Education Series: Lesson 07
I said “anti-podes” again! Guess I’ll be reshooting this one too.
21 Responses to “Education Series: Lesson 07”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
BEYOND THE FIRMAMENT
Understanding Science and the Theology of Creation
Welcome
-
Book Cover
Now Available!
Pages
Archives
Categories
Blogroll
Users
Meta
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:12 am
Great video. I like the statement that creationists are “too theologically invested in a recent creation to walk away from” light speed decay models. That informs their geological stances when it comes to dinosaurs and the flood, as well. Curious: did you create the animations of the moving planets and galaxies? If so, you need to be in the graphics business. If not, you probably ought to say where you got them.
July 2nd, 2008 at 11:46 am
another winner! thanks Gordon.
my one reservation was the argument from authority with Einstein vs what’s-his-name YEC : I agree that it is appropriate for this audience but I dislike arguments from authority in general since they can give a false impression about how science works. still, for a quick way to show the absurdity of the YEC position, it works in this case.
You have an intonation on the words “measure” and measurement” that is unfamiliar to me - it sounds to my ear like southern twang - but I can’t detect it in any other words. Overall you could pass for a Canadian otherwise. I’m curious - I’ve travelled a bit in the USA but I haven’t heard anything like it before. Are you perhaps a transitional form of some kind?
Keep up the good work!
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Jim,
I do a lot of computer animations, but that one is not mine. I was planing to have a list of credits at the end (Lesson 12) where I cite all of the graphics and source material I used. Since the videos are for education purposes and freely distributed without charge, I assume that this would suffice.
However, your comment is a good one. And now that I actually see the vids, they could all be considered separate stand-alone productions. So pershpas when I re-edit them for final release, I should just include my citation on each individual lesson. What do you think? Where is David Opderbeck (a lawyer) on this!
As for the source, I’m sure somebody in this audience can guess where I lifted the animation from? Anyone?
Dennis, I see your point. I guess what I need to know is this: is the net result effective, or does the argument from authority distract from the point? I figure most Christians have no bones to pick with Albert. Obviously in science, anybody can challenge existing paradigms and buck the system. Heck, look how a lowly Swiss patent clerk revolutionized physics (another reason for using Einstein). The problem with YEC is that it falls apart at the scientific level, not that it contradicts Einstein. I get that, I just need to know if the argument is a net negative or a net positive. If it is a net negative I can rework it. I already have to re-shoot becasue I said antipodes wrong.
My wife makes fun of how I say “mirror” and “measure” — and she is from California (although she only admits the Texas part of her childhood). In the second printing of my book, I had to remove some distracting colloquialisms that readers brought to my attention. I guess that’s part of the deal.
Here is another viewer challenge: there is a way around my argument against c-decay using the log-decay model. Can anybody point it out?
Basically, were I to use this argument in a debate, an informed person could retort with an answer to my criticism of the c-decay model with some very basic math. Because of this, I added two additional arguments against c-decay that can only be answered with miracles. They are as follows:
1.) If light were to leave SN1987a at 488 times it’s present value, it had to have slowed down by a factor of 488 en route. Therefore, the time between each electromagnetic cycle, as observed from earth, would increase by a factor of 488. So any light from the visible spectrum leaving the vicinity of the LMC would show up as infrared radiation by the time it reached earth. Basically, no visible light could survive a journey to earth from outside the Milky way. It would all be red-shifted out of the visible spectrum. Remember that next time you look at the Andromeda galaxy (2.2 million LY away)– something easily seen with the naked eye in the absence of light pollution.
2.) If light after the creation week were 30 million times faster, which is what the model requires, then the rate of isotope decay would also be 30 million times faster. Since radiometric decay is responsible for heating the earth’s interior, the Garden of Eden would have been a nuclear inferno — not a paradise. Infact, earth would have been uninhabitable during most of the OT period becase of deadly radiation. All of this so distant light can reach earth in 6000 years? Then there is problem of redshift….
In the final version, I’m includeing these arguments here and moving the “appearence of age” discussion to the end of the YEC discussion (end of Lesson 8). So, if I need to go easy on Dr. Henry, I can make that change as well.
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Gordon,
My wife is from California and she always said “MAYzyer”. I think it’s a mid-west isogloss, because 1) you’re from Texas and 2) my wife’s stock is from the Okies who went to California during the Dust Bowl and 3) I’ve also heard northern mid-westerners use this pronunciation.
As far as the “argument from authority” goes, I’ve always found you get the best of both worlds by a simple preface, “And if you’re going to argue ‘my scholar can beat up your scholar’,” or the like, which gets a jab in on those who regularly do this without acknowledging what they do and exposes one of their tactics by expressly using it on them.
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Okay, I’ll bite. Is it “Cosmos?” I have only seen that once and it was quite a bit of time ago. I am not sure that the argument from authority is such a bad approach. One of the basic problems in dealing with people that argue against evolution is that they often approach the subject with very little advance knowledge. The reason that many scientists eschew these sorts of debates is that it would simply take too long to bring the audience (and the person on the other side of the debate) up to speed on how natural selection, mutation, genetic drift and gene flow work in concert to produce present and past biological diversity. You have to drag in tempo and mode, gradualism, punk-eek, allopatric and sympatric speciation and so on. Even college biology courses only deal with these topics on a cursory level. If my friend, who is an astrophysicist tells me some things about supernovae, at some point, I am going to have to take his word for it because he has done the work and I have not. Our friend the chemical engineer hasn’t done the work and at some point, I should be able to ask him “How do I know what you are telling me is true since you have shown me no evidence that you know what you are talking about?”
July 2nd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Afterthought: Brian May is a rock star. As a member of Queen, he was responsible for, among other things, “We Will Rock You.” Brian May is the primary author of a new book called “Bang. The Complete History of the Universe.” Now, why would I believe anything a rock star writes about the history of the universe? Because Brian May just finished his Ph.D. in astrophysics, with a dissertation called A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud. That, to me, is evidence he knows what he is talking about.
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Yup, Cosmos — greatest movie ever.
Too cool about Brian May, I’ll have to pick that one up.
As a registered professional engineer (P.E.), with only a Master of Science, who writes and blogs on all things scientific, I have to research my facts very carefully. When writing BTF, I had a small team of PhD astrophycists, biologists, geologists, biblical scholars, etc check and double-check everything I put down on paper. And I would have never even considered espousing a fringe idea that is both completely unsupported and unanimously reject by professional.
I have published original research on topics unrelated to natural history — things that would put most poeple to sleep.
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:07 pm
hi gordon,
for me I think it’s a net gain to use the comparison between Joe Schmo YEC and Einstein - because it shows quickly just how silly the YEC position is. maybe if you’re going to reshoot that section just put in something like “while arguments from authority are not used to settle scientific questions, this comparison is shown to demonstrate just how ludicrous this approach is” or similar.
looking forward to the next installment - this is a great series by what ever measure (may-zhur) you choose…
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Great discussion. I would, however, recommend a change of wording from, “Dr. Henry…is smarter than Albert Einstein” to “is somehow more qualified to speak on physics and astronomy than Albert Einstein”. That would be a much better choice of words, IMHO.
(Oh, and I’m sorry to always be the one to point out the small stuff, but it’s “Appearance of age”.)
July 2nd, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Great point Stephen, I like that tact. Between this and Dennis’ disclaimer, I think I can strike the right balance. And thanks for helping to clean up the titles. I know the value of good editor, and you are serving that role for the series. Thanks!
Speaking of good/bad editing: the 2nd printing of BTF, with the re-edited manuscript, is now available. I haven’t recieved confirmation yet that Amazon and B&N have sold out of the first printing, but given that they never stocked very much at any given time, I’m sure the new version will start shipping immediately if it hasn’t already.
I also see that nobody has taken up my challenge to find the flaw in my argument against c-decay theory. Any astrophysicists out there?
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Gordon, I ran across another paper by Jonathan Henry entitled An Old Age for the Earth Is the Heart of Evolution, which can be found here: http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/articles/40/40_3/Henry.htm
He seems to be unaware of isochron dating and makes a passing reference to the RATE project.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:52 pm
The embarrasment continues… His entire argument is that “time” is no substitue for creation. I wonder in his mind if 9 months takes the “miracle of life” away from God and hands it over to a “natural” process. I guess the creation of each new human life would have more meaning if it were instantaneous. Please. What kind of God is threatend by the ordinary patterns of material behavior found in the created order?
BTW, I like the way you redesigned your site. Nice.
July 3rd, 2008 at 3:34 am
Gordon,
Not to disagree with you here…..
But I think that video clip is from the movie Contact :-p
Good video though. In a recent Bible study I attended on Genesis I remember the leader flouting the Appearance of Age doctrine. This tactic is used because it appears to level the playing field, placing scientific knowledge on par with Special revelation, allowing young-earthers to accept the data for an old universe, but arrive at different conclusions regarding it.
Of course the thing that tips the scale is the supposed 6,000 year history of the universe presented in the Bible. As we have seen, they will hold the Bible up high as the reason why they are a young earther and vilify anyone who accepts an old universe as anti-biblical and as an “atheistic evolutionist”.
So, while I think your critique from a scientific perspective of the Appearance of Age doctrine was sound, I don’t think it will be very useful, as the young earthers will simply compare what you say to what the Bible says.
A few months ago you wrote up a nice critique on this doctrine, approaching it from more of a theological perspective than a scientific one, and I thought it was very good. I don’t know what goes into adding to the films, but perhaps you could consider including a short discussion on that?
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:27 am
Greg, you’re totally right. When Jim said “Cosmos” I was thinking “Contact” and failed to correct him. That’s funny how the brain works — I see one thing but assimilate it as another. Can anyone with a neuroscience background in the audience explain that? But, yes — it is from the opening scene of Contact (my favorite movie of all time).
It’s ironic what you said about the “appearence of age” discussion. I was working on rewriting the script earlier this week for the final release of the video series later this summer. I ended up placing it at the end of Lesson 08 (YEC/Flood Geology) because I added two arguments against c-decay theory. But for a moment, I considered taking this discussion from Lesson 07 and creating a separate lesson between current 08 and current 09. That way, upon completing my critique of YEC, I would have an entire discussion of “Appearence of Age” before moving on to the life sciences. Since it is a “folk-science” in it own right, it makes sense to devote a separate lesson to it — even through the series would grow to 13 lessons.
Now that I actually heard somebody else with the same idea, I think I’m going to do it! I would use the discussion from the previous post as a template. Thanks!
Basically, I’m going to reshoot everything. Each lesson has at least one video narration correrction, and I was standing too close to the green screen (casting a shadow that shows up on my backgrounds).
Also, I noticed when editing lesson 10 that I must have been dead tired because I was obviously starting to fade (slurring words and akward pauses) and my voice was giving out. Next time I’m only going to shoot one lesson at a time so I can be fresh for each one. Live an learn.
July 3rd, 2008 at 7:27 am
Oh, and Greg — this is not “Uncommon Descent” — you can actually disagree with the host on this blog!
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:26 am
Gordon,
I did not take you comparison of Dr. No-name to Einstien as evidence to bolster your claims. I took it (as I think you intended) this way: if anyone intends to buck all of science, even Albert himself, they have a huge burden of proof. And Mr. No-name not only lacks qualifications to make such claims, he cites no scientists who do.
On the c-decay question, didn’t Harold Slusher, who wrote the YEC book on the subject, later recant? And if so, would this be useful to point out?
You almost said it … The appearance of age theory leaves YECs with all the theological dilemmas it sought to absolve. In the “apparent reality” (the picture of the cosmos the Creator painted for us to explore), we have entropy, death, and decay all predating the Fall. YECs must then further hypothesize that, though these processes were built into the apparent age of the cosmos, they were put on “pause” in the dawning days of Creation, only to “resume” after Adam and Eve fell. Among other things, this means that the Creator knew in advance that Adam would sin, and that he pre-dated the effects of the Fall into the apparent age aspects of his Creation. This all gets ridiculously convoluted.
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:27 am
Well-balanced with graphics and you.
As far as Contact/Cosmos goes, I’d say it falls under the same thing as Freudian slips, where our expectations and preoccupations overwhelm the literal. It’s just a small example of what we all do (not just those crazy YECs) of seeing what we want to see.
July 3rd, 2008 at 11:41 am
Jim,
Thanks for the Brian May info. That wins the trivia treasure of the day! Looking at his wiki page, it sounds like he was really against drugs, which is strange to me because I remember hearing how if you played “Another One Bites the Dust” backwards, it would say, “We decide to smoke marijuana.”
My Christian education had many merits for which I’m grateful, but it had a bunch of other baggage (like lectures on the backward masking of rock ‘n roll) that I mostly shrug off as wasted time. The worst offense was science education. As a result, I was 30 when I really understood and appreciated what science is, and now I’m 41 still working on a PhD. At least I’ll be younger than Brian May when I finish, but unlike him, I doubt I’ll step into a Chancellor position right out!
Keep up the good work, Gordon, so that Christian kids can get a proper exposure to science!
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Gordon,
Don’t worry about that. For the record, no one is sacred and above correction in my book!
And I look forward to the second edition of the videos! Any time table on when the finished product will be available?
July 4th, 2008 at 11:04 am
So wait - you’re going to reshoot? You’re family’s going to kill you!
July 4th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Yup. Better get the dog-house ready!