Here's my problem, I believe in evolution, and it brings up doubts especially in the OT...

[Butterfly99]

k so I have to admit I haven't read through this whole thing cause it's long & tbh it kinda weirds me out. Are ppl now saying they believe in GIANTS?

 

[James Wilson]

bhsmte and loudmouth both requested copies of my publications, so (boring as that is):

"When is 'Unlikely' Likely?", DOE Risk Management Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1, (1995).

"Problems with Distant Horizons," ESREL'96 - PSAMIII (1996)

"The 10,000-Year Debate," Annual ANS Meeting, DOE Spent Nuclear Fuel and Fissile Material Management (1996)

"Uncertainties in Repository Modeling," PSA96 (1996)

“PRA-Code Upgrade to Handle a Generic Problem,” INMM Conference, Phoenix (1999)

"How Fast is the Conveyor?" XI Global Warming International Conference, Boston (2000)

"How Fast is the Conveyor?" World Resource Review, Vol. 13, No. 2, June (2001).

“Understanding Global Warming: Tracking the Salt Oscillator,” 13th Conference on Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics, June 6-8, 2001.

“Atmosphere/Ocean Couplings that Influence Global Climate,” 13th Conference on Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics, June 6-8, 2001.

“Oil exploration under the catastrophist paradigm,” Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists Conference, December (2002).

“Meteorites and Deep-Earth Reactors,” AAPG Hedberg Research Conference on the "Origin of Petroleum-Biogenic and/or Abiogenic and Its Significance in Hydrocarbon Exploration and Production," London, England, June (2003).

I'm not sure the last one was published... it's been quite a while. On the radiometric dating problems, I didn't look up each paper but guessed which titles may cover this.

 

[Butterfly99]

^ Did you leave out the links or something? Have you written anything recently? All that is super old.

 

[Loudmouth]

bhsmte and loudmouth both requested copies of my publications, so (boring as that is):

"When is 'Unlikely' Likely?", DOE Risk Management Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 1, (1995).

"Problems with Distant Horizons," ESREL'96 - PSAMIII (1996)

"The 10,000-Year Debate," Annual ANS Meeting, DOE Spent Nuclear Fuel and Fissile Material Management (1996)

"Uncertainties in Repository Modeling," PSA96 (1996)

“PRA-Code Upgrade to Handle a Generic Problem,” INMM Conference, Phoenix (1999)

"How Fast is the Conveyor?" XI Global Warming International Conference, Boston (2000)

"How Fast is the Conveyor?" World Resource Review, Vol. 13, No. 2, June (2001).

“Understanding Global Warming: Tracking the Salt Oscillator,” 13th Conference on Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics, June 6-8, 2001.

“Atmosphere/Ocean Couplings that Influence Global Climate,” 13th Conference on Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics, June 6-8, 2001.

“Oil exploration under the catastrophist paradigm,” Society of Economic Paleontologists and Mineralogists Conference, December (2002).

“Meteorites and Deep-Earth Reactors,” AAPG Hedberg Research Conference on the "Origin of Petroleum-Biogenic and/or Abiogenic and Its Significance in Hydrocarbon Exploration and Production," London, England, June (2003).

I'm not sure the last one was published... it's been quite a while. On the radiometric dating problems, I didn't look up each paper but guessed which titles may cover this.

What in these papers are you saying is causing a paradigm shift?

 

[RickG]

I'm not sure the last one was published... it's been quite a while. On the radiometric dating problems, I didn't look up each paper but guessed which titles may cover this.

I would like to discuss the one on radiometric dating problems with you. Which methods do you discuss and what problems do you see?

 

[James Wilson]

^ Did you leave out the links or something? Have you written anything recently? All that is super old.

I'm retired.

While I worked for the government, depending upon my boss at the time, publication was generally encouraged. On my own, it's difficult to manage the time and resources to do the necessary data analysis.

 

[Butterfly99]

I'm retired.

While I worked for the government, depending upon my boss at the time, publication was generally encouraged. On my own, it's difficult to manage the time and resources to do the necessary data analysis.

Kinda confused about it all. Did you publish stuff for the government that somehow disproved evolution or prove a young earth? Sorry this thread kinda got crazy so I haven't read it all.

 

[James Wilson]

I would like to discuss the one on radiometric dating problems with you. Which methods do you discuss and what problems do you see?

The following isn't a radiometric dating issue, but it is some recent work of mine. However, it's not peer-reviewed like my references listed above, since I just created it for my blog. The following explains how the stars are artificially aged by the Big Bang:


Assumptions Necessary for a 13.77-Billion-Year-Old-Universe (based on Alan Guth’s book, “The Inflationary Universe – The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins”, c/o 1997. Dr. Guth is an MIT professor and world renown cosmologist). I used 13.77 billion as the age of the universe instead of 15, because the former is more recently determined.

For his general theory of relativity, Einstein assumed a static universe (one that is not expanding). Consequently, the universe would collapse in on itself due to gravitational forces. In order to prevent that collapse, “he therefore modified his equations of general relativity, adding what he called his ‘cosmological term’ – a kind of universal repulsion that prevents… collapse” (p. 37). He later referred to this term as his greatest mistake.

The lesson we learn from this is that great scientists can make great mistakes that often lie in the assumptions made.

“Einstein’s Static Universe is no longer acceptable now that we know that the universe is expanding” (p. 38,).

In 1929, Dr. Edwin Hubble codified his expansion law for the universe. According to this theory, “the speed with which each galaxy is receding from us is proportional to the distance” (p. 20) leading to Hubble’s Constant in units of kilometers/sec per megaparsec (a megaparsec is the distant light travels in 3.26 million light-years). The stars used for this calculation all had red-shifted light, supposedly caused by traveling at near-light velocity to get away from us.

This results in a universe expanding like a muffin in the oven, with the distant stars traveling at normal velocities with respect to the other galaxies in that region, but at near-light-speed when measured with respect to a more distant observer!

Dr. Halton Arp, the first to calculate the age of the universe based upon red-shifted light, later disagreed with this interpretation of red-shift. And he was fired for changing his mind (there was no ‘whistle-blower’ protection in those days). In his website he shows binary stars where ONLY ONE star manifests red shift! An impossibility in Dr. Hubble’s universe.

“In modern big bang theory, Hubble’s Law is interpreted as evidence the universe is undergoing homogeneous expansion…. It is further assumed that there is no center and no edge to the distribution of galaxies…. Furthermore, this picture leads to the conclusion that these recession velocities obey Hubble’s Law” (p. 20-21).

This assumption that “there is no center and no edge to the distribution of galaxies” is the key assumption to determining the age of the universe, so keep in mind that Dr. Guth acknowledges it’s merely an assumption.


And this assumption has not been universally agreed to. “In 1962 a localized explosion model was in fact proposed, by Oscar Klein and Hannes Alven” (p. 74). A localized explosion, with a center and expanding edge, is how the public most often views the Big Bang. Note how Dr. Guth dismisses that theory, “The idea of a localized explosion would work only if we happened to be living right at the center of that explosion. Since it seems unlikely that we should be so close to the center, the possibility of a localized explosion is not given much serious consideration” (p. 75).

But why did Klein and Hannes propose the localized explosion? Because observation tells us that all stars are receding away from us in all directions! Only when scientists assume that red shift can be used to calculate phenomenal speeds can they re-interpret this observation supporting a localized explosion.

And scientists don’t like the localized explosion Big Bang theory because it would place us at the center! And what (or WHO) would be responsible for placing us here? Who would be mighty enough to overcome the unlikelihood of us being at the center? Three guesses, and make sure your answer is spelled ‘GOD’.

Why is it important whether Earth is in the middle of the universe or not? If Earth is at the center, the Big Bang models the creation of a black hole in reverse. In other words, take a movie of the formation of a black hole and run it backwards… you get the Big Bang.

A black hole has an event horizon. If you fly toward a black hole in a spaceship, time will get slower and slower and almost stop, because that’s how massive gravity affects time. In the process of Earth’s creation by the Big Bang, Earth passed through the event horizon, expanding outward from us. That event horizon has artificially aged all the stars by billions of years! In the interest of time I simplified this theory. For all the details, see the astrophysicist Dr. D. Russell Humphreys' book entitled, "Starlight and Time", Master Books, Colorado Springs, CO, June 1995.

The punch line is... a Big Bang with Earth at the center would be a Young Earth, consistent with Genesis!
Coming next: How can we use the fact that all the stars are receding from us, at the center of the explosion, to prove that we live in a young universe? Also covered is the question, “What other way can we interpret red-shifted light?”

 

[Loudmouth]

The punch line is... a Big Bang with Earth at the center would be a Young Earth, consistent with Genesis!
Coming next: How can we use the fact that all the stars are receding from us, at the center of the explosion, to prove that we live in a young universe? Also covered is the question, “What other way can we interpret red-shifted light?”

Why would a Big Bang centered around the Earth indicate a Young Earth? Even with a static and eternal universe, radiometric dating still has the Earth at over 4 billion years old. The Big Bang has nothing to do with determining the age of the Earth.

 

[James Wilson]

Kinda confused about it all. Did you publish stuff for the government that somehow disproved evolution or prove a young earth? Sorry this thread kinda got crazy so I haven't read it all.

A reasonable question. First, a little background. For 26 years I predicted the future for the US government at a national lab. The technical term for what I did was "Probabilistic Risk Assessment" or PRA. I had been tasked by my boss with calculating the dosage to a farmer from a leak in the radioactive waste repository 1 million years in the future. Then some educated idiot thought it would be a good idea to promise that the radioactive waste repository would be licensed based upon the PRA analysis.

This idea had two big problems: One, the PRA is a good tool for judging one design over another. That is, comparing two designs and seeing which one is safer. It's not good for a go-no-go in a licensing environment. The second problem was that I'm a believer in a Young Earth. A coarse explanation of the limits of PRA is that we can roughly project about as far into the future as we have past data for. So, believing that the Earth is around 6,000 years old, I felt I couldn't pledge my professional support on a calculation a million years into the future.

So I put together some papers to itemize my difficulties with PRA and radiometric dating. Obviously, I didn't say in my papers (which I also sent back to Congress and to the licensing people making the decision on changing licensing practices) that I believe the Earth to be 6,000 years old. I used such terms as 'dating uncertainties'. This follows the lead of Paul when he said, "I am all things to all people that I may save some."

I originally meant to only publish the paper in one venue, but due to the shortness of time, I sent it to 3 conferences hoping that one would accept. All 3 did. So, not wanting to submit an identical paper to 3 different conferences, I changed about 50% of the paper to each conference I sent it to.

 

[James Wilson]

Why would a Big Bang centered around the Earth indicate a Young Earth? Even with a static and eternal universe, radiometric dating still has the Earth at over 4 billion years old. The Big Bang has nothing to do with determining the age of the Earth.

I tried to divide up the detailed work into bite-sized pieces. Here's the next bite:

Since the world renowned cosmologist assumed away the Big Bang universe with Earth at the center, we’ll look at what Guth overlooked. For this we go on to the work of astrophysicist Dr. D. Russell Humphreys' book entitled, "Starlight and Time", Master Books, Colorado Springs, CO, June 1995.

The Big Bang developed from a black hole in reverse, and is sometimes called a White Hole. Both contain a huge mass and retain all light within the event horizon. This massively distorts time, the same way an astronaut entering the event horizon of a black hole will cease aging (not because he dies, though that may indeed happen, but because of GR (General Relativity)).

In this model, the visible universe developed inside a white hole. To understand what that’s like, we first have to look at the behavior of black holes

Steven Hawking’s description in “A Brief History of Time” of an astronaut sinking into the event horizon of a black hole looks at this from the view of an outsider. Humphreys extrapolates to the view of the insider: As an astronaut sinking into a black hole looks outward through binoculars, he sees clocks outside the black hole spinning very fast, while his own clock appears to be at a normal speed. The event horizon ‘artificially ages’ all things in contact with it.

Thus, the most distant stars in our universe appear very old, or red shifted, but that does not mean they are!

Humphreys goes on in his book to explain the events of Creation within the context of this white hole (see the book for this detail). Thus his ‘white hole’ theory has explanatory power, while the Eden Theory or Gap Theory only distort Scripture to appear to agree with modern science. The problem here is… it (either the Eden or Gap Theory) changes God’s immutable Word into aiming at a moving target, for science has frequently proved itself wrong in the past.

In closing, I’d like to present this interesting quote from cosmologists Stephen Hawking and George Ellis (p. 132 of their book, “The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time”): “…we are not able to make cosmological models without some admixture of ideology.”

So, Bible-believing Christians, tell your scientist friends to stop telling you that science proves the age of the universe. According to Hawking and Ellis, models of the universe don’t prove anything, they only show the power of their assumptions.

I apologize for any errors incorporated by my summarization of Humphreys’ work.

 

[RickG]

The following isn't a radiometric dating issue, but it is some recent work of mine. However, it's not peer-reviewed like my references listed above, since I just created it for my blog. The following explains how the stars are artificially aged by the Big Bang:


Assumptions Necessary for a 13.77-Billion-Year-Old-Universe (based on Alan Guth’s book, “The Inflationary Universe – The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins”, c/o 1997. Dr. Guth is an MIT professor and world renown cosmologist). I used 13.77 billion as the age of the universe instead of 15, because the former is more recently determined.

For his general theory of relativity, Einstein assumed a static universe (one that is not expanding). Consequently, the universe would collapse in on itself due to gravitational forces. In order to prevent that collapse, “he therefore modified his equations of general relativity, adding what he called his ‘cosmological term’ – a kind of universal repulsion that prevents… collapse” (p. 37). He later referred to this term as his greatest mistake.

The lesson we learn from this is that great scientists can make great mistakes that often lie in the assumptions made.

“Einstein’s Static Universe is no longer acceptable now that we know that the universe is expanding” (p. 38,).

In 1929, Dr. Edwin Hubble codified his expansion law for the universe. According to this theory, “the speed with which each galaxy is receding from us is proportional to the distance” (p. 20) leading to Hubble’s Constant in units of kilometers/sec per megaparsec (a megaparsec is the distant light travels in 3.26 million light-years). The stars used for this calculation all had red-shifted light, supposedly caused by traveling at near-light velocity to get away from us.

This results in a universe expanding like a muffin in the oven, with the distant stars traveling at normal velocities with respect to the other galaxies in that region, but at near-light-speed when measured with respect to a more distant observer!

Dr. Halton Arp, the first to calculate the age of the universe based upon red-shifted light, later disagreed with this interpretation of red-shift. And he was fired for changing his mind (there was no ‘whistle-blower’ protection in those days). In his website he shows binary stars where ONLY ONE star manifests red shift! An impossibility in Dr. Hubble’s universe.

“In modern big bang theory, Hubble’s Law is interpreted as evidence the universe is undergoing homogeneous expansion…. It is further assumed that there is no center and no edge to the distribution of galaxies…. Furthermore, this picture leads to the conclusion that these recession velocities obey Hubble’s Law” (p. 20-21).

This assumption that “there is no center and no edge to the distribution of galaxies” is the key assumption to determining the age of the universe, so keep in mind that Dr. Guth acknowledges it’s merely an assumption.


And this assumption has not been universally agreed to. “In 1962 a localized explosion model was in fact proposed, by Oscar Klein and Hannes Alven” (p. 74). A localized explosion, with a center and expanding edge, is how the public most often views the Big Bang. Note how Dr. Guth dismisses that theory, “The idea of a localized explosion would work only if we happened to be living right at the center of that explosion. Since it seems unlikely that we should be so close to the center, the possibility of a localized explosion is not given much serious consideration” (p. 75).

But why did Klein and Hannes propose the localized explosion? Because observation tells us that all stars are receding away from us in all directions! Only when scientists assume that red shift can be used to calculate phenomenal speeds can they re-interpret this observation supporting a localized explosion.

And scientists don’t like the localized explosion Big Bang theory because it would place us at the center! And what (or WHO) would be responsible for placing us here? Who would be mighty enough to overcome the unlikelihood of us being at the center? Three guesses, and make sure your answer is spelled ‘GOD’.

Why is it important whether Earth is in the middle of the universe or not? If Earth is at the center, the Big Bang models the creation of a black hole in reverse. In other words, take a movie of the formation of a black hole and run it backwards… you get the Big Bang.

A black hole has an event horizon. If you fly toward a black hole in a spaceship, time will get slower and slower and almost stop, because that’s how massive gravity affects time. In the process of Earth’s creation by the Big Bang, Earth passed through the event horizon, expanding outward from us. That event horizon has artificially aged all the stars by billions of years! In the interest of time I simplified this theory. For all the details, see the astrophysicist Dr. D. Russell Humphreys' book entitled, "Starlight and Time", Master Books, Colorado Springs, CO, June 1995.

The punch line is... a Big Bang with Earth at the center would be a Young Earth, consistent with Genesis!
Coming next: How can we use the fact that all the stars are receding from us, at the center of the explosion, to prove that we live in a young universe? Also covered is the question, “What other way can we interpret red-shifted light?”

Thank you for the reply. Honestly, astronomy is not my area of expertise so I won't comment much on the age of the universe; however, Earth Science is. There are two things I would to point out though. I think emphasizing that specific terms used in science like "assumptions" is a bit misleading with respect to the actual scientific context in which it is applied. In science, "assumptions" are based on physical evidence which is observed and seen to be relative. In other words, they are no where near an unsupported guess.

For example, back in my area, it is assumed that decay rates of radionuclides do not and have not changed. That assumption is based on physical evidence. Measurements of decay rates are continuously monitored, not only to verify their consistency, but those measurements allow a refinement in their. Additionally, decay rates from gamma rays emitted from supernovae hundreds of thousands of light years distant have been measured and found to be the same as those today. Now one thing not to confuse with that is the well known oscillations of some cosmogenic radionuclides with respect to the distance from the sun during earth's orbit. Such oscillations are not rate changes because they average out over the orbit, and quite trivial even if they didn't.

Now, the statements you made concerning specific assumptions, are they not assumptions as well, and do you have the physical data to back those assumptions up? Just asking?

 

[Butterfly99]

A reasonable question. First, a little background. For 26 years I predicted the future for the US government at a national lab. The technical term for what I did was "Probabilistic Risk Assessment" or PRA. I had been tasked by my boss with calculating the dosage to a farmer from a leak in the radioactive waste repository 1 million years in the future. Then some educated idiot thought it would be a good idea to promise that the radioactive waste repository would be licensed based upon the PRA analysis.

This idea had two big problems: One, the PRA is a good tool for judging one design over another. That is, comparing two designs and seeing which one is safer. It's not good for a go-no-go in a licensing environment. The second problem was that I'm a believer in a Young Earth. A coarse explanation of the limits of PRA is that we can roughly project about as far into the future as we have past data for. So, believing that the Earth is around 6,000 years old, I felt I couldn't pledge my professional support on a calculation a million years into the future.

So I put together some papers to itemize my difficulties with PRA and radiometric dating. Obviously, I didn't say in my papers (which I also sent back to Congress and to the licensing people making the decision on changing licensing practices) that I believe the Earth to be 6,000 years old. I used such terms as 'dating uncertainties'. This follows the lead of Paul when he said, "I am all things to all people that I may save some."

I originally meant to only publish the paper in one venue, but due to the shortness of time, I sent it to 3 conferences hoping that one would accept. All 3 did. So, not wanting to submit an identical paper to 3 different conferences, I changed about 50% of the paper to each conference I sent it to.

Well that was nice of you to write out a big explanation, so thank you. I assume you are a believer in the Earth being only 6000 years old cause of religious reasons & not cause of anything from your work showing actually that? Well okay, so then my first question is why do you think the Earth is only 6000 years old? Cause of that Bishop adding up stuff hundreds of years ago? Even if you fault radiometric dating, that doesn't prove that the earth is so young. Did anything in your 26 yrs of work ever show that the Earth was only thousands of years old like you believe?

 

[JacksBratt]

Okay then. I'll revise it for you:
"All of the sources you have present are bunk." I was just trying to be nice.

LOL

 

[JacksBratt]

Fake.

Did you fail to notice that the jaws, brow ridges, eye sockets, and width of skull all match up with modern humans?

Did you notice that the bone structure is totally different than any human. The suture lines are totally different. The brain cavity is twice as big?

Oh ya, I forgot hundreds of people have been forging these skulls all over the world and base them all on one basic skull type, bone structure and shape. Therefore they are all fakes. Just like Piltdown man.

 

[JacksBratt]

k so I have to admit I haven't read through this whole thing cause it's long & tbh it kinda weirds me out. Are ppl now saying they believe in GIANTS?

You state that you are a Christian. Do you believe the Bible? Do you believe that King David defeated a Giant? Do you believe that Joshua and the other spies were sent into the promised land by Moses and reported back that the people that lived there were as tall as cedar trees and saw Joshua and his other spies as grasshoppers? Also, do you believe that this is why they were afraid to go into the promised land so God punished them for their lack of faith and made them wander in the desert until all the adults of that generation had died (except Joshua and, I think AAron) because these two showed faith?

It's all there in God's word.

You may even be interested in Genesis 6

 

[James Wilson]

This is a reply to at least two different respondents:

RickG: "Now, the statements you made concerning specific assumptions, are they not assumptions as well, and do you have the physical data to back those assumptions up? Just asking?"

and Butterfly99: "Even if you fault radiometric dating, that doesn't prove that the earth is so young. Did anything in your 26 yrs of work ever show that the Earth was only thousands of years old like you believe?"

A lot of normal folks (as opposed to scientists) want to have the same certainty with science as we do with math. For instance, doesn't 2+2 always equal 4? Nope. You put 2 male rabbits in with 2 female rabbits and you'll soon have way more than 4. As soon as you take math in the abstract and apply it to real life (or a paradigm or a model), you introduce assumptions.

But it gets worse than that. The assumptions vary over time.

I worked as an engineer rather than a scientist for most of my career. An engineer works with equipment (how often the equipment fails, consequences of failure, how to make sure the redundancy in equipment is really independent) and scientists or theoreticians work with ideas and theories.

Now a practical example. I worked in the 'trenches', going to actual facilities, studying equipment and failure rates... getting dirty and oily.

The statisticians worked in the pure environment of the office, much like the university.

I would go to a statistician and say, "This is the kind of problem I'm working on in real life. Give me an equation that applies." He'd give me an equation... but then he'd (or she'd) start listing all the assumptions that must be preserved for that equation to still be applicable.

Us guys in the trenches didn't like working with the statisticians and would exit their space as quickly as possible and would stay away long after the equation we'd be given moved outside the assumptions they'd asked us to monitor. The assumptions that are applicable vary over time!

If we stay with pure facts, there just isn't much we can say. And most people like to say more than the facts support. That's why it's very important to be cognizant of the assumptions that apply, no matter how irritating it is to keep track.

So, to answer Butterfly99's question, what came first, the facts or the belief in a Young Earth created by God. For me, the belief came first. But before you evolutionists do a victory dance, you will need to analyze your own preconceived ideas. We all like to think that we are unbiased in our selection of world views... but we aren't.

We might have been led to our conclusions by a biased presentation and we didn't know it was biased, thus thinking we are still in the logic realm. But we're just fooling ourselves.

I've given you enough to chew on for now. Next we'll talk about Descartes (probably sometime tomorrow).

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Did you notice that the bone structure is totally different than any human. The suture lines are totally different. The brain cavity is twice as big?

Oh ya, I forgot hundreds of people have been forging these skulls all over the world and base them all on one basic skull type, bone structure and shape. Therefore they are all fakes. Just like Piltdown man.

And yet everything else about the skull is proportionate to the skull of a regular human.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

LOL

Masterful comeback. You have shown me that you are correct, without even having to lift a single finger.
You are a master.

 

[JacksBratt]

And yet everything else about the skull is proportionate to the skull of a regular human.

Well if my son had a head of those proportions, I would be taking him to see the doctor. "proportionate" lol.