decay like Walter Brown, Barry Setterfield, and others.

There are some fine researchers at ICR like Russell Humphreys. If ICR changes the way they do business, I might be a little more sympathetic with their plight. Of course they are entitled to accreditation, although I can’t say I’d be completely enthusiastic to see it happen…

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