Ohio: Here we go again

"prohibit political or religious interpretation of scientific facts in favor of another."

"Asked if intelligent design – the idea that a higher authority is responsible for life – should be taught alongside evolution, Thompson said, “I think it would be good for them to consider the perspectives of people of faith. That’s legitimate.”"

Given that "considering the perspective of people of faith" in matters of science constitutes religious interpretation of scientific facts, it seems that Thompson's statement is in direct contradiction of his own bill.

Maybe the caveat lies in the ambiguous wording of the hanging "in favor of another" phrase. If these words were removed and the statement simply stated ""prohibit political or religious interpretation of scientific facts.", that would clearly preclude teaching creationism or ID (which Thompson freely admits is a faith-based perspective).

"focus on academic and scientific knowledge rather than scientific processes"

Maybe they don't mean the 'scientific process', i.e. how science is done (the 'scientific method'), but natural processes that science has discovered, like, oh, the formation of petroleum over many millions of years, or fossilization, or gradual erosion of landforms, or stellar lifecycles, or elemental half-lives, or EVOLUTION. Maybe those are the "scientific processes" they don't want focused on.

Why is it always Republicans doing this?

(I know, Harold, but I'd like to read, say, Klaus's explanation of that.)

focus on academic and scientific knowledge rather than scientific processes; and prohibit political or religious interpretation of scientific facts in favor of another.

This is all very weird because the Common Core doesn't contain science curriculum standards at all! The upcoming Next Generation Science Standards cover the sciences. I believe a totally different group was involved in setting them up. See: http://www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards

Peter B.

Maybe I'm too cynical but I have to disagree with you. IMHO they do.

"…how those facts…" There are great whales. If they want to know where whales came from, they should ask their parents or, perhaps, they envision a situation where the teacher can answer this question they were created and get away with it.

"…oddity shop stuffed with factoids…" why not? Their own system is that way. Situation:cite a verse.

"…future physicians…" physicians' research kills babies for stem cells (see current flap over ALS ice bucket challenge); real healing is from such as naturopaths, homeopaths, coffee beans, magnets, supplements; and physicians, well they want to give children vaccines.

"…learn the methods…" you mean like evidence? Critical thinking?

"…Ohio's kids…" will be perfectly suited to go to a bible college many of which have science departments that teach truth in science.

OR Since this bill will probably not pass or, if it does, end up being downed by the courts, perhaps they just want to go back to their districts and say "See what I did but they are against us" (and the contributions and votes keep coming in) or, if courts, black robed tyranny.

It is always a win-win situation with these people.
Like I said, perhaps I've just gotten too cynical from hearing the same thing again and again and again and again....

Do these two dimbulbs want kids to be taught a list of facts without any mention of how those facts are come by?

prohibit political or religious interpretation of scientific facts in favor of another

Just Bob said: Why is it always Republicans doing this? (I know, Harold, but I'd like to read, say, Klaus's explanation of that.)

The text eliminating process reminds me of the Texas’ GOP’s move from a few years back, where they explicitly and officially opposed teaching kids critical thinking.

eric said: ..reminds me of the Texas' GOP's move from a few years back, where they explicitly and officially opposed teaching kids critical thinking. .. there IS a subset of conservative fundamentalists who oppose schools teaching their kids to think deeply about things.

With these conservative states all cutting public education in favor of vouchers for private/parochial schools, including Ohio, something has to be cut from the public schools' budget. Looks like one easy place is any and all lab work associated with any science class, especially biology. Why bother experimenting or trying to understand the process when all the facts are laid out before you. Kind of like watching Fox Gnus trying to present their version of a "news story."

Richard: I believe that Common Core is mostly for language and math, not science? The New Generation Science Standards (NGSS), an effort separate from Common Core, is being widely accepted. Even here in regressive Oklahoma NGSS passed (after major lobbying for it) in the last hours of the legislative session and the Governor instructed the Supt. of Education to put it into effect. A bill to deny Common Core was signed into law however. On a good note the usual creationist 'academic freedom act' bills were defeated for the 14th year
after major lobbying efforts.

One of the most universal characteristics of some of these proselytizing sectarians and their elected politicians is their smug arrogance born of self-imposed ignorance.

Rather than challenging themselves to grow intellectually and come to grips with basic findings and processes of science, they seek to hobble everyone else either by force of law or by infinite layers of stumbling blocks thrown into the learning paths of other people's children. They want to win by tripping everyone else.

I once met the smug, single-issue sectarian idiot from my own district that was elected to our state legislature in the past. It's hard to imagine that there was enough neural complexity in his body that could even allow him to walk. All he could do was to repeat memorized political sound bytes whenever he was asked a question about anything; and his only activity while in the state house of representatives was to sponsor or cosponsor bills to teach creationism. Fortunately term limitations finally kicked him out.

Another district, after a brief hiatus that apparently gets around term limits, has since reelected their idiot who cosponsored those bills with our idiot. And I don't use the term "idiot" lightly. These characters don't have a clue about anything else.

One can do a Google search on phrases like "How should a Christian study science?", or "The study of science from a Christian perspective", or "Why should a Christian study science?", or "Should a Christian study astronomy?"

You can find opinions from different types of sectarians that directly contradict each other about fundamental questions such as evolution, the origin of life, and the origin and age of the universe. That alone should tell us that the general public is not to blame for the difficulties some of these sectarians have with their beliefs in the presence of science. Sectarians have their churches in which to grapple with those issues.

Before Harold gets in which his much better exposition, the authoritarian personality type does think that science is a collection of facts; the static and unchaining past is privileged above everything else. Therefore no process is necessary, it just leads to wild speculation like global warming and evolution.

I do have some experience, however, in mending broken texts, and I would be very surprised if that last phrase wasn't meant to read: "and prohibit [one] political or religious interpretation of scientific facts in favor of another." The restoration, obviously, yields a sense that leaves the door open for ID and creationism, which is the purpose.

I've never understood how creationists manage to embrace technology with such obvious enthusiasm, while having no respect for the processes of basic science. I agree that they think science is a disconnected set of facts. I also wonder where they think the facts come from, and how they think technologists come up with novel applications of science. But they'll certainly latch on to anything that comes along if it looks useful. Back in the 80s, televangelists could barely contain themselves talking about their jet and their satellites. More recently, I noticed the prominent placement of a MacBook in that ridiculous wooden hammer video for the Ark park.

I can see how creationism could be consistent with certain disciplines if taken in a complete vacuum. You could easily be a mechanical engineer provided you had no curiosity about anything else. You could even be a pure mathematician if you limited your interests to abstractions and didn't try to make any inferences about the world around you. But anyone with a critical mind informed by today's scientific evidence is not going to be a creationist, at least not without tremendous levels of cognitive dissonance. It does stand to reason that creationists don't really want kids to develop an understanding of the process of science or the ability to assess what is actually known to scientists. It makes their position completely untenable.

Richard Hoppe said: Regardless of disputes about the Common Core, House Bill 597 is a real science education killer. It opens the floodgates of superstition, allowing any damn fool notion to be taught in public school science classes.

Do they want Ohio’s kids to be significantly crippled when it comes to college science courses? No, I actually don’t believe they do. Or at least, I don’t believe they consciously want to do any of that. Rather, I believe that they’re abysmally ignorant of science, they believe that it really does consist of a bunch of isolated factoids, and they want to have that ignorance propagated in Ohio public schools, actively misleading students about the process of science.

— Richard B. Hoppe

Before Harold gets in which his much better exposition, the authoritarian personality type does think that science is a collection of facts;..

— Helena Constantine

Apparently, neither of these two twits is familiar with Kitzmiller.

— Keelyn

Frank J said: "What would these activists say and do if they personally had no problem with evolution?"

At first I thought you were equating “personally had no problem” with “believe it is actually true.”

— callahanpb

There might also be people who accept evolution as a correct scientific theory, and wouldn’t really mind if its truth were generally acknowledged, but are happy to use it as the issue du jour to support other causes.

— callahanpb

Asked if intelligent design – the idea that a higher authority is responsible for life – should be taught alongside evolution, Thompson said, “I think it would be good for them to consider the perspectives of people of faith. That’s legitimate.”

Remember when Jerry Falwell banned country music at Liberty U? He claimed he could listen and enjoy it, but young minds might be corrupted by listening. Authoritarian - yes.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnKupVGX70N9ZsvLu8iScIzWpyVj8bds_Q said: Remember when Jerry Falwell banned country music at Liberty U? He claimed he could listen and enjoy it, but young minds might be corrupted by listening. Authoritarian - yes.

Frank J said: But there was a time (late 90s) that I too had no clue how devious the ID scam was, and I might have said the exact same thing. And I had fully accepted evolution, and billions of years of common descent, for 30 years before that.

Victor Hutchison said: Even here in regressive Oklahoma NGSS passed A bill to deny Common Core was signed into law however.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnKupVGX70N9ZsvLu8iScIzWpyVj8bds_Q said: Remember when Jerry Falwell banned country music at Liberty U? He claimed he could listen and enjoy it, but young minds might be corrupted by listening. Authoritarian - yes.

Frank J said: I'm not talking about people like Ken Ham, who supposedly believe the whole young-earth nonsense (though curiously not the geocentrism). Though they too are astute enough to know that the evidence doesn't support it, at least "not yet." Why else would they fall back on scripture when the going gets tough.

Masked Panda: No. Your explanation is incomplete. HJR 1099 (an administrative bill with changes for several agencies) was on the last day of the legislative session. HJR 1099 was reintroduced as an amendment that quickly passed as senators may have been uninformed. In the last two hours the bill then went to the House floor and was not considered. During the last hours Rep. Emily Virgin was emailing me from the House floor about the bill. We were glad when the House did not take up the amendment. The bill may have been ignored in the rush to adjourn or because it was a bad bill. Either way (or both) the bill died. The main opposition in the House committee was that the word 'climate' appeared (I listened to the hearing).

As I was getting on the basement elevator on that last day of the session, the Governor also entered. After being introduced to her by a friend, I quickly went into speed lobbying mode NCSS and the reasons it should be adopted. As she got off the elevator Governor Fallin said: "Glad to meet you and I agree" with a thumbs up! This is one time a politician kept their word. I have discussed this with Glenn Branch at NCSE, but he believes an F is justified mainly because the 'E' word is missing. In the present political environment evolution and climate change (as well as others) will not be accepted by the Legislature. Time for a change in persons we elect!

The Oklahoma version of NCSS (as do the current PASS standards) does not mention the word 'evolution,' simply because it would not pass the Legislature. This is the main reason the Oklahoma science standards received an F
from the Fordham Institute and NCSE. HOWEVER, the principles of evolution ARE in the PASS standards. In workshops for teachers Oklahomans for Excellence in Science Education cover the details of how they can teach evolution effectively. The class is taught by an experienced science curriculum supervisor in a large district.

Masked Panda: Thanks for doing a good job in your teaching!

Helena Constantine said:

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnKupVGX70N9ZsvLu8iScIzWpyVj8bds_Q said: Remember when Jerry Falwell banned country music at Liberty U? He claimed he could listen and enjoy it, but young minds might be corrupted by listening. Authoritarian - yes.

What that country music corrupts our youth? Actually I agree with him on that one.

Just Bob said: Why is it always Republicans doing this? (I know, Harold, but I'd like to read, say, Klaus's explanation of that.)

KlausH said: In the US, people basically have a choice between a pro capitalism and Constitution party with a bunch of religious fanatics, and a pro science rabid collectivist fascist party. There is no pro science, pro capitalism, pro Constitution party.

Scott F said:

Frank J said: I'm not talking about people like Ken Ham, who supposedly believe the whole young-earth nonsense (though curiously not the geocentrism). Though they too are astute enough to know that the evidence doesn't support it, at least "not yet." Why else would they fall back on scripture when the going gets tough.

Because that's all they have. Seriously. They brag about it. Just look at any of their statements of faith. They don't "fall back on scripture" only "when the going gets tough". Their first, middle, and last goals are to "prove" that the Bible is the literal truth, and that all of reality must conform to their literal reading of the Bible. All evidence must be compared against the Bible first. If it agrees with their interpretation of the Bible, it obviously supports the truth of the Bible, thus proving the Bible to be true. If the evidence disagrees with their interpretation of the Bible, then the evidence is obviously flawed (inspired by Satan, corrupted by atheist scientists, honestly misinterpreted by fallible humans, whatever), and so the evidence must be rejected, thus also proving the Bible to be true. So, they don't "fall back" on scripture. They go straight to scripture before they do anything else.

TomS said: This is evidence that they are willing to allow the authority of a non-Biblical source.

callahanpb said:

Frank J said: But there was a time (late 90s) that I too had no clue how devious the ID scam was, and I might have said the exact same thing. And I had fully accepted evolution, and billions of years of common descent, for 30 years before that.

The first time creationism came to my attention as a political controversy was when Forrest Mims was being considered (and ultimately rejected) for a longterm position writing the Amateur Scientist column in Scientific American (one or two columns did appear). Before that I would have considered it (YEC especially) as a fringe belief along the lines of bigfoot chasing. I'll admit I was naive at the time, but I'm not sure how much my position has really changed. I would still prefer to live in a world in which SciAm's hiring someone to write columns is not mistaken as endorsing their beliefs on other scientific matters. The publishers clearly had the discretion not to hire Mims, but I don't know that it would have been harmful to treat Mims the way Lehigh treats Behe (granting that Lehigh does not have the same discretion in dealing with Behe). So I admit we don't live in the world of my stated preference. Hiring will be mistaken for endorsement. I feel that it should be a sign of strength to say that we can publish correct science by someone who is wrong about many other things, and the correct science stands on its own merits. But I did miss the point that the creationist/ID movement will seize on this to claim that it is actually a sign of weakness, that science (in some fictional collective sense) actually needs creationists like Mims, which it obviously does not. I'm still a bit divided on this, but I see it more as a political battle than science as usual. In science as usual we could potentially accept peer-reviewed publications from a schizophrenic who is delusional about many things outside the scope of the publication (in mathematics, this literally does happen, though I am not sure about experimental science). When you have a movement that has every intent of using the openness of science against it, there is clearly a justification in being far more careful in examining not just claims, but the context of who is making the claim and what their motives are.

callahanpb said: The first time creationism came to my attention as a political controversy was when Forrest Mims was being considered (and ultimately rejected) for a longterm position writing the Amateur Scientist column in Scientific American

tomh said:

KlausH said: In the US, people basically have a choice between a pro capitalism and Constitution party with a bunch of religious fanatics, and a pro science rabid collectivist fascist party. There is no pro science, pro capitalism, pro Constitution party.

There's a fascist party in the US? Who knew?

TomS said: In many important cases, they have an opinion first, and then go to the Bible to verify the opinion. There are plenty of controversial cases, but I don't want to get embroiled in a social/political storm, which can distract from the science of evolution, so I present the case of the heliocentric model of the Solar System. For some reason or other, the Biblical literalist/inerrantist YECs have accepted the finding of modern science that Earth is a planet of the Solar System. This opinion is not supported by any direct evidence of science (the "kind of science" which they insist on when it comes to common descent) which they can point to, but they accept heliocentrism. Despite its being clearly contrary to literal, plain, straightforward statements in the Bible. This is evidence that they are willing to allow the authority of a non-Biblical source.

In other words, we are free to choose what the speed of light will be in one direction, though the “round-trip” time averaged speed is always constant.

Mike Elzinga said: These characters never think though the implications of their assertions.

stevaroni said:

Mike Elzinga said: These characters never think though the implications of their assertions.

Um.. Now, I'm not a physicist, but wouldn't that result in photons of enormously different energies? I'd hate to be on a beach when, for whatever creationally convenient reason, a bunch of 2X photons launch off the sun and come smashing down on me with the energy of gamma rays. I don't think my sunscreen is rated for that.

That circumflex I with the two greater-than signs is supposed to be lambda, the wavelength. Apparently HTML and other code are still not working.

"religious interpretation of scientific fact" . Creationists don't question scientific facts. We question what is determined to be a scientific FACT.
If in this there is a option that in seeking the truth there will not be a prohibition/censorship of conclusions from a God/Genesis stance then more power to them.
This is still all about deciding what is true or false about origin conclusions.
Its up to the people to decide what their kids are taught about such things IF someone is deciding.
The best way for truth to be persuasive for the many, who pat sincere attention, is total academic freedom of enquiry, speech/conclusions, and criticisms.
Otherwise truth is state controlled and a free people are not free once again.
for now states/school boards should decide based on their local public opinion.

Hmmm... Now that I think of it, not only are they blithely overlooking the detectable consequences of their new brand of physics, but it seems to me that their base assertion is wrong as well.

The entire idea of that AiG page is that science has no way of detecting if light traveling in one direction moves at the same speed as light traveling in the other.

They have a little diagram of a flashlight and a mirror and a long hallway, and purport that if you measured, say, a 2-second round-trip flight time you could never tell if the speeds going in both directions are equal.

But... it seems to me, you could, and it would be trivial.

Imagine if the speed of flight going one way was twice the speed going the other.

You could just launch some monochromatic light down the hall and stand in the middle and compare the incident and reflected beams. If the speeds of light going each way are different, then either their wavelengths or their frequencies (or both) have to be different.

It seems like you could make a fairly simple interferometer of some sort and watch them interact. Given the very high frequencies and the very short wavelengths of visible light, you should be able to detect very small differences.

Alternately, if that doesn't work, you could start with two very accurate clocks in the middle of the hall, synchronize them, then take one to each end. At a pre-defined time you could send a pulse of light down the hall to the other end, and log its local arrival. Any difference in speed would be obvious.

You really shouldn't need a big, huge hallway. It takes light about 3 nanoseconds to travel a meter. In my world 3 nanoseconds is eminently measurable, I struggle daily in the delays a signal encounters in a few feet of wire. A 30 meter hallway would give you almost a tenth of a microsecond, which in electronic terms is just about half an eternity.

You could, in fact, put everything on a giant wheel and turn it end-for end and repeat the measurement, therefore insuring that there are no systemic biases in the machine. If you put the wheel on the equator, you could repeat the test along every conceivable vector as the world turned.

I'd hazard a guess that the guys investigating the existence of the aether actually did things like this.

What I'm getting at, is that falsifying this drivel shouldn't be hard, I can't imagine Einstein being incapable of working this out, so what was Einstein talking about when he said, "It would thus appear as though we were moving here in a logical circle."?

Robert Byers said: We question what is determined to be a scientific FACT. Its up to the people to decide what their kids are taught about such things IF someone is deciding. ... The best way for truth.... is total academic freedom of enquiry, speech/conclusions, and criticisms.

stevaroni said: But... it seems to me, you could, and it would be trivial. Imagine if the speed of flight going one way was twice the speed going the other. You could just launch some monochromatic light down the hall and stand in the middle and compare the incident and reflected beams. If the speeds of light going each way are different, then either their wavelengths or their frequencies (or both) have to be different. It seems like you could make a fairly simple interferometer of some sort and watch them interact. Given the very high frequencies and the very short wavelengths of visible light, you should be able to detect very small differences.

KlausH said:

tomh said:

KlausH said: In the US, people basically have a choice between a pro capitalism and Constitution party with a bunch of religious fanatics, and a pro science rabid collectivist fascist party. There is no pro science, pro capitalism, pro Constitution party.

There's a fascist party in the US? Who knew?

That would be anyone who noticed the government is illegally spying on citizens, and harassing and persecuting people who oppose, or might oppose, the ruling party. The said ruling party also seems to be trying to rewrite history, to favor their policies. And yes, this is getting pretty OT, and I will make any more comments on this subject in the BW, should I feel it is necessary. I think my views are very clear.

I think the word "fascism" applies to a sheaf of policies: nationalism; militarism; chauvinism; aggressive foreign policy amounting to bellicosity; committment to the development of heavy manufacturing, rather than a service or consumer-goods sector; a strong tendency towards command economics; authoritarian contempt for democracy and adherence to a "leadership principle". Please note that these policies are not in any sense "conservative", in the context of a functioning democracy.

Elements of some of them can be discerned in both major American parties, that's true. By no means all of them, though, and those which are present are more clearly seen in the policies of the Republican party. On the whole, then, I would call neither party "fascist", but think that any use of the word "fascist" of the Democratic Party is, to say the least, reckless.

This is off-topic, but over at BioLogos the staff is reviewing "Darwin's Doubt" by Stephen Meyer. Polite comments will not be removed (probably). Join the fun!

As is fascism also off topic, but, perhaps this is appropriate:

"Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism" Lawrence Britt (http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm)
And wikipedia "Definitions of fascism" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism)

The fascism discussion is wandering far afield, folks.

Indeed, however, the historically similar (political) alliances usurping power / perverting knowledge is germane. Reference Santayana re history. Treat the disease not the symptom.

A Fabry-Perot interferometer is all it takes. You couldn’t have standing waves in a Fabry-Perot interferometer if light traveled at different speeds in opposite directions.

Rolf said: Mike Elzinga said:

A Fabry-Perot interferometer is all it takes. You couldn’t have standing waves in a Fabry-Perot interferometer if light traveled at different speeds in opposite directions.

That is an interesting observation and seems to me like a fact as hard as any fact can be. A candidate for inclusion in the AiG list of not-recommended-to-use arguments?

Robert Byers said: Creationists don't question scientific facts. We question what is determined to be a scientific FACT.

This is still all about deciding what is true or false about origin conclusions. Its up to the people to decide what their kids are taught about such things IF someone is deciding.

The best way for truth to be persuasive for the many, who pat sincere attention, is total academic freedom of enquiry, speech/conclusions, and criticisms.

Otherwise truth is state controlled and a free people are not free once again.

for now states/school boards should decide based on their local public opinion.

callahanphb said: I’ve never understood how creationists manage to embrace technology with such obvious enthusiasm, while having no respect for the processes of basic science.

...anyone with a critical mind informed by today’s scientific evidence is not going to be a creationist, at least not without tremendous levels of cognitive dissonance.

Mike Elzinga said: Jason Lisle wants light to be traveling toward Earth to travel at infinite speed. These characters never think though the implications of their assertions. Lisle asserts:

In other words, we are free to choose what the speed of light will be in one direction, though the €œround-trip time averaged speed is always constant.

The only way this can work is for the universe to be strictly geocentric ALWAYS! If the Earth moved relative to any star (including the Sun), it would enter a region of space in which the infinite speed would be away from the Earth on one side and toward the Earth on the other side.

stevaroni said: Um.. Now, I’m not a physicist, but wouldn’t that result in photons of enormously different energies? The entire idea of that AiG page is that science has no way of detecting if light traveling in one direction moves at the same speed as light traveling in the other. What I’m getting at, is that falsifying this drivel shouldn’t be hard, I can’t imagine Einstein being incapable of working this out, so what was Einstein talking about when he said, “It would thus appear as though we were moving here in a logical circle.”?

(iii) The standards in science shall be based in core existing disciplines of biology, chemistry, and physics; incorporate grade-level mathematics and be referenced to the mathematics standards; focus on academic and scientific knowledge rather than scientific processes; and prohibit political or religious interpretation of scientific facts in favor of another.

So, focus on knowledge rather than processes. Really? Well first of all those two are not equivalent. You can have knowledge of a process. Second, what is wrong with presenting processes? Do you really think that you can teach genetics without discussing the processes of mitosis and meiosis? Or transcription and translation? Or DNA replication?

What? Oh, you mean THAT process? Well why didn't you say so? Oh, you didn't want to come right out and admit it. Well too bad, you're busted anyway.

Besides, we could always still focus on the pattern of evolution seen in the nested hierarchy. So this crap just ain't gonna fly no how.

david.starling.macmillan said: Conclusory postulate: Attempting to teach critical thinking will produce many average-level critical thinkers; discouraging critical thinking will produce mostly sub-par critical thinkers with a handful of really really good critical thinkers who were able to adapt and challenge the teaching methodology.

What the issue hinges on is whether one believes revelation is a method for uncovering the truth. Revelationists believe that when it comes to events that were not witnessed by humans, Gods speaking to humans, is more reliable in ascertaining the truth than is science. In the case of the diversity and distribution of organisms, scientific methods tell us that evolution is the best answer, but revelations would suggest creation. When revelationists tell us that science supports creation, then they are simply lying - science has nothing to do with the support for creation - it is purely and simply based on a purported revelatory passage in a religious text.

I think the next time one of these bills is proposed that we add an amendment that allows revelation as evidence in criminal trials without witnesses. Revelationists are quick to point out that science is fallible and therefore could be wrong about evolution. Forensics is also fallible - evidence can be lost, contaminated, misinterpreted etc. If God tells somebody that x committed the crime, then that should be evidence and better evidence than science. I am wondering - would Robert take his chances with forensics or revelation? If a defendant believes creation is true and evolution is false, then revelation should be admissible evidence in their trial.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnKupVGX70N9ZsvLu8iScIzWpyVj8bds_Q said: What the issue hinges on is whether one believes revelation is a method for uncovering the truth.

Revelation is obviously useless as a means of determining the truth - the thousands of different origin stories out there attest to that. I would wager that very few revelationists would trust someone else's supposed revelation over scientific methods if their lives were on the line.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnKupVGX70N9ZsvLu8iScIzWpyVj8bds_Q said: Revelationists are quick to point out that science is fallible and therefore could be wrong about evolution. Forensics is also fallible - evidence can be lost, contaminated, misinterpreted etc. If God tells somebody that x committed the crime, then that should be evidence and better evidence than science.

david.starling.macmillan said: It's possible, in theory, to come up with a distinction between "observational" and "historical" scientific inquiry. It's even possible to point out some useful differences inherent in this distinction. But an actual definition doesn't matter; the labels themselves are meaningless.

david.starling.macmillan said: Lisle's argument is not that the speed of light has any actual difference based on vector direction. Rather, he is pointing out that because the speed of light is defined on the basis of reference frame (all observers measure c identically relative to themselves), the measured speed of light can be altered if you alter your reference frame. All those experiments -- Febry-Perot interferometer, synchronized clocks, and so forth -- presume that the person doing the measurement is stationary with respect to the objects being measured. If you were to carry out those experiments from a reference frame that was violently non-stationary with respect to the objects, then you would get wild, wild results. It is possibly to artificially and arbitrarily construct a reference frame which transforms the one-way speed of light variable. No one would ever do this, because it makes all physics enormously and unnecessarily complicated, but it's still a valid reference frame that matches our observations. The actual argument Lisle is making has nothing to do with science. He's actually arguing that even though we use an inertial reference frame approach to simplify the science, God was using a geostationary reference frame in describing the timing of creation, and thus Genesis was written as though light from distant stars reached us instantly, even though it could not have happened instantly in any useful inertial reference frame. No physical experiment can falsify Lisle's claim, because it's not a claim about reality. It's a claim that God was using a special reference frame when He handed down Genesis to Adam or Moses or whoever wrote it all. To falsify Lisle's claim, we'd need to find a verse somewhere in Genesis saying, "And just in case you were wondering, simultaneity and lightspeed are defined in inertial relativistic reference frames for the purposes of this book." Which is obviously ridiculous.

TomS said: Isn't the speed of light one of those constants of nature which, according to the Anthropic Principle, could not be even slightly different from the recognized value, if we were to have human life? In any case, to suggest that there is something enough wrong with the understanding of the speed of light, enough wrong so that it would accommodate the age of the universe being 6 orders of magnitude smaller (a few thousand rather than billions of years), demands a major reworking of the laws of physics.

Robert Byers said: "religious interpretation of scientific fact" . Creationists don't question scientific facts. We question what is determined to be a scientific FACT. If in this there is a option that in seeking the truth there will not be a prohibition/censorship of conclusions from a God/Genesis stance then more power to them. This is still all about deciding what is true or false about origin conclusions. Its up to the people to decide what their kids are taught about such things IF someone is deciding. The best way for truth to be persuasive for the many, who pat sincere attention, is total academic freedom of enquiry, speech/conclusions, and criticisms. Otherwise truth is state controlled and a free people are not free once again. for now states/school boards should decide based on their local public opinion.

On come on - you can't be serious dragging up shit from the 13th century and from a theocracy.

Mike Elzinga said: ID/creationism is and always has been a sectarian motivated socio/political war on the rest of us. It has nothing to do with science; they don't give a damn about the science.

callahanpb said:

david.starling.macmillan said: Conclusory postulate: Attempting to teach critical thinking will produce many average-level critical thinkers; discouraging critical thinking will produce mostly sub-par critical thinkers with a handful of really really good critical thinkers who were able to adapt and challenge the teaching methodology.

I would prefer the former in any case, though I am skeptical of most of your reasoning getting to this. Even if discouraging critical thinking could produce a few exceptional talents, that wouldn't justify harming everyone else.

Mike Elzinga said: To summarize all the different experiments that have checked the velocity of light, it is best to consider the “principle of relativity.” No inertial reference frame is “special” with respect to the laws of physics. All reference frames are locally Lorentzian; including frames that are in free-fall in a gravitational field. This has been checked over and over again. The four-vectors of relativity are invariant; they would not be if light traveled at different speeds in different directions for different observers.

david.starling.macmillan said: Oh, of course. I wasn't positing that seriously. I was more just saying, "Wouldn't it be ironic if, in the end, the strongest critical thinkers can only be produced by the equal-and-opposite influence of authoritarianism?"

Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

david.starling.macmillan said:

Mike Elzinga said: To summarize all the different experiments that have checked the velocity of light, it is best to consider the “principle of relativity.” No inertial reference frame is “special” with respect to the laws of physics. All reference frames are locally Lorentzian; including frames that are in free-fall in a gravitational field. This has been checked over and over again. The four-vectors of relativity are invariant; they would not be if light traveled at different speeds in different directions for different observers.

It's not different speeds in different directions for different observers; it's the same speed/direction for every observer. Any observer, regardless of location in the universe, can construct any arbitrary reference frame, including a reference frame centered around themselves. These reference frames are conventions, not "theories". They are useless and convoluted conventions, but...AFAIK...they are only conventions and can be reached by the necessary transformations from any other convention.

callahanpb said: What I do not think I could ever understand is anyone wanting a cosmology like the one explained in Genesis. Not only does it make absolutely no sense, it is not even as grand as the mundane universe around us that does make sense.

Mike Elzinga said: Lisle is word-gaming. He wants infinite speed in a direction toward the Earth; but then he wants to hide it with pseudo-relativity. The key here is transformations. In special and general relativity, there are four-vector quantities that are Lorentz invariant. The conservation of these quantities under Lorentz transformations involves fundamental underlying symmetries in space-time. If you start arbitrarily mucking around making ad-hoc changes to these, you just end up with an inconsistent mess. The fundamental laws of physics derive from symmetries. Conservation laws are laws of symmetry. The conservation of momentum derives from translational symmetry in all directions in space. The conservation of angular momentum derives from rotational symmetry about all axes in space.

The above issue isn't really a problem for physics, nor is it original to Lisle. There is currently no consensus that the one-way speed of light is a convention, but the conventionalists are acknowledged to be ahead in the fourth quarter. Relativity, and the Maxwell equations that underpin it, have been recast into forms consistent with other synchrony conventions, should anyone desire to make use of them. Almost no one does, as the new forms are horribly and unnecessarily complicated—if the one-way speed of light is a convention, it's much easier to choose the simplest (always equal to c), though it may turn out that some classes of problems might be more easily solved with a different convention. It's important to emphasize that synchrony conventions are mainstream, though obscure, physics; the problem has been discussed for over 70 years, and arguably (by Poincare) before relativity was invented. Jason Lisle's purpose for using it is twofold: one, it gives creationists aid and comfort; two, it sucks anti-creationists into an irrelevant discussion where they can be shown not to be as well-informed as Jason Lisle is. Rarely have creationists risen to this level of magnificent bastardy. The anisotropic synchrony convention (ASC) is a perfectly acceptable, albeit obscure, sub-branch of special relativity; it results in the same observed universe. There have been misconceptions that Lisle has proposed a geocentric anisotropic synchrony convention (light travels infinitely fast towards Earth, at other speeds elsewhere). This is not what Lisle proposes; he proposes that, for anyone anywhere in the universe, light travels infinitely fast towards them and at the speed of c/2 away from them. It may seem bizarre, but special relativity allows it.

A Fabry-Perot interferometer is all it takes. You couldn't have standing waves in a Fabry-Perot interferometer if light traveled at different speeds in opposite directions.

Scott F said:

Frank J said: I'm not talking about people like Ken Ham, who supposedly believe the whole young-earth nonsense (though curiously not the geocentrism). Though they too are astute enough to know that the evidence doesn't support it, at least "not yet." Why else would they fall back on scripture when the going gets tough.

Because that's all they have. Seriously. They brag about it. Just look at any of their statements of faith. They don't "fall back on scripture" only "when the going gets tough". Their first, middle, and last goals are to "prove" that the Bible is the literal truth, and that all of reality must conform to their literal reading of the Bible. All evidence must be compared against the Bible first. If it agrees with their interpretation of the Bible, it obviously supports the truth of the Bible, thus proving the Bible to be true. If the evidence disagrees with their interpretation of the Bible, then the evidence is obviously flawed (inspired by Satan, corrupted by atheist scientists, honestly misinterpreted by fallible humans, whatever), and so the evidence must be rejected, thus also proving the Bible to be true. So, they don't "fall back" on scripture. They go straight to scripture before they do anything else.

Frank J said: ID peddlers are very different. They don't seem to believe any of the mutually-contradictory literal interpretations of Genesis, on evidence or "on faith."

Matt Young said:

A Fabry-Perot interferometer is all it takes. You couldn't have standing waves in a Fabry-Perot interferometer if light traveled at different speeds in opposite directions.

I am not following this discussion in any detail, but I do not think this statement is correct. We have never performed an experiment to measure the 1-way speed of light; all we can measure is the net 2-way speed. The FP interferometer wd give interference even if the speed in 1 direction were different from that in the other. Infinite speed is another matter.

There have been misconceptions that Lisle has proposed a geocentric anisotropic synchrony convention (light travels infinitely fast towards Earth, at other speeds elsewhere). This is not what Lisle proposes; he proposes that, for anyone anywhere in the universe, light travels infinitely fast towards them and at the speed of c/2 away from them. It may seem bizarre, but special relativity allows it.

Mike Elzinga said: ... or the stationary vessel approaches the submarine.

callahanpb said: So much incoherence for such a small paragraph.

Robert Byers said: Creationists don't question scientific facts. We question what is determined to be a scientific FACT.

OK, I think you mean that you are questioning the process used to establish that something is a fact (lowercase or all-caps). That process is called the scientific method. stevaroni gave a pretty good summary. It does not involve anybody's scripture. BTW, you are free to believe that your revealed wisdom trumps science; you just aren't free to pass it off as science on the public's dime.

This is still all about deciding what is true or false about origin conclusions. Its up to the people to decide what their kids are taught about such things IF someone is deciding.

Which people? "We the People" or the kids' parents? I think you mean the latter, but in any case, there is usually a standard curriculum for school subjects that is (we hope) based on the best consensus of understanding in that subject. The "decision", for instance, of whether the derivative of a function is a linear operator for purposes of teaching calculus is not left to parental (or even electoral) preference. So are you say that "origin conclusions" have a unique privilege, or that education should be a total free-for-fall? Ideally, experts decide what kids will be taught (the kids have the final say in what they actually learn). In a few sensitive areas (e.g. sex ed), parents may have opt-out forms, and nobody is stopping them from telling their kids that what they learned is wrong, or pulling them out of public school. There is no scarcity of available options, but one option that is definitely ruled out is for public schools to teach sectarian religious doctrine or even to present is as having comparable status to science.

The best way for truth to be persuasive for the many, who pat sincere attention, is total academic freedom of enquiry, speech/conclusions, and criticisms.

The worst way to present a subject to beginning students is to provide an ink cloud of contradictory assertions and hope that they will be smart enough to sort it all out. This is particularly true when the cloud includes thoroughly discredited views such as creationism.

Otherwise truth is state controlled and a free people are not free once again.

I only nitpick because you were so adamant that you don't question facts but their determination. The state obviously cannot control the truth, which exists independently of what the state or anyone else wants it to be.

for now states/school boards should decide based on their local public opinion.

The science of evolution is well understood and accepted. If a local school board interferes with the curriculum due to locally prevailing religious objections, that would be a case of state (in the most general sense, government) controlling the presentation of facts. It should be treated the same as any other scientific subject.

Matt Young said:

A Fabry-Perot interferometer is all it takes. You couldn't have standing waves in a Fabry-Perot interferometer if light traveled at different speeds in opposite directions.

I am not following this discussion in any detail, but I do not think this statement is correct. We have never performed an experiment to measure the 1-way speed of light; all we can measure is the net 2-way speed. The FP interferometer wd give interference even if the speed in 1 direction were different from that in the other. Infinite speed is another matter.

Robert Byers said: They censor god/Genesis and so are saying these are not true...

or options for truth in certain subjects touching on origin matters. Therefore one must insist its the people, say those in the polticial divisions they have, to vote up or down what is censored. Not a elite. they are not the boss. The people do not have contentions in math or most anything. Just the unique ideas of past and gone processes and events. To be free one must free to enquire , criticize, and conclude about different options for what is true. They would allow this in history interpretation or economic ideas, Marxism is not illegal, and so the censorship is clearly without companion. If you don't have freedom in these matters then your not free and the truth is not the objective but instead indoctrination.

They censor god/Genesis and so are saying these are not true or options for truth in certain subjects touching on origin matters.

david.starling.macmillan said: In Lisle's view, God wanted the outer edge of the universe to be visible on Earth from the very beginning. So, instead of creating the entire universe all at once, he created the outer edge of the universe first, then "created his way in", moving at the speed of light, until reaching our position 13.8 billion years later.

In the example featuring the five very accurate clocks and the strobe, all the clocks would measure the speed of light coming toward them as infinite with the speed of light moving away from them as c/2. Each, individually. Each clock/detector would perceive itself as the preferred center of the universe.

Again, I can't stress too strongly, Lisle isn't saying that light traveling toward the Earth travels at a different speed than light traveling away from the Earth. He's saying that a simultaneity convention can be arranged such that any observer perceives light coming toward him as instantaneous -- even if you have two different observers exchanging signals from opposite sides of the globe.

Nothing physical at all. Just a clever way of saying, "Okay, God took 13.8 billion years to create the universe...but it's okay for him to say it just took one day because he was using convoluted math that defines the speed of light differently than we do."

david.starling.macmillan said: Again, I can't stress too strongly, Lisle isn't saying that light traveling toward the Earth travels at a different speed than light traveling away from the Earth. He's saying that a simultaneity convention can be arranged such that any observer perceives light coming toward him as instantaneous -- even if you have two different observers exchanging signals from opposite sides of the globe.

david.starling.macmillan said: Again, I can't stress too strongly, Lisle isn't saying that light traveling toward the Earth travels at a different speed than light traveling away from the Earth. He's saying that a simultaneity convention can be arranged such that any observer perceives light coming toward him as instantaneous -- even if you have two different observers exchanging signals from opposite sides of the globe.

david.starling.macmillan said: Nothing physical at all. Just a clever way of saying, "Okay, God took 13.8 billion years to create the universe...but it's okay for him to say it just took one day because he was using convoluted math that defines the speed of light differently than we do."

Sure. Makes perfect sense. And god was also trying to say that evolution is real and the whole dust and rib thing was just fancy words we couldn't really understand. So god really does want us to believe in evolution after all. I guess those fundamentalists better get with the program. They wouldn't want to get god mad or anything.

On the "from dust" thing, most of our molecules were probably in dust or soil of some sort at some point in the past. So that part can be reconciled.

stevaroni said:

david.starling.macmillan said: In Lisle's view, God wanted the outer edge of the universe to be visible on Earth from the very beginning. So, instead of creating the entire universe all at once, he created the outer edge of the universe first, then "created his way in", moving at the speed of light, until reaching our position 13.8 billion years later.

Well, by that standard, maybe God was really creating the entire universe for the benefit of his true creation, the core-dwelling iron magma people at the very center of the Earth, who got instantiated a few milliseconds after God made us peons here at the surface.

Mike Elzinga said: There are photo receptors in our eyes. Those consist of atoms that have energy levels; and the scale of those energy levels is set by the Rydberg constant. That Rydberg constant contains c in its denominator. Equivalently, the Rydberg constant can be written in terms of the fine structure constant which contains that same c in the denominator. How does the Rydberg constant when an atom is emitting a photon compare with the Rydberg constant when the atom is absorbing a photon? The arguments over the convention are irrelevant. Changes in c affect the energy levels and binding energies of atoms.

njdowrick said: Suppose I fire a beam of light at a mirror and it is reflected back to me. Since speed is frequency times wavelength, and since I can measure the frequency and wavelength of both the outgoing and the returning light, I don't see how the equality of the outgoing and returning speed can be merely a convention. Can you explain?

callahanpb said: It doesn’t seem any more interesting than any other form of Omphalism (or as Mike Elzinga said, Last Thursdayism). If fact, it is more opaque and therefore more deceptive.

david.starling.macmillan said: To Lisle's credit, I think the deceptiveness of this Omphalism is an unintended consequence of the topic and terminology (though I'm sure the appeal was present at least subconsciously). Lisle knows the universe has to be billions of years old. He's an astrophysicist, after all. He knows the physics well enough to recognize that there isn't any way to deny the light-travel time problem. So the whole simultaneity/synchrony convention argument is intended to get other creationists to accept that the universe is billions of years old, simply by pointing out that simultaneity is subject to relativity and reference frame conventions. God actually created everything over 13.8 billion years, but it was okay to say that it all happened instantly on the 4th day because you can define a reference frame to say so.

The inverse-square nature of this equation is intriguing. After all, there is no essential reason why gravity should behave in this way. In a chance, evolving universe, some random exponent like r1.97 or r2.3 would seem much more likely. However, precise measurements have shown an exact exponent out to at least 5 decimal places, 2.00000. As one researcher put it, this result seems ‘just a little too neat.’2 We may conclude that the gravity force shows precise, created design. Actually, if the exponent deviated just slightly from exactly 2, planet orbits and the entire universe would become unstable.

david.starling.macmillan said: Teach the controversy! If you want some truly wrong-and-wacky physics, try this on for size, from CMI:

The inverse-square nature of this equation is intriguing. After all, there is no essential reason why gravity should behave in this way. In a chance, evolving universe, some random exponent like r1.97 or r2.3 would seem much more likely. However, precise measurements have shown an exact exponent out to at least 5 decimal places, 2.00000. As one researcher put it, this result seems ‘just a little too neat.’2 We may conclude that the gravity force shows precise, created design. Actually, if the exponent deviated just slightly from exactly 2, planet orbits and the entire universe would become unstable.

What rubbish. "OMG!!! The exponent is TWO? Really? How precise!!" Yes, the exponent in all inverse-squared forces is -2 because we are in a three-dimensional universe, and dimensions are rather necessarily discrete. Why on earth would they imagine that a "chance, evolving universe" would have non-discrete dimensions? What would non-discrete dimensions even look like? How could someone with a real PhD in physics come up with such tripe? I wonder how we could go about calculating the predictable effects of a gravitational wave consisting of the entire universe's gravitational potential meeting at a central point.

If the force spreads out evenly, then it's inversely proportional to the surface area of a sphere of radius = distance. That's what EM force does, so why shouldn't gravity do it too.

How could such a beautiful, symmetric curve like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution
be produced by a random process? Surely, this is evidence for design.

Slightly more seriously, I just finished reading the biography _My Brain is Open: The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdos_ by Bruce Schechter and it touched on the subject of random graphs, which I am a little familiar with, but had not considered in this context.

There are certain properties of random graphs (networks made by assigning connections between nodes with uniform probability) that are both useful and quite difficult to design into a graph using a deterministic algorithm. The concept of an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expander_graph provides some good examples in which random graphs beat very regular structures.

A lot of creationist arguments are driven by a metatheory that randomness is equivalent to error or disorder. Randomness is far more subtle than that. (Notwithstanding all this, evolution is not merely randomness, but that's a different subject.)

TomS said: This reminds me of those people (and there really are people who say this, seriously, I'm not making this up, you know) that Einstein proved that everything is relative, so there's a way that the Sun goes around a fixed Earth.

Carl Drews said:

TomS said: This reminds me of those people (and there really are people who say this, seriously, I'm not making this up, you know) that Einstein proved that everything is relative, so there's a way that the Sun goes around a fixed Earth.

There is a way that the Sun, the Earth, and everything else goes around my fixed cat Wallace. The math is kind of complex, though.

david.starling.macmillan said: To Lisle's credit, I think the deceptiveness of this Omphalism is an unintended consequence of the topic and terminology (though I'm sure the appeal was present at least subconsciously). Lisle knows the universe has to be billions of years old. He's an astrophysicist, after all. He knows the physics well enough to recognize that there isn't any way to deny the light-travel time problem. So the whole simultaneity/synchrony convention argument is intended to get other creationists to accept that the universe is billions of years old, simply by pointing out that simultaneity is subject to relativity and reference frame conventions. God actually created everything over 13.8 billion years, but it was okay to say that it all happened instantly on the 4th day because you can define a reference frame to say so.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: And, amazingly, interiors are never larger than their exteriors. EVER. Glen Davidson

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: And, amazingly, interiors are never larger than their exteriors. EVER.

Darn, Mike beat me to it!

Except for the Tardis.

Mike Elzinga said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: And, amazingly, interiors are never larger than their exteriors. EVER. Glen Davidson

Except for the Tardis.

"This is the Doctor. I'm...I'm calling from Trenzalore."

Or that tent in one of the Harry Potter movies.

But is it that these things are bigger on the inside, or is that things shrink when they go inside one of these things? (Although I don't know how they'd shrink evenly rather than falling apart from distortions.)

david.starling.macmillan said: Teach the controversy! If you want some truly wrong-and-wacky physics, try this on for size, from CMI:

The inverse-square nature of this equation is intriguing. After all, there is no essential reason why gravity should behave in this way. In a chance, evolving universe, some random exponent like r1.97 or r2.3 would seem much more likely. However, precise measurements have shown an exact exponent out to at least 5 decimal places, 2.00000. As one researcher put it, this result seems ‘just a little too neat.’2 We may conclude that the gravity force shows precise, created design. Actually, if the exponent deviated just slightly from exactly 2, planet orbits and the entire universe would become unstable.

What rubbish. "OMG!!! The exponent is TWO? Really? How precise!!" Yes, the exponent in all inverse-squared forces is -2 because we are in a three-dimensional universe, and dimensions are rather necessarily discrete. Why on earth would they imagine that a "chance, evolving universe" would have non-discrete dimensions? What would non-discrete dimensions even look like? How could someone with a real PhD in physics come up with such tripe? I wonder how we could go about calculating the predictable effects of a gravitational wave consisting of the entire universe's gravitational potential meeting at a central point.

david.starling.macmillan said:

njdowrick said: Suppose I fire a beam of light at a mirror and it is reflected back to me. Since speed is frequency times wavelength, and since I can measure the frequency and wavelength of both the outgoing and the returning light, I don't see how the equality of the outgoing and returning speed can be merely a convention. Can you explain?

The anisotropic synchrony convention does not imply any change in c. The fundamental conversion factor between space and time does not change. In njdowrick's example, your measurement of frequency and of wavelength depend on your convention for measuring time and distance, respectively. We always use an isotropic, symmetric convention for measuring time and distance because it is pointless not to. But an anisotropic synchrony convention would require you to measure frequency and wavelength for an outgoing photon with a different reference frame than for an incoming photon.

njdowrick said: If I'm measuring the frequency and wavelength of the outgoing and returning light beams at the same location I don't think that this problem arises. I can use the same clock to measure the frequency of each light beam. I can measure the wavelengths using the same diffraction grating and the same ruler at the same location, and the measurement process will be essentially the same for both beams. I know that relativity can be subtle with regard to hidden assumptions. What hidden assumptions am I making here? Please help!

In Lisle’s view, God wanted the outer edge of the universe to be visible on Earth from the very beginning. So, instead of creating the entire universe all at once, he created the outer edge of the universe first, then “created his way in”, moving at the speed of light, until reaching our position 13.8 billion years later. That is the solution being proposed. The whole business with anisotropy and the speed of light is just a shell game; Lisle uses that to make the above explanation acceptable to people who want to believe the Bible says the stars were created instantly.

harold said: He never quite directly says “God simply created the earth 6000 years ago or whatever but used magic to make it look billions of years old (for example creating from scratch and burying fossils that would appear to be millions of years old, but were actually new, on that day, 6000 years ago). Instead he says “blah blah blah I have a Phd in Astrophysics blah blah blah speed of light blah blah blah nuclear force (therefore the reader may conclude that God did everything one way, but deliberately made it look a different way to humans).”

So ID is just YEC that denies being YEC. And YEC is often just Last Thursdayism that denies being Last Thursdayism.

— Harold

david.starling.macmillan said:

harold said: He never quite directly says “God simply created the earth 6000 years ago or whatever but used magic to make it look billions of years old (for example creating from scratch and burying fossils that would appear to be millions of years old, but were actually new, on that day, 6000 years ago). Instead he says “blah blah blah I have a Phd in Astrophysics blah blah blah speed of light blah blah blah nuclear force (therefore the reader may conclude that God did everything one way, but deliberately made it look a different way to humans).”

The excuse, I think, is that God needed to do it this way -- creating everything from the outward in at the speed of light -- in order for us to be able to see everything he had created. The fact that we wouldn't see any of this for the next 5,920 years seems to go unnoticed.

My apologies. That should be "to may make a world".

The problem with Omphalism is obvious from the standpoint of Occam's razor, but I think it suffers from a more blatant defect, and this applies to a greater extent as the arguments become more complicated (like Lisle's):

Any attempt to read Genesis in a way that is literally true relative to what we know today about science will have to be at odds with the way Genesis was read by believers for thousands of years, who do not share today's scientific understanding. E.g., while I don't believe God created a dome separating bodies of water, I think I have some idea of what that means (though I have trouble understanding why anyone would have ever imagined this to be the case). You might counter that no, the seven days, the dome and all that really means is that God created a universe that is indistinguishable from the one we observe, including stars at distances billions of light years away. But no matter how strenuous your justification for this view, I would counter that no reader would have reached that conclusion from the text itself. It appears to be a brand new creation myth, not a genuine reading of the existing one.

It's not a logical inconsistency. Maybe the inerrant Bible really contains a coded message that just looks on the surface to be a geocentric cosmos, apparently smaller than we now know the solar system to be, and we just have to understand that code. But I personally feel that this conclusion runs roughshod not only over science, but over the intent of the original author--who was wrong about a lot of stuff, but making an honest attempt to explain something.

Here is a setup to consider.

Part 1:

Place a pulse generator at O and connect it by way of a coaxial cable to a tee-connector at Point A.

Connect the straight-through output of the tee-connector at A by way of a coax cable of length L along straight line to another tee-connector at B. Connect the straight-through output of B to a coax cable that connects to an impedance matched resistor in order to prevent reflections back into the cable.

Place a digital counter at C along the perpendicular bisector of AB. Using equal length cables connect the second output of the tee-connector at A to the START input of the digital counter and connect the second output of the tee-connector at B to the STOP input of the counter. Set the delta interval of the digital counter to some small value T.

A pulse arriving at A at time t₁ gets a part split off that then arrives at the START input at some later time. The counter starts counting.

The pulse arrives at B at some later time, t₂ and again a part gets split off and arrives at the STOP input of the counter, stopping the counter at N counts. The number of counts, N, multiplied by the time interval of a count, T is the "time" it takes the pulse to travel from A to B.

The speed of the pulse from A to B is then L/(NT).

Now reverse the direction of the pulse by putting the pulse generator near B and feeding the pulse into the tee at B and the straight-through output of A to the resistor.

Also check the cables to the counter by interchanging the cables connecting the tees to the counter. Then reorient the entire setup (really not necessary as long as the Earth keeps moving) and repeat.

Part 2:

Now replace the pulse generator with a pulsed laser and replace the tees with beam splitters with photo detectors feeding the cables to the counter. Alternatively, send the split-off beams directly to a single photo detector at the counter and set the counter to toggle on with the first pulse input and toggle off with the second pulse input. Be sure the path lengths from each beam splitter to the photo detector are equal as you did with the cables.

Repeat all the variations done with the coaxial cable connected between A and B.

Part 3:

Replace pulse generator with a pulse laser, the coax cables with fiber optic cables, and the tees with beam splitters as in Part 2.

In Part 1, are we measuring the one-way speed of a pulse in the coaxial cable?

In Part 2, are we measuring the one-way speed of light?

In Part 3, are we measuring the one-way speed of light?

callahanpb said: The problem with Omphalism is obvious from the standpoint of Occam's razor, but I think it suffers from a more blatant defect, and this applies to a greater extent as the arguments become more complicated (like Lisle's):

callahanpb said: The problem with Omphalism is obvious from the standpoint of Occam's razor, but I think it suffers from a more blatant defect, and this applies to a greater extent as the arguments become more complicated (like Lisle's): Any attempt to read Genesis in a way that is literally true relative to what we know today about science will have to be at odds with the way Genesis was read by believers for thousands of years, who do not share today's scientific understanding. E.g., while I don't believe God created a dome separating bodies of water, I think I have some idea of what that means (though I have trouble understanding why anyone would have ever imagined this to be the case). You might counter that no, the seven days, the dome and all that really means is that God created a universe that is indistinguishable from the one we observe, including stars at distances billions of light years away. But no matter how strenuous your justification for this view, I would counter that no reader would have reached that conclusion from the text itself. It appears to be a brand new creation myth, not a genuine reading of the existing one. It's not a logical inconsistency. Maybe the inerrant Bible really contains a coded message that just looks on the surface to be a geocentric cosmos, apparently smaller than we now know the solar system to be, and we just have to understand that code. But I personally feel that this conclusion runs roughshod not only over science, but over the intent of the original author--who was wrong about a lot of stuff, but making an honest attempt to explain something.

stevaroni said:

They censor god/Genesis and so are saying these are not true or options for truth in certain subjects touching on origin matters.

Again, troll, and with great civility and without any bluster, because I want avoid taking this to the wall. You are incorrect. Settled case law is eminently clear. You can teach any fact in all the land in a science class, regardless of whether or not it establishes a God or a miracle, so long as you can objectively prove it. That's the problem, Beyers. It's not that nobody will let you into the game, it's that you can't pony up the buy-in. Quit whining about censorship and simply put some good data on the table. Because there is no censorship issue, there is a quality issue. If you can reach the quality threshold, the censorship issue evaporates. For the last two pages we've been intensively discussing a technical claim on the AiG website. A claim that purports to be fact. Absolutely everyone here commenting on it was able to see it. No government agency blocked it. Nobody has proposed that AiG should take the page down or hide it behind a plain brown wrapper so the delicate eyes of children don't see it. What we have done is methodically pick the claim into little, bitty pieces, because that's what happens to bad science. What we have done is demonstrate, once again, that a supposed "fact" that you want to teach children is, in fact, wild speculation unsupported - and indeed contdicted by - all the available evidence. And, as we've discussed, Beyers, if AiG really believed in the nonsense they're spouting it would be simple indeed for them to put some hardware together and actually demonstrate it. AiG has an annual budget that runs into the 7 figures, and most of the experiments we're talking about were done by a couple of professors and grad students in a basement closet using a handful of parts from the Edmond Optics catalog. There's a difference, here Beyers. Nobody is stopping you from trying to make the case that creationism is a fact-based idea that should be taught in schools along evolution. The problem is that you fail, over and over again, to actually demonstrate the factual framework you claim exists.

Creationism is solely religious. It assumes revelation is a better means of finding the truth about the past than science is. Without the Bible as a guide (a book that is assumed to be the revealed word of God by creationists), there would be no creationism.

OK, I think I've got this.

It's been irrationally bothering me all day that I can't out-think Jason Lisle and find a way to refute his ridiculous claptrap, and I think I have a method to determine the one-way speed of light that does not involve any relativistic issues with moving or synchronizing clocks or having to get a signal back to a single measurement point via a path where it could be delayed.

Imagine a hallway 300 meters long.

Along one side of this hallway there is an aquarium, also 300 meters long*.

Imagine you put a mirror at the far end of the hall (we'll call that end "B") and sent a pulse of laser light from the near end (end "A"). The pulse reflects off the mirror at B and returns to A.

Imagine you measure the flight time of the pulse. The round trip is about 600 meters, so, right on schedule, you get the pulse back about 2 microseconds later.

Now, I have to grudgingly admit that Lisle actually has a point. From the receivers point of view there is no way of telling whether that pulse took 1uS on each leg of the trip, or whether it did one direction faster than the other.

Sooo... suppose instead of shooting the laser down the hall through the air, you send it through the aquarium and back.

Water has an index of refraction of about 1.5 and, consequently, the speed of light in water is only about 200,000 Km/S. Not exactly walking pace, but bear with me.

When we do the same A-to-B-and-back test through water, we find that the pulse takes 3 microseconds this time.

The exact amount if change is immaterial, it's enough at this point to realize that the speeds are different, and they have some ratio to each other. We can confirm this by placing the mirror at intermediate positions and repeating the test from the other end to verify that the effect is linear.

We can't establish yet that the speed of light isn't different in each direction, just that there's some kind of ratio between the speed of light in air and the speed of light in water.

Now, here's where it gets tricky.

Imagine you send a pulse of light down the hallway in air, but return it through the water, or the other way around.

In our normal physics world, if you do this from A to B the pulse takes 1uS to travel through the air to the mirror, then, because light travels more slowly in water, it takes a further 1.5uS to travel back to A through the aquarium.

Because physics works, you measure a 2.5uS round trip regardless of which direction or which order you go through the two mediums.

But say Lisle is right, and the speed of light is faster in one direction. Say that it's 600,000Km/s (2C) from A to B, and consequently, to average that out, only 200,000Km/s (2/3C) going from B to A.

Now do the same experiment.

The beam goes down the hall at 2x normal C, so it arrives at the mirror in only .5uS. If you go back through the air at 2/3c it'll take 1.5uS, and the round trip time will equal the 2uS you measure for a constant C, so you won't be able to tell the difference.

However if you send the beam back through the water, things get interesting.

If the beam is going through the water, it's going to go slower - you've already demonstrated that, and the ratio is, again, about 2/3 the speed in air.

Combined with the overall slower speed of C in general in the B to A direction, you'd expect the beam to move at 2/3rds of 2/3rds of C, or about .44C or 132,000Km/s.

The trip back through the water should take about 2.27uS.

The total trip, air leg plus water leg, should take about 2.77uS, or .27uS more than you'd expect with a constant C.

If you do the experiment in the other order, and go through the water first, that will take .75uS from A to B, then the return trip at 2/3C in the air will take an additional 1.5 uS.

Your trip this time is 2.25uS, or .25uS less than there would be with a constant C.

You can double check your work buy repeating the experiment from the other end.

It's important to note that at no time do you have to synchronize any clocks or transmit any information to the other end, which is the big bugaboo in Lisle's little trieste.

You don't even have to measure absolute time delay accurately.

You can send a beam through the air and come back through the water at the same time you send one through the water to come back through the air.

If they come back at the same time, C is constant, if they come back at different times, C varies with direction and creationist science wins.

It's really, really, just that simple.

If you see a delta then creationist physics is right and "evolution" physics is wrong and the oscilloscope trace becomes the iconic photographic proof, as easy to see and as unambiguous as the lines in a double-slit plate.

If you're worried about the phenomenon being observer-position-dependant, you can even run the experiment from both ends at the same time with two observers.

I would point out that this experiment is actually very feasible. You don't need a 300 yard aquarium, you can use a piece of fiber optic cable. Plastic optical fiber transmits visible light very well and like water has an index of refraction of about 1.6 for a propagation speed of about 200,000Km/s.

You don't need mirrors, just a visible pulsed laser, and a way to tap a little energy off and feed it into the end of a fiber, and two accurate photodetectors.

You go out into a large field and walk a 100 yard radius circle around the detectors, while sending pulses back via both air and fiber and look for the deltas.

So there you go, AiG fellows. My gift to you, an experiment that can prove modern physics totally wrong.

This is a simple, cheap, eminently doable experiment that an organization like AiG could set up in a few days if you wanted to.

And if you actually did do such an experiment, and actually did find that the speed of light was variable based on direction, then I would be the first to agree that you quite fairly deserve a no-shit actual freakin' Nobel prize for the discovery.

But... my money is that you won't even try because actual facts are unfair or something.

*_{This very house, by the way, was the subject of a lovely photo spread of Bloody Stupid Johnson's greatest works in the April issue of Ankh-Moorpork Architectural Monthly.}

stevaroni said: OK, I think I've got this.

@david@starling@macallan

Lisle's proposed synchronicity convention does not work in general relativity where two points in space-time can be joined by *more than one* lightlike/null geodesics - e.g. when one geodesic is bent by a black hole.

Hans-Richard Gr�mm said: @david@starling@macallan Lisle's proposed synchronicity convention does not work in general relativity where two points in space-time can be joined by *more than one* lightlike/null geodesics - e.g. when one geodesic is bent by a black hole.

So Byers admits that he knows that the reason he can't discuss creationism in public school science class is because it is religion and not science. But that doesn't stop him from whining and yammering on and on about it. He wants his religion taught not only as science but as TRUTH. He is obviously intellectually incapable of spotting the logical flaw in this fallacy. Too bad.

TomS said:

david.starling.macmillan said: The excuse, I think, is that God needed to do it this way -- creating everything from the outward in at the speed of light -- in order for us to be able to see everything he had created.

Isn't that the excuse for Omphalism, that God had to create the world with the appearances of having a prior history? (The "chicken or egg" problem. There is no logically possible way to may a world of life which is static, except if it were ageless - infintely old - or that there was a discontinuity - which which looks as if there were something over the barrier of discontinuity.

BTW, some of what I've read in the last couple of days leads me to wonder - is he a geocentrist?

callahanpb said: Any attempt to read Genesis in a way that is literally true relative to what we know today about science will have to be at odds with the way Genesis was read by believers for thousands of years, who do not share today's scientific understanding. E.g., while I don't believe God created a dome separating bodies of water, I think I have some idea of what that means (though I have trouble understanding why anyone would have ever imagined this to be the case). You might counter that no, the seven days, the dome and all that really means is that God created a universe that is indistinguishable from the one we observe, including stars at distances billions of light years away. But no matter how strenuous your justification for this view, I would counter that no reader would have reached that conclusion from the text itself. It appears to be a brand new creation myth, not a genuine reading of the existing one. It's not a logical inconsistency. Maybe the inerrant Bible really contains a coded message that just looks on the surface to be a geocentric cosmos, apparently smaller than we now know the solar system to be, and we just have to understand that code. But I personally feel that this conclusion runs roughshod not only over science, but over the intent of the original author--who was wrong about a lot of stuff, but making an honest attempt to explain something.

TomS said: The idea that the day of Genesis 1 meant something other than “ordinary day” (one passage of the Sun around the Earth) goes back to the early days. The 1st-2nd century Epistle of Barnabas took a day to be a thousand years. Augustine of Hippo decided that the “day” did not mean any period of time. Now, to me sure, everybody thought that the age of Cosmos was of the order of thousands of years.

The problem that confronts anyone who believes that the world at creation is basically the same world as today is the “chicken or egg” conundrum.

Mike Elzinga said: Here is a setup to consider.

stevaroni said: It’s been irrationally bothering me all day that I can’t out-think Jason Lisle and find a way to refute his ridiculous claptrap, and I think I have a method to determine the one-way speed of light that does not involve any relativistic issues with moving or synchronizing clocks or having to get a signal back to a single measurement point via a path where it could be delayed.

Because physics works, you measure a 2.5uS round trip regardless of which direction or which order you go through the two mediums. But say Lisle is right, and the speed of light is faster in one direction.

I like the idea of sending the light back through a tub of water, though that approach ignores that you have to send the beam at least a short distance in the orthogonal direction. The book Science Secrets, which I happen to have reviewed here, has a good chapter on 2-way measurements of the speed of light and concludes that all our measurements to date have been an average of the velocities in each direction. I do not think there is any real way to know whether the speed of the return beam in an interferometer is the same as that of the outgoing beam.

Some of the measurements of the speed of light should be vertical or other angles, to go with the horizontal, just in case that's a factor.

david.starling.macmillan said: There are, in my mind, a few possibilities as to how Genesis 1 was originally written and how it would have originally been understood.

Or it was just a good story that bore repeating.....

It clearly was not based on anything like science or even observations of nature except in an entirely superficial manner.

I like your distinction between necessary omphalism and gratuitous omphalism.

But it raises the question of knowing what God can and cannot do. We can feel comfortable with things which are logically necessary being constraints, but those are really rare. And in the one case (I think it is only one) where the Bible specifically describes the appearance of age (the fruit trees bearing fruit). Are we allowed to insist that the oceans were created salty, in order to accommodate salt-water sea life? When uranium nuclei were created, does that count as the appearance of age? And it is hard for me to excuse the appearance of the age of the supernova SN1987A - what purpose does that serve when it didn't really happen at all?

There is food for thought.

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnKupVGX70N9ZsvLu8iScIzWpyVj8bds_Q said: Or it was just a good story that bore repeating..... It clearly was not based on anything like science or even observations of nature except in an entirely superficial manner.

Matt Young said: The book Science Secrets, which I happen to have reviewed here, has a good chapter on 2-way measurements of the speed of light and concludes that all our measurements to date have been an average of the velocities in each direction. I do not think there is any real way to know whether the speed of the return beam in an interferometer is the same as that of the outgoing beam.

david.starling.macmillan said: In the experimental design you provided, I'm pretty sure you're actually measuring the two-way speed of light. Because of the properties of triangles, the distance AC + BC must be greater than the distance AB. It would take MORE time for a photon to travel AC + BC than it would to travel AB, so this is functionally equivalent to a closed loop with an added leg. The only way to use this setup to measure the one way speed of light would be if AC + BC was less than AB. But then you would need two counters, C1 and C2, and you would have to synchronize them in some way, which would require a synchrony convention.

Mike Elzinga said: You can either think of AC and AB as "delay lines" ...

Mike Elzinga said: So, in the case of a medium such as a coax or fiber optic cable, why should the transit time from A to C be different than the transit time from B to C? What is the difference between an electromagnetic pulse traveling in a vacuum and an electromagnetic pulse traveling in a medium? How does one calculate the index of refraction of a medium if light is approaching or leaving it with infinite speed? Under such a scenario, what must be the speed of light in the medium? If it is infinite, how do electrons within the medium respond? We are looking at a situation here in which there are singularities in the calculations. Infinite speed and infinite wavelength so that frequency remains fixed? What about Doppler shifts?

david.starling.macmillan paraphrasing Lisle: Every location in the universe has light traveling toward it with infinite speed and traveling away at c/2.

Mike Elzinga said:

stevaroni said: OK, I think I've got this.

We can analyze your scenario more generally assuming the index of refraction, n, remains the same throughout.

eric said: Just toying with ideas here, but wouldn't the anisotropy concept predict some sort of angular dependence to cherenkov radiation coming off a nuclear pile? Think of the pile at the center of a compass. I'm observing it from point South. There is cherenkov radiation moving toward me (southward from center) and away from me (northward from center). Under this model, the radiation in these two directions is going different speeds. A camera positioned at point East or West should be able to capture a still picture of a lop-sided glow. But of course, it doesn't.

david.starling.macmillan said:

njdowrick said: If I'm measuring the frequency and wavelength of the outgoing and returning light beams at the same location I don't think that this problem arises. I can use the same clock to measure the frequency of each light beam. I can measure the wavelengths using the same diffraction grating and the same ruler at the same location, and the measurement process will be essentially the same for both beams. I know that relativity can be subtle with regard to hidden assumptions. What hidden assumptions am I making here? Please help!

Well, I'll try. It's my understanding that when you're doing the measurements, you're not actually measuring the photon itself, but rather measuring the effects of the photon on your measurement device. Since those effects exist in your reference frame, you shouldn't expect to see any distortion at all. An anisotropic speed of light doesn't alter interactions with matter because the anisotropy is set up the same way in every reference frame. To measure the difference, you'd have to be measuring the photon itself, which is not possible.

TomS said: I like your distinction between necessary omphalism and gratuitous omphalism. But it raises the question of knowing what God can and cannot do. We can feel comfortable with things which are logically necessary being constraints, but those are really rare. And in the one case (I think it is only one) where the Bible specifically describes the appearance of age (the fruit trees bearing fruit). Are we allowed to insist that the oceans were created salty, in order to accommodate salt-water sea life? When uranium nuclei were created, does that count as the appearance of age? And it is hard for me to excuse the appearance of the age of the supernova SN1987A - what purpose does that serve when it didn't really happen at all?

eric said:

Matt Young said: The book Science Secrets, which I happen to have reviewed here, has a good chapter on 2-way measurements of the speed of light and concludes that all our measurements to date have been an average of the velocities in each direction. I do not think there is any real way to know whether the speed of the return beam in an interferometer is the same as that of the outgoing beam.

Beyond the fact that the math works out the same, is there anything to recommend it? It seems to me to violate Occam's razor, as you now have to describe the mechanism which causes light to change speeds when it reflects and come up with some test of that additional mechanism.

Mike Elzinga said:

david.starling.macmillan said: In the experimental design you provided, I'm pretty sure you're actually measuring the two-way speed of light. Because of the properties of triangles, the distance AC + BC must be greater than the distance AB. It would take MORE time for a photon to travel AC + BC than it would to travel AB, so this is functionally equivalent to a closed loop with an added leg. The only way to use this setup to measure the one way speed of light would be if AC + BC was less than AB.

The point is that AC and BC are equal distances. They could be far, far longer than AB.

You can either think of AC and AB as "delay lines" or you can put a recorder at the midpoint between A and B and record the pulses arriving from A to C and from B to C so that the results can be looked at long after the events have occurred at A and B.

One can make any kind of mapping from one manifold to another in order to concoct any kind of scenario one wishes. However, one of the most fundamental discoveries about the mappings of special and general relativity is that they are basically simple and consistent. Why substitute a mess in order to hang onto a historical fable?

eric said: Just toying with ideas here, but wouldn't the anisotropy concept predict some sort of angular dependence to cherenkov radiation coming off a nuclear pile?

Think of the pile at the center of a compass. I'm observing it from point South. There is cherenkov radiation moving toward me (southward from center) and away from me (northward from center). Under this model, the radiation in these two directions is going different speeds. A camera positioned at point East or West should be able to capture a still picture of a lop-sided glow.

gnome de net said:

david.starling.macmillan paraphrasing Lisle: Every location in the universe has light traveling toward it with infinite speed and traveling away at c/2.

So that means light from a celestial object traveling at infinite speed is observed on the ISS, passes the ISS and reduces its speed to c/2 but is observed on Earth traveling at infinite speed once again? Is that really his claim?

I said: Sort of off-topic, but what exactly happens in a refractive medium anyway? I think I have always pictured the photon taking longer because it has to dodge all stuff in its way, but I don't really believe that. Is it being absorbed and re-emitted? I assume refractive index is an idealization of some much harder quantum mechanics. Is there a simple explanation?

As the electromagnetic fields oscillate in the wave, the charges in the material will be "shaken" back and forth at the same frequency. The charges thus radiate their own electromagnetic wave that is at the same frequency, but usually with a phase delay, as the charges may move out of phase with the force driving them (see sinusoidally driven harmonic oscillator). The light wave traveling in the medium is the macroscopic superposition (sum) of all such contributions in the material: the original wave plus the waves radiated by all the moving charges. This wave is typically a wave with the same frequency but shorter wavelength than the original, leading to a slowing of the wave's phase velocity.

njdowrick said: Is anyone suggesting that there might be observable consequences of an anisotropy of this sort, or is it just a game, a coordinate transformation with no real effect on anything?

callahanpb said: Sort of off-topic, but what exactly happens in a refractive medium anyway? I think I have always pictured the photon taking longer because it has to dodge all stuff in its way, but I don't really believe that. Is it being absorbed and re-emitted? I assume refractive index is an idealization of some much harder quantum mechanics. Is there a simple explanation?

david.starling.macmillan said: And that's the problem, because such a design means that we are dealing with a closed loop. This is measuring two 2-way transit times and subtracting them, not measuring a single one-way time.

Mike Elzinga said: The photon isn't "dodging" anything; it is exerting a force on electrons or other charged particles that are bound together.

Frank J said:

So ID is just YEC that denies being YEC. And YEC is often just Last Thursdayism that denies being Last Thursdayism.

— Harold

For someone who says so many right things that most others miss, you could not have gotten that more wrong. ID indirectly peddles YEC - and geocentrism, OEC, and panspermia, and "all the results of 'Darwinism' but not the mechanism" etc. What's inferred by most fans is not YEC, but some version of OEC. And that results fine with ID peddlers as long as YECs and OEC don't challenge each other. But ID "is" not YEC any more than it is an Acai berry scam. If you had just omitted the word "often" in the 2nd sentence it would have been much closer to the truth, because then the whole middle YEC part could be omitted: "So ID is just Last Thursdayism that denies being Last Thursdayism." That's not to mean that any IDer thinks that the universe is really less than a week old, or even less than the billions of years old that most ID peddlers plainly admit, but in the sense of peddling any alternate belief, however absurd in light of the evidence. ID's goal is to make the audience believe whatever they want, as long as they peddle unreasonable doubt of evolution, and claim (whether or not they even personally believe it) that accepting evolution is the root of all evil.

david.starling.macmillan said:

TomS said: I like your distinction between necessary omphalism and gratuitous omphalism. But it raises the question of knowing what God can and cannot do. We can feel comfortable with things which are logically necessary being constraints, but those are really rare. And in the one case (I think it is only one) where the Bible specifically describes the appearance of age (the fruit trees bearing fruit). Are we allowed to insist that the oceans were created salty, in order to accommodate salt-water sea life? When uranium nuclei were created, does that count as the appearance of age? And it is hard for me to excuse the appearance of the age of the supernova SN1987A - what purpose does that serve when it didn't really happen at all?

All these things are problematic, and evidence the reductio ad absurdam which Young Earth Creationism is subject to. Creationists are faced with the unenviable task of explaining how a massive, continuously-active universe could have been spun into existence at full gallop. Everything from fruit trees to waves in the ocean to supernovae remnants to every particle trajectory in the universe...it's all part of a long past. If YEC is true, then one particularly gratuitous Omphalism would be this cluster of asteroid fragments. By plotting the 3D velocity vectors and positions of all major asteroids, astronomers were able to identify thirteen asteroids with distinct orbital similarities. Hypothesis: these asteroids all gained these similarities due to a single event. Prediction: a single event in time can be found where all these asteroids cross paths. Experiment: plot the trajectories of these 13 asteroids in negative time, accounting for gas giant perturbations and so forth. Results: all 13 of these asteroids cross paths at the same physical point exactly 5.8 million years ago, when an asteroid collision apparently smashed a larger body and flung them all apart. That's firmly in the "gratuitous Omphalism" category. No two ways about it. The more in-depth you look, the more you get a sense that the well-educated YECs realize (somewhere deep inside) there are too many Omphalisms to justify YEC. Unfortunately, the really in-depth stuff is difficult for a layperson to grasp and is thus subject to the "oh surely you're making assumptions somewhere" shtick.

It seems to me to violate Occam’s razor ....

Mike Elzinga said:

callahanpb said: Sort of off-topic, but what exactly happens in a refractive medium anyway? I think I have always pictured the photon taking longer because it has to dodge all stuff in its way, but I don't really believe that. Is it being absorbed and re-emitted? I assume refractive index is an idealization of some much harder quantum mechanics. Is there a simple explanation?

The photon isn't "dodging" anything; it is exerting a force on electrons or other charged particles that are bound together. Those particles have mass and they have to accelerate in response to the electromagnetic field of the incoming wave and reradiate to adjacent charged particles. The index of refraction is frequency dependent and it depends on how quickly the accelerated charge can respond to the electromagnetic field of the incoming wave. The mass and binding forces determine the natural frequency at which a bound charge can oscillate. Depending on how the frequency of the incoming wave relates to the natural oscillation frequency of the bound charges, the oscillations of the bound charges can be anywhere from in phase to completely out of phase with the oscillations of the exciting wave. Therefore the index of refraction not only varies with frequency, it can be a complex number. Materials that are opaque at one frequency of electromagnetic radiation can be completely transparent to other wavelengths. Materials can also have more than one index of refraction at a given frequency of light. If the lattice of bound particles is such that binding forces in one direction are stronger than those in a different direction, light entering the material will travel at different speeds along different axes of polarization. If there are two such axes, the materials are called birefringent, and light will pass through more quickly along one polarization axis than along a different axis.

The photon isn’t “dodging” anything;

Henry J said: So it's an interference effect? Or at least that it depends on the wave properties of the photon? Henry

Here is a fairly decent Wikipedia article on refractive index.

A discussion about the speed of light may be mind-boggling; it is to me!

My personal opinion is that from the point of view by the photon itself, the photon is not moving, it is static but the rest of the world is very busy moving around it in all directions.

The timelessness of the world of the photon is what makes it appear at the destination in sync with the departure.

Aother aspect of the life of a photon is that it is not bothered by the properties of whichever medium (or empty(?) space) through which it is propagating, it just trots along happily whistling "The Whistler and His Cat".

Another property of photons is that they ignore the concept of direction; any direction is as good as the other. They are like the Old Man River, they just keep rollin' along. Like all energy, they always chose the shortest path, the straightest line being to follow the curvature of space. A question remains to be sorted out: Are all our straight lines actually curves, with the curvature of space being the only true straight line(s) available?

That's how to approach understanding the universe without math, ID or Omphalism.

david.starling.macmillan said:

njdowrick said: Is anyone suggesting that there might be observable consequences of an anisotropy of this sort, or is it just a game, a coordinate transformation with no real effect on anything?

No, and Lisle explicitly states that there can be no "observable consequences" because it is just a measurement convention, not a physically different model. The only purpose of this model is to create a measurement convention in which Lisle can say the universe was created instantly when he is well aware that it would take 13.8 billion years in a normal measurement convention.

david.starling.macmillan said:

njdowrick said: Is anyone suggesting that there might be observable consequences of an anisotropy of this sort, or is it just a game, a coordinate transformation with no real effect on anything?

No, and Lisle explicitly states that there can be no "observable consequences" because it is just a measurement convention, not a physically different model. The only purpose of this model is to create a measurement convention in which Lisle can say the universe was created instantly when he is well aware that it would take 13.8 billion years in a normal measurement convention.

david.starling.macmillan said:

[eric] Think of the pile at the center of a compass. I'm observing it from point South. There is cherenkov radiation moving toward me (southward from center) and away from me (northward from center). Under this model, the radiation in these two directions is going different speeds. A camera positioned at point East or West should be able to capture a still picture of a lop-sided glow.

The camera at point E will not observe any difference in the speed of the radiation because from its perspective, radiation moving in the S and N directions are moving at the same speed, and it's the radiation moving in the E and W directions that has different speeds. Same (but opposite) for a camera at point W.

TomS said:

david.starling.macmillan said:

njdowrick said: Is anyone suggesting that there might be observable consequences of an anisotropy of this sort, or is it just a game, a coordinate transformation with no real effect on anything?

No, and Lisle explicitly states that there can be no "observable consequences" because it is just a measurement convention, not a physically different model. The only purpose of this model is to create a measurement convention in which Lisle can say the universe was created instantly when he is well aware that it would take 13.8 billion years in a normal measurement convention.

This sounds to me like the old "everything is relative" ploy to get out of accepting heliocentrism against the Bible's geocentrism.

As the joke goes: Surveys have shown that 6% of scientists identify as Republicans. Scientists are struggling to figure out why that number is so high.

eric said:

TomS said:

david.starling.macmillan said:

njdowrick said: Is anyone suggesting that there might be observable consequences of an anisotropy of this sort, or is it just a game, a coordinate transformation with no real effect on anything?

No, and Lisle explicitly states that there can be no "observable consequences" because it is just a measurement convention, not a physically different model. The only purpose of this model is to create a measurement convention in which Lisle can say the universe was created instantly when he is well aware that it would take 13.8 billion years in a normal measurement convention.

This sounds to me like the old "everything is relative" ploy to get out of accepting heliocentrism against the Bible's geocentrism.

Yes it's similar. In both cases, there is in theory a mathematical set of equations one can build to make the geocentric (and anisotropic) models yield the same predictions as their heliocentric (and standard) cousins. The question is whether the model actually submitted is such a model. Did Lisle forget (the relativistic physics equivalent of) an important epicycle? I'm not entirely convinced Lisle's model is equivalent in terms of predictions: having incoming photons have v = infinite seems to me that it would have consequences for photon interaction energy and thus chemistry. But I'll admit this is not my area. But assuming that's what he's been able to do, it's just going to be treated as a passing curiousity unless he can come up with some practical utility for it. What problem does it solve easier or better than standard physics? In some sense Lisle's model is just a mathematial version of an omphalos or we're-living-in-a-Matrix claim: defending such notions by saying they fit the data just as well sounds pretty weak to most of us.

callahanpb said:

david.starling.macmillan said: There are, in my mind, a few possibilities as to how Genesis 1 was originally written and how it would have originally been understood.

I'm not sure if the following matches any of your options, but I feel that it is primarily about God's intent, and the significant take-aways are independent of cosmogony (which is also in there). I think, for instance, that repeated assertions like "And God saw that it was good." (the universe is orderly, not an accident or on-going battle) are more to the point than the steps taken to get there.

I believe it also intended as a cosmogony. I don't laugh at ancient people for believing such a cosmogony, but I laugh at people who take it seriously today. I just cannot see any basis for either (a) insisting on the literal truth of a text that is obviously false or (b) accommodating to current knowledge by reading things into the text that nobody would have ever read into the text without the explicit intent to accommodate it to current knowledge.

Mike Elzinga said:

david.starling.macmillan said: And that's the problem, because such a design means that we are dealing with a closed loop. This is measuring two 2-way transit times and subtracting them, not measuring a single one-way time.

I suspect you may be missing an important point about the cables versus a vacuum. The same issue comes up with stevaroni's scenario.

TomS said: I tend to avoid "in-depth stuff … difficult for a layperson to grasp". Most of all, I am a layperson to whom a lot of this stuff is difficult for me. And I recognize that I am apt to get it wrong if I pretend to grasp it. But also, talking about in-depth stuff can give the impression that creationism is really deep stuff. Something that deserves discussion in professional circles, but is unfairly excluded from serious treatment.

I think that there are plenty of easy examples of "gratuitous omphalism".

And, by the way, if there is such a thing as "necessary omphalism" in nature, why can we exclude that from Scripture. Maybe the Lord had to express things in a certain way, because there was no way that it be properly expressed in Biblical Hebrew, or that would be transmitted by the fallible copyists.

Matt Young said:

It seems to me to violate Occam’s razor ....

Sure it does, so we assume that c is the same in both directions. But we have no way of verifying that assumption.

Rolf said: My personal opinion is that from the point of view by the photon itself, the photon is not moving, it is static but the rest of the world is very busy moving around it in all directions. The timelessness of the world of the photon is what makes it appear at the destination in sync with the departure.

Are all our straight lines actually curves, with the curvature of space being the only true straight line(s) available?

njdowrick said: I am surprised to learn that the one-way speed of light is not measurable without making some sort of assumption about simultaneity, but I now see that this is likely to be true. It doesn't magically make the universe any younger, though! Thank you for your patient explanations (and, more generally, for some extremely interesting and thought-provoking articles).

eric said: I think it may still be a problem for Lisle's model. Chernkov radiation is emitted when the charged particle velocity exceeds that of c in the medium. But c "coming right at you" through the medium is infinite. So a charged particle "coming right at you" through a medium should never give off cherenkov radiation. Yes or no?

eric said: What problem does it solve easier or better than standard physics?

TomS said: My all-time favorite is the theory that we are living inside a Concave Hollow Earth. It seems that one can make a mathematical transformation between inside and outside the surface of the Earth (exchanging the "point at infinity" with the center of the Earth). This is equivalent to reality, but cannot be distinguished.

david.starling.macmillan said: The question concerning Cherenkov radiation can be recast in terms of multiple inertial reference frames: if you're observing a medium traveling from your left at 20% the speed of light, and a charged particle traveling from your right at 70% the speed of light, and you know that the speed of light in the medium is 0.8c, will Cherenkov radiation be produced or not? Once you do relativistic velocity addition, it would appear that the particle is exceeding the local medium speed of light in some reference frames but not in others, implying that Cherenkov radiation would both exist and not-exist depending on reference frame. But the speed of light in the medium will need to be adjusted for relativistic physics as well, and length contraction will alter wavelengths, meaning the Cherenkov radiation will be produced in every reference frame.

eric said: What problem does it solve easier or better than standard physics?

It solves the "how can we continue to claim that the universe was created instantly when we know it would have taken at least 13.8 billion years" problem.

For the peoples of the ancient Near East … time was not a linear sequence of events with a starting point. … Creation myths did not answer the question "how did everything begin?" They answered the question "how is everything sustained?

Error: Either 'id' or 'blog_id' must be specified.

TomS said: My all-time favorite is the theory that we are living inside a Concave Hollow Earth. It seems that one can make a mathematical transformation between inside and outside the surface of the Earth (exchanging the "point at infinity" with the center of the Earth). This is equivalent to reality, but cannot be distinguished.

eric said: But that doesn't solve the YEC problem, because YEC's don't believe the world was created a femtosecond ago. They believe it was created approximately 6,000-10,000 years ago. If it's just a measurement convention as he claims, then it supports all ages equally, not one age in particular. Shouldn't Lisle be picking incoming/outgoing values of c that make the universe 6k years old? I can guess why he didn't - because that would've been seen as obviously biased and arbitrary in a way that using the most extreme possible asynchrony does not...and because none of his followers will think too deeply about it. "Could be young" is considered good enough, for all values of "young" I guess.

eric said: Okay, stop right there. How does Lisle calculate the length contraction and wavelength change for infinite v? Take E = hc/lambda. You cannot make c = infinite, lambda = infinite, and arrive at a finite value for E. IIRC that value is undefined, not finite.

It solves the "how can we continue to claim that the universe was created instantly when we know it would have taken at least 13.8 billion years" problem.

But that doesn't solve the YEC problem, because YEC's don't believe the world was created a femtosecond ago. They believe it was created approximately 6,000-10,000 years ago. If it's just a measurement convention as he claims, then it supports all ages equally, not one age in particular.

Mike Elzinga said: You are on the right track in trying to reach consistency. I will repeat what I have said before; choosing a nonstandard time synchronization produces measurable consequences when you include dynamics. These have been calculated by a number of physicists who have dealt with this issue. For example, one of the more recent discussions on this was by Hans C. Ohanian in the February 2004 issue of the the American Journal of Physics. As I have already mentioned, when one takes into consideration the interactions with masses, non-standard synchronization leads to pseudo-forces. Newton's second law no longer has acceleration proportional to force. One can live with pseudo-forces, but why do it if one can pick a synchronization that leads to simplicity and consistency in all inertial reference frames? What we are seeing with Lisle's shenanigans (and what I think David is trying to demonstrate) is repeated ad hoc explanations as to why everything looks the same to everyone even though light travels infinitely fast toward EVERYTHING and at 1/2 c away from EVERYTHING. Despite the claim that light travels infinitely fast toward everything and at 1/2 c away from everything, Lisle is asserting that billions of atoms and molecules and thousands of people at rest in a laboratory are all alleged to see exactly the same effects even though they are at rest relative to each other but they differ in their orientations and slightly in their positions. This is just plain stupid pseudo-relativity; and it is certainly NOT an example of the synchronization problem discussed in physics. ID/creationists such as Lisle like to play these childish games. They can tie up a classroom or a debating opponent in knots by repeatedly throwing out ad hoc "explanations" to every attempt at reaching consistency. This is not the way science is done, this is not the way the universe works, and this is certainly not what we are trying to teach students!

njdowrick said: None of this has any relevance to the age of the Universe or to the “starlight problem”. Am I getting there?

david.starling.macmillan said:

njdowrick said: None of this has any relevance to the age of the Universe or to the “starlight problem”. Am I getting there?

Yep. To see what Lisle is really claiming, apply the mathematical transformations to turn his overall cosmological model (not his synchrony convention) back to a traditional isotropic synchrony convention. It then becomes clear he is claiming God created everything from the edge of the observable universe inward at the speed of light, over a period of about 14 billion years, finishing approximately 6,000 years ago. The fact that his reference to an anisotropic synchrony purportedly makes this model consistent with a fringe interpretation of Genesis 1:1-19 is of no particular interest to us. What we should be interested in are two things: first, the prediction made by his model that every event we see evidence of in the sky must have happened in under 6,000 years, and second, the prediction made by his model that we should see a spherical gravitational-wave discontinuity of some kind propagating outward with a present radius of approximately 920 parsecs. Consider a Kardashev-III civilization with a Dyson swarm large enough to enclose an entire galaxy. Suppose this civilization wants to create a new galaxy, so they arrange their pre-charged Dyson swarm in an empty region of space with particle accelerators on each spacecraft in the swarm. They all simultaneously fire a pulse of particles at 99.99999% the speed of light at the center of the void; when they meet, they fuse and collapse instantaneously, creating a supermassive black hole of mass M_smbc. What are the characteristics of the gravitational wave propagating outward from the formation of that black hole? What would that wave look like at a radius of, say, 920 parsecs?

Carl Drews said:

Mike Elzinga said:

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: And, amazingly, interiors are never larger than their exteriors. EVER. Glen Davidson

Except for the Tardis.

And the Wardrobe. And the stable in The Last Battle. How about black holes? Are they bigger on the inside than on the outside? Or is that just some TV movie I saw?

harold said: Lisle did manage to provoke several well informed physicists to discuss his model, at least in this venue. I'm assuming that this has been fun for you guys. It looks like fun. Lisle is just good enough at physics to make his insane physics entertaining to rebut, it would seem.

njdowrick said: However, choosing not to follow this convention makes dynamics more complicated. Although isotropy remains a convention there is now a compelling reason to follow it and no benefit that I can see from choosing not to do so. It is cute and surprising (to me) that the one-way speed of light cannot be directly measured but there seems to be no good reason to make the effort to include this extra freedom in the laws of physics, at least in special relativity. In General Relativity the laws of gravity and motion are expressed without reference to coordinate systems, so I suppose that none of this matters. None of this has any relevance to the age of the Universe or to the "starlight problem". Am I getting there?

harold said: Lisle did manage to provoke several well informed physicists to discuss his model, at least in this venue. I'm assuming that this has been fun for you guys. It looks like fun. Lisle is just good enough at physics to make his insane physics entertaining to rebut, it would seem.

The contrast with YEC, or creationists in general (or so it seems to me) is that such discussions don’t happen, or least they don’t seem to happen. They certainly don’t happen here. Such discussions just fall into arguments about who has the better claim to authority, or which of several arbitrary Bible verses should be applied. There’s no “learning” going on. There’s no exchange of ideas.

— Scott F

harold said: I guess the question is, though, is Lisle even a competent Last Thursdayist? Has he truly constructed a mathematical scenario such that God could have created the universe in some ridiculous way, such that the earth "could" be 6000 years old?

david.starling.macmillan said:

harold said: I guess the question is, though, is Lisle even a competent Last Thursdayist? Has he truly constructed a mathematical scenario such that God could have created the universe in some ridiculous way, such that the earth "could" be 6000 years old?

He has constructed a scenario in which a universe could have been created over billions of years such that all the light from one side to the other would reach the center simultaneously. He has further conjured up a mathematical excuse for calling this "instant creation" by cleverly redefining synchrony and simultaneity. However, the constructed scenario (creation in this particular way) obviously did not happen in this universe the way he says it did, regardless of whether the mathematical excuse is technically valid.

david.starling.macmillan said:

harold said: I guess the question is, though, is Lisle even a competent Last Thursdayist? Has he truly constructed a mathematical scenario such that God could have created the universe in some ridiculous way, such that the earth "could" be 6000 years old?

He has constructed a scenario in which a universe could have been created over billions of years such that all the light from one side to the other would reach the center simultaneously. He has further conjured up a mathematical excuse for calling this "instant creation" by cleverly redefining synchrony and simultaneity. However, the constructed scenario (creation in this particular way) obviously did not happen in this universe the way he says it did, regardless of whether the mathematical excuse is technically valid.

His analysis argues that it's okay for Genesis to say "God created all the stars in one day" as long as all the light from each newly-created star reaches Earth together. Which could only be accomplished by creating the farthest stars first, then the second-farthest stars second, then the third, and so on and so forth over 13 billion years until the center is reached.

My kingdom for a good analogy....

Got it. Let's say you want to test the effects of multiple simultaneous nuclear explosions on a bunker. In a dazzlingly overpowered waste of bombs, you set up 3 nukes in a 200-foot circle around the bunker, 6 nukes in a 500-foot circle around the bunker, 12 nukes in a 2000-foot circle around the bunker, and so forth out to a couple of miles. Lotsa nukes.

Shockwaves travel around the speed of sound. You want all the shockwaves to hit at the same time, so instead of triggering all the nukes at the same time, you trigger the farthest circle, then the next, then the next, and all the way in to the center, timing the triggers so that all the shockwaves reach the center at the same time.

Did you trigger the explosions all at once? Well, sort of. From the perspective of the poor guys in the bunker, all the shockwaves reach them simultaneously. They're not immediately cognizant of the time period it took to set off the triggers in sequence; all they know is that their bunker got hit by one helluvah blast.

Lisle isn't really saying anything about the past 6,000 years; he's really only talking about the "moment" of stellar creation on the "4th day". His argument points out that due to the principles of relativity, if two rays of light reach you simultaneously, there is a relativistic reference frame in which you can model them as if they were emitted simultaneously and reached you instantly. Which is technically true, but functionally useless. It's useless not only because it makes the math all but impossible, but because it dodges the real question: DID God create the universe from the outside in, 6000 years ago? Sure, he COULD have done so...but that is not the universe we see. So all of Lisle's math is meaningless.

You can "define" a synchrony convention where light from the edge of the observable universe gets here in 1,000 years or 10 minutes or 13.8 billion years or 4 days or 100 trillion years or instantly. Big deal. That's not going to change the fact that the CMB refutes Lisle's "outside-in" creation, and it's not going to change the fact that the heavens and earth we see are each hundreds of thousands of times older than 6,000 years, regardless of how we define light-travel-time.

TomS said: (couldn't the "other" speed of light be less than c, as well as much greater than?)

Mike Elzinga said: After something like 50 years of watching this stuff, I am not sure about the "fun" any more; but as someone who has taught, I still feel a sense of responsibility despite having been retired for over a decade now. I still struggle to find explanations of mathematical stuff that are understandable to the layperson. I have always felt more comfortable in the lab than in the classroom; but, as many others have discovered, I find that trying to explain things to others makes me think about things more clearly. One can only hope that it's clearly enough. I don't like seeing these ID/creationist characters getting the attention; but I also don't like seeing them getting away with their pure, unadulterated crap. As I have mentioned a number of times on this forum, ID/creationists fail science at pretty much the high school level; Lisle included. Yet they plow ahead into the "advanced" stuff as though they are experts. They aren't; and I find their dishonesty disgusting. But they seem to know instinctively that they can bamboozle the public and make the science community scurry around cleaning up the messes they create.

Mike Elzinga said:

TomS said: (couldn't the "other" speed of light be less than c, as well as much greater than?)

Ah, but in real physics it is far worse. It has negative c in one direction and positive c in the opposite direction. In fact, you also get to pick which directions you want the negatives and positives. So we have both negative c and positive c in any directions you like.

So basically, he has concocted a very complicated way for god to lie and deceive. But only really sophisticated humans who understood relativity would be fooled. And even they wouldn't be fooled if they were smart enough. Got it.

— DS

Helena Constantine said: I still don't why the refutation of Lisle's position has to be so elaborated. Of course I know nothing about physics. But if be had two points with lasers at both and a mirror at one of them, fired the laser from A to B and then from B to A and measured the time it took each beam to travel the distance, then bounced a beam from A off the mirror at B, and the length of time for the round trip was the same as the sum of the two half trips, wouldn't that disprove Lisle? If the laser bounced from B to A off the mirror was going to change speed somehow, wouldn't the same thing make the laser fired from B to A change speed?

Frank J said:

So basically, he has concocted a very complicated way for god to lie and deceive. But only really sophisticated humans who understood relativity would be fooled. And even they wouldn't be fooled if they were smart enough. Got it.

— DS

If that were so, then he'd be fooling no one, or at most himself. But these activists depend on their sound bites to "trickle down" so that many people take away little more than "I hear that this real scientist has proved the 6-day creation." That's enough to convince the 20-30% that are already convinced, or at least prevent them defecting to theistic evolution. And maybe win over another few % that knows a little more science, and digs a little deeper to find more facts, and pass them on. Even if they all misinterpret Lisle, the sound bites only have to be convincing, not exactly what was intended. And certainly not accurate or independently verifiable. IDers use a similar technique, but target a potentially larger audience, not to "prove a 6-day creation," but to get them to say - and pass on - "I hear that evolution has gaps, and that scientists are 'censoring' them." That's why almost no one heard of Dover or the DI. But a majority of adult Americans, mostly not Biblical literalists, have heard and repeated some of their sound bites about "complexity" or "gaps" in evolution. If these activists, Biblical or otherwise merely maintain the % that doubts evolution or thinks it's "fair" to "teach the controversy" (the latter as much as 70%), while the evidence for evolution keeps accumulating, they are accomplishing the bulk of their mission.

Helena Constantine said: If the laser bounced from B to A off the mirror was going to change speed somehow, wouldn't the same thing make the laser fired from B to A change speed?

Mike Elzinga said:

TomS said: (couldn't the "other" speed of light be less than c, as well as much greater than?)

Ah, but in real physics it is far worse. It has negative c in one direction and positive c in the opposite direction. In fact, you also get to pick which directions you want the negatives and positives. So we have both negative c and positive c in any directions you like.

And what about imaginary numbers?

Helena Constantine said: Well you'v failed in this respect. I still don't why the refutation of Lisle's position has to be so elaborated. Of course I know nothing about physics. But if be had two points with lasers at both and a mirror at one of them, fired the laser from A to B and then from B to A and measured the time it took each beam to travel the distance, then bounced a beam from A off the mirror at B, and the length of time for the round trip was the same as the sum of the two half trips, wouldn't that disprove Lisle? If the laser bounced from B to A off the mirror was going to change speed somehow, wouldn't the same thing make the laser fired from B to A change speed?

The Discovery Institute posted their typical response, link in here (). It's there usual . . . 'What ID, the bill doesn't mention ID. The rest is my response to that.

Opps, it helps to cut and paste the link in. http://sciencestandards.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-discovery-insitute-responds-on-ohio.html

(Sorry I'm late to all this, but I've been busy, and I've been trying to play catch-up.) As I understand the discussion so far:

1. It is (theoretically) possible for the speed of light to not be constant (in a vacuum). But this is mostly a mathematical accounting gimmick, that ends up making the equations much more difficult than they need to be.

(I'm particularly intrigued. If the speed of light moving "away" from an object is supposed to differ from the speed of light moving "toward" an object, how does the light "know" whether it is moving "away" or "toward" an object? That seems completely subjective; that is, dependent on the perception of the viewer. Or, does that question make as much sense as asking how a thermos bottle "knows" whether it needs to keep coffee inside "hot" or the milk inside "cold"?

2. From David, I gather that it is very difficult (perhaps impossible) to actually experimentally measure the "one way" speed of light, due to issues of time and simultaneity. However from Mike, I gather that with rotating frames of reference, and particles with mass and momentum, it should be possible to detect if the speed of light actually varied. In particular, such experiments which would have shown a variant speed, have instead been able to show us significant features of the space-time around us. (Would the "frame-dragging" around a rotating Earth perhaps be one such "feature" of the local space-time??)

More importantly, we use lasers to measure all sorts of physical properties, by measuring minute variations in the frequency or the "standing interference waves" in a closed loop of optical fiber. It would seem to me that a simple laser gyroscope like this would be sufficient to meet Mike's criteria for measuring the interactions of light and space-time in a rotating reference frame.

3. For all practical purposes, light behaves as if it's speed were constant.

4. Assuming the speed of light to be constant makes the math work out really nicely, and (in particular) reduces to Newtonian equations of motion at low velocities. The "accounting gimmick" of a variant light means that the equations do not reduce to Newtonian equations at low velocities.

5. There is no physical evidence to suggest that the speed of light (in a vacuum) is not constant.

I already understood that light was absorbed by a material when the frequency of the light matched an excitation frequency of one or more electron shells in the material.

What I think I've learned is that a solid is transparent to light when there is no or little interaction between the light and the components of the solid. If the light is of the "wrong" frequency, there is no energy transfer and the light moves on its way. (However, this understanding appears to be in conflict with the next item.)

What I found surprising was that in addition, there is some (what I think of as) "sympathetic" or "induced" oscillation between the light and components of the solid, where the components of the solid do oscillate due to the light, but actually reemit the light, possibly at a different wave length, or perhaps at a "delayed" frequency (in some sense). This sympathetic reaction is what accounts for light's slower speed in various solids. It's not so much that the light is unimpeded, but that it is actually recreated as the "clump" of light moves through the material. The configuration of the solid, and the kind, amount, and efficiency of the "sympathetic" oscillations account for the different speeds of light in different "transparent" solids. One way I'm envisioning this is that a "transparent" material is actually acting something like a 1x "laser". The system doesn't create or stimulate more light (like in a true laser), but it is constantly recreating the light.

Now for some speculation.

I can understand that, once created, a photon would have a constant speed in a vacuum. Think of it as the photon's momentum.

But, why does any particular photon have to be created at a particular velocity? Why wouldn't, say, a higher energy photon be created traveling at a higher velocity than a lower energy photon? Particles with mass can travel at all sorts of different speeds. Why not light? I realize that the math works out nicely for a constant "c", but math is just the accounting. Is there some physical phenomenon which restricts the nature of the photons that can be created?

So, according to this guy's alleged "model", how did the atoms of which this planet is made get here? Were they teleported from elsewhere, or was it "poof"?

Either way, why are the proportions of the elements (and isotopes) within the limits implied by all but the lightest (hydrogen and some helium) having being produced and distributed by exploding stars?

Henry

david.starling.macmillan said: I love Bell's spaceships because they illustrate just how wacky things become. Suppose you have two spaceships, one in front of the other, with a string connecting them. They both take off simultaneously, accelerating equally so that the distance between them remains the same. But this means that length contraction will cause them -- and the string -- to shrink. Since the distance hasn't changed, the string must break. But from their reference frames, it is the world around them that is shrinking...so why would the string break? It still breaks because the time dilation they experience due to acceleration makes it impossible to define a single concept of simultaneity, and so the rear ship "sees" the front ship accelerating more rapidly than it, and the front ship "sees" the rear ship accelerating more slowly than it, and thus the string breaks. All this despite the fact that if they both come to a halt evenly together, the string will still be long enough to connect them and should have never snapped at all.

Scott F said: Hold on there. Two spaceships accelerating at the same rate, maintaining an equal distance, but connected by a string of "constant" length, seems no different in principle than the nose of one spaceship connected to its own tail by the "constant" length of its own fuselage. Wouldn't the same argument imply that any spacecraft of finite length would simply tear itself apart?

Scott F said: (Sorry I'm late to all this, but I've been busy, and I've been trying to play catch-up.) As I understand the discussion so far: 1. It is (theoretically) possible for the speed of light to not be constant (in a vacuum). But this is mostly a mathematical accounting gimmick, that ends up making the equations much more difficult than they need to be. (I'm particularly intrigued. If the speed of light moving "away" from an object is supposed to differ from the speed of light moving "toward" an object, how does the light "know" whether it is moving "away" or "toward" an object? That seems completely subjective; that is, dependent on the perception of the viewer. Or, does that question make as much sense as asking how a thermos bottle "knows" whether it needs to keep coffee inside "hot" or the milk inside "cold"?

Henry J said: If both ends accelerate at exactly the same rate, yes. But they don't; in the case of a rocket, the back end accelerates first, pushing against the front. I guess it's kind of hard to measure in the metal of the rocket, but just look at the people in it, on those acceleration couches.

Scott F said: 1. It is (theoretically) possible for the speed of light to not be constant (in a vacuum). But this is mostly a mathematical accounting gimmick, that ends up making the equations much more difficult than they need to be.

From David, I gather that it is very difficult (perhaps impossible) to actually experimentally measure the "one way" speed of light, due to issues of time and simultaneity. However from Mike, I gather that with rotating frames of reference, and particles with mass and momentum, it should be possible to detect if the speed of light actually varied.

I already understood that light was absorbed by a material when the frequency of the light matched an excitation frequency of one or more electron shells in the material. I can understand that, once created, a photon would have a constant speed in a vacuum. Think of it as the photon's momentum. But, why does any particular photon have to be created at a particular velocity? Why wouldn't, say, a higher energy photon be created traveling at a higher velocity than a lower energy photon?

Henry J said: So, according to this guy's alleged "model", how did the atoms of which this planet is made get here? Were they teleported from elsewhere, or was it "poof"?

Either way, why are the proportions of the elements (and isotopes) within the limits implied by all but the lightest (hydrogen and some helium) having being produced and distributed by exploding stars?

Mike Elzinga said: Jason Lisle’s scheme is completely inconsistent with the real scenario in physics. He wants infinite speed in a direction toward everything and 1/2 c in the direction away from everything; yet he still wants the universe to appear old.

Mike Elzinga said: Well, light has to interact with matter in every case. This gets back to what I have been saying about the index of refraction. Once light has to interact with matter, the masses of electrons and atoms as well as their binding forces and accelerations are involved. And that betrays any pseudo-forces. This gets back to the question of how one calculates the index of refraction of, say, a transparent material when the light ray is coming at you compared to going away from you. The index of refraction depends on the ratios of the velocities of light in the medium and in the vacuum. The velocity in the medium depends on masses of charges and their binding forces. The velocity in vacuum, according to Lisle, is either infinity or 1/2 c, depending whether it is coming at you or going away from you. So how do you calculate the index of refraction? One is going to have to come up with a lot of pretzel-bending, ad hoc explanations that are going to be completely inconsistent with experimental facts. It may be possible to cobble together enough ad hoc calculations to make it work; but it is far simpler to just take light as traveling at the same speed in all directions. One doesn't have to make it unnecessarily difficult.

I'm afraid that this is not quite right.

"From the PoV of a photon" would require that there is a Lorentz frame in which the photon is at rest, i.e. where the space components of its 4-momentum are zero. But such a frame doesn't exist; a photon is never at rest.

Similarly, a photon does not have "proper time" (the time which would run on its co-travelling clock), only an "affine parameter" which is defined only up to an arbitrary factor. This parameter keeps increasing, thus the whole history of the universe is *not* compressed into a single "photon moment".

Mathematically speaking, the so-called "little group" of a photon (the group of Lorentz transformations which leave its 4-momentum invariant) is different from the little group of a massive particle; the latter is simply the rotation group in 3 dimensions. That's why the spin of a massive particle can point in any direction, while the photon spin must be either parallel or antiparallel to its momentum.

david.starling.macmillan said: Lisle isn't really saying anything about the past 6,000 years; he's really only talking about the "moment" of stellar creation on the "4th day". His argument points out that due to the principles of relativity, if two rays of light reach you simultaneously, there is a relativistic reference frame in which you can model them as if they were emitted simultaneously and reached you instantly. Which is technically true, but functionally useless. [/quote] In general relativity, it is not even technically true. In special relativity (Minkowski space), if two points in space-time can be joined by a null geodesic aka light ray, this ray is unique - which makes Lisle's anisotropic synchronization possible. However, in general relativity and with neutron stars, black holes, dark matter etc. around, it can happen that two photons which were simultaneously emitted in the Andromeda galaxy arrive on Earth *at different times*. It's useless not only because it makes the math all but impossible, but because it dodges the real question: DID God create the universe from the outside in, 6000 years ago? Sure, he COULD have done so...but that is not the universe we see. So all of Lisle's math is meaningless. You can "define" a synchrony convention where light from the edge of the observable universe gets here in 1,000 years or 10 minutes or 13.8 billion years or 4 days or 100 trillion years or instantly. Big deal. That's not going to change the fact that the CMB refutes Lisle's "outside-in" creation, and it's not going to change the fact that the heavens and earth we see are each hundreds of thousands of times older than 6,000 years, regardless of how we define light-travel-time.

david.starling.macmillan said: Actually, he claims it appears young. Even though it doesn't.

Helena Constantine said: Well, run the experiment in a vacuum then. and I don't see how C can ever be infinite. Wouldn't they notice it out under the Nevada desert when they test E=MC2 (I have no idea how to make the superscrpit). In fact, if it were infinite, wouldn't one fusion reaction destroy (i.e. convert to energy) the entire universe?

Hans-Richard Gr�mm said: I'm afraid that this is not quite right. "From the PoV of a photon" would require that there is a Lorentz frame in which the photon is at rest, i.e. where the space components of its 4-momentum are zero. But such a frame doesn't exist; a photon is never at rest. Similarly, a photon does not have "proper time" (the time which would run on its co-travelling clock), only an "affine parameter" which is defined only up to an arbitrary factor. This parameter keeps increasing, thus the whole history of the universe is *not* compressed into a single "photon moment". Mathematically speaking, the so-called "little group" of a photon (the group of Lorentz transformations which leave its 4-momentum invariant) is different from the little group of a massive particle; the latter is simply the rotation group in 3 dimensions. That's why the spin of a massive particle can point in any direction, while the photon spin must be either parallel or antiparallel to its momentum.

I don’t recall any of [YECs] asserting that the universe LOOKS young.

— Mike Elzinga

david.starling.macmillan said: Photons travel at the speed of causality because they carry the force of electromagnetic interactions between particles. That's possible because they are massless. It seems that particles with mass are busy interacting with the gravitational potential of the space around them and so they can't ever quite catch up to the speed of causality; a massless particle has nothing to interact with and so it must travel at exactly the speed of causality.

Frank J said:

I don’t recall any of [YECs] asserting that the universe LOOKS young.

— Mike Elzinga

Depends on what you mean by "looks." I often hear of YECs claiming that the universe (and/or Earth and/or life) has the "appearance of age," (meaning the billions of years that science, OECs and most IDers agree on), but when one looks at the evidence (absurdly selectively of course) then it looks (or appears) as young as they claim it is. I guess many YECs also claim that it doesn't even have an "appearance of age," but I also guess they would mostly just imply it, and not state it outright.

Mike Elzinga said: Lisle's "convention" screws with causality. In his scheme all past events can be causally connected to the present for everything. All past events for anybody and for anything can be connected to the present for everybody and everything. So you can make up any history you want and nobody can dispute it, because anything goes.

njdowrick said:

Mike Elzinga said: Lisle's "convention" screws with causality. In his scheme all past events can be causally connected to the present for everything. All past events for anybody and for anything can be connected to the present for everybody and everything. So you can make up any history you want and nobody can dispute it, because anything goes.

"Lisle's" convention (remember, Lisle didn't invent this stuff) doesn't change the causal structure of space-time at all because it is simply a coordinate transformation. Where you or I might use (x, y, z, t) to locate events in our frame of reference and call two events with the same "t" simultaneous as seen by us, Lisle is (I imagine) replaceing t by t_new=t + (x²+y²+z²)^1/2/c² and calling events with the same value of t_new simultaneous. In other words, he regards all of the events on an incoming light-cone as simultaneous. Although this has no useful purpose it does not mess with causality. The physics in Lisle's world that doesn't rely directly on the intervention of God is normal physics described in an unnecessarily peculiar way. (This is why experiments that test things like E=mc² aren't helpful - they'll give their normal result, but in Lisle's world the "c" in this equation is no longer the speed of light.)

Frank J said:

I don't recall any of [YECs] asserting that the universe LOOKS young.

— Mike Elzinga

Depends on what you mean by "looks." I often hear of YECs claiming that the universe (and/or Earth and/or life) has the "appearance of age," (meaning the billions of years that science, OECs and most IDers agree on), but when one looks at the evidence (absurdly selectively of course) then it looks (or appears) as young as they claim it is. I guess many YECs also claim that it doesn't even have an "appearance of age," but I also guess they would mostly just imply it, and not state it outright.

Mike Elzinga said:

david.starling.macmillan said: Photons travel at the speed of causality because they carry the force of electromagnetic interactions between particles. That's possible because they are massless. It seems that particles with mass are busy interacting with the gravitational potential of the space around them and so they can't ever quite catch up to the speed of causality; a massless particle has nothing to interact with and so it must travel at exactly the speed of causality.

This is a bit muddled. Photons follow the geodesics in space-time; so they are "affected by gravity." We see that in the gravitational shifts of their momentum and energy.

david.starling.macmillan said: It was my understanding (and I could be wrong, so feel free to correct me here) that part of the reason why massless particles must move slower than c is because of their interaction with the Higgs field, giving them rest mass. In other words, even though a photon certainly is still affected by gravitational geodesics, it lacks certain gravitational interactions that rest-mass particles have.

Mike Elzinga said: If all events on the past, incoming light "cone" (it is now opened up into a disk) are simultaneous then, for an observer or object receiving the light from those events, there is no time separation among events that all took place at the same instant but at different locations in its past; there is no separation in the "past" for those events. The signals from all those events arrive all at once no matter where the events happened. There can be no space-like separations of past events in Lisle's scheme. That is apparently the scheme Lisle has tried to set up. The Lorentz transformation makes (ct)² - r² = (ct')² - (r')² for all inertial observers.

He asserts that all structures we see in the universe were either created in situ much the way we see them now, or formed in under 6,000 years, or are a combination of the two. Of course any astronomer worth his salt should be able to show counterexamples to that.

— david.starling.macmillan

david.starling.macmillan said: It was my understanding (and I could be wrong, so feel free to correct me here) that part of the reason why massless particles must move slower than c is because of their interaction with the Higgs field, giving them rest mass. In other words, even though a photon certainly is still affected by gravitational geodesics, it lacks certain gravitational interactions that rest-mass particles have.

njdowrick said:

Mike Elzinga said: If all events on the past, incoming light "cone" (it is now opened up into a disk) are simultaneous then, for an observer or object receiving the light from those events, there is no time separation among events that all took place at the same instant but at different locations in its past; there is no separation in the "past" for those events. The signals from all those events arrive all at once no matter where the events happened. There can be no space-like separations of past events in Lisle's scheme. That is apparently the scheme Lisle has tried to set up. The Lorentz transformation makes (ct)² - r² = (ct')² - (r')² for all inertial observers.

There absolutely are past events with space-like separation in Lisle's scheme or in any other coordinate system because a coordinate transformation cannot change the invariant interval between two events. If it's space-like in one coordinate system it's space-like in any other. Let me work through an example to see if I understand it properly.

Mike Elzinga said: Now put t = infinity.

njdowrick said: Imagine two galaxies each one billion light-years from Earth. One evening at 10:30pm GMT (God's Mean Time) an astronomer observes a supernova explosion in each galaxy. The astronomer concludes that each explosion took place one billion years ago. They are events with the same time in the astronomer's reference frame but with different locations and they are therefore space-like separated. Lisle and anyone else following his scheme would say that each explosion took place not one billion years ago, but at 10:30pm GMT. (Actually, astronomers do record events in this way: SN1987A was observed in 1987 but happened a long time before that!) If Lisle wants to calculate the invariant interval between these two events, he can either carry out the algebra to write (ct)² - r² in terms of his new time coordinate, or transform his new time coordinate back to the standard one so that he can use the standard expression for the invariant interval. Either way must give the same answer because exactly the same calculation is being done.

Mike Elzinga said: Look at the invariant four vector (ct)² - r². (I am using r² = x² +y² + z² to minimize typing math in this editor.) Remember, in relativity this is supposed to transform unchanged among all inertial reference frames. All inertial observers will agree on its value and whether it is positive, negative, or zero; i.e. if it lies within their light cone (time like or time dominated), outside their light cone (space like or space dominated), or on their light cone (light like or null). Now put c = infinity. What values of distance, r, will ever make this expression negative? Lisle is doing pseudo-relativity.

Mike Elzinga said: Let me add some additional comments that have been implicit in some of our earlier discussions about experiments involving light propagating through materials. According to Lisle, everything has a past light cone that flares out into a disk. Now consider all events taking place within our own reference frame, no matter how distant they are from us; in other words, that lie in the plane of our reference frame perpendicular to our time axis. Which speed of light should we use to learn about what is happening at ANY distance, no matter how far away, in our own reference frame? Should we use the speed coming toward us (infinity) in our flared out past cone, or should we use the speed (c/2) in the future light cones going away from everything else that is not located at our origin? And what if the light coming to us from those events has to pass through a medium in which it has to accelerate particles with mass? What speed do we use then? What is the index of refraction of those materials? What light speeds do you use to calculate the index of refraction of any material? When you get into even the slightest details of any scenario, Lisle's pseudo-relativity is arbitrary and inconsistent. The synchronization issue for setting clocks is real; it was a historical issue that was grappled with before Lorentz, Poincare, and Einstein. But the issue was attempting to address specified directions, x, y, or z, in space, not directions toward and away from everyone and everything no matter their locations and orientations. It wasn't known at the time whether or not light traveled through a medium; and the issue was already well-known for sound. Lisle simply gussied-up an arbitrary, special pleading scheme to make it appear he was doing relativity.

After all my formatting efforts, the capital Delta symbols that I typed in have come out as I with a hat on. They looked fine in the preview too! Bah. Give me (La)TeX!

njdowrick said: After all my formatting efforts, the capital Delta symbols that I typed in have come out as I with a hat on. They looked fine in the preview too! Bah. Give me (La)TeX!

(B) "Yes, the speed of light can be adjusted when it passes through matter. But in vacuum, the speed of light is constant. Normally, when physicists talk of the “speed of light”, they mean its round-trip speed in vacuum, unless otherwise specified. This constant of nature is linked to other properties of nature, such as the relative strengths of electric and magnetic forces. And so, things like atoms might not be possible if the speed of light was very different from its current value. This suggests that the speed of light (in vacuum) has always been what it is today. The one-way speed of light, however, is not a property of nature, and has a range of possible values. It is an incorrect one-way speed assumption that I believe leads to incorrect age estimates when applied to cosmic scales. See my articles on ASC (anisotropic synchrony convention) as a solution to distant starlight for more details."

The anisotropic synchrony convention is just that—a convention. It is not a scientific model; it does not make testable predictions. It is a convention of measurement and cannot be falsified any more than the metric system can be falsified. However, I have made an argument in this paper that the Bible uses the ASC system. This claim is in principle falsifiable, though of course I have argued that it is true. Furthermore, given the information in Genesis and the inference that the Bible does use ASC, we can construct a cosmology that does make testable predictions. I will refer to this as the “ASC model.” To be clear, the ASC convention does not make testable predictions and cannot be falsified. However, the ASC model goes beyond the mere convention and does make testable claims and is therefore falsifiable.

We have seen that synchrony conventions amount to a choice of coordinate system. They are stipulated on the basis of their usefulness. They are not a hypothesis; they are not something that can be “tested” for truthfulness. Stipulating a synchrony convention is mathematically equivalent to stipulating the one-way speed of light.

By merely accepting the ASC as a convention, the distant starlight problem is resolved. However, by making a few additional, reasonable assumptions, we are able to produce a basic model of cosmology—the ASC model. This model makes falsifiable predictions, many of which have already been confirmed. The ASC model implies that all regions of the universe have aged only a few thousand years as we now see them. This prediction is contrary to most other starlight models, including time-dilation models. Yet, the prediction has some observational support, such as the detection of blue stars and spiral galaxies at all distances

Mike Elzinga said: What does mc² mean in Lisle's scheme? How does Lisle calculate the index of refraction of a material such as glass? When light approaches and leaves a plate of glass, which speed of light applies to the glass when it refracts incoming and outgoing rays of light?

eric said:

Mike Elzinga said: What does mc² mean in Lisle's scheme? How does Lisle calculate the index of refraction of a material such as glass? When light approaches and leaves a plate of glass, which speed of light applies to the glass when it refracts incoming and outgoing rays of light?

If I'm reading his comments correctly, njdowrick's answer to all of your (and my) photochemical and optics calculation questions is that our normal constant c is still used, but the velocity of light is no longer linked to it. C no longer represents photon speed, it just becomes an empirically-derived constant. Which, in my mind, is a giant step backwards in terms of "theory goodness" even if all the math works out the same.

Lisle said: The one-way speed of light, however, is not a property of nature, and has a range of possible values. It is an incorrect one-way speed assumption that I believe leads to incorrect age estimates when applied to cosmic scales.

david.starling.macmillan said: I've said this before, but "c" should really be referenced as the speed of causality, not the speed of light, because photon speed is secondary to c's function within spacetime.

Just Bob said:

david.starling.macmillan said: I've said this before, but "c" should really be referenced as the speed of causality, not the speed of light, because photon speed is secondary to c's function within spacetime.

IANAPhysicist, but I always liked to blow my students' minds by contending that REALITY is limited to the speed of light. If the light signal from a distant event (the explosion of the center of our galaxy, say) hasn't reached here yet, then that fact is NOT a fact here yet. It may be true there, but it's not true here, in any sense. We can't see it, or know about it, or learn about it, or do a damn thing about it, because the reality of it isn't here yet. We will only learn that the center of the galaxy exploded '40,000 years ago' in the seconds while we're dying as the wavefront of intense gamma, Xrays, etc. sterilize the Earth. Only then will it be real here.

I thought gluons had mass.

david.starling.macmillan said: Also note the catchphrase "not a property of nature". In other words, the whole discussion is pure apologetics with no bearing on reality.

Henry J said: I thought gluons had mass.

Shall I tell you the truth? It is best. Your book is the first that ever made me doubt, and I fear it will make hundreds do so. Your book tends to prove this — that if we accept the fact of absolute creation, God becomes Deus quidam deceptor [‘God who is sometimes a deceiver’]. I do not mean merely in the case of fossils which pretend to be the bones of dead animals; but in the one single case of your newly created scars on the pandanus trunk, your newly created Adam's navel, you make God tell a lie. It is not my reason, but my conscience which revolts here... I cannot... believe that God has written on the rocks one enormous and superfluous lie for all mankind." (reproduced from Hardin, 1982).

njdowrick said: I'll quote Charles Kingsley: he was referring to Omphalos by Philip Gosse,

Never was a book cast upon the waters with greater anticipation of success than was this curious, this obstinate, this fanatical volume... He offered it with a glowing gesture to atheists and Christians alike. This was to be a universal panacea; this the system of intellectual therapeutics which could not but heal all the maladies of the age. But alas, atheists and Christians alike looked at it and laughed, and threw it away.

njdowrick said: I have now read Lisle's paper through properly. The first thing that struck me was his reference to a previous paper that he had written ... under a pseudonym. Why??

Second, Lisle talks about the "Alternate Synchrony Model" (ASM). This is the assumption that the Bible - and by implication, God - uses the ASC. If I were God I would be offended by this suggestion; Einstein would surely be horrified. It implies what David has previously stated - God created the rest of the Universe at times (not "times", if you get my drift) ranging from 13.7 billion years ago for the cosmic microwave background to 6004 years ago for Alpha Centauri....

...with the created objects having a superficial appearance of age ranging from zero for the most distant objects to 13.7 billion years for the nearby stuff.

Mike Elzinga said: There is no doubt that this is sectarian apologetics and not science. This is what these people do for a living; and, in their subculture, they seem to get away with it pretty routinely. And it prods their grass roots supporters to try to pass laws to force this junk science onto others who want none of their sectarian dogma.

njdowrick said: I have now read Lisle's paper through properly. The first thing that struck me was his reference to a previous paper that he had written ... under a pseudonym. Why?? Anyway, I now have a better understanding of what the paper is about. First, there is what he refers to as the "Alternate Synchrony Convention" (ASC). ...

Robert Newton is an astrophysicist undertaking research for a doctorate at an accredited university in the USA. He graduated summa cum laude (first class honours), with a double major in physics and astronomy, and a minor in mathematics. He has also completed an M.S. in astrophysics. Robert is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

callahanpb said: The only novelty of Lisle's is to wrap the untestable hypotheses in enough obfuscating physics that the lay reader will not be able to find the punchline in time to get the joke.

david.starling.macmillan said: To Mike's point: I once really did sincerely hold the belief that the rest of the world was opposed to Christianity, united against us, and filled with constant sin and liberalism and calumny and hatred. If I had continued to surround myself with other fundamentalists and read nothing but fundamentalist literature, this belief probably never would have been unseated, and I would still be in the same boat as Lisle.

njdowrick said: The first thing that struck me was his reference to a previous paper that he had written ... under a pseudonym. Why??

I have previously written on the possibility that a non-Einstein synchrony convention may solve the distant starlight problem. That preliminary article was written under my penname Robert Newton and is a precursor to the more in-depth analysis offered in this paper (Newton 2001).

david.starling.macmillan said:

Henry J said: I thought gluons had mass.

Gluon, gluoff. But yeah, photons and the various gluons are the only gauge bosons with no rest mass.

callahanpb said:

njdowrick said: I'll quote Charles Kingsley: he was referring to Omphalos by Philip Gosse,

The Wikipedia page on Omphalos (book) has this quote from Gosse's son in 1907:

Never was a book cast upon the waters with greater anticipation of success than was this curious, this obstinate, this fanatical volume... He offered it with a glowing gesture to atheists and Christians alike. This was to be a universal panacea; this the system of intellectual therapeutics which could not but heal all the maladies of the age. But alas, atheists and Christians alike looked at it and laughed, and threw it away.

The only novelty of Lisle's is to wrap the untestable hypotheses in enough obfuscating physics that the lay reader will not be able to find the punchline in time to get the joke.

Mike Elzinga said: Alternate Synchrony Convention? What paper are you reading? Here is Lisle's paper in the Answers Research Journal "Anisotropic Synchrony Convention - A Solution to the Distant Starlight Problem." The word "alternate" is not used by Lisle in this paper. Is there another paper?

Mike Elzinga said: Obviously Lisle was keeping his head down while doing essentially grunt work for his dissertation. So why doesn’t “Robert Newton” (aka Jason Lisle) understand basic physics? Where is the “physics” in Lisle’s “astrophysics?”

david.starling.macmillan said:

Henry J said: I thought gluons had mass.

Gluon, gluoff. But yeah, photons and the various gluons are the only gauge bosons with no rest mass.

Henry J said:

david.starling.macmillan said:

Henry J said: I thought gluons had mass.

Gluon, gluoff. But yeah, photons and the various gluons are the only gauge bosons with no rest mass.

No mass? Then I guess they aren't Catholic after all.

njdowrick said:

Mike Elzinga said: Obviously Lisle was keeping his head down while doing essentially grunt work for his dissertation. So why doesn’t “Robert Newton” (aka Jason Lisle) understand basic physics? Where is the “physics” in Lisle’s “astrophysics?”

I suspect that Lisle does understand basic physics and that he realises that what he is proposing is not reasonable, but he finds it hard to admit this, either to others and perhaps even to himself. I hope that one day he finds the courage to do this.

david.starling.macmillan said:

Henry J said:

david.starling.macmillan said:

Henry J said: I thought gluons had mass.

Gluon, gluoff. But yeah, photons and the various gluons are the only gauge bosons with no rest mass.

No mass? Then I guess they aren't Catholic after all.

I think they're nominal Catholics; their mass varies inverse to their wavelength. The shorter the distance [to a church?], the more mass they have.

david.starling.macmillan said: But for an astrophysicist who has doubtless seen innumerable structures in the cosmos showing clear history stretching back billions of years, it's a little hard to comprehend how YEC could still be maintained. Then again, Lisle primarily focused on stellar dynamic astrophysics IIRC, so perhaps he was never really forced to study anything particularly far out.

Mike Elzinga said: I am not so sure the ID/creationist leaders really understand the basics as well as they attempt to appear they do. I am not convinced that they even have the same drives, as do working scientists, to get concepts right. They abhor peer review.

Henry J said:

david.starling.macmillan said:

Henry J said:

david.starling.macmillan said:

Henry J said: I thought gluons had mass.

Gluon, gluoff. But yeah, photons and the various gluons are the only gauge bosons with no rest mass.

No mass? Then I guess they aren't Catholic after all.

I think they're nominal Catholics; their mass varies inverse to their wavelength. The shorter the distance [to a church?], the more mass they have.

And the greater the frequency (of attendance, that is).

Mike Elzinga said:

david.starling.macmillan said: But for an astrophysicist who has doubtless seen innumerable structures in the cosmos showing clear history stretching back billions of years, it's a little hard to comprehend how YEC could still be maintained. Then again, Lisle primarily focused on stellar dynamic astrophysics IIRC, so perhaps he was never really forced to study anything particularly far out.

Most working scientists that I know are aware that they have to work through misconceptions over the course of their careers; especially as fresh PhDs. It takes time to gain maturity in doing research. Peer review and constant interactions with students and colleagues helps with that. However, all of the ID/creationist "science" I have seen over the years since the 1970s manages to muck up basic scientific concepts at even the high school level. Even a little thought for the implications of ID/creationist assertions should cause one to pause. At the undergraduate level, some people can get by with a good rote memory if the examination procedures allow it. It is even possible to get through a PhD program at a reputable university and still not understand some of the basics; and I suspect we all have had some rough edges in our understanding after completing our PhDs. But I have seen students making the kinds of calculation about how to navigate the system with minimum exposure to testing of their understanding. Students who think like this rarely succeed; but an overloaded faculty and large research teams can allow an occasional student to slip through by taking on routine tasks that don't challenge their understanding. The PhD candidates who are serious about the science will seek out and be in the middle of all the major aspects of a research project. Their attitudes stand in stark contrast to someone who is just looking for a routine task that will get them their letters.

I've been discussing your anisotropic synchrony model at length for some time now, and I had a question about your understanding of it. As far as I've been able to tell, the model of 4th-day creation using the anisotropic synchrony convention, if mathematically transformed back into a more traditional isotropic synchrony convention a la Einstein, implies the progressive creation of galaxies from the edge of the observable universe toward us over a period of many billions of years in the isotropic convention, such that all light reached Earth near-simultaneously on the 4th day. Is that an accurate understanding of the overall model you propose?

david.starling.macmillan said: It'll be interesting to see whether he approves the comment and whether he responds. I'm fairly sure he'll recognize my name.

Mike Elzinga said:

david.starling.macmillan said: It'll be interesting to see whether he approves the comment and whether he responds. I'm fairly sure he'll recognize my name.

My personal opinion is that ID/creationists should not be confronted directly but, instead, should be taken down by nobodies coming out of nowhere and disappearing back into nowhere. No free rides for ID/creationists on the backs of working scientists. I have found that it is more effective to study ID/creationist misconceptions and misrepresentations and use that understanding to educate students and the public.

Let's see if I follow this. He's saying that t starts with creation of quite young galaxies, at the limit of detection. But then at each step inward, it means creating older and older galaxies, which have to at least roughly similar to what those younger galaxies have done or become over time. Also the number and separations of the newly created "old" galaxies have to match the distribution that would be expected if the whole thing had "evolved" as a group.

Sounds like revisionist history to me, and on an astronomical scale at that.

Henry J said: Let's see if I follow this. He's saying that t starts with creation of quite young galaxies, at the limit of detection. But then at each step inward, it means creating older and older galaxies, which have to at least roughly similar to what those younger galaxies have done or become over time.

This is still bothering me. I may not be able to measure the one-way speed of light, but somehow I still feel I should be able demonstrate the effects of a variant C.

Particularly in a reference system ac convoluted as Lisle's, where C is infinite towards Earth and C/2 away from Earth.

For example The speed of light was first roughly calculated in the early 1700's by a guy who timed the transits of the moons of Jupiter.

He noticed that when the Earth was closest to Jupiter the transits were about 15 minutes earlier than they were 6 months later when the Earth was on the opposite side of The sun. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that this phenomenon can still be observed.

Given Lisle's Earth-centric variant C, where there should, apparently, be no different time-of-flight from Jupiter to one side of Earth's orbit or the other (after all, C=infinity, and possibly beyond), doesn't that imply a suspiciously compliant Jovian system, slowly speeding itself up and slowing itself down twice per year??

Likewise, I can imagine a distorted reference frame, say, where the "X-direction" speed of light was twice the "Y direction", but the frame also proportionally distorted distance, so you could never measure it.

But Lisle frame is remarkably specific, apparently depending on a normal vector to Earth.

But we have plenty of deep-space probes that aren't moving in our reference frame. That is, they are moving in vectors tangential to the effect, in directions where C is different.

Many of these spacecraft are navigated with the help of careful time-of-flight measurements of radio signals sent from Earth and pinged back.

These spacecraft are aimed based on a model that assumes a constant C. Given the fact that communicating with some of these things takes hours, and these spacecraft travel at high speeds, it should be obvious that they're not where they are supposed to be.

For instance, It takes eight hours for a radio signal to get out to the New Horizons probe and back. New Horizons moves about a quarter million miles in that time.

Much of that motion takes place along vectors that are, essentially, random to the "field warp" normal to Earth, the point of view from which navigation is being computed.

Yet new Horizons can still be navigated accurately enough to take pictures of Jovian moons a few hundred miles across using a camera with a field of view of a half of a degree, from a distance of dozens of millions of miles.

All calculated out ahead of time, based on a model of the solar system featuring a constant C, known to 10 or 12 decimal places.

I'm gonna go with the idea that that kind of shit just isn't possible if your model of the universe is off by just a single percentage point, much less as dramatically wrong as Lisle proposes.

stevaroni said: This is still bothering me. I may not be able to measure the one-way speed of light, but somehow I still feel I should be able demonstrate the effects of a variant C. Particularly in a reference system ac convoluted as Lisle's, where C is infinite towards Earth and C/2 away from Earth. For example The speed of light was first roughly calculated in the early 1700's by a guy who timed the transits of the moons of Jupiter. He noticed that when the Earth was closest to Jupiter the transits were about 15 minutes earlier than they were 6 months later when the Earth was on the opposite side of The sun. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that this phenomenon can still be observed. Given Lisle's Earth-centric variant C, where there should, apparently, be no different time-of-flight from Jupiter to one side of Earth's orbit or the other (after all, C=infinity, and possibly beyond), doesn't that imply a suspiciously compliant Jovian system, slowly speeding itself up and slowing itself down twice per year?? Likewise, I can imagine a distorted reference frame, say, where the "X-direction" speed of light was twice the "Y direction", but the frame also proportionally distorted distance, so you could never measure it. But Lisle frame is remarkably specific, apparently depending on a normal vector to Earth. But we have plenty of deep-space probes that aren't moving in our reference frame. That is, they are moving in vectors tangential to the effect, in directions where C is different. Many of these spacecraft are navigated with the help of careful time-of-flight measurements of radio signals sent from Earth and pinged back. These spacecraft are aimed based on a model that assumes a constant C. Given the fact that communicating with some of these things takes hours, and these spacecraft travel at high speeds, it should be obvious that they're not where they are supposed to be. For instance, It takes eight hours for a radio signal to get out to the New Horizons probe and back. New Horizons moves about a quarter million miles in that time. Much of that motion takes place along vectors that are, essentially, random to the "field warp" normal to Earth, the point of view from which navigation is being computed. Yet new Horizons can still be navigated accurately enough to take pictures of Jovian moons a few hundred miles across using a camera with a field of view of a half of a degree, from a distance of dozens of millions of miles. All calculated out ahead of time, based on a model of the solar system featuring a constant C, known to 10 or 12 decimal places. I'm gonna go with the idea that that kind of shit just isn't possible if your model of the universe is off by just a single percentage point, much less as dramatically wrong as Lisle proposes.

stevaroni said: This is still bothering me. I may not be able to measure the one-way speed of light, but somehow I still feel I should be able demonstrate the effects of a variant C. Particularly in a reference system ac convoluted as Lisle's, where C is infinite towards Earth and C/2 away from Earth. (snip) I'm gonna go with the idea that that kind of shit just isn't possible if your model of the universe is off by just a single percentage point, much less as dramatically wrong as Lisle proposes.

njdowrick said:

stevaroni said: This is still bothering me. I may not be able to measure the one-way speed of light, but somehow I still feel I should be able demonstrate the effects of a variant C. Particularly in a reference system ac convoluted as Lisle's, where C is infinite towards Earth and C/2 away from Earth. (snip) I'm gonna go with the idea that that kind of shit just isn't possible if your model of the universe is off by just a single percentage point, much less as dramatically wrong as Lisle proposes.

In all important respects you are correct. Spacecraft trajectories are calculated assuming the truth of Newton's Laws of motion and gravitation (possibly with relativistic corrections) and a constant and isotropic speed of light. The calculated answers are correct. Using the same laws with a non-constant speed of light would give the wrong answer. End of story? Not quite. The transformation to a coordinate system in which the speed of light is not isotropic, which is what Lisle is proposing, also changes the form of the laws of mechanics. The new form will be far more complicated, with time delays, pseudoforces and goodness only knows what else but it will give the same answers. It must, because changing a coordinate system cannot affect reality, so long as everything is changed together. If Lisle were to propose that the speed of light is not isotropic and that the laws of mechanics have their usual simple form he would be trivially wrong. By being willing to accept the transformation of mechanical laws to a far less simple form he avoids this problem. Everyone else will naturally choose a frame of reference in which the laws of Physics are simple, beautiful, and reflect the underlying symmetry of the world. In such a frame the speed of light is isotropic. So far as I can see Lisle does not address this issue in his paper at all.

stevaroni said: Given Lisle's Earth-centric variant C, where there should, apparently, be no different time-of-flight from Jupiter to one side of Earth's orbit or the other (after all, C=infinity, and possibly beyond), doesn't that imply a suspiciously compliant Jovian system, slowly speeding itself up and slowing itself down twice per year??

But Lisle frame is remarkably specific, apparently depending on a normal vector to Earth.

david.starling.macmillan said:

Henry J said: Let's see if I follow this. He's saying that t starts with creation of quite young galaxies, at the limit of detection. But then at each step inward, it means creating older and older galaxies, which have to at least roughly similar to what those younger galaxies have done or become over time.

That's what would be required to produce what we see, yes. But he denies that the nearer galaxies appear any older than the farther galaxies, and insists that they all look basically the same "age" and any evidence to the contrary is just selection bias or sampling bias or confirmation bias or something like that.

eric said: IMO this model seems to me to get the worst of pretty much everything.

However, with ASC, the velocity does not matter. Both earth at creation (O) and earth six months later (O') have approximately the same position, even though the velocity is quite different. Therefore, under ASC, both would consider the creation of the stars to be simultaneous on Day Four - even for the most distant galaxies.

If we select ASC, then we have declared that light is essentially infinitely fast when moving directly toward the observer, and c/2 when moving directly away. Under ASC, the speed of light as a function of direction relative to the observer (theta) is given by c_theta = c/(1-cos(theta)), where theta = 0 indicates the direction directly toward the observer.

Mike Elzinga said: But the angular dependence - which he just makes up; it doesn't fall out of any part of his "convention" - is now going to be extremely funny. Consider a plane wave front passing over the "observer." Does the part of the wave front impinging directly on the observer travel at infinite speed because the angle theta = 0? As we look at other parts of the wave front that are now passing on either side of the observer, does the speed of light change with angle theta? How does the speed change as the wave front goes by the "observer?" What happens if the "observer" rotates its position? Observers aren't points in space, they are extended objects. What part of the "observer" do we use as the reference for measuring theta? Suppose the "observer" is a plate of glass? What is the speed as the wave front approaches the plate of glass perpendicular to the plane of the glass? What happens if we rotate the glass plate so that the wave front is no longer normal to the plane of the glass plate? How does this affect the index of refraction of the plate of glass when the wave front is arriving at the glass plate and when it is leaving? Suppose it is a glass prism instead? What happens to the index of refraction when light is coming in from a star and arriving at a prism on the rotating Earth?

njdowrick said: He has made no effort to address the horrendous mess caused by the anisotropic synchrony convention that he adopts and I really don't think that he cares. It is madness to suggest that God has chosen such a reference frame for the writing of Genesis.

eric said: ...the system is pseudo-relativistic in that every object has photons traveling towards it at an apparent infinite speed in its frame of reference* and photons traveling away from it at c/2 in its frame of reference. So there is something like a Lorentz transformation that you have to calculate to tell you how the speed of photons in one reference frame appears in other reference frames, but obviously its not the same calculation. I'd say the same problem occurs for your other example of spacecraft signaling. Calculating the Lisle answer would be complicated, and its not clear to me whether it gives the same answer or a different answer. The argument David and others have been making is that since it's just a 'change in convention,' it must in principle give the same answer...so there is really no need to check the math to see if it does. But that assumes Lisle is right when he describes his model as a change in convention, and I'm not sure about that.

The incoming infinite speed is what Mike and I think buggers up all the photochemistry and physics. An 'incoming' photon hits an atom going infinite speed in the atom's frame of reference...and does what to the electron structure exactly? But apparently for those sorts of reaction equations you still use our constant c.

eric said:

david.starling.macmillan said:

Henry J said: Let's see if I follow this. He's saying that t starts with creation of quite young galaxies, at the limit of detection. But then at each step inward, it means creating older and older galaxies, which have to at least roughly similar to what those younger galaxies have done or become over time.

That's what would be required to produce what we see, yes. But he denies that the nearer galaxies appear any older than the farther galaxies, and insists that they all look basically the same "age" and any evidence to the contrary is just selection bias or sampling bias or confirmation bias or something like that.

IMO this model seems to me to get the worst of pretty much everything. Its not YECism because it posits a universe billions of years old. It has to include some Omphalism because it requires God to produce stars with the appearance of age closer in to Earth. It doesn't preserve the literalism of every star being created on one day. What he seems to have done is create an OEC model that uses some Omphalism. Which, IMO, should make it not as appealing to YECers as a YEC-Omphalism model, and not as appealing to OECers because they don't need Omphalism in their standard models to make them work. I suspect the only reason its attractive to fundamentalists is they can use it to go "[hard math]...[handwave]...YEC right!" But if you get past the handwaving, there doesn't seem much to recommend it even to the literalist or fundamentalist mindset.

Lisle writes: ...with ASC, the velocity does not matter. Both earth at creation (O) and earth six months later (O’) have approximately the same position, even though the velocity is quite different. Therefore, under ASC, both would consider the creation of the stars to be simultaneous on Day Four - even for the most distant galaxies.

njdowrick said: I think the problem comes from Lisle's use of the word "speed". If Lisle had written that "different parts of the same light wave have different wonkas" you would probably wonder what a "wonka" was. If you then discovered it was the rate of change of position with respect to a transformed time coordinate your response would probably be "So what? Why is that interesting?" If Lisle then claimed that "wonka" was the same thing as "speed" you would point out that (a) it isn't, and (b) "speed" is more than just the rate of change of one coordinate with another. When we think of speed we think of real physical processes, dynamics, frequency, wavelength, kinetic energy, time dilation, all sorts of stuff! Speed (wonka) in Lisle's theory is speed only in the sense that it is the rate of change of position with respect to his transformed time. It has no direct physical significance and it should not be expected to behave sensibly.

...under Einstein synchronization the creation of the distant stars is instantaneous when earth is on one side of its orbit; however, that creation becomes spread out over millions of years only six months later. This occurs because of the difference in velocity of the two reference frames as computed from the Lorentz transformation. However, with ASC, the velocity does not matter. Both earth at creation (O)and earth six months later (O’) have approximately the same position, even though the velocity is quite different. Therefore, under ASC, both would consider the creation of the stars to be simultaneous on Day Four—even for the most distant galaxies.

As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the one-way speed of light is not a constant of nature, but is a matter of convention. It is something we may choose, providing that our choice preserves causality, is self-consistent, and providing the round trip speed of light is still exactly c.

david.starling.macmillan said: Well, for better or worse, Lisle has Einstein pretty firmly on his side. The basic principles of relativity dictate that all measurements of the basic properties of spacetime must be the same in every inertial reference frame, and that any non-inertial reference frame may be reached by the appropriate mathematical transformations, accounting for the emergence of pseudoforces. This principle is pretty much absolute.

You'll still use c in calculating the energy of an incoming photon, but with the understanding that you are using it because you are in a universe where c = 186k mi/s, not because the photon's speed is necessarily 186k mi/s in your reference frame.

david.starling.macmillan said: Well, for better or worse, Lisle has Einstein pretty firmly on his side. The basic principles of relativity dictate that all measurements of the basic properties of spacetime must be the same in every inertial reference frame, and that any non-inertial reference frame may be reached by the appropriate mathematical transformations, accounting for the emergence of pseudoforces.

Because c is not the speed of light; c is a spacetime constant which happens to be the speed taken by massless particles in certain reference frames.

This principle is pretty much absolute. No matter how convoluted or artificial a reference frame you choose, there must be a way to make it work. I can choose a reference frame that makes the left side of my right pinkie stationary. I can choose a reference frame in which supernova 1987A took place before Kepler’s supernova 1604. I can choose a reference frame in which the first flag left on the moon by the Apollo astronauts is the center of the universe. I can choose a reference frame in which light moves in circles and distance is a logarithm. Whatever I arbitrarily choose, there must by definition be a way to make the math work out.

Pay dirt.

david.starling.macmillan said: Pay dirt.

ds_Q said:

david.starling.macmillan said: Pay dirt.

So does that mean our solar system is the real center of the universe?

david.starling.macmillan said:

ds_Q said:

david.starling.macmillan said: Pay dirt.

So does that mean our solar system is the real center of the universe?

It would seem so.

ds_Q said:

david.starling.macmillan said:

ds_Q said:

david.starling.macmillan said: Pay dirt.

So does that mean our solar system is the real center of the universe?

It would seem so.

Does it also mean that God created at the speed of light? This is so sciency - it gives me goosebumps.

I don't think anyone should try very hard to get his or her head around the implications of Lisle's guesses or said head is likely to explode and then who will clean up the mess?

Given the speed of light and length of a day, then the edge of the universe is 2.59 x 10^11 km or 1/365 of a light year, no? What I am wondering is shouldn't we be able to see the crystalline spheres with a good telescope ;-)?

https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawnKupVGX70N9ZsvLu8iScIzWpyVj8bds_Q said: What I am wondering is shouldn't we be able to see the crystalline spheres with a good telescope ;-)?

stevaroni said: But we have plenty of deep-space probes that aren't moving in our reference frame. That is, they are moving in vectors tangential to the effect, in directions where C is different. Many of these spacecraft are navigated with the help of careful time-of-flight measurements of radio signals sent from Earth and pinged back. These spacecraft are aimed based on a model that assumes a constant C. Given the fact that communicating with some of these things takes hours, and these spacecraft travel at high speeds, it should be obvious that they're not where they are supposed to be. For instance, It takes eight hours for a radio signal to get out to the New Horizons probe and back. New Horizons moves about a quarter million miles in that time. Much of that motion takes place along vectors that are, essentially, random to the "field warp" normal to Earth, the point of view from which navigation is being computed. Yet new Horizons can still be navigated accurately enough to take pictures of Jovian moons a few hundred miles across using a camera with a field of view of a half of a degree, from a distance of dozens of millions of miles. All calculated out ahead of time, based on a model of the solar system featuring a constant C, known to 10 or 12 decimal places.

david.starling.macmillan said: Well, for better or worse, Lisle has Einstein pretty firmly on his side. The basic principles of relativity dictate that all measurements of the basic properties of spacetime must be the same in every inertial reference frame, and that any non-inertial reference frame may be reached by the appropriate mathematical transformations, accounting for the emergence of pseudoforces. This principle is pretty much absolute. No matter how convoluted or artificial a reference frame you choose, there must be a way to make it work.

Also, I have to admit that despite my frustrations with Lisle, I'm actually enjoying this thread way, way more than the usual, endless "No, FL, the world really is round" troll cycle.

I'm getting to dust off the think-goo and play with some concepts I haven't dealt with since college.

I'm especially pleased that this time around there's the Internet, where I can "waste" endless hours poring through Wikipedia articles - "Ohhhh... so that's how you measure the speed of light through a frog....".

Also, it's really pretty fascinating just how big a community of "light speed conspiracy" guys are out there.

Although this guy shows you how to make a working ring laser gyro on your kitchen table out of a chunk of home-network fiber optic cable and use it to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth, which is, admittedly, way cool for a tinfoil-hat type.

Mike Elzinga said:

njdowrick said: He has made no effort to address the horrendous mess caused by the anisotropic synchrony convention that he adopts and I really don't think that he cares. It is madness to suggest that God has chosen such a reference frame for the writing of Genesis.

If Lisle wants the stars to all have appeared on day 4, then Lisle knows damned well what "speed" means in his scheme; it is infinite toward Earth and c/2 away; no matter the Earth's position. The two paragraphs I highlighted directly contradict each other. If light travels at infinite speed toward an object and c/2 away, no matter WHERE in space, then what does "direction relative to the observer" even mean? This kind of crap is not unusual with ID/creationists; especially YECs. I have been watching it for something like 50 years now, and the stuff they come up with is always bizarre; sectarian dogma first; all else bent and broken to fit. There is never any consistency in what they make up; it is all expediency in the service of apologetics. I don't think they even know or care how muddled they are. They are just trying to preserve their preconceptions about their sectarian readings of their holy book. It's driven by fear of burning for eternity.

OK, one last thought tonight.

Imagine astronomers in a space station. The craft is in the same orbit as Earth, but it's advanced (or retarded) 6 months, so it's always on the other side of the sun (like the old Gerry Anderson Sci-Fi Film, Doppleganger).

The important thing is that it keeps the same distance from the Earth throughout it's orbit, so it's "Lisle clock" runs at a constant speed relative to Earth Clocks. It will run slower than Earth Clocks by a certain ratio, but that ratio is constant and can be calculated, consequently an "Earth equivalent" clock can be synthesized, much like the clocks on GPS satellites are corrected by a teeny little percentage.

The baseline time is set when a line between Earth and the spaceship is tangent to a line from the sun to Jupiter.

In "normal" physics, light takes about 8 minutes to travel the distance between Earth and the sun in either direction. Take this as our baseline C.

Now imagine the moment when the space station, Jupiter and the Earth are all in a line.

In the case where the Earth is nearest Jupiter, Jupiter's clock is obligingly running 8 minutes fast, so with the instant time-of flight for the light to the Earth, Jupiter's moons appear from here with just the right timing.

But light that flies past Earth has to climb out of the "Lisle relativity framework well" so it's now traveling at the "Earth outbound" speed of 1/2C and it hurtles on into the void where it will get to the spaceship in 32 more minutes (2 AU's @ 1/2C).

Under classic physics, the spaceship would expect to see the events on Jupiter 16 minutes later than Earth (2 AU's @ C), so observers there will notice Jupiter is running 16 minutes late on their "Earth Clock".

Now go forward 6 months, The three are now back in line. Now the spaceship is closer to Jupiter, but it's in line with Earth. Since Jupiter is now 2AU from Earth, events there are obligingly moving 8 minutes slow.

But light from Jupiter to Earth is moving at infinity, and since the space station is in line with Earth, both Earth and the space station will "see" events on Jupiter at the same time.

Both will clock the Jovian moons at -8 minutes.

Observers on Earth see a 16 minute difference in timing from one side of the orbit to the other, while observers on the space station see a 24 minute difference.

More importantly, the observers on the space station see a difference that is "lopsided", +8 minutes on one side of the orbit, -16 minutes on the other.

stevaroni said: I'm sure that there might, in a mathematical sense, be some possible relativistic framework that allows for that, but I'm willing to wager that the math would have a complexity that would make "ordinary" relativity look like Kindergarten math homework. It somehow really, really bothers me that there's no way to show that there's no "there" there.

stevaroni said: In the case of the Jovian moons, since the light travels to Earth instantly in Lisle's universe, we see the moons of Jupiter as they're doing their thing. If they speed up and slow down it can't be some weird uber-macro manifestation of the Doppler effect*, since the time of flight is always zero.

stevaroni said: In the case of the Jovian moons, since the light travels to Earth instantly in Lisle's universe, we see the moons of Jupiter as they're doing their thing. If they speed up and slow down it can't be some weird uber-macro manifestation of the Doppler effect*, since the time of flight is always zero.

All of which demonstrate the frankly phenomenal property of every single celestial object having a local clock that varies in direct proportion to it's distance from the Earth.

I'm sure that there might, in a mathematical sense, be some possible relativistic framework that allows for that, but I'm willing to wager that the math would have a complexity that would make "ordinary" relativity look like Kindergarten math homework.

bigdakine said:

Mike Elzinga said: The two paragraphs I highlighted directly contradict each other. If light travels at infinite speed toward an object and c/2 away, no matter WHERE in space, then what does "direction relative to the observer" even mean?

Yeah. That is really weird. So if I shine a light on Venus, it leaves earth at infinite speed, and gets to Venus at 1/2C?

There is no way around it; you just cannot avoid the dynamics. Anything that depends on c, or on v/c, or on v²/c² is going to be screwed up by Lisle's scheme. This includes the well-tested Lorentz transformations, the Doppler shifts, and E = mc².

The time dilation of the decay rates of high speed particles such as mesons has been tested so thoroughly that there are no exceptions. This is routine physics in particle accelerators.

Lisle's "theory" cannot explain why cyclotrons and other particle accelerators have to be designed according to Einstein's theory of relativity, otherwise they don't work.

Even more fun is this old movie from MIT by W. Bertozzi demonstrating the ultimate speed of particles. The movie seems "quaint" today, but it is a pretty clear demonstration of the relationship of speed to energy for relativistic particles.

No ID/creationist "theory," especially that of Lisle, can explain what is going on in these experiments.

eric said: AIUI, when David says Lisle "has Einstein on his side," he's not saying that Lisle's math matches Einstein, he's saying that relativistic physics already accepts that such frame-dependent changes to apparent velocity occur.

Another issue I've just thought about is the cosmological horizon. Under current physics, stars further than about 13 Gpc from us are expanding away from us faster than c. Light emitted from those stars will never, even in principle, reach Earth. But under Lisle's model, there shouldn't be any cosmological horizon. And so his model has no answer to Olber's paradox, the problem that bothered many early astronomers: if light can reach us from all the stars there are, and there are a lot of stars, why is the sky mostly black?

The mainstream model answers that question quite nicely: light can't reach us from all the stars there are, because only 13B years have passed and so starlight beyond that 13B lightyear horizon hasn't reached us yet. According to Lisle's theory, it should all be reaching us. And, I will add, this has nothing to do with two-way speed, since there are objects near the boundary of these horizons for which no two-way photon exchange is possible, even in theory.

eric said: Another issue I've just thought about is the cosmological horizon. Under current physics, stars further than about 13 Gpc from us are expanding away from us faster than c. Light emitted from those stars will never, even in principle, reach Earth. But under Lisle's model, there shouldn't be any cosmological horizon. And so his model has no answer to Olber's paradox, the problem that bothered many early astronomers: if light can reach us from all the stars there are, and there are a lot of stars, why is the sky mostly black? The mainstream model answers that question quite nicely: light can't reach us from all the stars there are, because only 13B years have passed and so starlight beyond that 13B lightyear horizon hasn't reached us yet. According to Lisle's theory, it should all be reaching us. And, I will add, this has nothing to do with two-way speed, since there are objects near the boundary of these horizons for which no two-way photon exchange is possible, even in theory.

njdowrick said: I hadn't thought of this. More generally, how does Lisle explain cosmological redshift? Has God just happened to create galaxies with a recession speed proportional to their distance?

Then there's this new chip that serendipitously appeared in my e-mail in-box tonight.

Don't tell Lisle, but it's a complete time-of-flight IR distance sensor on one 8mm wide chip.

Waddya think Michaelson and Morely would have to say about that?

stevaroni said: Then there's this new chip that serendipitously appeared in my e-mail in-box tonight. Don't tell Lisle, but it's a complete time-of-flight IR distance sensor on one 8mm wide chip. Waddya think Michaelson and Morely would have to say about that?

david.starling.macmillan said: Pay dirt.