Desputing Evolution or the bible

[Mangas_Coloradas]

Two claims taken from http://www.creationism.org/topbar/faq.htm

1. There is no way that the Earth could be over 10,000 years old.
(No need to comment on this claim, make up your own mind)

2. No culture’s history claims to go back further than about 5,000 years.
This claim is obviously false. The Carnegie Museum of Natural History has
a chronology of ancient egypt on their website. That chronology starts
in 5450 BC. (about 7400 years ago).

[Guest]

I went on from that page, following one of their links.
Most funny:
http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=faq&specific=8
and
http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=faq&specific=7

It gets better at the bottom (with a real conspiracy theory, yay!), but the above two are enough to show that this person is as unscientific as you can be:
When talking physics, you should understand what you are talking about.
This person does not.
Some simple things:
(a) Light is affected by gravity. Just look up “gravitational lense”, the first time this was used it was a huge success for Einstein’s theory, with scientists being able to see the stars “behind” the sun during an eclipse.
(b) the problem that the author thinks black holes should “fix” is not the problem. Matter should not evenly be distributed, you come to this false conclusion only if you don’t think far enough. The whole paragraph is just utterly wrong.
© The claim that the light was cooled by Hau et.al. is totally wrong. The author has not read or not understood the publication (the paper comes from my field, and i have read it and i am sure i have understood it).
Light was slowed, indeed, by mainly two mechanisms. But, slowing light is “nothing new”, and understood and explained by physics. Just as the “fast light” (which is not really fast, it is just changing the form of the pulse so it appears as some light was faster), this has been shown frequently (as mentioned, but not understood on the site). The quote “NO PHYSICAL LAW PREVENTS ANYTHING FROM EXCEEDING THE SPEED OF LIGHT. IN TWO PUBLISHED EXPERIMENTS, THE SPEED OF LIGHT WAS APPARENTLY EXCEEDED BY AS MUCH AS A FACTOR OF 100!” of course is wrong. Read your Einstein :)

The author is right though, that at the moment physics discusses the possibilites of constants not being constant, and the effect that changes in the constants would/will have. Something that the author does not understand, if you take a look at the mentioning of the Cs clock.
A change in one constant will not go alone, but change other constants. A too big change would lead to a totally different physics.

The notion of the speed of light not being constant though is ripped out of context, dotted with misunderstood papers and not understanding the consequences. Calling this Science, as the site does, is a very poor sign.

CC, you have very very bad “allies” indeed.

[cystic crypt]

Oh F_alk.
certainly even the best-intended creationist makes mistakes. Some of us get in way over our heads. I keep to things i have mastered - genetics, biochemistry - and avoid the whole physics realm. Evidently like-minded individuals (w.r.t. creation) do not all do the same.
And of course you would not use flawed creationists arguements to dispute creation - that would be too easy, and one might easily use flawed evolutionists arguments in the same vein.
As for the “light”-discussions - i just assume that even Einstein had no idea what he was talking about and that every generation will have some wild new revelation about light that disputes that of earlier generations. who cares? 8)

[Guest]

@cystic:

… I keep to things i have mastered - genetics, biochemistry - and avoid the whole physics realm.

very unfortunately for me :)

And of course you would not use flawed creationists arguements to dispute creation - that would be too easy, and one might easily use flawed evolutionists arguments in the same vein.

Well, i can use it to discredit one of the debaters ;)…. rethorics is part of debating…
btw, did you mean (flawed creationists) argument or flawed (creationists argument)…
as i have no problem in discrediting someone who reveals himself as (flawed debater) while someone who brings just one flawed argumetn does not deserve that treatment. Just to make that clear.

As for the “light”-discussions - i just assume that even Einstein had no idea what he was talking about and that every generation will have some wild new revelation about light that disputes that of earlier generations. who cares? 8)

Hmmm…. Light has been an interesting topic, lively discussed during Newtons time (wether light was a particle or a wave), then with Maxwell it seemed it was “decided” (pro wave), but with the early Quantum Mechanics again the understanding changed/grew (wave-particle dualism). Now with Quantum Field Theory, we seem to have a pretty good grasp on what is happening.
The Ether that should be the medium for the electromagnetic wave is still another topic.

So, we see that theories change and evolve or even the old one is thrown into the dustbin, whenever something new (feature/experiment) is discovered, revealed or proven. Up to now, i don’t see the need for a creationist theory, just as you probably see it.