Talk:Answers Research Journal volume 3

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Hovind[edit]

Wasn't it that great scholar Kent Hovind that said Neanderthals were humans , but suffered from the typical features of great age with thickening of the brow, nose keeps growing and I forget the rest :( . To have lived after the Flood they would have been Noahs grandkids cause everyone else drowned. Hamster (talk) 04:52, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe we should call them Noahnderthals.  Lily Inspirate me. 08:48, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Statistical Baraminology[edit]

How does it work, what are they actually measuring? - π 07:30, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

I read a bit about it a while ago, but it's been some time. I has to do with common characteristics, as indicated here. I haven't look at it for some time, but I did discuss it with Philip once. Šţěŗĭļė Swiss cheese 22:42, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Is this an unusual definition of "discuss" that involves you asking questions and him not answering them? --Kels (talk) 23:16, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Philip knows <sarcasm>shockingly</sarcasm> little about baraminology. Which is <sarcasm>shocking</sarcasm> as if proven, cretinsism would be validated. Šţěŗĭļė Swiss cheese 03:20, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm shocked. You inspired me to go over and have a look at how they've been doing at aSK lately, and I looked at his most recent reply on radiometric dating. Now my head hurts... --Kels (talk) 03:43, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
I would be interested in learning more about this as I have encountered dodgy creationist computer programs being cited before in these Answer's papers. I remember before that someone used a program that was based on a complete misunderstanding of what an evolutionary algorithm is. - π 03:54, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Salt water[edit]

What the hell? I remember my first year biology lecturer showing me the exact same data back in 2001 to dismiss the idea that our blood was somehow the "ancient seas". That shit hardly counts as original research. As my lecturer pointed out that you body has the ability to regulate the salinity level in it so was able to evolve to have a far more optimal level salt than being stuck with what ever the salt content of the ocean was. Seems to me to be a strawman argument not even used be scientists. - π 04:15, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the problem is that you may be expecting too much from the ARJ... Scarlet A.pnggnostic 10:28, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
It is a new low - even for them. - π 10:33, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, why creationist think they can quote each other and think they have something publishable is beyond me. sterile Swiss cheese 11:03, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
japanese monkeys soak in warm pools and use the salt water to salt their food. Hamster (talk) 05:11, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Lisle's starlight problem solution[edit]

If I am reading this right he is basically saying that 300,000 km/s is the average speed of light on a round trip. So instead of it being 300,000 km/s from A to B and then 300,000 km/s from B back to A, we could just as well assume that the light went from A to B at 3*10^100 km/s and then 1.5*10^5 km/s from B back to A and therefore there is no starlight problem? - π 12:42, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

From what I understand of it, Lisle's logic is 1) The Bible must be right. 2) If the Bible is right, then relativity and everything we know about the speed of light is wrong. 3) But if relativity and everything we understand about light is wrong... that must mean the Bible is right!! 4) Now lets stick in some space time diagrams and pretend I did some real work.
Since this is the underlying logic of the paper, I don't think we need to pay attention too much to his apparent science, which may as well be Star Trek technobabble for all it contributes to his overall reasoning. Scarlet A.pnggnostic 12:47, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Π: Yes, that's my understanding of it. How that "fits" into relativity (especially the measured invariant speed of light in a vacuum) is bizarre. sterile Swiss cheese 13:34, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
He does have a point though that the measured speed of light is invariant only over the round trip speed, not the one-way speed which is not measurable separate from clock synchronisation. - π 14:09, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Having a quick read of Wikipedia, he has appeared to have appropriated another theory. - π 14:12, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Hmmm... Interesting. I guess I read ARJ too fast. You should look at the Sensuous Curmudgeon post's comments: There's a lot about Maxwell's equations and the like, which I kinda get. It's also bizarre for reasons of stellar lifetime. Either the stars were formed at different ages of lifetime or they evolved in time differently. And even if you accept a changing speed of light, it's not particularly good evidence for a young earth, as it's more a feasibility study, not an evidence-based study. sterile Swiss cheese 14:42, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
His whole theory does have a certain "the Earth is special" feel to it though, in that I assume that the speed of light is instantaneous radially into the Earth and 1/2c radially outwards. Maxwell's equations tell us that the speed of light is a constant, however this is not the same as being able to measure that it is constant. - π 14:54, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
I'd disagree, most of the electromagnetic equations that originally derived the speed of light were derived from empirical observation. So c has been measured as constant, albeit indirectly. Scarlet A.pnggnostic 22:24, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
Looking at Wikipedia's Michelson-Morley experiment page, there are undirectional measurements where the beam is split and then recombined. I would think this would be the same clock with one split beam. I guess I would expect something to come out different if Lisle's hypothesis is correct. sterile Swiss cheese 23:40, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

An important plank in Lisle's thesis[edit]

One consequence of the Einstein synchrony convention is that all observers agree on the timing of distant events if the observers have the same velocity—regardless of the position of the observers. Conversely, ASC would have all observers agree on the timing of events if the observers have the same location, regardless of velocity.

Assuming he has done his maths right and that his above statement is true, would we no be able to test his model simply by measuring whether two events appear simultaneous to two observers in different locations in the same reference frame? - π 01:58, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't know, in principle that looks like a testable distinction, but I'd really put it to Lisle to suggest and design the experiment. I can't quite figure out in my head how you'd get two observers in the same place at the same time but going at different speeds in order to see this test. But I can see how we'd test Einstein's "assumption", and I believe most experiments have shown it to be true - after all, there's a lot of fame and money to be made making Einstein look wrong and professional physicists will be more than willing to try! But anyway, from what I could gather of his hypothesis, there isn't much of an observable difference (because you can only observe the unidirectional speed of light) except that Lisle's assumption allows you to handwave the starlight problem. Scarlet A.pnggnostic 11:38, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
That's a good point, Π. Actually, couldn't you do something with acceleration, too, to show that Lisle is wrong? Some time I need to sit down and look at all this more carefully. sterile Swiss cheese 12:39, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Actually, look at this:
In other words there is no gravitational field in the Edwards space time because the anisotropy in the speed of light is constant; in the Edwards space-time the anisotropy in the speed of light does not change its direction as one moves from place to place. Under these circumstance one can by convention choose the one way speed of light without having any observable effect on special relativity and other physical circumstances. But - and here is the big "but" – one cannot choose a one way speed of light that varies its direction from place to place without introducing a space curvature; that is, without introducing a gravitational field. And it is precisely an anisotropy in the speed of light that varies its direction from place to place that Lisle thinks he can achieve merely by definition:

The act of choosing a synchrony convention is synonymous with defining the one-way speed of light.

Given that Lisle requires the speed of light in the direction of Earth to be all but infinity, then this means the anisotropy in the speed of light is radially directed toward the Earth, thus implying that the anisotropy changes its direction from place to place. Therefore Lisle’s “convention” is not a mere coordinate system redefinition because he cannot take this step without his model being physically different, a difference that entails a gravitational field.
sterile Swiss cheese 12:46, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Actually, this whole paper is odd. Lisle's hypothesis, that light is travelling toward earth at near infinite speed, can't be falsified, by his own admission. So what good is it? Basically, his argument amounts to, "you can't prove me wrong, so I must be right," which is poor reasoning by any standard. And most of his "apparently young" phenomena assume that God created stars and galaxies at varying stages of development. Most of his reasoning is gap reasoning: we don't have a good explanation for the presences of blue stars (which burn quickly), hence their distribution must be higher than expected and the earth is young. There's no model there of course as to how blue stars came to be (except the usual "Goddidit" stuff).
Ironically, he says, "by arguing that one measurement system is 'correct,' this hypothetical critic exhibits non-Relativistic thinking. He has denied the conventionality thesis in which we understand that both ASC and Einstein synchronization are legitimate synchrony conventions in Special Relativity." Which is pretty damn hypocritical as he is demanding that we accept his convention. Ah, creationists. sterile Swiss cheese 22:47, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

After reading Lisle's paper, it's not clear to me whether he is claiming that the anisotropy is still centered on Earth, or whether it was just centered on Earth at the time of creation. If the center of anisotropy does not follow the Earth around as it orbits the Sun, which orbits the galactic core, which interacts with the local group, etc., then would he not have the same problem as before? If the Earth moves off the center of anisotropy, then light coming to it is no longer traveling at infinite speed, and events do not occur at the same time they are observed. He has to make Earth a favored reference frame at the time of the creation of the stars, but does it follow that it is still a favored reference frame, or will always be so?--Martin Arrowsmith (talk) 00:04, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

would this idea apply only to actual light or to things that happen at the speed of light, like electricity ? I am thinking of some computers where the connectors to memory all have to be the same length so there are no timing issues, or the trigger of an atomic bomb. Hamster (talk) 00:15, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

The latest: No one's criticized, so it must be good.[edit]

Apparently Jason doesn't get science. No one's published peer reviewed critcism, so it must be right. What an idiot.[1] sterile Swiss cheese 23:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Needless to say it would obviously help for him to peer-review publish it first... Scarlet A.pnggnostic 22:08, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
Given that he is rehashing a conversation that physicist had 50 years ago, barring some experimental evidence, no one is going to publish a serious rebuttal of his online turd any way. - π 01:25, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Template making editing harder[edit]

I find that template annoying because every time I click edit it opens the template rather than the section, can something be done about that? - π 01:42, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't know. You can edit the whole page. I guess we could revert to the old way, it's just a pain to set up every time. sterile Swiss cheese 02:18, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
I didn't realise they were in templates. Seems like a very odd thing to do, to be honest and seems to have caused more problems than it has solved. Scarlet A.pnggnostic 11:29, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Repetitive formatting is exactly what templates are supposed to solve, actually, and as the person who has written >80% of the entries, It helps a lot. However, I understand the editing problem. sterile Swiss cheese 11:57, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Something has just borked with it, rescaling the interface but keeping the article text the right size. It's a problem I've seen before but I cannot remember what it is... The formatting issue would be solved if you didn't include the headers with the template, or they were transcluded in from another page as happens on the mainpage - as it stands the edit button takes you to the template, which is where the problem is. Scarlet A.pnggnostic 12:21, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Unclosed DIV tag, I got it. :) Scarlet A.pnggnostic 12:28, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

warm ocean during the Flud.[edit]

k, perhaps when the fountains of the deep opened up, the water under enourmous pressure and being heated by the mantle , would perhaps be boiling. The water that did not reach orbit, or the moon, mars etc , would heat the oceans that were fairly shallow seas. The west coast though is somewhat of a problem because the supercontinent Pangea didnt break up for a few hundred years after the Flud during Pelegs time. Dont these guys talk to each other to keep the stories straight. ? Was it supercomntinent during , and break up after , or superfast plate tectonics during ? Hamster (talk) 05:08, 9 December 2010 (UTC)