Relativity and YEC
by BilboWhile there are so many YECs hanging around the joint, I thought I would take this opportunity to ask them what they think of the solution proposed by Bradford: That because of the Theory of Relativity, there is no absolute time, therefore depending upon one's position in (or out of?) the universe, both of the following statements could be true: The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. The Earth is 6,000 years old. The Israeli physicist, Gerald Schroeder, champions this solution in two of his books, Genesis and the Big Band and The Science of God. I've heard that there are other YEC scientists who think this might hold promise. I'm especially interested in hearing what Paul Nelson thinks about it, once he awakens from his Roman nap.
February 16th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
In its simplest form, of God zipping by at nearly the speed of light, it still has an insurmountable problem, if the goal is to reconcile with a yom = 24 hour view of Genesis, because it preserves the relative duration of the days. Thus if six days map to 14 billion years, then each day is 2.3 billion years. With the earth created the first day, it should be ~12 billion years old, not 4.5. Thus God would have to follow a much more complicated timeline to get the mappings to work out.
Which leads to the why question–which I admit sometimes simply has no answer. But nevertheless, why?
Comment by David Heddle — February 16, 2007 @ 4:44 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
I guess the question might arise: Why not view the "days" metaphorically?
If you do that, then Genesis is in decent overall agreement with the best scientific timeline for the formation of the earth and the evolution of life and humanity.
Comment by MatthewCromer — February 16, 2007 @ 4:50 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
David, I'm not too concerned with the whys or even the hows, knowing that the days are not fixed with reference to a place and believing that we need not lean on our own understanding. There are enough unknowns for me to believe that flexible thinking is the byword.
Comment by Bradford — February 16, 2007 @ 4:58 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
David Heddle:
Any time one tries to pin an extra-universal creator to intra-universal reckonings one runs smack dab into absurdities.
MatthewCromer:
Ah, the questions you and David ask… Why and Why Not? I wasn't taught to believe in literalism, but I did come to believe in truth. How to reconcile the two? …by not applying my physical limitations to the creator who inspired the mythology. God, if there is such being, is by definition not limited to our physicality. Thus cannot be defined even by relativity to adhere to anybody's time reckoning but His own. The inspired communication of concepts could refer to anything, "day and night" could even apply to earth-ages in the Hindic tradition (by interpretational license).
My question – Why can't it be a Mystery? Given that mysticism undergirds all such subsequently formalized conceptions…
Comment by Joy — February 16, 2007 @ 5:06 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
The simplest, most elegant, solution to at least the starlight problem and YEC is Dr. Russell Humphreys' proposal that God used a "white hole", whose source was a two (?) light-year in diameter spherical mass of water with the density of the ocean, to create the Universe. Dr. Humphreys points out that the Bible in several cases describes God as the One Who has "stretched out", or is "stretching out", the heavens, and that this is remarkably consistent with the evidence from astronomy of the expansion of the space-time continuum (I think I've got that right).
In this scenario, because of gravitational time-dilation (note: not time-dilation from the effects of relativity due to acceleration), billion of years of cosmological "evolution" could have taken place while only a few literal 24-hour days elapsed on Earth. This idea depends on Earth being at, or very near, the center of the "white hole" (and, keep in mind that the evidence would suggest the Earth is, indeed, at or nearly at the center of the Universe, since everywhere we look, the Universe looks the same, and everywhere we look, galaxies are receding from us – the simplistic explanation is that, yes, the Earth is "centered"; it is only to avoid this conclusion that it is assumed that the Universe is homogeneous, that it looks the same, generally, from any region in the Universe).
Somebody here besides me should read "Starlight and Time" by Dr. Russell Humphreys. I'd read it again, but I've already got a bunch of other books I'm trying to get under my belt, at the moment.
Comment by Douglas — February 16, 2007 @ 5:48 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Douglas,
You should also evaluate some of refutations of Humphreys's work. For example, look here and at the references provided.
Comment by David Heddle — February 16, 2007 @ 6:47 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
No it's not, the simplest and most elegant solution is Setterfield's decaying speed of light. My YEC is better than your YEC.
Unlike Humphreys non-isotropic solution, there is a large body of peer-reviewed literature on decaying speed of light.
Finally, one can google on empirical measurements of the speed of light Albert Michelson at the beginning of his career and throughout his life. Any guess at what the data showed? DECAY!
See the explanation by Walter Brown, PhD MIT.
There were two relativity theories, one by Einstein and one by Lorentz. Both are equivalent to a point. Lorentz's ideas can be modified to work with decaying speed of light. Combined with Zero Point Energy, Setterfield demonstrated exact correspondence with his theory and the quantized redshifts observed from distant galaxies.
Finally, in addition to secular scientists doing research in to speed of light decay, secualar scientists are beginning to dismiss the Big Bang. See:
http://www.cosmologystatement.org. Three professors from my Alma Mater signed it.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 16, 2007 @ 6:59 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
I've often been entertained by the exchanges here but have never contributed to the entertainment.
The main thing that sparked a reply from me was Joy's question of "Why can't it be a mystery?"
I agree that God, if there is such a being, is not subject to such limitations as our physicality or finitude. At the same time, if he wishes to make himself known and understood by such limited beings as ourselves, he must communicate to us in a way we find intelligible.
The Bible contains information bearing on how long ago God is said to have made our world. Prior to the apparent need to accommodate long stretches of time, there doesn't seem to have been much question but that it pointed to an earth considerably less than 10,000 years old. If a person respects the Bible, the idea that what it says about how long we've been here can't be taken seriously should cause one to wonder how many other things are similarly misleading and only await further human enlightenment to be discovered. ("Once fooled, shame on you; twice fooled, shame on me.")
As for the original question, Yes: because time is relative, it certainly seems worth exploring the possibility that billions of years could pass in some parts of the universe, while time essentially stood still here on earth. There are at least a couple of YEC scientists who have worked on models for this — I'm sure many are familiar with Dr. Russell Humphreys and Dr. John Hartnett, for instance. Their work concerns the age of the universe. Also presumably familiar to many are the findings of the RATE project, which, among other things, found measurable levels of carbon in diamonds.
On the flipside, I confess I have little difficulty being skeptical of mainstream claims concerning the age of the earth — just as many here have little difficulty taking with a grain of salt mainstream claims regarding Darwinism.
Comment by RickToews — February 16, 2007 @ 7:00 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
David,
Arrrrggggghhh. Bad memories. A few months ago, I had attempted to print out those claimed refutations of Humphreys' work, ending up printing dozens and dozens of pages of stuff, only to find that the articles were cut off on the right side of the page by a few words each line. Don't tell me you want me to go through all that again? (And, when digging deep into deep things, I like to get by butt off the chair in front of the computer, and out into my living room, on my comfy $10 Goodwill swivel/rocker, in front of the TV…and I like to have paper in my hands, not merely a laptop in my lap, while doing so.)
I'll try one more time, but I won't have time to really get up to speed until probably at least towards the end of Sunday, perhaps later, as I will need to refresh myself regarding Dr. Humphreys arguments, and then absorb the claimed refutations. I had other things planned for this weekend, so I'm not sure how much headway I'll make in this, but as I often bring up Dr. Humphreys' work, I do want to be as informed about it, and any claimed refutations of it, as I can.
Comment by Douglas — February 16, 2007 @ 7:11 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Salvador,
When a proper statistical analysis is performed, across all known measurements, there is no observed decay of the speed of light. Moreover, the best place to find it would be with current data, since the error bars are now so small,–small enough that a deviation from a constant speed would be more reliably detected there than in older data for which the errors are just estimated.
I'm off to youth group–if you require references on the current start of the art in determining the limits on constancy of the speed of light, I can provide them later.
Douglas,
That's up to you–I would just recommend avoiding placing to much confidence in Humphrey's work–especially if you haven't examined rebuttals, even from other Christians.
Comment by David Heddle — February 16, 2007 @ 7:16 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
That was not the conclusion of the Peer-Reviewed Journal, Galilean Electrodynamics. Is the Velocity of Light Constant in Time?
In any case, it will be a moot point to argue if indeed we find emprical evidence TODAY that supports speed of light decay models. We have the quantized red shifts for starters. I'm hoping someday, more convincing operational experiments will be explored.
I presume you aren't suggesting outright dismissal of a scientifc possibility. If there is money and interest to pursue it, what is the harm? I have no qualms with OOL researchers doing their thing even though I think it is a dead enterprise. I would suppose this endeavor ought to be allowed to find resolution one way or another.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 16, 2007 @ 7:26 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
The simplest solution to the time problem may be to simply assume, with Kant, that time is a subjective phenomenon that minds impose upon events. If so, then before there were minds there was no time, or at least the concept of time would be inscrutable.
Just as a video recording of people walking on a city street might take two hours to film but only a second (theoretically) to run through a VCR, all the events of cosmic history could have occured in an instant, somewhat like reams of information can be compressed and transmitted in almost no time at all.
It is true that the events of cosmic history, had they been observed by humans, would have taken 14 billion years, but unobserved it would be meaningless to say how long they "really" took.
Just a thought.
Comment by Dick — February 16, 2007 @ 7:28 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
I am not familiar with Humphreys or his Starlight and Star Time cosmology but here is a link to his response to critics.
http://www.trueorigin.org/ca_rh_03.asp
I have to admit the idea of God using a white hole and a ball of water 2 light years in diameter sounds way cool.
Comment by Jehu — February 16, 2007 @ 7:39 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
I'm not familiar with the works you reference. However, for me, as a YEC, the issue for me personally is not the age of the earth. In fact, I was an OEC for most of my life, and I really never (and still don't) have any particular problem with someone viewing the "days of creation" as something other than days. However, another particular point of YEC-ism makes a non-day interpretation useless for its previous purposes — that is, the flood.
If the flood happened, then "geologic time" is a myth. Even if there is "deep time", if there was a worldwide flood, we wouldn't see deep time in the geologic column. If the earth was destroyed by a massive flood, nearly every reason for believing in an old earth (or at least old biosphere) vanishes. Old universe, maybe, maybe not. I don't particularly care.
So, if the flood did happen, then geologic time is a myth. If geologic time happened, then the flood is a myth, or at least a great exaggeration. (the local flood idea doesn't make sense with the text — you can't have a boat loaded full of animals float for an entire year where the birds couldn't even find land unless the flood was pretty-darn-near-global — once I realized what a flood of that size would do to the earth's geology I switched from OEC to YEC).
In fact, there is a whole group of YECs who believe in an old universe (and technically, and old earth, though a young biosphere). A lot of SDA's fall into this category. Some people use the term YAC (young-age Creationists) to refer to this sort of individual.
Comment by johnnyb — February 16, 2007 @ 10:44 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
A quick comment to David Heddle.
Schroeder's proposal does not give equal days of 2.3 billion years duration.
His is based upon the natural log and has the 6 days decreasing in age from 8 billion years for Day 1 to 1/4 billion years for Day 6.
He then aligns the Bible's 6 day events to the current scientific description in the respective periods.
Comment by Pez — February 16, 2007 @ 11:10 pm
February 16th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
MatthewCromer says:
I don't see it that way:
* Earth existing before the sun, moon, and stars;
* birds before reptiles;
* whales before beasts of the field;
* plants and trees before the sun, moon, and stars;
all these things contradict the mainstream "scientific timeline".
===
Not to mention, as johnnyb did, that a global flood is incompatible with the mainstream scientific timeline. (It might also be mentioned here that the Apostle Peter touches on this when he warns of mockers who spout "uniformitarianism", intentionally denying the idea of a creation out of water and a destruction of that pre-Flood Earth by water in a global deluge – 2 Peter 3:3ff.)
To me it seems clear that the BIble presents a unified witness (even Jesus said that it was "from the beginning" that humans were created male and female, not from 4.499 billion years later), which witness is incompatible with deep-time thinking.
Deep-time may be true, but it's not Biblical.
Comment by kenter — February 16, 2007 @ 11:29 pm
February 17th, 2007 at 12:49 am
Pez wrote:
This reminds me of Ptolemaic epicycles.
Comment by keiths — February 17, 2007 @ 12:49 am
February 17th, 2007 at 4:11 am
The thing I love about all these desperate attempts YECs dream up to explain away the inconvenient overwhelming reality of the situation, is that they end up sacrificing virtually every word of Genesis in order to save one little inference — a young-earth — not even explicitly stated in the text. Where does Moses talk about anyone flying around at the speed of light?
Sal cites Galilean Electrodynamics as a peer-reviewed journal. He didn't mention the topic:
…but I do love it when the different pseudosciences line up with each other.
Comment by nickmatzke — February 17, 2007 @ 4:11 am
February 17th, 2007 at 4:39 am
Nick fails to appreciate developments against traditional relativity in the secular scientific literature. He presumes I started out as Genesis literalist. WRONG!
See this CBS News report that references an article published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature in 2002:
Has Speed Of Light Slowed Down?. Paul Davies isn't exactly a YEC.
Despite this,
Were you referring to the criticism of the Big Bang as pseudo science? The former editor of Nature, Maddox, was furious at the promotion of Big Bang theory. Do you put him in the category of pseudo-scientist too?
You should be one to talk about pseudo-science, Nick. You apparently accept neo-Darwinian evolution as the major driving force of evolution and you apparently accept naturalistic OOL.
Of course, if what I stated is not your position, I'd be glad to tell the world that the NCSE's Nick Matzke doubts neo-Darwinism and naturalistic OOL.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 17, 2007 @ 4:39 am
February 17th, 2007 at 7:15 am
Salvador,
You have switched gears here–from an implied claim of statistically significant and possibly age-of-the-earth significant changes in the speed of light found in routine measurements (not correct), to hints of very small shifts in c (actually the fine structure constant α) that are generating so much interest. It should be noted that in this case, if even the most generous variation of α is assumed, the universe is still 14 by old. Theories would be modified, including relativity and inflationary big-bang models, but we are talking changes in α, should they withstand further scrutiny which is by no means certain, of (worst case scenario) one part in 10^8 over billions of years.
Very fascinating science, very good science, but not relevant in the YEC/OEC debate.
Pez,
Thanks, I was not aware of the logarithmic refinement. I am pretty sure that was not in his first book–but maybe I'm wrong. Is it obvious what acceleration profile produces this logarithmic effect on the time dilation–I'm intrigued enough to try working that out.
I am not sure why anyone would find this model acceptable over the less-contrived day-age model–but it certainly has a fun aspect to it. And it does give Adam plenty of time to name all the animals.
Comment by David Heddle — February 17, 2007 @ 7:15 am
February 17th, 2007 at 8:07 am
NickMatzke,
"Desperate attempts" Have you got "Desperate Housewives" on your mind? Look, simply offering different possible scientific scenarios to explain apparent observations does not require any "desperation". No more than the flailing and gasping that Evolutionists engage in when trying to avoid the cognitive dilemmas their theory forces them into upon being confronted by scientific evidence.
And in what way, exactly, do these "YEC attempts" end up "sacrificing virtually every word of Genesis" You were aware, I assume, that the Book of Genesis does not end with the Creation account, nor even with the account of the Genesis Flood, right? Even compressing your hyperbole down to just those two accounts, or even just the first, there is nothing in those "YEC attempts" at showing how all the evidence can fit a "young Earth" which ends up offering any portion of the Book of Genesis on the altar of science, or on any other altar. Personally, I don't get the impression you are very familiar with the Bible, Nick. To copy and perhaps twist a phrase from your own camp, "You show that you are ignorant of the Bible, and don't understand Biblical exegesis".
Comment by Douglas — February 17, 2007 @ 8:07 am
February 17th, 2007 at 10:41 am
David,
I thank you for responding, but the same body of literature that argues of very high speeds of light under Big Bang assumptions can, with moderate modifcation be seen to apply to Setterfield-Brown YEC cosmology.
The Setterfield-Brown model could of course be incorrect, but I see nothting yet that would make it deserving of being discarded. In fact, the developments in 2002 made the Setterfield-Brown hypothesis more compelling.
I recognize your inclination to reject it, but I would hope you not totally discourage an empirical inquiry to settle the matter one way or the other. What if they are right? Wouldn't that be possibly one of the greatest discoveries of all time?
Even if you think the chances are remote of it being right, in the spirit of exploring novel possibilities, I think it is worth pursuing. I know of your intense biases, and myself being a former OEC who has had an intense disdain for AiG (even to this day) would hope a physicist of you caliber would offer your expertise to the endeavor. They (Setterfield and Brown)are disdained even with a community that is already disdained. I suppose it was my destiny to join them.
I hope you will give Setterfield a fair hearing, and give constructive criticisms of how his ideas can be improved. My acceptance of YEC was not because I was insistent of literalist Genesis reading, but rather of the difficulty of Solar system and Galactic Evolution. Even one of my professors, Trefil, wrote "the 5 reasons galaxies cannot exist". He of course was trying to solve the enigma via dark matter, but well, even he has said there is a lot of snake oil in Big Bang cosmology….
I was a Christian and PCA member who believed in OEC, and I can accept that view again. Brown was also an OEC. However, if their is scientific possibility of YEC, I hope you would be willing to explore it and add your ideas from your field of expertise. We need your help, Dave.
If Setterfield's derivations are wrong, the kindest thing you can do is to point out the mis-calculation. I encourage you to review his Zero Point Energy hypothesis and provide technical criticism and review.
May The Lord bless you.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 17, 2007 @ 10:41 am
February 17th, 2007 at 11:09 am
What I think is more interesting is the idea of evolutionary "creation", where the act of creation stretches through time.
That is quite interesting, and congruent with the scientific evidence.
I'm not a bible-believer in the most general sense, but I can see where if someone had a "vision" of the unfolding of the universe and no grasp of the scientific concepts, they could easily write something much like Genesis 1.
You are also not taking into account all the possibilities. For example, it is very likely that the earth formed before the onset of solar ignition. So the earth would form in relative darkness. With a thick cloud around the earth there would not be any stars visible either. It is quite likely that there was continuous cloud cover for a long time after the earth formed, which would preclude the seeing of stars from the earth's surface until late in the process.
I think Genesis 1 is a credible vision of the formation of the earth, as related by a bronze-age tribal culture which may have had a "vision" of creation and absolutely no understanding of scientific concepts, the evolution of species, etc. Not bad at all, IMO. Of course, I would never support the attempt to claim a 6,000 or 10,000 year age of the earth — that seems like the most bizarre kind of literalism to me and a complete lack of understanding of the nature of the bible as a historical document.
Comment by MatthewCromer — February 17, 2007 @ 11:09 am
February 18th, 2007 at 6:35 am
Measurable levels of . . . carbon? No excrement, Sherlock.
Comment by edarrell — February 18, 2007 @ 6:35 am
February 18th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Since Bilbo was exploring Schoeder and I began talking of Setterfield, in order to let the discussion remain on topic, discussion of Setterified can be continued at a new (and still under heavy construction) weblog:
The Setterfield-Brown Young Cosmos Cosmology
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 18, 2007 @ 4:27 pm