Why evolution is impossible

[shernren]

The prediction in 1984:

The real data in 2006:

(from 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The verdict on redshift quantization:

 

[Calypsis4]

Claiming that observational data supports redshift quantization is like claiming that all the points line up on the dashed line, except -

- oh wait, no except, that's real data.

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0606/0606294v1.pdf

Stop throwing sand at us.

Sand? It's more like missiles. You demonstrate to the readers that your sources are using EXACTLY the same criteria that Tift/Cocke/Burbidge/Napier/Guthrie/Arp used and that this chart represents exactly the same vantage point of reference that the astronomers I just mentioned used in their conclusions.

Tell the readers if you have read Tift/Cocke or Napier/Guthrie before you make another statement.

If not, then I kindly suggest you do so starting at:

http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jaa/18/415-433.pdf

Too bad you tossed out what the Lord said about creation. That is so sad and tragic.

For your information, I am an ex-evolutionist.

 

[Calypsis4]

In my undergraduate degree we do research projects over the course of our three years. My most memorable one was last summer, when I spent two months observing angular momentum coupling between optical vortices and low-index dielectric spheres. (Ok, ok, I was spinning hollow glass beads with lasers. When you strip it of all the jargon it sounds ridiculously simple!)

I remember it because towards the last week or two of the project, my supervisor devised an explanation of my data that made little to no sense to me. I went to a different lecturer, got a differing opinion, and thought that it was a much more likely conclusion. In the end, my experimental design was just too ridiculously simple to resolve between my explanation and his (and that's a story in itself).

But this project has stuck with me because it helps me sympathize with creationists (and I was once a YEC myself).

Are you proud of yourself? Does it make you feel good to know that you tossed out what the Lord said about His created world and that you don't believe the words of Jesus Christ about the creation?

I've spoken up at my science lecturers more than once and pointed out mistakes or gaps in their work. Do they claim to be perfect? I've never met a professor who did. I know what it feels like to think the scientific establishment is wrong and you're right.

No, it is not 'I' that is 'right', it is the Word of God that is right. I just happen to agree with it. And all things considered the scientific facts support what the Lord says in His word.

But (and here's the big but) all this requires effort, and specialization. The only reason I had any right to disagree with my supervisor was because I had spent the past month looking down a microscope at the things I was doing. I knew their behavior inside out; I had done the equations and fiddled with the parameters; for a month nearly all of my attention had been focused on reading up the literature surrounding optical vortices and how they worked. The people at the desk next to mine were working on quantum optics, also using lasers and mirrors and things like that, but for all intents and purposes their topics were as useless to me as the economics or arts being taught halfway across the campus.

All very interesting stuff. I read on it a lot.

By all means, tell us what you think is wrong with the current scientific paradigm of understanding nature.

To believe in an accidental or incidental world of such great complexity, intricacy and with such a vast variety of living organisms that mindlessly created itself without a plan/blueprint even though there is a code in nature that could only be pre-programmed by an intelligent Engineer...is insanity. Is that clear? I have no respect for such views and will not even dignify its adherents by accepting that they are using rational thought.

The DNA alone...did not make itself. Observation tells us that it does not make itself even now. DNA can only be produced by other DNA. Nature cannot do it.

I'm always interested to hear what people like you have to say - partly because part of my interests lie in teaching, and in teaching, one cannot correct an error well unless one understands how the student got to it; partly because people like you remind me that my faith is relevant even though I'm a scientist, even if you and I disagree on exactly how that works.

I am also a teacher. I taught science/history for 26 yrs.

But stop acting like a kid building sandcastles at a beach.

Be quiet.

What you've done up to now is throw out example after example of things where you think science doesn't quite work right. Fine. But do you actually understand anything of what you've said? It took me months of studying lasers-and-nothing-else before I knew enough to start to challenge my supervisor. I don't see a similar kind of dedication from you. I'm not asking you to devote your every waking moment to creationism - I'm just asking that you pick an example, tell us exactly what is happening, and pause, and get ready for the inevitable volley of questions, and actually answer them, instead of just moving on as if nothing has happened.

All these little anecdotes are the scientific equivalents of grains of sand - irritating if you throw them at someone's eyes on in someone's food, to be sure, but they don't amount to much, and they don't amount to much even if you pile them up into a small pile of sand, one that has several thousand grains but can still be swept away by a single wave. Don't waste your time that way. Instead, why don't you take just one example? Make it your focus. Hone it, sculpt it, chisel it. You might start with just one pebble, but you would end up with a sculpture, like Michaelangelo's sculpture of David - one rock, just one, but one that nobody could possibly argue with or refute or answer.

Pick an example, and let's work on it together. I'll be waiting.

Bye.

 

[Calypsis4]

I always take popular websites, even secular ones, with a grain of salt, because they are not always entirely accurate. I never studied astronomy, so I am not very familiar with these arguments, but would you mind quoting some peer-reviewed articles (in non-creationist journals) discussing your claims?

I have been. You missed them.

I kindly suggest you start with this:

http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jaa/18/415-433.pdf

This article appeared in the Journal of Astrophysics & Astronomy.

And then this:

Eric Lerner - (The Plasma Universe Wikipedia-like Encyclopedia)

Best wishes.

 

[Calypsis4]

One last thing on the matter of the red shift perodicity as discovered by Tifft and Cocke at the U. of Arizona; the following is a diagram of independent findings of other astronomers who doubted that Tifft had actually discovered a quantization of clusters of stars in the universe.

Napier and Guthrie of Ireland and Scotland did their own pre-investigation test to see if the matter was worth pursuing. After dipping their toes in the water so-to-speak, they discovered that Tifft was correct and after a full scale research on the anomaly they confirmed what Tifft had published. Others such as Arp, Narlikar, the Burbidges, etc. came to agree with these findings.

I do not think that all these individuals are lying. I think the critics of their position set out with an already pre-determined set of values that would confirm their pro-big bang, non-red shift bias and they came up with exactly what they wanted to come up with....'no evidence of red shift periodicity.'

Right. If if you believe them then I've got this bridge I'd like to sell you.

Best wishes.

 

[Melethiel]

DNA can only be produced by other DNA.

Not true. Have you ever heard of reverse transcriptase?

 

[Chesterton]

OT - Mind if I ask why you chose the handle Calypsis?

 

[laconicstudent]

[/color]Not true. Have you ever heard of reverse transcriptase?

Apparently he hasn't. You are quite correct however.

 

[shernren]

Sand? It's more like missiles. You demonstrate to the readers that your sources are using EXACTLY the same criteria that Tift/Cocke/Burbidge/Napier/Guthrie/Arp used and that this chart represents exactly the same vantage point of reference that the astronomers I just mentioned used in their conclusions.

You missed the point of me putting up that graph.

The points are very much scattered away from the lines. Sure, you could pretend that there are straight lines running through the data. Or you could pretend that there were curved lines. Or a conical hat. Or, if you squint hard enough, a silhouette of a gorilla kissing a cat.

Of course if Arp and Tifft claimed that the universe's large-scale structure was that of a gorilla kissing a cat they would be met by widespread ridicule (other than the attention of a couple of misunderstood zoologists, I guess). But both that outlandish claim and their actual claim about the data have exactly the same confidence.

Tell the readers if you have read Tift/Cocke or Napier/Guthrie before you make another statement.

Oh yes. I've read Tifft/Cocke. I've read Napier/Guthrie. Do you want to know what the latter source has to say?

A weak periodicity ~71 km/s was found to be present in the spirals, and this strengthened progressively as sub-samples in lower density regions of the cluster were examined. It was found that, for 48 relatively isolated bright spirals, a strong peak (I~20) was obtained at 71.1km/s. This periodicity was judged to be significant at a confidence level between 0.996 and 0.999.

(page here: 1997JApA...18..455N Page 456)

Note a few things:

1. This periodicity was "weak". Not my words, theirs.

2. It was present in the spirals. We'll come back to this later.

3. It "strengthened progressively as sub-samples in lower density regions of the cluster were examined". Now, lower density regions of the cluster are regions in which there are less galaxies per unit volume, so is it any surprise that spurious trends are strengthened when you throw out data points? It's a little like having a drug trial on a hundred patients, seeing seventy of them die, have someone remove all the corpses in the middle of the night, and then coming back the next morning and say "Wow, we treated thirty patients and all thirty recovered! This is a wonder drug!"

4. That last sentence sounds impressive - until you realize that the Virgo Cluster has 1300-2000 galaxies. Taking a sample of 48 is quite pathetic. I bet five people out of a hundred people you know are Muslims - does that mean America is a Muslim country?

While we're at it, do you want to know what else Napier and Guthrie said?

No significant periodicity was found for the sample of 77 irregular galaxies.

Um, whoops! That's kind of like saying that "Our study found that no Americans drive cars. P.S. we didn't talk to anyone over 15."

We can go on, but it seems like you're more interested in sandcastles than sculptures. Fine with me. I really should be studying atom-laser coupling equations.

But let me respond to one last thing you've said:

Too bad you tossed out what the Lord said about creation. That is so sad and tragic.

I'm not tossing out what God says of creation, I'm tossing out what Tifft, Arp, Napier, and Guthrie say about creation. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but since when do those four fringe astronomers speak for God?

Notice that up to now, I have said almost nothing about being a YEC or not. I have not put in a single word of defense for evolution or an old cosmos, other than asking you to be a bit more grounded with your attack on them. I really have little interest in trying to dissuade you from your beliefs. I just hope that you'll hold them with a bit more tact and thought than you appear to now, and I'm hoping that you'll learn a little about the critical thinking that goes into modern science - I'm sure that both you and your students will benefit greatly from it.

You know, you haven't said a single thing about why redshift quantization would prove anything about the Bible at all. Why can't a young universe have completely arbitrarily distributed redshifts? And why can't an old universe have quantized redshifts? No author of any book in the Bible even knew about redshifts, let alone wrote about them. Does it make any sense whatsoever for you to make quantized redshifts such a big deal that the moment someone tries to prove you wrong on them, you call that person someone who rejects the Lord's words?

I haven't the faintest clue what God said about redshifts, frankly, but I do know what He said about using His name in vain, laying false accusations, and submitting to one another in love. As someone who "doesn't reject God's words" I'm sure you know those passages better than I do.

Or at least, I hope you do.

 

[Mallon]

Thanks for setting the record straight on this redshift stuff, shernren.

 

[Calypsis4]

You missed the point of me putting up that graph.

Did I?

The points are very much scattered away from the lines. Sure, you could pretend that there are straight lines running through the data. Or you could pretend that there were curved lines. Or a conical hat. Or, if you squint hard enough, a silhouette of a gorilla kissing a cat.

You know how to stretch things don't you? The skeptics Napier and Guthrie came to the same conclusion that Tift/Cocke...as did Arp, the Burgidges, etc. for what reason? The whole lot of them just made up their facts, right?

Of course if Arp and Tifft claimed that the universe's large-scale structure was that of a gorilla kissing a cat they would be met by widespread ridicule (other than the attention of a couple of misunderstood zoologists, I guess).

That kind of remark is why I don't take you seriously.

But both that outlandish claim and their actual claim about the data have exactly the same confidence.

I have no confidence in you.

Oh yes. I've read Tifft/Cocke. I've read Napier/Guthrie. Do you want to know what the latter source has to say?

Personally, I don't believe you. My opinion is that you didn't even know about them before you read this thread.


(page here: 1997JApA...18..455N Page 456)

Note a few things:

1. This periodicity was "weak". Not my words, theirs.

2. It was present in the spirals. We'll come back to this later.

3. It "strengthened progressively as sub-samples in lower density regions of the cluster were examined". Now, lower density regions of the cluster are regions in which there are less galaxies per unit volume, so is it any surprise that spurious trends are strengthened when you throw out data points? It's a little like having a drug trial on a hundred patients, seeing seventy of them die, have someone remove all the corpses in the middle of the night, and then coming back the next morning and say "Wow, we treated thirty patients and all thirty recovered! This is a wonder drug!"

4. That last sentence sounds impressive - until you realize that the Virgo Cluster has 1300-2000 galaxies. Taking a sample of 48 is quite pathetic. I bet five people out of a hundred people you know are Muslims - does that mean America is a Muslim country?

While we're at it, do you want to know what else Napier and Guthrie said?

Um, whoops! That's kind of like saying that "Our study found that no Americans drive cars. P.S. we didn't talk to anyone over 15."

That is not an honest comparison. What you ignored:

"So far the redshifts of over 250 galaxies with high-precision HI profiles have been used in the study...so far, the redshift distribution has been found to be strongly quantized in the galactocentric frame of reference."

Furthermore, they concluded, "To date, our conclusion is that extragalactic redshifts are quantized along the line originally suggested by Tifft and coworkers, with galactocentric periodicities of 37.5 km s-1 in field galaxies and loose groupings, and 71.1 km s-1 in the environment of dense clusters."

http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jaa/18/455-463.pdf

Since these men did this study a full two decades after Tifft/Cocke and entered the matter with skepticism about their discovery and since so many other astronomers have come to the same conclusions in the matter, I therefore think their findings are correct and matches what God's Word says about an orderly universe.

We can go on, but it seems like you're more interested in sandcastles than sculptures. Fine with me. I really should be studying atom-laser coupling equations.

Then please do so.

But let me respond to one last thing you've said:



I'm not tossing out what God says of creation,

You said you WERE a young earth creationist. But you are no longer. That MEANS that you no longer believe either Moses and his chronology of early man nor apparently the family lineage of Christ as given by Luke (chap. 3) which takes his family line all the way back to Adam. You tossed out God's Word about that matter even though the Lord Jesus Christ confirmed all that Moses said in the pentateuch.(Luke 24:25, John 5:46).

I'm tossing out what Tifft, Arp, Napier, and Guthrie say about creation. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but since when do those four fringe astronomers speak for God?

Those 'fringe' astronomers are correct and the Orwellians who dominate the 'scientific community' are in error.

Notice that up to now, I have said almost nothing about being a YEC or not. I have not put in a single word of defense for evolution or an old cosmos, other than asking you to be a bit more grounded with your attack on them. I really have little interest in trying to dissuade you from your beliefs. I just hope that you'll hold them with a bit more tact and thought than you appear to now, and I'm hoping that you'll learn a little about the critical thinking that goes into modern science - I'm sure that both you and your students will benefit greatly from it.

You know, you haven't said a single thing about why redshift quantization would prove anything about the Bible at all.

Then let me explain what should be obvious. The red shift quanitization reveals an orderly universe...not one that is randomly thrown out like so many marbles by children in a marble game. Is that difficult to understand?

Why can't a young universe have completely arbitrarily distributed redshifts? And why can't an old universe have quantized redshifts? No author of any book in the Bible even knew about redshifts, let alone wrote about them. Does it make any sense whatsoever for you to make quantized redshifts such a big deal that the moment someone tries to prove you wrong on them, you call that person someone who rejects the Lord's words?

I haven't the faintest clue what God said about redshifts, frankly, but I do know what He said about using His name in vain, laying false accusations, and submitting to one another in love. As someone who "doesn't reject God's words" I'm sure you know those passages better than I do.

I think I do. I made no false accusations.

Or at least, I hope you do.

Bye.

 

[shernren]

Personally, I don't believe you. My opinion is that you didn't even know about them before you read this thread.

About three years ago, Helen Setterfield (or someone claiming to be her) joined this board and set off a momentary flurry when a much crankier theoretical physicist called Barry a crank and fraud. I was there, I read the papers on galaxy and QSO redshift quantization as a result, and I have a good general grasp of the area:

http://www.christianforums.com/t4301356-9/#post29633730

(Indeed, you can even find me on the Wikipedia talk page for "redshift quantization" around 2006 as a result of that.)

Believe it or not, I've been involved with cosmology and creationism for nearly five years now.

(*pauses* Even I can't believe it.)

Do you honestly think what you're talking about is new to me?

That is not an honest comparison. What you ignored:

"So far the redshifts of over 250 galaxies with high-precision HI profiles have been used in the study...so far, the redshift distribution has been found to be strongly quantized in the galactocentric frame of reference."

Furthermore, they concluded, "To date, our conclusion is that extragalactic redshifts are quantized along the line originally suggested by Tifft and coworkers, with galactocentric periodicities of 37.5 km s-1 in field galaxies and loose groupings, and 71.1 km s-1 in the environment of dense clusters."

Do you know how I know you're quote-mining (i.e. taking out quotes with no idea what they mean)? The first quote is part of the abstract, and the second quote is the last line of the paper. And quite frankly, I can't think of any scientific paper I've read (or written) in which the last line of the conclusion had any useful information that wasn't contained in the body of the paper.

In fact, the abstract isn't even quoted correctly:

Your quote: "So far the redshifts of over 250 galaxies with high-precision HI profiles have been used in the study ... (these dots represent portion censored by redshift quantization exponents) ... so far, the redshift distribution has been found to be strongly quantized in the galactocentric frame of reference."

The paper: "So far the redshifts of over 250 galaxies with high-precision HI profiles have been used in the study. In consistently selected sub-samples of the datasets of sufficient precision examined so far, the redshift distribution has been found to be strongly quantized in the galactocentric frame of reference."

Whoa! Napier and Guthrie are saying something completely different from what you think they're saying. Their "strongly quantized" only applies to "consistently selected sub-samples", i.e. when they ignore 95% of the galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, and all the irregular ones too at that. Their "250 galaxies" are spread between the Virgo Cluster and the Local Supercluster. The Local Supercluster looks like this:

Note that the Virgo Cluster makes up a very small portion of the supercluster and itself already has more than a thousand galaxies. If we estimate the number of galaxies in the Local Supercluster at 10,000, Napier/Guthrie's sample of 250 is something like 2% of all the galaxies just in that supercluster.

I ignored nothing. I actually read the paper, unlike you (who would have been able to catch the misquoted abstract, otherwise).

Then let me explain what should be obvious. The red shift quanitization reveals an orderly universe...not one that is randomly thrown out like so many marbles by children in a marble game. Is that difficult to understand?

It is. To me as a physicist, order and periodicity are utterly boring. We analyze the oscillatory motion of the simple pendulum in excruciating detail. And the simple pendulum doesn't do anything other than oscillate at its same frequency for the rest of utter freaking infinity.

Imagine if God had not given us the wonderful, varied constellations of the sky, and instead arranged the stars in concentric circles around the Moon, much like the dull patterning that this diagram proposes:

So no, I don't see why a God as creative as the One who wrote us the Bible would decide to make such a boring arrangement of the galaxies of His magnificent universe.

 

[shernren]

And Calypsis, why should a young universe have any redshift at all?

Chew on that, will you.

 

[student ad x]

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[Calypsis4]

Do you know how I know you're quote-mining (i.e. taking out quotes with no idea what they mean)? The first quote is part of the abstract, and the second quote is the last line of the paper.

You lied. You deliberately ignored the fact that I said 'They concluded'. Heretics like you expect us creationists to QUOTE EVERY SINGLE SENTENCE of those we quote or we get that kind of ridiculous charge. It happens in virtually every debate I have with those who believe in evolution.

Your quote: "So far the redshifts of over 250 galaxies with high-precision HI profiles have been used in the study ... (these dots represent portion censored by redshift quantization exponents) ... so far, the redshift distribution has been found to be strongly quantized in the galactocentric frame of reference."

The paper: "So far the redshifts of over 250 galaxies with high-precision HI profiles have been used in the study. In consistently selected sub-samples of the datasets of sufficient precision examined so far,

That's right, skeptic...SO FAR. You missed that one to. I made it clear that their findings were all confirmed by others such as Arp, the Burbidges, etc. but you don't care. You must think they all lied about the results they found. I don't think that they are the ones lying.

the redshift distribution has been found to be strongly quantized in the galactocentric frame of reference."

Whoa! Napier and Guthrie are saying something completely different from what you think they're saying. Their "strongly quantized" only applies to "consistently selected sub-samples", i.e. when they ignore 95% of the galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, and all the irregular ones too at that. Their "250 galaxies" are spread between the Virgo Cluster and the Local Supercluster. The Local Supercluster looks like this:

Note that the Virgo Cluster makes up a very small portion of the supercluster and itself already has more than a thousand galaxies. If we estimate the number of galaxies in the Local Supercluster at 10,000, Napier/Guthrie's sample of 250 is something like 2% of all the galaxies just in that supercluster.

I ignored nothing.

Oh, yes you did. You did it deliberately. Refer to what I said above.

I actually read the paper, unlike you (who would have been able to catch the misquoted abstract, otherwise).



It is. To me as a physicist, order and periodicity are utterly boring. We analyze the oscillatory motion of the simple pendulum in excruciating detail. And the simple pendulum doesn't do anything other than oscillate at its same frequency for the rest of utter freaking infinity.

Imagine if God had not given us the wonderful, varied constellations of the sky, and instead arranged the stars in concentric circles around the Moon, much like the dull patterning that this diagram proposes:

So no, I don't see why a God as creative as the One who wrote us the Bible would decide to make such a boring arrangement of the galaxies of His magnificent universe.

'Boring'? Since when is order and design of the Creator 'boring'?

I reject your analysis.[/quote]

God is Creator of all things. He made all things orderly and not in disarray.