National Geographic is wrong and so was Darwin

Not direct observations. Hypothetical calculations.

No man has ever directly observed one million years, let alone one millenium.

Thus, religious observations.

 

Quit playing games, please.

If you have a specific objection, detail it for us.

As is you are just making unsupported assertions without any factual backing.

"Not direct observations. Hypothetical calculations."

Nope. Not hypothetical. Decay rates are constant. We can tell how long ago some rocks were fromed using these decay rates.

"No man has ever directly observed one million years, let alone one millenium."

According to your logic, then, we can trust claims of thousands of years either. I guess we will all have to join the cult of Last Thursdayism since we do not seem to have any means to prove any different!

I also challenge the assertion. Light has a finite speed of light so I claim that we can directly observe billions of years by looking progressively further into space.

"Thus, religious observations."

Nope, based on acutal observations.

 

That's a religious fantasy!

You can't even see yesterday.

 

Unsupported assertion.

Show me how I am not looking back in time when I look at things. I can only see my computor monitor as it was a few fractions of a second ago. The moon is over a second old. The sun I see as it was over 8 minutes ago. The outer planets, hours. The nearest star, years. The most disatant naked eye objects, millions of years. The most distant with telescopes, billions of years.

Just how is that fantasy. Another unsupported and unsupportable assertion.

 

It's all in your imagination and you can't prove a word of it.

 

The speed of light is a fantasy?

Well call the Nobel committee, I think we have next years winner!

Uh....Before I embarass myself calling Norway and all, you can prove this, right?

Now, do you have any citations or references that are on toic that you can give us or will we keep playing games? Calling the speed of light a "fantasy" is doing nothing bu playing games. Please quit trying to derail threads if you don't have something tangible to add.

 

Calling the distance that light travels in a million years, a million light years, is indeed science fiction since there is no way on earth to empirically prove such a thing.

Astrophysicists make mathematically calculated ASSUMPTIONS about the past based soley on their present observations about the speed of light.

It's called the Uniformitarian Principle and was first postulated by the geologist, Charles Lyell.

 

Uniformitarianism is geology.

Uniformitarianism is geology.

Uniformitarianism is geology.

Do you have any reason to believe the speed of light was different in the past? No? Then your complaints are without merit.

And yes it can be demonstrated. For instance, when a supernova happens, the light moves out and progressively illuminates material at various distances from the supernova. The time after the supernova that these things are illuminated show the speed of light to have been the same at that point in the past.

And do we really need to get into E=mc^2 problems with a changing speed of light?

Besides, what does any of this have to do with the NG article? You aretaking the thread way off topic.

 

UTE:

"Uniformitarianism is geology."

Uniformitarianism is the pseudoscientific principle that all past events may be understood in terms of present physical processes.

"Do you have any reason to believe the speed of light was different in the past? No? Then your complaints are without merit."
===================================

Who's complaining about the fact that no human being has ever measured the speed of light one million years ago or even one millenium ago?

"And yes it can be demonstrated. For instance, when a supernova happens, the light moves out and progressively illuminates material at various distances from the supernova. The time after the supernova that these things are illuminated show the speed of light to have been the same at that point in the past."

Sounds like astrology to me.

"And do we really need to get into E=mc^2 problems with a changing speed of light?"

Einstein's theories of relativity are too weird and spaced out to be taken seriously by normal people.

"Besides, what does any of this have to do with the NG article? You aretaking the thread way off topic."
========================

You introduced the subject of light-speed on one of your Nov 21st posts after I replied to The Galation's assumption of the existence of 35 million years.

So who's playing games?

 

"Uniformitarianism is the pseudoscientific principle that all past events may be understood in terms of present physical processes. "

First, it is geology, not astronomy.

Second, you still have not given us just how you suppose that an action today can have a different effect today than the same action would have had in the past.

"Who's complaining about the fact that no human being has ever measured the speed of light one million years ago or even one millenium ago?"

You are complaining but not offering any evidence. I have given you one exmample of how light can be measured to the same speed in the past. There are other methods, other experiments that have been done that also demonstrate teh same thing. But you do not seem ready for them.

"Sounds like astrology to me."

Nope. Observations. Something your posts have been lacking.

"Einstein's theories of relativity are too weird and spaced out to be taken seriously by normal people."

Do you have any idea how well relativity describes reality? Do you realize how much better it is than classical physics? It has stood every test, no matter how rigorous. You show that the problem is not with relativity but with your understanding of it. There are many good books on the subject. Why don't you try the first 6 chapters or so of Greene's new book The Fabric of the Cosmos. It is written at a layman's level.

"You introduced the subject of light-speed on one of your Nov 21st posts after I replied to The Galation's assumption of the existence of 35 million years."

You went down the route of questioning dating. So I responded that we can check decay rates to head off one direction I assumed you would head. In any case, the thread is going way off topic.

Do you have any actual problems with article that is the subject of this thread? Something with facts and references and citations? Something logical? Or are you content to derail the thread?

"So who's playing games?"

Look about at your posts over the last few days. Nothing but off topic arguements by assertion. No proof. No evidence. No relevence.

 

Good point about peer review. Peer review is part of the scientific process.

 

UTE:

"First, it is geology, not astronomy."

Lyell's Uniformitarian Principle is used in geology and astrophysics as well since it may be found applicable to all physical processes.

"Second, you still have not given us just how you suppose that an action today can have a different effect today than the same action would have had in the past."

We can't know what effect an action might have had in the past if we cannot empirically verify that such an action actually occurred in the past or that the time period in which it is supposed to have occurred actually existed.

"You are complaining but not offering any evidence."

You are the one who seems to be complaining about my posts. I am just stating observable facts.

"I have given you one exmample of how light can be measured to the same speed in the past."

It's just a hypothetical example. No verifiable evidence exists for such a claim though.

"There are other methods, other experiments that have been done that also demonstrate teh same thing. But you do not seem ready for them."

You do not seem able to demonstrate them.

"Observations. Something your posts have been lacking."

My observations of intelligent design in life are just as good as yours. Why denigrate my intellectual capacities?

"Do you have any idea how well relativity describes reality?"

Relativity has nothing to do with reality. Are you attempting to distract people from reality or just derail the thread?

"Do you realize how much better it is than classical physics."

Classical physics is like classical music and literature. Some people prefer jazz, hard rock or country though.

"You show that the problem is not with relativity but with your understanding of it."

The problem is with what is relative to the reality of most people's lives.

"There are many good books on the subject. Why don't you try the first 6 chapters or so of Greene's new book The Fabric of the Cosmos. It is written at a layman's level."

Why don't you read the Book of Job? it was written long before Greene came along.

"You went down the route of questioning dating. So I responded that we can check decay rates to head off one direction I assumed you would head. In any case, the thread is going way off topic."

How so? Pseudoscientific dating techniques are fundamental to evolutionary speculation. Ever since Lyell.

"Do you have any actual problems with article that is the subject of this thread? Something with facts and references and citations? Something logical? Or are you content to derail the thread?"

There you go again making false assumptions and accusations about your fellow posters. The subject of the thread happens to be about Darwin's being wrong. So, in order to discuss the article, we have to question evolutionary assumptions.

"Look about at your posts over the last few days. Nothing but off topic arguements by assertion. No proof. No evidence. No relevence."

That's what your posts look like! You do nothing but make off topic arguements about me "by assertion. No proof. No evidence. No relevence."

 

Let me know when you have something to offer.

I think you are just trying to stir things without offering anything. I hope you had fun. I did not. Please don't imagine that your games have been convincing to anyone.

Yawn.

 

Sorry if you have grown tired of our intelligent discussion. Perhaps someone else has something to offer to wake you up.

 

"It's just a hypothetical example. No verifiable evidence exists for such a claim though."

False.

"A Scattered Light Echo around SN 1993J in M81," Ji-Feng Liu, Joel N. Bregman and Patrick Seitzer

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0206/0206070.pdf

They measured the radius and then waited to see how long it took to light up.

"You do not seem able to demonstrate them."

False.

"The phase coherence of light from extragalactic sources - direct evidence against first order Planck scale fluctuations in time and space," Richard Lieu, Lloyd W. Hillman, Astrophys.J. 585 (2003) L77-L80

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0301184

 

UTE:

quote: "The light echo was formed by supernova light scattered from a dust sheet, which lies 220 parsecs away from the supernova, 50 parsecs thick along the line of sight, as inferred from radius and width of the light echo.
They measured the radius and then waited to see how long it took to light up."

What did they light up? Cigars?

"The phase coherence of light from extragalactic sources - direct evidence against first order Planck scale fluctuations in time and space," Richard Lieu, Lloyd W. Hillman, Astrophys.J. 585 (2003) L77-L80"

Well, he gets paid a lot of money for astrology so he's got to say something. Who's to object? the government?

"The same result may be used to deduce that the speed of light in vacuo is exact to a few parts in 10^32."

This statement seems to indicate some rare form of abstract brain activity.

 

"What did they light up? Cigars?"

Did you read what you quoted?

"This statement seems to indicate some rare form of abstract brain activity. "

This statement seems to indicate some rare form of abstract brain activity.