From: D. F. Siemens, Jr. (dfsiemensjr@juno.com)
Date: Tue Sep 30 2003 - 00:01:49 EDT
Allen,
This is the very kind of nonsense that Glenn described in one of his
posts today:
The YEC movement often makes use of the concept that facts must be fit
into
theories in order to wiggle out of conclusions. The thing they miss is
that
with lots and lots of facts, the viable theories shrink tremendously.
That
is why you will see YECs explaining fact A with theory A and fact B with
contradictory theory B. Only by explaining things in the 'local' method
can
they explain anything. To build a logically consistent, coherent theory
from
ALL the facts at one time, would drive them towards the theories which
are
generally accepted.
The stuff you quote only fits a brief record. Unfortunately, there is a
long record on both sides of every midocean ridge. Not only has the
earth's gravitational field changed in intensity, it has reversed many
times. This is locked in in the magnetic patterns. Let me explain. At the
midocean ridges, molten material is forced out hotter than the Curie
point. When it cools below the Curie point, the magnetic field of the
area at that time is locked in. Since the ocean floor is spreading from
the midocean ridge (it has been measured), the magnetic field further
from the ridge must be older. Since there are stripes of different
intensities and orientations, the earth's field has changed over time.
Of course, there is the YEC claim that continental drift was very rapid
postflood. Given the spacing of the stripes, on that assumption the
magnetic field flipped at decadal rates or faster. Of course,
radio-dating puts the age of the deposits in a match with their distance
from the ridges and the spreading velocity. All this demonstrates that
Humphreys' article is bushwa--unless flood geology is also nonsense and
God created everything more recently.
Dave
On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 17:45:12 -0700 allenroy <allenroy@peoplepc.com>
writes:
>
> Have you read this on the earth's magnetic field? Russell
> Humphreys, 2002,
> "The Earth's Magnetic Field is Still Losing Energy," CRSQ (39:1,
> pp.3-13)
> http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/39/39_1/GeoMag.htm
>
> Humphres' debunks the evo's criticisms, and goes on to expand the
> concept of
> Earth's magnetism -- many charts, tables, and equations. He also
> gives a brief
> summary of developments in this "magnetic controversy." Thomas
> Barnes published
> his first paper on how decay of the dipole moment fits the
> creationist concept
> in 1971.
>
> In 1983 geologist Brent Dalrymple criticized Barnes' work,
> saying "The
> same observatory measurements that show the dipole moment has
> decreased since
> 1829 also show that this decrease has been almost completely
> balanced by a
> corresponding increase in the strength of the nondipole field, so
> that the
> strength of the total observed field has remained about constant."
> Humphreys
> then shows that Dalrymple didn't know what he was talking about.
>
> There were quibbles back and forth between Barnes and
> Dalrymple, and some
> others joined the fray. Humphreys writes: "After surveying the
> evidence for
> geomagnetic polarity reversals for myself, I concluded that they had
> indeed
> occurred. I proposed that they took place rapidly during the
> Genesis Flood
> (Humphreys, 1986)."
>
> Humphreys describes some more of the debate, then writes:
> "Dalrymple had
> an opportunity to be an official reviewer for my paper, and to have
> his review
> published. He did not take advantage of the opportunity. In my
> response to the
> other reviews of my paper, I made note of Dalrymple's silence."
>
> "Despite these creationist answers, skeptics today still use
> Dalrymple’s
> old arguments to dismiss geomagnetic evidence. Much of that is
> probably due to
> ignorance of our responses, but some skeptics are still relying on
> the
> non-dipole part of the field. They hope that an energy gain in the
> non-dipole
> part will compensate for the energy lost from the dipole part."
>
> In 1968, the International Association of Geomagnetism and
> Aeronomy
> (IAGA) began to systematically gather and preserve geomagnetic data
> from all
> over the world. There's now a good database available (previously
> nonexistent).
>
> Humphreys gets more detailed and technical, with graphs and
> tables,
> including a description of how and why Dalrymple went wrong in his
> criticism.
> Humphreys' closing paragraph says: "Today's energy decay rate is so
> high that
> the geomagnetic field could not be more than a few dozen millennia
> old.
> Moreover, during the rapid polarity reversals of the Genesis Flood,
> and during
> the large fluctuations of surface field B for millennia after the
> Flood, the
> rate of energy loss was much greater than today's rate. That
> shortens the age
> of the field even more. In the absence of any workable analytical
> theory (or
> data) to the contrary from the evolutionists, these data are quite
> consistent
> with the face-value Biblical age of the earth, about 6000 years."
>
>
>
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